I’ve always loved to create things… In art school we had to take all kinds of different classes…I hated drawing…was okay with painting, but really loved everything that was 3D. I remember a design course in that we had to design something and then actually build the object…I still see me laying at the beach in a bikini in 50 degrees Fahrenheit, my boyfriend taking pictures of me and the sand shade that I created. It was supposed to stand up when it got windy to shield me from the sand flying in my eyes while sun-tanning 🙂

Or the couple of days that we spent in a quarry to work with stone…learning how it breaks and how to work with it…and then driving back home with two friends for 4-5 with 3 giant rocks in the trunk which made the car drive quite slow 🙂

Then there was my giant styrofoam ball installation that I created in the attic of the art institute. It’s diameter about 5 feet. It was woven into the open wooden structure of the attic space and had an installation with colorful glass and lights inside. You were only able to peek inside through a half-an-inch slit that went around the whole big ball…

There is this kind of funny thing that happened to my when my biometrics were taken for my green card.  I was supposed to give them my finger prints and this nice guy was like…are you an artist?

“Yes, kind of…WHY?”

(In my head thinking: aren’t we all artists? Why can he tell from my hand?)

He said that groves in my finger prints are as ‘bad’ or ‘worked-up’ like the ones of e 70-year-old. “Well, thanks!” He said that he has only seen this before of people that work a lot with their hands and I guess I did not look like a construction worker to him 🙂

But then I told him that I used to paint with my hands…and acrylic paints on canvas did make my fingers quite sore sometimes…but I just preferred to use my hands or my whole body instead of paint brushes.

But now for an everyday…in the middle of something…creative process…or just the process of making something…I ended up really liking to sew kids’ clothing.

What do I like about it? There are a couple of reasons. First of all I like to feel and look and work with colorful fabrics. Looking at something colorful just puts me in a happy mood already 🙂

I like to make things for my children, surprise them, see them in the beautiful pieces that I made and that are probably one-of-a-kind, just like they are one-of-a-kind special humans…

I like to finish things and see what I have accomplished. As a stay-at-home mom there are all these chores that have to be done over and over again, like making breakfast… lunch … dinner …, doing laundry, vacuuming, scrubbing the floors, taking the kids places, picking them up, never ending and it feels like you are never done … there is no finished result to them. The floors will only be clean until the kids come back home and on and on …

But when I take the time to sew, I am at peace, can relax … I might listen to an audiobook … or to my son’s stories, or watch him/them doing their art next to me, but at the end I created something and the result is a piece of beautiful clothing that one of my kids or another child will proudly wear and that will put a smile on other peoples’ faces and that not just once 🙂

The love I put in it while sewing will reach others in ways I can only imagine and I like this thought. It fills my heart with love, warmth, happiness, pride …

And with the good feelings inside of me, I can conquer all the chores as well … I am a better person to my family and others … I can be more relaxed, patient and present. It’s all about the balance …

What do you do that fills your heart? Makes you happy on a regular basis? Helps you live a full-filled life? Let me know! I’m curious 🙂

Love, aNNika