It's day 26 of the 100 Day Project.

Or is is day 27?  Holy crap, maybe it's even day 28.  I know for sure that it's not day 30, because if it were, I'd be doing a check-in with Andrea and BB. 

Soooooo.....that's my 100 Day Project current moment snapshot.  I'm not even totally sure what day I'm on.  Because somewhere between the Day 20 check-in that we did (as part of #100DaysWithABC), and today, I've sorta stalled out.

It's been weighing on me, but not in TOO terrible a way.  I've been able to come back to my Day 1 commitments: to be gentle to myself, to give myself grace, to remember that this is supposed to be a chance for FUN and a daily dose of creativity, NOT 100 Days of Beating Myself Up.

I think I'm doing a pretty good job of reminding myself:  

​So what is this information telling me?  That's what I want to figure out.  So I sat down to do some journaling and self reflection, and as with so much of this project, it is both challenging and also enlightening.  When I can stay in gentle, mindful self study, it's actually really helpful and offers a lot of insight that I can apply not just to this creative project, but to so many other aspects of my life.

Maybe you are also feeling a little stuck, stalled out, de-railed, or paused.  Need some help gathering information?  Let's go!

(a.k.a. let’s figure out what flavor of stuck this is)

You don’t need to answer all of these. Let one or two tap you on the shoulder.  Then take a few minutes to free write your answers.  (new to free writing?  There's a quick definition and some tips at the bottom of this post) 
​

• What's coming up for me when I think about feeling  stuck and returning to this project?
• What was happening the first day(s) that I missed participating?
• If I had to name the first resistance (not the most logical one), what is it?
• Does this feel like “I can’t” or “I don’t want to”?
• What part of this project currently feels too heavy, too vague, or too rigid?
• What am I afraid will happen if I do it badly today?
• Where have I quietly raised the bar without admitting it?
• Does my current life have the capacity for how I originally designed this?

Here are some categories I've identified that seem to be many of the basic reasons someone might stall out or subconsciously push pause.  There are probably many more, but these are a starting point.  

Take what you've written and re-read it.  (be sure you aren't wearing your judge-y pants!)  Just notice themes, words that reappear frequently, emotions that are simmering under the words, or common threads.  Do they fit into any of these categories?  (and if they don't, maybe a different category comes up for you, that's great information!)

1. Loss of Spark (a.k.a. the Middle is Boring AF)
The beginning had novelty. The end has payoff.
The middle is… oatmeal.

• Not hard, not impossible—just weirdly dull
• No dopamine hit anymore

2. Misalignment / Drift
What felt right on Day 1 might not fit Day 42-you.

• The project evolved… but your “rules” didn’t
• You’ve outgrown your own container

3. Too Many Micro-Decisions
This is like decision fatigue’s annoying cousin.  Not big overwhelm—just death by 1,000 tiny choices.

• “What should I make today?”
• “What counts?”
• “Where do I even start?”

4. Invisible Rules / Perfectionism in Disguise
You've told yourself that you're to be messy… but secretly you don't believe it.

• “It has to be meaningful”
• “It should look like X by now”
• “I can’t phone it in”
• "It doesn't look like everyone else's."

5. Disconnection from Why
You started for a reason… but you’ve lost the thread.

• It feels like obligation instead of devotion
• You’re showing up out of habit, not desire
• Your "why" has changed. (spoiler alert:  that's allowed!)

6. Energy Mismatch / Real Life Shows Up
Your project asks for a version of you that doesn’t exist today.

• Requires focus but you’re fried
• Requires emotion but you’re numb
• Requires time you don’t currently have

7. Fear of Being Seen (or Not Seen)
A spicy paradox, sometimes with a side order of imposter syndrome.

• “What if people judge this?”
• “What if no one cares?
• "It will never look like theirs."

8. Being a Lone Wolf
Or maybe a Sad Panda?  Either way, doing it solo can SUCK big time.

• "No one cares whether I do this or not."
• Wishing you had some company or someone to show off to (just a little)
• Wanting some external validation of your efforts (not a bad thing at all!!)
• Wishing for a pep talk or some cheerleading, or someone to bounce ideas off of

Ok, we've gathered some info.  We've begun to identify the roots of the pause.  Let's shift into revving back up again.

If it’s emotional (avoidance, fear, comparison, loneliness):

• What would make this feel 10% safer to show up to?
• What is the lowest-stakes version of today’s participation?
• Does anything change if I decide to show no one what I'm working on?
• What does the world's most encouraging "art bestie" voice have to say about this?
• Where can I find some community and art pals to help keep me going?

