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15 Minutes

More often than not I get this question – how do you do it all? Having a family with two young children, being a self-employed yoga teacher and then all those paintings and the crafty stuff like sewing and knitting (and blogging about it).

There is no secret. We are all busy. We all have 24 hours in a day. And we all have creative dreams, that often get lost in the net of everyday. But what I often say – you can get a lot done in 15 minutes. 15 minutes a day add up to nearly two hours of creative time a week.

And because long stretches of creative time are usually unrealistic, I was very happy about the first lesson of Alena Hennessy’s painting e-course A Year of Painting II (I took the first year-long-course last year and this is the follow-up where we dig deeper). Painting your word of the year in 15, 10 and 5 minutes. No room for perfectionism in this short period of time. Just play, intuition and fun (even though some frustration might occur). These small imperfect paintings became some kind of meditation for me this week.

Cathrin Gressieker 15 minutes

And I also found out this week that I am not the only one with this little-15-minutes-of-creativity-theory. I listened to an interview with creativity couch Samantha Beckett and she even wrote a whole book about it. Her advice: discover which of your projects matters most to you, spend 15 minutes a day on that project, every single day (before checking your e-mail). Magic will happen. Or in my words:

15 minutes of painting a day keeps the muse from going on a holiday.

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Business Cards

My new art business cards from London were delivered yesterday.

Cathrin Gressieker art & design

I used a floral pattern from the MATS-course for the front of the cards and part of a painting for the back/contact side. They were printed by MOO and I just love that the business cards come in squares and that you can have a “green” option – printed on recycled paper and using wind energy for the production.

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Suzani Skirt

Here it is,

my first pattern design on a piece of clothing.

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My go-to-sewing-pattern-for-a-simple-skirt is

Caprice by Mamu Design.

I can wear it in summer,

and with leggings for the rest of the year,

I even wear it in yoga classes.

I sewed a similar skirt last January

(and wrote a similar-looking post about it)

and this time I am happy to say there was no obession involved,

just fun sewing it.

Quick and easy.

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Now I can be a living advertisement for my designs.

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Pink Moment of the Week

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… getting myself a mouse. From all the computer work since summer I got a hurting right upper arm. And all the yoga doesn’t help. I think, it comes from the motions I make with my hand on the touchpad. And I hope, that different montions with a mouse might relieve the pain. Plus it glows in the dark.

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Two Euros

Besides my two 365-day-projects I blogged about last year – 365declutter and Carolina’s naps – I had another little year-long-project going on. I collected all the two-Euro-coins that landed in my purse.

Cathrin Gressieker 2 euros

And now was the big day to count the cash. Especially my 8-year-old-Clara was very interested in this as she is in all financial matters.

Cathrin Gressieker 2 euros DSC06065-k682 Euros.

This money will be for splurging.

Spoiling myself.

Something I wouldn’t spend money on normally.

I still have no concrete plan for it.

But I will find one – or one will find me.

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Hello January!

Now that I had turned the last page of Clara’s calendar of 2014, I was so delighted by Clara’s christmas present for Hubby and myself – a calendar of 2015! This time the calendar was her year-long project in art class at school, every month of last year the children would make a calendar page. And Clara managed to keep the calendar a secret throughout the whole time.

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Interesting though, that German children write in English on their calendar. I asked her about it and she said, that the model calendar was in English …

So here comes January:

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We have only had a little bit of snow this winter so far, one morning after Christmas we woke up to a slim snow blanket. The girls built a tiny snowman and are hoping for more snow now. Have a great start to 2015!