From the desk of Artistic Amanda…

“Access encourages use. Make a practice of keeping art supplies within easy reach. Play by yourself, play with friends. Be silly, be serious.” -Jim Krause

flickr credit: lindsay rogerson

Healthy relationships include time for recreation. Every so often, make time to play with your computer, scanner, digital camera and other fun peripherals. Some of our best learning and creative breakthroughs occur when we play with our tools. In my opinion, as designers, we need to occasionally step away from our desks and get back in touch with the simplicity of childhood craft-time. We need to sit cross-legged on the floor and create random acts of art. We need to craft things with our hands and not overthink the details or technique. Create works of art that have nothing to do with financial gain. LIGHTEN UP – success and failure are irrelevant during playtime.

I wanted to get away from computer generated art today and take a look at some of the best creative use project tutorials I’ve found. Enjoy!

• Upcycled Photo Cube by Design Mom
• Coffee Sack Bulletin Board by Jackie Hernandez
• Milk Carton CD Case by Upcycle Art
• Soda Bottle Lamps by Upcycle Art
• Junk Mail Christmas Ornaments by Junk Mail Gems
• Gift Bags by Junk Mail Gems
• 5 Reuses for License Plates by Daily DiY

A few of my past blogs have contained excerpts from Caffeine for the Creative Mind by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield. I’m a huge fan of this book as it delivers on its promise of waking up your brain and training you to think outside the box – something we, as designers, should include as part of our daily creative maintenance.

Now the caffeinated duo has done it again with their book Caffeine for the Creative Team: 200 Exercises to Energize Your Next Brainstorm. And thanks to HOW Design, they have made it easy to jolt the creativity of your next brainstorming session with these downloadable cards… enjoy!