what do you do at 4:30 am?!
I make them before the sun comes up. Most mornings it's 4:30am, still dark, coffee in hand. The house is quiet. In a few hours, I'll be in a classroom full of other people's children, giving everything I have, but right now this small moment is mine. A little scrap of fabric. Some fringe. A bead or two. A charm that says time. Mini prayer flags. One at a time. Twenty-five of them now. Wondering why I started this llittle project? Well, I want to be honest with you; late 2024 into 2025 was super hard. Health stuff, overwhelm, and that particular kind of exhaustion that comes when imposter syndrome and real life collide. I had a business I loved and enjoyed, but I had lost the point of why I was working so hard. I lost my joy for making art - Not all at once, just slowly, the way you stop hearing a song that's always playing. I took a full-time substitute teaching position to stabilize things. And I'm grateful for it. But I also watched my mornings shrink, my creative energy go to everyone else, and my own practice get quieter and quieter. So in February, I made a commitment. Not a loud one, just: I will make something every day for 100 days. For me. Not for content. Not for clicks.
For me. Twenty-five days in, here's what I didn't expect: The relief of making something and not immediately asking - Will people want this? I'm a course creator. Teaching is one of my favorite things in the world; helping women unlock creativity they'd convinced themselves they didn't have, watching someone pick up a brush or tear a piece of paper and feel something again. I love that work with my whole heart. But somewhere along the way, even my own making got filtered through that lens. Is this shareable? Does this teach something? Will this perform? I got tired of my own creativity feeling like content. I needed to make something small and portable; these mini pins are my answer. Some days, what emerges is strange and small and means everything to me and would probably confuse everyone else. I make it anyway. Some days I don't even post it. I just hold it. There's something almost radical about that. In two weeks, I finish my teaching position. I step back into my business full-time. Back to doing the work I built from scratch, the work that once made $60K a year before life got loud and I lost my footing. I'm not the same person who built that business. I think I'm better. Slower. More honest. Less interested in performing creativity and more interested in living it. These 25 little flags are proof that I never actually stopped. I just got quiet for a while. And quiet was exactly what I needed. If you're a woman who's been pouring into everyone else — your family, your job, your obligations — and your own creative life has gone a little silent, I want you to hear this: You don't have to make a big comeback. You don't have to announce anything. You just have to do one small thing. Before the sun comes up, if you have to. Even if no one sees it. That's how you find your way back to yourself. One flag at a time. 75 more days to go. I'll be right here making them. And in two weeks — I'll be back, fully. I can't wait to create with you again.
