Blog Carnival 03.01.10 - "Create an inspirational 20 things to do, to kick start creativity."

For those of you not familiar - the blog carnival is a fun thing we do every month with any EtsyMetal member that wants to participate. We come up with a theme, all blog about it, then link to each others blogs so we can see what everyone else wrote too!
This month's theme is: "Create an inspirational 20 things to do, to kick start creativity."

Wow!
20 things.... lets see, this shall be interesting - I'll probably keep it simple, even if something are sort of related, I'll probably make it two things... Also, since I do some creative things other than jewelry - some of them will seem to be a little out of place!

1. Walk around outside in my yard and look at nature stuff.
2. Go somewhere else like the botanical gardens that would have different flora from my yard.
3. Listen to new music or music that will lead me in a certain direction
4. Look at books on a variety of subjects, depends on what I'm wanting to do, could be technical or completely unrelated to jewelry.
5. Go to the library - I like picking some sort of science subject like "weather" and then checking out a bunch of books to give me some new fresh ideas and photos to look at.
6.Watch a period drama or a fantasy movie that has wonderful costumes. I am incredible inspired by this type of thing.
7. Read a fictional story of the same type genres - creating my own ideas for what the characters would wear.
8. Write a story, either mentally or written or typed.
9. Look around my studio or house for items with interesting textures.
10. Play with wax - mush it around, squish it against different things, drop it in water or on something cold to see if I can get a new patter to develop.
11. Painting related - spread some paint on a canvas and stare at it until I see something I want to paint.
12. Photograph patterns in nature - great for jewelry or painting.
13. Photograph larger scenes that might turn in to a nice painting.
14. Play with materials - melt metal together, hammer it, with no objective other than making something that might end up looking interesting and that could be expanded upon.
15. Go to a lecture - preferably of some one interesting!
16. Travel to a new place - either by car or fly far away - aka: vacation.
17. Take a Bath - what a great place to sit and think
18. Actual meditation - leaving my mind open to wonderful ideas really works!
19. Do something I really don't want to do, like work on my taxes - has the effect of making me want to create!
20. Sketch - this is a last resort.

20! that wasn't so hard at all. I actually deleted one that was less than stellar. And these are in no particular order - except for number 20 - which is meant to be last, b/c it really is my last resort!

Check out the other participants this month!

Chris Parry
Sara Westermark
Katie Miess Kohlhagen
Ann Hartley
Amanda Conley
Wildflowerdesigns
Esther Eve
Maria W
CosmosMoon
Victoria Takahashi/Experimetal
Berenice Schaltegger
Brooke Arin Medlin
Thomasin Durgin/Metalriot
Catherine Chandler

(having the wrong white balance set on your camera can be good too!)