When an email popped up asking me if I’d write a guest post for Epheriell Designs my first thought was;

“I can’t do that. I’m not arty. I’m not crafty. I’m not creative enough to write for Jess’ blog.”

It seems that is a recurrent theme in my life.

I’d like to do something creative, the idea nags at me constantly, but I don’t. I’ve convinced myself that I can’t make art.

When I was a child I admired the people in my life who were creative. I wished I could draw better, or write poems, or make things.

As a teenager I watched friends study art at high school and wished I’d been brave enough to follow them. Instead I chose subjects I was ‘good’ at and a practical career with ‘good job prospects’.

Making art was for creative people, people with lots of ideas and talent. I couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler. Art could never be my thing.

And yet here I am, writing a post for this beautiful, inspiring, creative blog. A blog that is all about following your dreams and letting your creative passions run wild. What am I doing here??

I am here because I believe everyone is creative, deep down, somewhere, and, despite myself sabotage, even I am creative. I have been making art my whole life; I’ve just not valued it enough to see it.

As a child I wrote books full of stories with funny little pictures drawn in blunt HB pencil.

As a teenager it was angst ridden poems and doodles scrawled in note books among letters to the boy I loved but couldn’t tell.

As a ’20-something’ there were stereotypical ‘arty’ photos and a new passion to teach and help children never to have their creativity squashed.

As an adult I poured my creativity into beautiful wall displays at preschool, and mixing a rainbow of paints for my students to explore.

Then I became a parent and during a time when I was the most stressed and stretched I have been in my life, with two tiny, crying babies, I rediscovered creativity as a way of stealing a little time to be me.

It started with digital scrapbooking, then blogging, then a combination of the two as web design.

Painting with my children, buying a fancy pen to draw with, ideas for art I could create…

I am still full of self-doubt , and I will never call myself an artist but I am still making art. The more I dabble, and play and doodle, the more confident I become.

I suddenly find I’ve come full circle…

With the notion that you make lots of not so great art on the way to making something beautiful, I’m discovering that childhood freedom that I want so much to nurture in children, the freedom to make art. So I sit at the kitchen table with my kids and our water colours, nurturing my own creativity right alongside theirs.

Kate is an early childhood educator and mum of four, living on a small property in rural Victoria, Australia. Kate’s blog, Picklebums, covers topics such as; gentle parenting, gardening, activities for kids, a recipe here and the occasional free printable, as well as anything else that pops up in her crazy life! She also dabbles in grapich design and web/blog design and dreams of one day painting a huge abstract water colour.

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