Here’s a little story about a Christmas tree. 

Inspired by reading Braiding Sweetgrass I wanted to take the time to get to know the tree I had brought into my home and give thanks for its gifts and growth. So it’s based on a true story, or as much of a true story as I could find about the life of a Nordmann fir.

I’ve loved putting this together, just like I loved putting together my Pup’s Tale at the start of lockdown. Next year I hope to do lots more semi-narrative work like this and spend lots more time being grateful for the gifts all around me.

Taking the time to reflect on the things and experiences I’ve loved in a year has become something of an annual tradition. It’s nice to be able to look back on what’s sparked joy in previous years (here are the lists from 2019, 2018 and 2017) and to share some goodness with all of you.

As a post format, it’s pretty self-explanatory so I’ll jump right in. But before I do, I just want to say no one has paid or encouraged me to share any of the things that are on this list. They’re things I have loved all on my own.

Running

If there’s one thing (besides the global pandemic) that has shaped this year for me, it’s running. Last year I found the joy in moving and reconnecting with my body. I had hoped that this year I would continue to work on my strength and mobility in my favourite Frame classes, but unfortunately the pandemic put a pin in that dream. So instead, I somehow learned how to run. Now running is a huge part of my weeks. I run three times a week and clock up around 16 miles across those 3 runs every single week. It’s a release. It’s a way to get out and see my local area. It’s a way to manage my anxiety. It’s a reminder I’m a person in a body and that body can do so much more than I give it credit for.

My bathrobe

For my birthday this year I was very kindly gifted a bathrobe. The time I spend in that robe is my best time. I truly shine in the small luxury of being wrapped in white towelling. It’s like being in a spa or fancy hotel as you step out of the bath or shower. It’s a reminder to take time for myself and that I’m worthy of a little luxury. It’s also just fun to wear.

Imagining Future Space

It wouldn’t be one of these lists if I didn’t share my favourite thing I’ve made in the year. This year, that’s definitely Imagining Future Space. It’s the most ambitious thing I’ve ever made. It’s a piece of speculative design to try to get people (myself included) thinking about more imaginative and potentially positive futures so that we can try to make them happen. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of making it from developing the idea and questions to creating the illustrations then coding the site and chatbot support tool. Even more than that I’ve loved seeing people engage with it. Check it out if you haven’t already!

Tiny tea selection box

Christmas last year, my Dad got me a selection box of tea pigs tea. I duly put it at the top of our kitchen cupboard to be saved for a special occasion or when we had guests so I could offer them any tea their heart desired. But then no one came, because of the pandemic not because we’re hosts. So I forgot about the box. Until late into October when I decided I didn’t need to wait for someone special to drink the tea, I am someone special. Since then I’ve been treating myself to a special tea on a weekend and trying some blends I would never have sought out otherwise. Take this as your reminder not to save all the fun things for a special occasion, any day can be special if you want it to be.

My new notebook layout

I made a whole blog post about how my new notebook saved my mind. But I want to take the time to share the new layout I use here as a 2020 favourite. It’s taken me so long to find the right balance in a working notebook between sketches and notes and cataloguing, but the method I have now is just the right balance and has just enough flex to feel sustainable. Taking physical notes has grounded me in a sea of screens and video calls. There’s nothing like the feel of Rhodia paper under your pen and hand.

Friday treats

Some time in the autumn, between lockdowns, I started a habit of walking out to a local bakery on a Friday to pick up a sweet treat to celebrate the end of the week. It’s become a real source of joy and not just because I love cake. It’s great to have a reason to get out in the middle of the day and step away from my laptop. It’s also been so good to have an excuse to visit lots of local small businesses and meet the people who run them, even if I’m doing it from 2m away while wearing a mask.

Weaving

I took a weaving course in January at The London Loom (FYI I book all of my classes in London through Obby, and you can get £10 off your first class with this referral code). It was a brilliant introduction to the craft. I’m so glad that Francesca not only sets you up with all of the skills you need but also sends you home with the little frame loom, comb and needle that you use on the day. I’ve continued to practice and make my own body weight in bookmarks, tiny tapestries and coasters and its been a joy. I’ve loved honing my skills and making practical things. I’ve shared lots of my woven goods and that’s taken the joy to a whole new level. Speaking of a whole new level, I can’t say enough good things about Allyson Rousseau’s online classes, she’s taught me so much.

