Earlier this year, while flipping through my favorite magazine, Whole Living, this question leapt off the page. Immediately, I began thinking about it and how in my own life I get my creative juices flowing.

A couple of days later, while feeling very inspired, I sat down and wrote the above statement and emailed it off to the magazine never imagining that I would be chosen as the grand prize winner.

Actually, I let it go completely from my mind until just a couple of weeks ago, when I excitedly received the May issue that arrived on a particularly busy Saturday. It wasn’t until later in that day, when I opened the magazine to start casually reading it that I saw my entry had been chosen as this month’s winner.

• What gets your creative juices flowing?

I was excited when Crissy Herron asked me to write a post on creative inspiration for her amazing site Indie Biz Chicks. The site provides useful information and tips on business, marketing and publicity for small women-owned businesses. It was a natural fit for me, so I jumped at the chance.

I also loved that the tag line for Crissy’s site is:

“For Women Who’d Rather Work For Themselves, Than Work for the Man”

My post focuses on helping those of you who’ve been feeling that you need a way to re-invent yourself or your business, keeping in mind that Spring is the best time to make a fresh start!

5 Creative Tips For The Uninspired 
by Melanie Sklarz

We’ve all been there at one time or another. We found ourselves just stuck. It may have seemed like everyone else had already come up with all of the good ideas, and we had nothing. Or we had been working so hard on our passion that once we finished it, we didn’t know where to go next.

The best thing to do in a situation, like this when you feel stagnate, is to create movement, no matter how small, day every day. Movement increases the flow of energy around you and your ideas and before you know it, you’ll be inspired!

I’ve created 5 simple tips to try when you’re feeling oh-so uninspired.

• Read the entire article here.

Today is my birthday. I am another year older, and hopefully another year wiser. This year is a milestone birthday for me (I am not telling which one!), so I thought I’d make a creative birthday wish for the year ahead.

For the next year, my wish is to fully embrace my creativity and all that goes with it. With that said, here are the ways I intend to use my creativity in the upcoming year.

• I will create a community around creativity both locally and nationally. I will work to connect with my fellow creatives both online and in person. I will treasure the insights I gain from this community and give back all I can.

• I will share my creativity with others. I will inspire them through my writing and offer them tips to help them be more creative in the upcoming year. I will let my light shine and let it lead the way for other aspiring creatives.

• I will express myself through my creativity. I will use it to improve my well-being and create balance in my own life. I will even explore new mediums in this quest to express myself more fully.

This my birthday wish. Well, ok 3 birthday wishes for a more creative year ahead.

• I hope you’ll join me!

As I looked at the list of my creative activities from  last year, I was startled and saddened how few there were. Yes, I started school, took a few art/jewelry classes, attended some exhibitions but none of those were planned, they just happened.

I have also mentioned in the past how much I dislike New Year’s resolutions, because, well I never have time to do them in the beginning of the year and then I just feel bad for the rest of the year because I don’t have any!

This year I’ve decided to be more intentional about my creative activities. That’s why I’ve chosen to focus on three specific creative goals. The activities for each goal are meant to not be spontaneous but involve planning and stretch my creativity in ways that may have scared me in the past.

Here they are:

1. Learn the art of glass blowing by taking a class at the Glass Bubble Project.
2. Try improv by taking a class at Something Dada.
3. Write some poetry and have it critiqued during a workshop at the LIT.

As always, I’ll be blogging about my creative adventures during the year. I hope you’ll join me!

• So what are YOUR creative goals for this year?

Last year, I wrote a post encouraging you to do a mid-year reflection of your goals. The post was so popular (and useful) that I thought I would try it again.

Find some quiet time and ponder the following questions:

1. How am I feeling creatively?
2. What creative projects have I completed in the last 6 months, 3 months, 1 month?
3. What creative projects have I started that need to be put aside or completed?
4. What new inspiration have I found? Where?
5. Have I tried to create in a new medium? If not, what can I try?

My own reflections on these questions focused on my ongoing collage challenge success, school design projects, new found love of technology and old glass, and the altered book class I took last week.

• How have you creatively grown in the past 6 months?