Category: Beauty

We Bought A Garden

May 7, 2019

I gasped the first time I saw our back garden in full bloom. It was not long after our offer on the house we now live in was accepted, when the owners had us back for a more detailed tour. Stepping into the garden I truly couldn’t believe my eyes. Roses in full bloom were spilling out everywhere and tree blossoms hummed with bees. A jasmine border lined the entire back fence. A pair of meyer lemon trees (more like large shrubs) were blossoming. There was a raised garden bed constructed of stone and a massive olive tree arching over a significant portion of the back yard. In spite of being set smack in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood, it felt as if I’d stepped into my own personal secret garden. It offered not only complete privacy from the surrounding homes, but had been designed as a delightful sanctuary appealing to all the senses. I was awestruck. We hadn’t just purchased our first home, we bought a garden!

Growing up on the Canadian prairies I was influenced by three garden spaces belonging to my parents, paternal grandparents, and paternal great-grandparents. My parents owned 30 acres only a few minutes’ drive away from grandparents’ own rural property, and some of my most enduring childhood memories include spending time in the vast vegetable garden and walking through the fields to find wild roses. We could never have much in the way of flowers in our home due to my mom’s allergies, so I vowed that one day my future home would be filled to the brim with flowers (except when my mom visited of course!).

In spite of being set smack in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood, it felt as if I’d stepped into my own personal secret garden.

My Grandma was forever harvesting fresh produce and flowers from her gardens and us grandchildren always delighted in the tart, puckering promise of a crunchy stem of rhubarb or crab apple plucked from a tree.

My grandparents’ home featured expansive country gardens that included a crab apple orchard, multiple vegetable gardens, an exceptional range of flower beds, and views of a pond filled with geese and ducks that my Grandpa tended to. My Grandma was forever harvesting fresh produce and flowers from her gardens and us grandchildren always delighted in the tart, puckering promise of a crunchy stem of rhubarb or crab apple plucked from a tree. My grandparents’ home and gardens were probably my greatest influence on my passion for the harmonious blend of architecture and nature.

While I didn’t spend near as much time at my great-grandparents’, their home in Winnipeg was situated on a large lot in the city. My memory of it was that the back yard was a magical oasis. My Opa was a skilled wood worker and filled the rolling property with wishing wells and enchanting niches that looked as if fairies and elves dwelled there on a permanent basis. It was a backyard that beckoned a child’s imagination to take flight and I always delighted in allowing mine do so.

By the time we moved to British Columbia just before I turned 13, the joys of the garden, no matter what the style or size, were permanently rooted in my psyche. From then on, I was obsessed with how nature could be mindfully cultivated in order to bring both beauty and bounty into one’s everyday experience.

As a young artist and photographer, I sought inspiration from the blossoms of the Okanagan Valley’s myriad of fruit orchards. In university I indulged in purchasing my first store-bought bouquets from the flower stalls of Vancouver’s Granville Island market and Kitsilano’s neighbourhood shops. During the summers I returned home to the Okanagan to plant flowers for the city, hauling and planting hundreds of flats of marigolds and zinnias every May and June. I traveled to Morocco and found myself mesmerized by the lush courtyards of Fez and Marrakech, and to the English countryside where chocolate box cottages spilled over with a riot of colour and fragrance. An Eden of my own became my goal and that was realized the moment we closed on our home. I mean, our garden.

Over the past five years, Will and I have both flourished and floundered as eager, beginner gardeners. We’ve celebrated bumper crops of lemons with pies and daily honey and lemon tonics, sat lazily under the arc of the olive tree while sipping local white wine on hot summer days, and filled our home with a rotation of blossoms, unfurling roses, and vessels filled with olive branches. We’ve also battled typical garden pests, made poor planting calls (my succulents and a couple of finicky shrubs still irritate me but I don’t know when I’ll have time to uproot them and replant something else in their place), struggled to get cucumbers to taste just right, and let our garden run out of control following the birth of each baby. But it’s ours and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a secret garden.

I also love that our children are going to grow up smelling jasmine and citrus and roses, with those scents imprinted on their psyche, taking those fragrant memories wherever they go. It’s the perfect backyard paradise for painting, flower picking, and planting their first vegetables. This garden brings inspiration into my life on a daily basis, no matter the season or the weather. It has taught me how to bring inspiration into my home and find beauty in every day no matter what challenges we might face as a family. Nature brought into our home feels like a soothing balm when days are tough, and a source of inspiration when the routine of motherhood feels a bit mundane. We bought a house, for sure, but the garden will always be our most cherished part of this place.

