Creativity is Everywhere

Creativity can feel like a very scary word. I’ve heard people say, ‘I’m just not creative!’ hundreds of times, and it comes from believing they have to be good at painting or acting or crafting in order to be creative. Yes, those things are very creative, but we all use creativity in so many other parts of our lives!

It is my firm belief (and Tanio’s, too!) that everyone is creative, but we’re all creative in different ways. Creativity is not just about art; it’s about how we express ourselves, how we solve problems, and how we interact with others.

So I decided to look back on the weekend just gone, and think about ways that I was creative. Have a look, and then think about ways that you’ve been creative in the last few days. We’d love to hear about them! Get in touch and let us know all the ways you let your creativity shine from day to day!

• I opened my fridge on Friday night to make dinner, with no plan at all. What was even in the fridge, after a busy week and no chance to do a shop? I looked at all the ingredients I could see, and had a look in the cupboards too, and I was able to create some cheesy chicken quesadillas. I just made up the recipe as I went, but you know, they turned out pretty good!

• On Saturday, my husband and I were very lucky to go to a local dog rescue to meet some dogs that we might adopt (I know, I was very excited about it, too!) We met 2 friendly, sweet dogs, and spent a long time talking about what we might name them. Our chat was very creative, as we not only came up with names, but we talked about where we had heard the names and why we liked them. We talked about movies and books and TV, bringing up all the characters we love and asking if we should name our dog after one of our favourite characters!

• Back at our house, we desperately needed to sort out the back garden. We’ve let dandelions grow in order to encourage bees, and because dandelions are good for the soil. But it was time to do a little work on some other weeds that were really growing strong in certain areas. We worked together to find creative solutions for all the areas of the garden – mowing and strimming some places, digging in others, and making sure everything looked beautiful and was suitable for the insects and birds that live in our area.

• Sunday was a very quiet day, and I was able to work on some music for a choir that I lead. They are learning a new song, so I created some rehearsal tracks for them so they can listen and practice in between rehearsals. This meant I not only had to do some singing, but I also had to be the sound engineer, making little adjustments to the tracks so they would be easy to use.

• Sunday evening, I spent time making and watching stories on Instagram. Some stories were elaborate, and I tried my hand at a few tricks, edits, and transitions that I saw in other people’s videos. Whether I was adding stickers or filters, picking out music, or choosing how to move my camera and capture the perfect shot, there were lots of creative choices to make!

Sometimes the creative things we do are more ‘traditional,’ like working with music for a choir. And sometimes we do creative things without thinking about it, like gardening or making content for social media. No matter what, we all have creativity inside us, and we all use it every day to make our lives easier and smoother. What’s your creative outlet? How have you been creative today?