Things I Make for Me: Hard Reset

* This post was originally written on the previous Tuesday, 8/19/2025. 

Today was a routine series of events. Actually, no. It was not. Because some days I'm highly effective, moving through my to-do list like a juggernaut, blasting things off of my plate.

That's not quite how things went this day.

Today, rather, was a series of mishaps and missteps, possibly not helped by too many late nights and too much creative ambition for my own good. For example, I tried to do a quick maintenance hit on my garden. A good, solid (but fast) watering for about 60% of my plants out of the way before hitting the studio for some quality creative time. 

What was meant to be a 10 - 15-minute task turned into a mess, as I splashed myself with wet soil, and a hanging planter came crashing down, damaging a plant. I found that several plants had become targets for bugs and furry critters looking for a snack, and I got eaten alive by mosquitoes throughout the whole ridiculous process. 

By the time I made it back inside, washed up, and headed to my studio, I was not exactly in the headspace to create. So I grabbed a simple, low-pressure project I had been wanting to tackle. 

There on my desk lay a ball of basic, natural, cream-colored cotton yarn. I had left it there to pick up in a stolen moment to make a big, fluffy pom pom, just for me. I wanted the pom pom to hang on a cute straw bag I own. But it hadn't been a priority because, well, it wasn't something I was making to share, sell, demonstrate, whatever. 

But the moment (and the mentality) called for a hard reset, creatively. The garden had discouraged me, and I was in need of an easy "win". So now was the time.

cutting out cardboard shapes

I'd made pom poms before, but it had been a while, so I was feeling a little rusty. I watched a few short YouTube videos, as you do, and I was on my way. 

Happily, the process was a simple, satisfying act of winding the yarn around cardboard and then cutting and tying the yarn.

wrapping the two shapes in yarn

It resulted in an imperfect (but pretty) fluffy pom, which I will later trim into a rounder shape before adding it to a keyring-style clip and putting it onto the bag. 

cutting the yarn off and tying

Having finished that small project, I was ready to move on to more involved aspirations. That small "win" sort of rebooted my nervous system and got me back on the creative track. And that, my friend, is one way I quickly reset my creativity. 

ready for a trim/shaping