“I also love that our children are going to grow up smelling jasmine and citrus and roses with those scents imprinted on their psyche, taking those fragrant memories wherever they go.”

How to Create More than We Consume

September 28, 2018

Every woman juggling all the things knows how tempting it is to start the day off scrolling before we’ve even left our beds and our feet have hit the floor. But do we know what that’s doing to our creative spirit? Do we realize how much the constant content consumption is depleting us of our creative juices and replacing our ability to generate authentic ideas with copycat material?

As a creative entrepreneur and homeschooling mom, I’ve come to recognize just how necessary it is to safeguard my brain from consuming too much content if I want to nurture my own creative spirit, inspire my kids, and live a life that feels free of Pinterest-pressure. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinterest, Instagram, and easy access to family and friends through Facebook, texting, emailing, and every other communication app. But I also know that these tools can add pressure to my day, drown out the needs of the loved ones directly in front of me, and sap my creative energy. The sheer amount of time I spend staring at a screen directly correlates to both my desire and ability to create and inspire.

The sheer amount of time I spend staring at a screen directly correlates to both my desire and ability to create and inspire.

Trastevere-Rome-Blue-Door

So what does it mean for me to both avoid too much content consumption and actively create things that inspire me and serve others? Well, I’ve developed a two-pronged approach that incorporates both defensive and offensive strategies which I’ll share below.

Defending my brain and body from an overload of consumption includes the following habits I try to maintain:

1) I avoid starting my day off with scrolling, email checks, and text replies.

It’s easiest if my phone is kept in another room instead of by my bedside, but that doesn’t always happen. I’m working on that one! I know that beginning my day with prayer, devotions, a workout, or some tea in a quiet space is far more invigorating than lounging in bed staring at a dark screen. Will and I have started to get up to pray together at 6am every morning before the kids are up/allowed out of their room, and the days when we do this always leave us feeling more alive and excited to start our day…which is saying a lot especially for Will because he is NOT a natural morning person!

2) I respond to emails and messages in bulk and at times that suit me best.

Once I’ve gone through some more natural, organic rhythms to start my day, I’ll usually do a quick check of my emails, texts, and messages at which time I’ll move emails into folders to deal with later and make a list on paper of correspondence to attend to later in the day unless something truly requires my immediate attention. I don’t like messaging in front of my kids if I can help it, and also don’t thrive when there’s a message thread building up all morning while I’m trying to accomplish other tasks. Plus, messaging and emailing tend to require less creative energy than a lot of other things, so I’d rather tackle those during quiet time or after my kids have gone to bed.

3) I’ve turned off notifications on my phone.

I’ve turned off all notifications on my phone so I’m not constantly being made aware of every attempt to reach me. In truth, I generally have my phone on Do Not Disturb, but have enabled specific contacts to reach me even if my phone is on silent. Again, this helps me to stay present, efficient, and protective of my mental space.

Now that those defensive tactics are in play more regularly, I’ve been developing my offensive strategies to find more time to create in ways that are meaningful and fulfilling. This is the fun part!

If you don’t believe you’re the creative type, I encourage you to try experimenting with some new hobbies or potential interests just to see if you can nudge those creative juices into motion! It might be a slow, uphill struggle, but the benefits are beautiful and I can guarantee will absolutely lead to more thriving instead of surviving.

*Disclaimer – If you don’t think of yourself as the creative type, I would challenge you to reexamine that mindset. I believe we all have a creative bent, but for some it’s never been nurtured and for others, it’s been buried so deep for so long that it feels impossible to discover/recover. That’s a different topic for a different post, but if you don’t believe you’re the creative type, I encourage you to try experimenting with some new hobbies or potential interests just to see if you can nudge those creative juices into motion! It might be a slow, uphill struggle, but the benefits are beautiful and I can guarantee will absolutely lead to more thriving instead of surviving.

So here is what I’ve been doing on a regular basis to spark creativity:

1) I find ways to implement creative activity, no matter how simple, into most days.

I thrive on visual creation. Whether that’s arranging a vessel filled with clippings from our garden, or putting together a cute outfit complete with accessories for an event coming up, or laying out props and details for a flat lay shoot I’m assembling, I have lately realized that my best days are ones in which I’ve spent some period of time creating something of beauty that brings inspiration into my home or enlivens my soul. That could be as ordinary as dusting and refreshing a bookshelf, playing with watercolours at the table with my kids, repotting a plant or pruning the roses, or laying out a super simple charcuterie platter for myself at quiet time. I realize that not everybody has an aesthetic bent that needs to be nurtured in order to access their creative side (my husband is certainly not moulded that way) but for me I thrive best when I’m incorporating some element of aesthetic creativity into my day.

