You're a blank rainbow page
You are a creative person! You are that blank page to fill with text and then paint in rainbow colors!

Tuesday 11th of November a girl wrote this message to me (I have shortened it a bit):

    Hi, Hanna!
    I just wanted to tell you that I REALLY extremely enjoy your blog. I actually stumbled upon it looking for furniture pieces while I browsing the web in my design class. I have to say that your site is very inspiring to me and it makes my heart happy :]

    I had the presentation for my design project today and I feel I did such a bad job :[ Everyone else’s was so much more creative and nicer than mine. Sometimes I don’t think of myself as creative at all and I get frustrated. I think I am somewhat creative at times, but then I see what other people do and I’m just like, wow, I am so lame!

    Ha, but anyway, I got kind of side-tracked there!

    [Then she wrote a question about a photo I took.]

    I’m not sure how many emails you usually get, so if you don’t have time to respond, that’s okay. I was just curious and wanted to let you know that your site has cheered me up after my lousy day :] Thanks
    Allison

Even though her main question was not really about feeling small it struck me as the most important part in her letter. It affects all of us, daily. So that’s what I wanted to write about in my response to her as I felt we could all need encouragement and support here! And because I know many of you struggle with this, just like me, I’m posting my answer here.

Read my answer to her
and then feel free to add your own suggestions and opinions in the comment section!

    Hi Allison,
    it is very easy to get overwhelmed with how good “everybody else” is, isn’t it? Especially when we sit and browse many blogs at a time… It seems like everyone else is doing so much and everything is looking so darn good… It kind of melts together into a pot of Other Peoples Creativity and when you look at your own creation it is so small and insignificant. Of course you have the wrong glasses on!

    I think you have to always remember that what you see is not made during one day or even a week. It might look like it’s whipped together with ease but most crafts take time, practice and effort. Others might have an art education or work as full time artists and you might not! Many of us post what we are happy and proud about and not our ugliest creations! This might seem like a lie but I don’t think it is, as long as we all remember that a blog is not a true image of our life! This is only that tiny fraction of what I am that I want to share with you today!

    Part of why I blog is because I need to tell myself that I do create all the time! I think many people see me as inspiration and you might view me as someone who is very productive – but on low energy days I often feel that I have done nothing and can’t do anything. Or at least not as much as everyone else do or are, hehe! I think it is important to remember that you work from your own circumstances! Compare your work today with what you did last year or three years ago and hopefully you’ll see that you’re improving! If not then take a class and keep letting yourself experiment and develop! If you don’t have or want to have a blog I think a diary is a must have for anyone creative! Start writing today!

    I hope that you will remember after this bad day is over that you ARE a creative person and that you can do anything (yes anything!) just not everything (what a sad thought for all of us over archivers!) and not at once (because time is limited no matter what people say to you)!

    I do love when new to me people find my blog and find inspiration! That’s another big reason for me to blog about creativity. Thanks for writing to me. I will blog about this as I think it’s an important topic! Take care and enjoy what you do have time to create!

    kind regards
    /iHanna

I always appreciate when people write but I sometimes don’t have the time to answer this thoroughly which is sad. Unanswered feedback and questions always makes me feel like a bad person! I think the best part of blogging is getting comments – but it is also difficult to know who to answer, how and in what time?

Recently I’ve gotten questions about what to see and do when you’re in Stockholm. I think I got two new questions about it this week and before I knew it I’d started A Guide to Stockholm with iHanna’s personal favorites! It took me over three hours to compile links and thoughts together, and I don’t know if I’m finished yet… I’ll post it next week and after that I’ll just send on the link if I get questions about it again! Time is precious and I am so darn good at wasting it. That is, it’s not a waste of time to be nice and answer comments and e-mails, but it sure feels like a waste of time when I go back to my list of Things To Do in the evening and I can’t cross anything over today either. This is why I’m thinking of a blog time out for real now. It might be productive to blog but it’s not moving me in the direction I want to go!!!