'A project keeps the wheels of creativity spinning'

Day 72:

After talking about going out on bike adventures it was clear we needed to get everyone on board with our plans, so today we went and picked up a bike for the female member of our posse. Both Opeie and myself ended up a touch jealous of said bike (especially after I had sold my custom pink one when Opeie entered the world). Im sensing our future bike adventures may have just taken a more retro path, watch this space, I feel a project coming.

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."

Day 71:

Today was one of those days where everything just seemed to fall in to place. A mixture of great moods, fun, creativity and a picnic in the woods. Last year Opeie and I found a really lovely area not too far from where we live which we've used a few times to sit and do home-ed work. This evening we decided to take the garden parasol, a blanket and some art supplies for a relaxing peaceful evening under the trees. Just what we needed to take out minds off the current madness. We took loads of pictures of our paintings but this little guy that joined the party (with his heart shaped markings) really summed up how I was feeling.

"Froggie jumped all over the stage that day"

Day 70:

Today at chez Twinklestar during the busy lunch time period one of our customers requested a frog sandwich so I had to think fast. Hopefully he didn't notice that it was a green pesto and gherkin sandwich as he munched it down, but he left with a big smile on his face.

"“Somedays you eat the bear, somedays the bear eats you”"

Day 69:

After a pretty crappy few days I started to feel myself again today, Opeie clearly picked up on that too which really made all the difference to our day. We went for a really long walk around Jackfield and sat in the sun... with Mr.T and talked about everything. Turning my phone off really helped too, I'm finding it really distracting at the moment and need to remind myself that its not something I need to check all the time. Today has been a good one and I'm going to hold on to that tightly.

"The creative adult is the child who survived."

Day 68:

One thing that I have loved about this lockdown period is the projects, tackling those little jobs that I'd either been putting off or just didn't seem to be able to make time for. Last year when Opeie was deep into his beetle project I decided to up-cycle a bureau for him, beetle style. A place for a Coleoptera enthusiast to keep his entomology books, research material and beetle hunting items. Typical individual homeschool kid never used it and kept all his bits in various sections of the house, so today I thought I'd reclaim it for myself and use it for all my painting and sketching things. Opeie helped me repaint it, the feet had been waiting to be done since I painted it and we found all the creative bits we needed to really make a fun space for me to create. It was the perfect little project to start pulling me out of my funk and it was great getting my sidekick helping too.

"Smile is a good reply to the dark world."

Day 67:

Life can throw some serious curve balls at times. The last few days have been awful, If it wasn't for the endless smiles caused by Baby Yoda being delivered today I think I may have had a mini breakdown. One thing I can always rely on is this little dude being there to pick me up when I'm having an emotionally challenging day. Being a dad (especially to this superstar) is what life is all about. 

“True emotional healing doesn't happen without feeling. The only way out is through.”

Day 66:

I used to be one of those people that would think 'bloody hell another blogger hash tagging 'mental health'. A few years back everybody seemed to be jumping on some sort of mental health band wagon and I really didn't understand it. It turns out that I'm an idiot, and the reason that everyone was talking about it back then was because it was the start of society really giving it the attention it deserves. The last two years have been an emotional rollercoaster and have really made me appreciate how hard it is sometimes to stop myself (and Opeie) feeling like we are emotionally sinking. This Coronavirus has become testing to most peoples emotional health and when there are other issues in your personal life too (especially ones that are unnecessary) it really adds to those negative feelings. Tonight is one of those nights where I feel like I've been on the verge of tears for quite sometime, So, as todays word on our #creativelockdownproject is 'Afloat' I figured my brain and emotional wellbeing were the things that I'm always trying to keep above the surface. 

Be kind to each other, It really makes a difference.

"There must be something in the water"

Day 65:

You know those days that can just f#€* off? well today was one of them. I seriously need to wipe it from my memory and have a nice do-over tomorrow. Despite the day being an absolute flop Opeie and I still managed to build something colourful for our daily creative word, which was 'Rainbow'. I'm definitely looking forward to more colourful days.

"Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you."

Day 64:

It was one of those rare occasions today where I found myself actually having a bit of time to myself as Opeie happily played with his friends online for a couple of hours. My first thought was 'clean the house?' yeah right! I grabbed a coffee, the watercolours and some music and sat on my bed with the windows opened and painted my do-over for the piece I wasn't happy with yesterday for the #creativelockdownproject word 'bugs'. The word made me think of an afternoon cycling up the Long mynd when we spotted some Bloody-nosed beetles for our ongoing beetle collection. I bloody love beetles!

