Creativity and ribbon leis were on my mind this week and I wanted to share my thoughts.
I was in a DISCUSSION recently on creating and creativity and the comment was made that cleaning your kitchen was a form of creativity because you were creating a BEAUTIFUL space. I told my husband about that comment and he was rather SKEPTICAL to say the least. I was thinking about those conversations AND my latest project (LEIS) as I cleaned my kitchen this morning and came to the CONCLUSION...
FOR ME...it is NOT a stretch to say
CLEANING is CREATING.
I have a small kitchen with LIMITED storage and counter space. Bringing home groceries as well as cooking present constant CHALLENGES in my quest for a organized, BEAUTIFUL kitchen.
A daughter is GRADUATING from High School this year. I ordered ribbon last week to make her a LEI. I made one a couple of years ago for another graduating daughter. The base ribbon I got last time was narrower than what I got this time.
My first RIBBON LEI.
I tried to repeat the same TECHNIQUE I used to make that first lei with the new, wider ribbon and it just wouldn’t work.
My new technique.
The thick ends were causing PROBLEMS. I found myself with LIMITATIONS and CHALLENGES just like with my kitchen. So my CREATIVITY kicked in and after EXPERIMENTING with several ideas I found a few things that didn’t work and several things that worked very well AND presented lots of POSSIBILITIES I could explore!
For me, CREATIVITY is problem solving!
I pick a project and I start SUBCONSCIOUSLY thinking of the ANSWERS to questions like; “What do I need?”, “Is there something I have or can substitute that might work?” (I like to use what I have AND I know that using something in a new or unusual way brings an element of SURPRISE that’s interesting and exciting to our brains). Another of my often thought out QUESTIONS is:
“Is there a better or just as good, SIMPLER WAY to do it?”
I really appreciate this in the furniture or other things that Blogger and YouTuber Ana White creates. She is an INSPIRATION to me. Sometimes we get stuck in a creativity RUT because we do things the way they have always been done or we fail to try because it seems too HARD.
Don't give up!!! Just solve the problem...
"How can I SIMPLIFY this?"
I’ve decided I love CREATING because I am a problem SOLVER.
Our FIRST graduation lei was made by my daughter for her brother. She started out threading a ¼” ribbon back and forth on a needle. It soon became apparent that the 2 rolls of 9 yard ribbon was not going to make a lei the length we needed.