If it’s structural (your rules are the problem):

• What rule can I break today without the project collapsing?
• If I redesigned this project for my current life, what would change?
• What counts as “done” if I make it wildly easier?

If it’s capacity (energy/time mismatch):

• What version of this fits in 5 minutes?
• What would “showing up while exhausted” look like?
• Can I make a placeholder instead of a masterpiece?
• Would it be easier to do my project in a different location or with different materials?

If it’s disconnection (lost your why):

• Why did I start this, really?
• What part of this still feels alive, even a tiny bit?
• What's different for me now than at the beginning?
• What part of continuing feels sparkly to me?
• If I let this project evolve, what is it trying to become?

If it’s boredom / middle slump:

• How can I make this weirder?
• What would surprise me?
• Can I introduce a constraint or a wildcard?
• Who can I reach out to for a pep talk?

This entire post was (selfishly) created for ME and shared with you in hope that it is helpful if you are also feeling stuck.  No shame circle, no judge-y pants.  Just me reminding myself and  you:  a pause is not a personality flaw.

It's not about catching up, it’s about finding my spark and re-engaging in a way that feels good to me.

So if you’ve drifted away from your project for a few days (or a few weeks), here’s your permission slip:

You don’t have to catch up.
You don’t have to make it good.
You don’t even have to make it make sense.

This is your invitation to just touch it again.

MY ANSWER:
Feeling proud of myself for getting this far in.  Definitely feeling connected and grateful to my community of Andrea & Brooke as we are doing this together. I'm feeling more connected to my new(ish-to me) art space and having more reasons to be in the space and creating.  I'm also feeling pressure at times and sometimes a little anxiety about making sure to keep up.  I'm able to stay out of guilt and negativity on the days when I have needed a break, and that feels a little surprising and also really great to give myself the grace and kindness that I had committed to.

I do my best to avoid participating in capitalism in ways that line the pockets of businesses and bazillionaires with questionable practices (like actively harming lgbtqia+ folks, exploitative labor practices, ruining the planet, etc) so I avoid Hobby Lobby, Michael's, Amazon, etc as much as possible. 

We have a Goodwill Outlet about 7 minutes from our house here in Everett, and I love digging in the bins.  If you aren't familiar with the Goodwill Outlet, it's different than typical Goodwill stores.  The outlet is the place where everything that doesn't get sold on the floor at the local Goodwills (in our case, most of them in Snohomish County and some North Seattle too) gets sent for one last chance for a treasure hunter to snatch it up.  Everything is dumped (and I mean this literally) into big, table sized, waist-high bins that shoppers can dig through.  All items are sold by weight.  So it's a great deal and a fun way to treasure hunt, but it is truly barely a step above dumpster diving! We love "digging in the bins" and I find some of the best stuff there.  I also hit up other local thrift shops (like the Assistance League), estate sales, and watch my local Buy Nothing group for cool stuff. 

I took pics recently of a while bunch of my mask & stencil goodies so I could share with you a bit of this collection of unique-to-me artful tools. Finding cool tools thrifted is almost a hobby all by itself.  One of the things I love best about it is that the things I use to create texture and pattern in my art making are often completely one-of-a-kind. It's fun to have stuff that I know no one else will be using!  When I can't find things second hand, I usually try to look for independent and small sellers, like Joggles and Stencil Girl 

These were from a huge set of wall stencils that I found in the bins.  It was originally an ocean scene with several stencils intended for layering, featuring coral, fish, kelp, and other underwater things.  I didn't want anything recognizable, so I cut them into smaller pieces, purposely cutting across the middle of fish and other objects to break them up, but keep the interesting organic shapes.  Once I'd done that, there was quit a bit of edge pieces of the stencil material, so I used that to cut free form shapes that felt interesting.

These were packets of things I found that were intended for use in scrapbooking or other kinds of crafting or card making.  The feathers were metallic cardstock and had dimensional sticky foam on the backs that I removed so they would lay flat.  The scrapbooking elements are die cut cardstock.  When I used the various words, I layer them over each other in lots of ways, so often you can't really read the individual words.  I like the look of the fonts and letters in my art, and I'm often using only a small portion of the paper that gets printed.  These are more elements that will build up fun colors as paint accumulates and then can later be used as embellishment in your work.