"And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them."

day 63:

I'm not even going to explain todays picture. Maketh it what you will.

“This is the way.”

Day 62:

I never really thought that much of Star Wars, always swayed towards the super heroes instead but over the last few days we've been watching the Mandalorian and I'm pretty hooked. So as todays word over on the #creativelockdownproject is 'Kindness' and Mando is so lovely to Baby Yoda 'this is the way' we went with our pieces. I am loving painting, its really keeping me in a lovely headspace and all this creativity is working wonders for Opeie too.

"A smile is a curve that sets everything straight."

Day 61:

As I lay in the woods today staring at the lush blue sky through the gap in the trees, I concentrated on my breathing and really took some time to think about how lucky I am. I have an amazing little family and they really make me smile. The last 60 or so days have been a rollercoaster of emotions and although we're still here in the midst of this madness, we're still smiling and that's so important.

"Well, I, happened to... Find me a buggy Coming out from under a rock in the grass, yeah..."

Day 60:

Im not really sure why but I seem to attract shield bugs, they seem to find me and then just hang around. Todays little chap landed on me while I was painting on the trampoline. He did his thing and I took some pictures and then put him down on the ground and moved to paint over on the garden sofa. The cutie followed me and landed on my watercolour palette before finding its way back onto my hand. I like to think that it knew all about our love of beetles and just wanted to join the club and get a bit of attention. Nature is amazing!

"A hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown."

Day 59:

Todays #creativelockdownproject word is 'Hero' and there is no one more heroic than the people out there risking their lives so that we can all be safe in our homes while this awful virus is taking so many lives. These people are just getting on with keeping the world turning and taking everything in their stride. I for one feel so grateful for all that they are doing for us.

"Some days, the supply of available curse words is insufficient to meet my demands!"

Day 58:

Todays #creativelockdownproject word is 'Unfinished', the original plan was to start a new piece and leave it incomplete but I walked past my disappointing piece from the 'Music' day and realised that that needed to be my piece for today. No matter how many times I drew Opeie's mouth I just couldn't get it right, so I had just rubbed it out completely and he sat on the shelf mouthless... unfinished. 

I really didn't want to attempt that mouth again only to be left frustrated so I gave that little potty mouth of mine a fitting replacement and the piece made me smile again.

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

Day 56:

I need to keep reminding myself that despite the bizarre situation we are all currently living in, it's not all doom and gloom and there's always time for mucking about and having a good chuckle. Being in a relationship with someone that not only accepts my insanity but also encourages it and adds their own  bit of madness in too really does make all the difference. I'm feeling pretty loved up today.

"Adventure is not outside man; it is within."

Day 55:

Over on the #creativelockdownproject that we have been taking part in, the days word is adventure. At first it made me think of the adventures that we've been missing out on, the trips to the beach and all the places we like to pull up to and paint. Then I reminded myself that 'adventure' is what you make it. So we grabbed our Minifigures and went for a good stomp for a couple of hours, the perfect mini adventure for a lockdown day. 

"Bake someone happy!"

Day 54:

Today Opeie was looking pretty fed up, after a creative morning and a tasty lunch he lay on the floor like he had just given up, I guess we're all having moments like that at the moment, mine usually come when he's in bed and I find myself really thinking about everything. I had a bit of a sweet tooth so I told him to make some cakes, which seemed to give him that boost he needed to get a smile back on his face. We found a recipe, sorted the ingredients and I just left him to it, 50 minutes later we had some delicious banana bread cupcakes and a happy content boy,"" yummy.

"He travels like a lightning streak and he strikes from town to town. Then he gets you when you're weak and tares your playhouse down."

Day 53:

As an enthusiast of all things LEGO I love a good challenge and being able to only build in one colour has always been something that I have enjoyed doing. With todays #creativelockdownproject word being 'Monochrome' it gave me the chance to get in to a mini LEGO project. For some reason the first thing that came to mind was the devil minifigure so I chose to stick with red and create the build around that little guy. To see more of satan's thrown room check out our Instagram page HERE.

"People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy."

Day 52:

Todays #CreativeLockdownProject word  is 'Happy', which is definitely how I'm feeling today. Lockdown definitely isn't great but I get to hang out with my bestie all day, building LEGO and filling our time with fun. We decided to use todays word to add a couple of new rooms to the LEGO wall that we are creating. I went with building our trip to Crosby peach in January. We had taken the kids to have a beach clean up afternoon and to see the Anthony Gormley 'Another Place' sculptures, it was one of those days that summed up 'Happy' completely.

