rediscovering playing

It was a tough week last week and I really felt the need to relax and revitalise my soul this weekend, nothing fits this bill better than surrounding myself with colour and texture. All too often lately I have been fixated on the end product and forgetting to enjoy the journey. So I dug around in my crafty stash and pulled out tissue paper and oil pastels - just the vibrancy of these colour was enough to bring a smile to my face

I had so much fun playing with all these, my favourite effect was to place the tissue paper on some card and use watered down PVA glue to leech the colour out. By swirling and scrunching the paper I go lots of interesting effects.

I then experimented with the pastels, dragging them over silky card and then using my finger to smudge them gave really interesting texture, whereas using baby oil on a piece of cut and dry foam spread the colour more evenly to create some beautiful sunset backgrounds.

Of course my husband and sons reactions was to giggle and ask what on earth I was going to do with all of this (and who was going to clean up all the mess!) but sometimes it does us good just to 'play' and I was so much more relaxed and happier that it was better that any therapy. I'd love to know how you use your creativity to relax.