This article was written by Emily Dunne , our summer student, and I enjoyed it!, hope you will too.

There's nothing more annoying than when you find yourself creatively drained. You have no new ideas, the things you're working on no longer excite you, you're looking at the same things everyday and nothing is peaking your interest. 

If you should look around one day and find yourself in this rut, there's a couple things to keep in mind that can help you climb back into a colourful mind space. 

Take a look around your house, and I mean really look. Unless someone like your mom decorated it, then it's all rubbish and not really a reflection of you. I mean I guess still take a gander because you never know what odd or end will speak to you, even if someone else (your mother) picked it out. Look at the art you've put up, or your favourite blanket you wish you could drag around everywhere because it's so soft but you don't because it really isn't socially acceptable. Sometimes you'll find a bit of inspiration in an item you've looked at, listened to or smelt a million times before but somehow this time your brain will conjure up a preciously untouched idea. 

Go to the library, go to an art gallery, go for a stroll on a trail you haven't explored yet. Unfamiliar things are the best at inspiring new concepts into your head, you've never experienced them before and your brain is going to interpret them as it will. You may take a 5 minute drive on an old dirt road you drive by every day and never turn down, and there you find the big shiny idea for your next rug or your next painting or your next project. 

New people are good for inspiration too, and I don't mean you spot a bad haircut on the street and feel like you need to recreate it into a hooked rug. They're inspiring in that you may be introduced to knew places and experiences by these people that will prompt you into a new project, maybe they really do have features that inspire you to incorporate elements of them into a pattern.

 Regardless of where you look for your new muse the important part is that you are looking. You're observing all the activity surrounding you, not only is this beneficial for crafting but is valuable because you're forced to slow down and take in the world around you. 

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