2) Creating before consuming has a positive affect on the rest of my day.

Creating before consuming sparks ideas for other aspects of my day. If I spend a little time doing something creative first thing in the morning, be it in my office or at home, I find the rest of my day is inspired. I have more verve and excitement for homeschool lessons and cooking, seek out small ways to make errands and menial tasks more fun, and in general, have a more pleasant outlook on life than when I’m not accessing my creative side. I also tend to be more thoughtful and intentional with my email and text responses, which is never a bad thing!

3) I try to avoid going online for inspiration–at least initially.

If I’m stuck and have no natural inclination to create anything, be it a journal entry or our next meal, I try to avoid going online to look for inspiration. Sometimes just reading a chapter from a book, looking through old photos, taking a walk, eating something refreshing, or honestly, taking a nap (I’m not usually a napper except for when I’m pregnant) can be all I need to jumpstart my creative juices. I usually tend to hop online for further inspiration once I already have an idea in mind and need to flesh out the details, but try to avoid this as my first stop.

Sometimes just reading a chapter from a book, looking through old photos, taking a walk, eating something refreshing, or taking a nap can be all I need to jumpstart my creative juices.

Do any of these seem like options that would prompt a more creative, inspiring lifestyle for you? If you want to be more intentional about finding rhythms that lead to more creativity and inspiration, I would love to be a part of that journey. Just hop over here and subscribe to my newsletter updates where I’ll provide you with fresh ideas and creative prompts on a regular basis. These updates are succinct, yet filled with rich nuggets meant to revitalize your lifestyle and refresh your creative endeavours so you can lead your life with beauty, adventure, and purpose. And really, who doesn’t want that?

SaveSave

Embracing the Beauty of Boredom

August 15, 2018

Have you ever wondered how we as a society have become so dependant on mindless scrolling that we take our phones into the washroom with us? I’m not talking about slipping your phone into your back pocket (in which case you’re definitely tempting fate with the high probability of your phone plunging to the depths of the toilet bowl!), rather, I’m recognizing the fact that probably most of us have succumbed to the ‘squat and scroll’. Am I right? Definitely some cringe-worthy guilt over here! Have we really become so averse to the possibility of being bored or left with our own thoughts for a few moments that we are habitually inclined to take our phones to the toilet??

I don’t know about you, but I’m on a mission to alter my scrolling habits. When left with a few moments of potential boredom, I want to seek opportunities that result in creative, imaginative thinking, problem-solving, and greater awareness—of my inner self, the world around me, and of God’s Spirit speaking to my soul. Doesn’t this sound like something we could all be refreshed by and excited about? What sort of ideas and possibilities might be sparked if we were using brief fragments of time to create rather than consume?

“Have we really become so averse to the possibility of being bored…that we are habitually inclined to take our phones to the toilet??”

If you long for a more creative outlook or are unsure of how to initiate more opportunities to integrate creativity into your daily routine, look no further than those moments of boredom that so easily beckon us to our phones for a small sliver of mindless scrolling.

If you long for a more creative outlook or are unsure of how to initiate more opportunities to integrate creativity into your daily routine, look no further than those moments of boredom that so easily beckon us to our phones for a small sliver of mindless scrolling. Whether you’re just waking up, hanging out in a waiting room, or are waiting in the car, I’ve outlined 3 ways that you can utilize boredom as a catalyst for creativity.

1) Transition from scrolling to another activity.