Are you old enough to remember when teachers used overhead projectors in the classroom?  I was lucky enough to find an entire box of blank overhead projector sheets at an estate sale and I knew I'd be making some masks and stencils with them!  The stone shapes were drawn freehand and I love using them to create cairn type arrangements. The designs in the other pics were all drawn by me, using a sharpie or acrylic paint marker.  For the knot-type shapes and simple funky rings, I drew the shape and used a wide chisel tip to go over it to get it as wide as I wanted them to be and then cut using scissors + X-acto blade.  The sigils were created based on words and phrases that I wanted to incorporate into my art, so each one has a special and unique meaning.  This link gives some basic info about sigils and is close to the method I used to create mine. The knot shapes are something I doodle frequently.  I love having things like this that are highly personal and show up in different ways throughout my art making, giving even deeper layers of meaning and personalization!

I used gingko leaves I collected and photocopied them so that I could reduce and enlarge the sizes.  This way, I could get the true gingko leaf shape, rather than relying on my memory.  I liked being able to make some bigger and smaller, and then once I ran the copies, I used carbon paper to trace around the leaf shapes.  You'll notice I left the top of the paper that was pulled out of a bound notebook, because it adds more shape and texture when using as a stencil.  I also saved both the positive and negatives (so the masks and stencils) to use.  I don't worry about cutting through and leaving a line in some of my stencil shapes - the X-acto can start to hurt my hand and the stencil not being perfect doesn't bother me.  In order to get true, nice monstera leaf shapes, I laid plain paper under the leaves of my plant (still attached!) and traced around them with a marker.  If you don't have access to fun, tropical leaves, take some paper and a marker to Home Depot or a nursery near you and trace some of their plants! Then I used the copier to enlarge/reduce the monstera leaves to get a variety of sizes.

The foam sheets were hand cut into these funky shapes that match a shape I doodle frequently.  They are sticky-backed, so once I'm done using them on my gel plate, they'll be an easy embellishment for an art journal.  With the foam, you can also use a ball point pen or a poky tool to etch texture onto the surface, which will show in your print making.  The teacher tools are something that featured the entire alphabet.  I knew that the lamination would make them resist the paint and be a nice stencil/mask surface.  I hand cut these simple flower shapes with scissors and use both the positive/negative images. You can't really tell in the photo, but the circles are just cut into from the sides, no X-acto knife (hurty hands, remember?)  I found a bottle of dimensional glue and was actually trying to do something completely different with it (that didn't work) when I discovered that it dried really nicely on cardboard and I loved the seed pod shapes that I accidentally made.  The window clings are another surface type that resists paint nicely and you can often find lots of different shapes, or you could cut pre-made shapes into something more unique to you.

The craft kit pieces are made of crepe paper so they have a very interesting texture.  This is something else I love about digging in the Goodwill Outlet bins - want the leaf pieces in the craft kit, but not the rest of it?  Take out what you want and throw the rest back in the bin!  The nice thing about these leaves is that the wire allows them to be bent into shapes and makes them very easy to lift up off the gel plate when I'm done pulling a print.  The mystery plastic thinga-ma-bob actually came in a package about about 50 and I grabbed around 10.  I have no idea what it was supposed to be for, but the X shapes pop out and can be used as masks and the remaining square then makes a great stencil.

These hot glue shapes are super fun and easy to make.  I use silicone baking mats (also pulled out of the bins) and my hot glue gun and create all kinds of fun shapes.  I have lots like these flowers, but also big, sheet-sized stencils in random patterns.  Once the glue cools, you can peel it off the mat and use it on the gel plate.  If you don't have a silicone mat dedicated to art'ing, I've heard that freezer paper also works pretty well.

If I could make one request to everyone I know who is out there making art and getting creative:  PLEASE DON'T purchase paper new.  We need the trees (and water and other resources) more and there is SO MUCH PAPER out there in our world already.  I use lots of paper that is headed to the landfill or recycle bins.  Sources I find/use:  coloring book pages, old textbooks, graph and notebook paper, old homework pages, sheet music, cookbook pages, packing paper, office papers, posters, junk mail, outdated manuals for appliances, old employee handbooks....seriously this list could go on for a VERY long time!

Old books with outdated material are a great place to find cool diagrams, random drawings, or just text that often gets covered over.  Dig through your kitchen junk drawer, save the packing and wrapping paper that makes its way into your house.  I love finding old notebooks with handwriting or notes from years and decades before.  When I go into Seattle, I look for the phone posts with thick layers of posters and find the outdated ones and pull off big stacks of colorful printed and lettered paper.   I like the layered look of text and writing and little imagery peeking through.  And many times, if you are pulling gel plate prints, all of it gets covered up anyway!