With the holiday season upon us, many people are thinking about wrapping up end of the year projects, finding the perfect gift for everyone on their list, and avoiding gaining five pounds while being surrounded by tempting food and drinks.
What a lot of people won’t think about until after December 25th are their goals for next year, and most people have likely forgotten last years’ goals completely by now (which is why I write mine down – I didn’t accomplish all of them, but at least I know what I need to keep working on).
One of my goals every year is to continue being creative, and ideally, to be creative every day. I’ve thought on and off about writing myself a creativity calendar, with a quote or quick idea for each day, to keep me inspired — but that’s a pretty huge project, given there are 365 days in a year. As it turns out, more than one person has written a book with this exact concept, and because it’s something I’ve thought a lot about (and even started writing my own version, in my journals) I couldn’t resist reading a couple.
The Awe-Manac by Jill Badonsky and The Crafters Devotional by Barbara R. Call are the two on my bookshelf so far. If you know of another book with daily prompts, projects, etc please let me know in the comments – I’d love to read it!
Anyway, although these books are loosely based on the same concept, there are significant differences between the two. The Crafters Devotional is specifically for crafters – although I’d go as far as to say it’s equally good for mixed media artists. There are tips and projects on a variety of crafty topics like journaling, jewelry making, crochet, photography, and altering books. There are also interviews with artists and crafters, inspiring quotes to think about, and exercises to try to get your creative mind working. It is set up with 52 weeks, and there is an entry for each weekday plus one per weekend. The days of the week have different themes, so you get a variety each week.
The Awe-Manac, on the other hand, is geared more toward writers, and each day has some kind of journal prompt, along with a quote or two and a few “just for fun” things like the “toast of the day”. It is set up by months with an entry for each day of the month. One of my favorite parts of the book is the intro to each month, which sets the tone for the month and includes fun tidbits of information, such as a list of holidays (including things like national peanut butter day, which you might not be aware of…). It’s a play on an almanac, so expect a lot of puns related to the kinds of trivia you’d find in an old copy of the Farmer’s Almanac.
I think it would be really fun, (though not particularly practical for me this year, given that I have a baby due about two months in) to start on January 1st and work through one of these books day by day for an entire year. So, although I won’t add be adding that to my goals for 2010, I do plan to refer to each of these books frequently when I need a spark for an idea. Amazon links below, in case you want to check out more reviews or order one for yourself. (No pressure, my affiliate cut is very minimal).