First, we need to kick the habit of scrolling when we’ve got a few minutes to either wait or busy ourselves, and I think one of the best ways to transition from scrolling to intentional, imaginative thinking, is to read something tangible that does not require a screen, nor your thumb’s ‘scroll function’. Author, podcast host, and speaker, Sarah Mackenzie (of the book The Read-Aloud Family and the podcast Read-Aloud Revival) suggests simply keeping a book with you. Her straightforward suggestion has prompted me to keep a smallish piece of light reading material in my handbag at all times. You’d be amazed at how much reading you can accomplish with just five minutes here, or ten minutes there. Now I wouldn’t recommend Dostoevsky’s War and Peace, or anything else that’s a) cumbersome and b) needs some time to access with focus, but I would recommend anything from a self-help or business book to a children or youth novel that you could read either silently or aloud to your kids. If this seems too daunting, keeping a couple of magazines in your car, or a crossword puzzle or sudoku book on hand might be a great alternative for you. Start with what is most accessible and gets you in the habit of doing something other than turning to your phone for entertainment. I’ve kept a crossword puzzle book in our master ensuite for years and it’s the one washroom I’m almost never tempted to take my phone into. A devotional, magazine, or piece of light reading by my bed—something I’m eager to delve into that doesn’t take much brain power either first thing in the morning or later at night—will often persuade me to read tangible material rather than scroll through my phone. This bedside habit has resulted in both better sleep at night and a more positive outlook first thing in the morning. Win-win right?

2) Stir the creative juices with prompts.

If you want to take things to the next level and stir your creative juices up a bit, I’d recommend keeping a notepad or journal with you, along with a short list of prompts, perhaps penned at the back at the top of a few blank pages. Here are a few prompts to get you going:

“If I could design my dream house, what would I include?” Keep a running list of design and landscape elements that you come across that you’d want to integrate into your dream property. Mine would definitely include complete privacy, acreage, lots of big windows with sunlight streaming in, rustic wooden beams, and pretty Mediterranean tilework.
“If I could spend 10 days in one place anywhere in the world, what would that look like?” Would you spend your time exploring a Caribbean island while staying in a jungle or beachside bungalow? Driving the backroads of Tuscany and sipping wine in the local piazza every evening? What would you pack for a trip to Thailand? Would you find yourself walking the Cotswolds or the Scottish Highlands, or roaming the plains of the Serengeti? Let your imagination wander and try to envision what you’d wear, how you’d travel to and from your destination, what the weather would be like, and who your travel partners would be. You might find yourself staring off into the distance instead of writing…a fun and essential part of becoming lost in creative thought!
“If I could plan the ideal dinner party/Sunday brunch/high tea, who would I invite to join me?” Let yourself think beyond the box of close friends or potential acquaintances. Consider a mix of people from history, or an assortment of creative minds and talents, along with the meal’s setting and menu. Every time I delve into this daydream, Queen Elizabeth is definitely at the table, but we’re at Balmoral in Scotland where she’s on holiday and more relaxed. Then I fill in the gaps with an eclectic mix of friends, family, and famous figures from throughout history.

3) Consider your surroundings and tap into a deeper awareness.

For an even more ‘advanced’ attempt at pushing the boundaries of boredom, even if just for a few brief moments, I like to consider my surroundings and tap into what my brain and body are experiencing. This not only prompts me to reflect on my current needs and desires, but also on my preferences and opinions. Taking a few deep breaths and noting how my body feels as I wake up, or how it settles into a chair, what the light around me is doing, or how other people are responding to our surroundings, helps me be more attuned not only to myself, but also to those around me. This process enables me to be more open to hearing the Spirit of God speak into my life, often compelling me to meditate on Scripture or extend love, patience, or compassion to someone else, whether they are physically present or not. I believe that intentionally seeking opportunities to be aware of one’s surroundings can have a beneficial effect on one’s mental and physical health, relationships, and spiritual growth.

The great thing about embracing the beauty of boredom is that it opens up opportunities for growth and enrichment, fulfillment and peace that trolling the internet never can. That’s not to say we shouldn’t spend time online or use our phones for pleasure or purpose, but the more that we view boredom as having the potential to cultivate creativity, (and less as something to avoid) the more our scrolling habits will find an appropriate place in our lives—preferably not while in the loo!

“What sort of ideas and possibilities might be sparked if we were using brief fragments of time to create rather than consume?”

If you are struggling to draw creative ideas from a wellspring that starts with scrolling, the results will be largely inauthentic and even less gratifying. Visual inspiration is important, for sure, but I would argue that it’s vital to engage in observation that takes places offline if we want to produce results of the highest caliber.

Are you an entrepreneur or aspiring creative looking to take your ideas to the next level and really grow as an artist, business person, or influencer? Let’s set up a time to chat and discuss the possibilities for your future success.

I am passionate about coming alongside others to inspire them in their creative journey. With 15 years’ experience as a creative entrepreneur, I have been able to cultivate a strong repertoire of strategies to boost creative output and help others tap into their creativity. If you would like to have me speak either in person or online at your upcoming conference, workshop, or retreat, please email Jaime Fenwick at hello@bringinginspirationhome.com

SaveSave