It’s about the time when the sparkly lights of Christmas are down and the reality of 3 more months of cold grey slush start to make me go crazy (and research warm weather vacations!)  It’s also, not surprisingly, kind of a slow time in the ol’ workshop. The end of the year is a rush of shows and nonstop ornament making, The start of the new year however is completely different. It’s like someone threw me out of a raging party through a revolving door and I stumble out onto a almost empty street. But actually, it’s totally exciting for me. It’s time to dust myself off, and climb back up on to the horse of creativity.

All these ideas have been popping in my head lately. A lot of them in yoga class, oh it’s so nice to go back to yoga class! (Resolution 1, check!) Most of them are really organic off shoots of what is a Forage staple, wood burned trees. Our hearts on trees ornaments are really wildly popular, so I thought, why not have them around all year long? I have started doing mini hearts on trees for magnets and pendants. Not with initials because they aren’t much bigger than a quarter, but the sweet sentiment is there. A new series of  “Baby’s first Christmas” ornaments is in the works. Something I thought of at a baby shower I was at and wished I had something that I had made to give them. Most recently I was inspired , well by myself, this blog actually. I was rereading an old post about botanical studies and I thought, a botanical study on MUSHROOMS would be such a joy to make. And while I have wood burned them for ages, I thought adding some paint and color would really make them special.

These are ideas that hit me hard, like “why in the heck did I not do these before???” But the raging party was so all consuming and there was just no space for my horse. So while I miss the constant cha ching of my Etsy orders and the sweet and friendly faces of my wonderful customers at shows, this month I’m going to saddle up and ride off into the sunset.