I made this little fairy earlier in the week, I wanted to experiment with the wings, and the lovely rainbow wool I ordered recently... and then I had some fun making these lovely pictures... 
I'm also doing plenty of research at the moment on directions I might take next in my work-life now that both children are at school... I still volunteer my time to other causes, and I'm still fulfilling orders... but I see a fork in the road - I can either stay on the artsy-crafty entrepreneurial path a while longer, and develop things here - I still have soooo many ideas and creative growth aspirations, and possibilities for putting more energy into 'getting my work out there'... or, I can slowly begin to find my way into the work I feel so passionate about, but that will require training and experience and a few stepping stones - that fit with family life - along the way.
It's raising all the deep but always close to the surface questions about purpose and passion and how to find the place where these come together in the form of meaningful work...
Art/craft-making can sometimes feel frivolous in the mix of all of that!
But, the thing with creativity is that it is more than just a compulsion - it is an ancient and deep human impulse!! Humans have ALWAYS created art, objects of beauty 'just because' - because something spirited in us makes us follow our curiosity and seek out sensory harmony, balance, symmetry, clarity in the chaos, beauty, pleasing to the eye (and sometimes not so pleasing but moving, enquiring) paintings, pots, sculptures, garments, music, novels, books, home-ware... and what's more, art and spirituality (and religion) have historically always been intermingled...
Well, I'm hardly qualified to write an essay on art history and why humans make art or even to preach about it... but there's something important about just quietly remembering, that all the little things I create are part of something much bigger. I'm not the only one, doing it regardless of what it might 'mean'... but, rather, just because...
It lights me up! Frivolous it might be but I love these magical looking little fairy pictures - I had so much creative fun putting her together and coming up with the pictures... and that sense of satisfaction gives me energy and drive to go forward all the other good and meaningful things I'm working on, ...that, to me is what creative living is all about. Showing up and letting out what is inside and in the process releasing all the energy and vigour that comes alongside...
And... our house is filling up with fairies once again!
And... our house is filling up with fairies once again!