Creativity Exercise: Design Combinations

Rhiannon came up for a few days to my place and we've been planning and crafting and brainstorming!

I found an idea in "100+ Ideas for Teaching Thinking Skills" by Stephen Bowkett that I thought would be fun to try.

Basically you make two lists of key ideas or themes, randomly combine two, and think about what the crossover would be. We did a list of items you could make and a list of themes. Then we rolled dice to get a random combination each and came up with a design idea.

Round One: A Household item in the theme of fairytales. Rhiannon designs a Sleeping Beauty castle trivet.

Round One: A toy in the theme of the movie Inception. Tanith designs nesting dolls - an idea inside a sleeping man inside a sleeping man...

It was fun and challenging. Like most things, the combinations that seemed the most challenging ended up being the most fun and producing more unusual ideas.

Round Two: A hat in the theme of sushi. Tanith designs a stack of empty sushi train plates.

Round Two: cake in the theme of vikings. Rhiannon designs an adorable helmet and beard combination.

I was hoping we could use this to come up with actual usable ideas, but some of our designs fell outside our areas of expertise. I think it was good for our brains regardless. It could certainly be adapted in other ways that would focus more on our crafts and interests.

Round Three: A Van Gogh greeting card. Tanith at first designs a disturbing ear card then a sunflower seed idea that is slightly more tasteful

Round Three: A Jungle Animal bookmark. Rhiannon designs a twisted vine with various animals (after some decisions about what lives in jungles - not giraffes, for example)

Christmas Craft Plans - and the question of who deserves craft

There's just something about the calendar switching over to November that brings on Christmas plans. Not that I haven't had plans all year, but November crystallizes and accelerates them. The truth is, big craft projects for Christmas need a lot more lead time than November.  But there are lots of little things - cards, tags, packaging, tree ornaments, etc - that can be made very quickly. Presents for family and close friends I've had planned for a while, so I've done a lot of preparation for them, and November is the month that I need to evaluate whether they will actually get finished! Tanith kicked things off with a Christmas craft party over last weekend, and I've been spending lots of spare minutes stitching.

I'm involved in several exchanges over at RPG Geek this year: a Christmas card exchange and two present exchanges. One of the present exchanges is just games off people's wishlists, but the other, a less formal, smaller exchange in the 'Tavern' (the off-topic forum area) is a mixed bag of stuff related to their gaming and non-gaming interests. And we don't get told who our targets are until mid-November. I'm crafting three of my five cards (the other two I'm buying, as I want to send 'Australian Christmas' cards to some overseas people and I'm not in the mood to stitch koalas).  And I'm also making a card and a tree ornament for my Tavern exchange target.  This means very quick crafting - trying to figure out what I can make that relates to their interests and won't be too time consuming.

I love making crafted items, so I don't mind putting the work into these items (and current state of unemployment does at least give me plenty of time to work on them). But I do sometimes wonder if I'm being silly to do these for people I don't know.

Even when I look at my own close circles of family and friends, there are people for whom I rarely make gifts. Sometimes it is because it is difficult to find things they'd like that I can make - my husband falls into this category, one of the reasons I'm so excited about the Rogue Trader cape I'm making for him. I know he'll actually use this. My brother is another - he has a very tight list of interests, and is streamlining his life. As I can't craft weightlifting equipment, I'm stumped on what I could make for him. But both of these guys have hung around crafters for long enough that I think they would at least appreciate the work that went into a present.  There are others, however, who shall remain unnamed, for whom I am reluctant to make presents because I don't think they realise how much work is involved and don't appreciate them. The targets of my various geek exchanges are people I've only met online, and talking about roleplaying. I have no idea what category they will fall into. Will they see them as special craft items or just another card?

Or is that a relevant question? If I've enjoyed the process - if I've enjoyed researching their interests through their profiles, and finding a suitable pattern or card design, enjoyed the crafting - then does anything that happens after they leave my hands matter? If I've had a good time and am proud of my work, does it matter whether the recipient appreciates the work involved? Does my effort 'require' suitable acknowledgement to make it worthwhile?
Questions I'm pondering. Meanwhile, back to stitching...

Why Pinterest just isn't working for me

I avoided Pinterest for a while not because it didn't look interesting but because it did. I needed another site to be caught up in about as much as I needed more hobbies. But I finally caved, because as my lacklustre attempts at healthy eating reveal, I don't have enough willpower to avoid temptation.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on perspective, I don't really like Pinterest. Clearly I had a vision in my head of what it would it be like, and when it failed to live up to that vision... I guess when you have a heap of things demanding your attention, it is easier to dismiss the ones that don't quite work for you. And Pinterest doesn't do it for me.

Part of the problem is the actual physical arrangement of photos. I'm a huge fan of inspiration boards - my current work alcove is plastered with sentimental, inspirational, pretty things to motivate me.

I also have a smaller cork board with wardrobe inspiration pictures.

So I guess I wanted Pinterest to be like that. A cork board on the internet.
But it isn't. The photos are all discreet and separated. Looking at my Pinterest 'wardrobe planning' board doesn't inspire me. It is a useful place to store images and links - but I have a browser bookmark folder for that, and I don't have to worry about copyright when I bookmark a Burda Style pattern.  I can't even work out a way to reorganise the photos in a board.

But I think I could get over that, realise that Pinterest isn't meant to provide the same facility as a real life cork board, and use it the way Tanith does, as a place to store things to try and go back to...
but I also find Pinterest demotivating.
Seeing the abundance of ideas and craft projects and cute things people pin doesn't inspire me. I look at all the pretty items and neat craft patterns and funky short-cuts and realise that there are a huge number of people in the world making largely decorative stuff. Should I be adding to their number?
It makes me question whether the world needs ANY MORE THINGS AT ALL.

While I can always work up enthusiasm for working on specific gifts, for a day after looking at Pinterest, I question our overall goal of ultimately selling our work.
So if I want to craft seriously, I need to stay away from Pinterest.  I've removed all my pins and boards. I haven't deactivated my account yet, as I would still like to keep an eye on what my friends are pinning. And in a few months I'll give it another try. But right now, no Pinterest for me.