Opeie decided to build a rainbow coloured room with things that he make him 'Happy'. I'm not sure how long this LEGO wall is going to take but its already looking so interesting and is turning out to be a really celebration of who we are and what we love. 

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

Day 51:

I'm feeling really grateful for little projects recently, Its always good to have interests because it can keep you active and I always find that if my hands are busy my mind is calm, During this lockdown period its been these projects that have kept us occupied, which is probably why, despite not being able to go anywhere the days still seem to be flying by.

"All is connected... no one thing can change by itself."

Day 50:

Me and Opeie have been playing Unravel two over the last few days and I can't help but feel like the two characters are exactly like us, permanently tied together, but doing whatever they can to make life that little bit easier for each other. Opeie's latest contribution to the house is bringing me coffee and breakfast in bed on the days that we don't go out early for a walk, I'm feeling like a pretty special dad at the moment. 

We decided to get our crafty hands to work and made our own Unravel characters for Opeie to play around with and take photos, this lockdown isn't all bad.

"Peace begins with a smile."

Day 49:

Todays #creativelockdownproject word was 'Peace', obviously a fitting word for this day but for me it made me think of how much slower life has become since this lockdown period. I sat in the garden today and painted with my favourite peeps and it was perfection, we had nowhere to be and didn't leave the garden all day, LUSH!

"Scatman and Hatman, travel in time. Scatman and Hatman, going online. Scatman with Hatman, do it in style"

Day 48:

I'm starting to worry a little about Opeie's mental health through all of this, but not because of the change in lifestyle, the not being able to see friends or being stuck with me day in day out. I'm more concerned about the recent obsession he seems to have started with Scatman John. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse we find out that his new idol teamed up with Hatman... there were no words to describe how I was feeling when he first played me this. And since then Ive heard the song so many times that I actually stood in the kitchen today making tea putting some serious thought into who I'd rather be if I had to choose, Scatman or Hatman??? Actually come to think of it maybe it should be my own mental health I should be worried about. 

Enjoy!... or don't!

"We live in a rainbow of chaos."

Day 45:

My laptop desktop is always full of inspiring images for future projects that I'd like to get stuck into. Not all projects make the cut and sometimes those images just sit there collecting virtual dust. Being stuck at home though has given me the kick up the bum to tackle these little projects and they've been perfect for getting us through these strange days. A few months back I spotted a LEGO rainbow made from a mismatch of parts, so today while the sun was out and I was feeling super happy, I opened up the back doors and sat in the sun and built. It ended up coming out a lot better than I had hoped and was one of those builds that really made me smile. 

I also felt that the build was really fitting to to our current situation and a grateful nod to our NHS staff and all the amazing work they are doing during this testing time. 

"Rise up, you dead, slain of the hydra. Rise from your graves and avenge us. Those who steal the Golden Fleece must die."

Day 44:

Ever since this whole lockdown started we've got into this strange routine of being really motivated to get stuff done first thing but then just after lunch feeling like we just don't want to do anything, its really frustrating. By the time we receive the following days word for the #creativelockdownproject I nearly always think 'Urgh... I might just skip tomorrows'. But then magically the following morning I'm pumped and ready to go. Todays word was 'Mythological', so while we drew we watched Jason and the Argonauts. I drew the children of the Hydras teeth and Opeie decided to create a crossover of King Midas and Midas from Fortnite, pretty cool I thought.

"We fade to pastel blue, Like the sky painted perfect in the pano view. But i keep my eyes on you"

Day 43:

Music has been getting the pair of us through most of these bizarre days. We've nearly always got something on in the background while we play and create. So rather than a photo today I thought I'd just leave a music video. Enjoy.

"If you try to knock me you'll get mocked. I'll stir fry you in my wok. Your knees'll start shakin' and your fingers pop, Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock"

Day 42:

Today Ive definitely been feeling a little more myself which has made the day so much easier. Getting out for a nice walk this morning really cleared my head (which I definitely needed). Todays word on our #creativelockdownproject was 'Intergalactic', Opeie wasn't feeling it so I went it alone today and created this Watercolour galaxy collage. The daily creative project is giving me something positive to focus on each day and its good to have that little nudge to get me creating.