New home

Finally I moved out of my giant house share into a little two bed flat with my boyfriend in February and I’m so glad we were lucky enough to find our own space before the pandemic closed in. I love our space, even after spending every single day within its walls. I love having a home I feel comfortable in and have already had lots of happy memories in. I love having a bath and knowing which tea towels are clean too.

While there are certainly pros to working at home, I have really struggled with staying engaged on the endless video calls that now make up the majority of my working days. With everything being mediated by a screen I’ve missed the physical nature of workshops, research and even just being in the office.

The one thing that’s really helped recently is taking physical notes.

I’ve been a handwritten notes person for as long as I can remember, but whenever I’m stressed or tired it’s a habit that can slip. Unfortunately, that’s usually when I need my scribbles the most. There’s catharsis and putting your thoughts on a page. There’s also a huge benefit when your memory is shot because of anxiety to being able to go back through those thoughts and not have to hold them in your (scattered) brain.

Unsurprisingly, when lockdown started and everything in my head started to fall to pieces a little bit, my note taking fell away too.

That was until I watched this notebook video from Megan Rhiannon. Megan uses her notebooks far more consistently and in far cleverer ways than I do, as they’re a support tool for her autism. But there was something about how she talked about her notes, and the way she organised them that reminded me of my love for notetaking. 

So, in the manner of all great new endeavours, I bought a new notebook. A new notebook that was exactly like the other notebooks I’ve used. I will probably go to my grave with a Rhodia Webby clutched at my side. 

I bought a new notebook and set it up to be the perfect notebook for me to use exactly how I wanted, no pressure of anyone looking over my shoulder. It’s got margins for titles, dates and to dos. Inspired by Megan, it’s got coloured dots to categorise, because this new notebook isn’t just for work notes. It’s got space to draw and plan, to sketchnote and to take longhand minutes of research sessions. 

It’s got everything I love and it’s been so good for my mental health.

I say it’s been great for my mental health not just because of the memory and emotional support writing things out gives, but also because it gives me something physical to ground me when I can’t breathe for video calls. It reminds me I’m real and this is all real, because it’s tactile. 

I wanted to share some of the things that I think went into this being the notebook set up I think I’ll use for years going forward, because I know how hard it is to find something that works. There’s no substitute for trying things out and seeing what sticks but these are my top tips.

Make it easy

I see people with really fancy journals with collages and calligraphy and they’re gorgeous. I’ll admit I’m envious. But I’ll also admit that I will never ever have one of those journals, because it’s more effort than it’s worth for me. It should be easy to pick up your notebook and get going. I set out my margins in advance. Ruling off sections and only worrying about a title in the margin mean I can get going right away. Feel free to indulge in some new stationery, especially if you can shop small for it, but in my experience you have to play to the tools, strength and time you’ll have to hand in the moment.

Make it something you enjoy

If you’re going to make a habit of notetaking, it’s much easier if you enjoy doing it. I love to add silly little pictures to my notes so I make space for it; I never got on with lined paper because it didn’t. I love the feeling of writing in a ballpoint pen on the specific paper I had; I got frustrated by the notebook where I decided to only work in mechanical pencil because it lacked that. I love adding those little coloured dot stickers, each one feels like a reward. It’s okay to have fun in your notes, even work notes, in fact I encourage it.

Make them quick to review

You should be able to go back through your notes and know what they’re talking about. That sounds obvious. But if I had a page for every time I’ve had important bits on the corner of a page or not been able to quickly flick to a dated note, I’d have a Rhodia as thick as Moby Dick. That doesn’t mean that you have to go by date, or in columns, vertically or horizontally. It means know why you’re using your notes, think about what you’ll need to find or sort later and make it easy to find.

Periodically I get fixated by statistics. I get obsessed with counting things, with measuring. It might be steps, it might be pages read, but it might also be my social media figures.

When my online figures go through the analytical machine and get spat back out at me, I’m almost never happy. These are figures that I don’t have a healthy relationship with. I feel lessened from their perceived lack or not quite satiated by their perceived growth. Either way I’m left feeling empty and not quite good enough. 

I’ve been focusing on them a lot recently, perhaps it’s a sign of idle hands, perhaps it’s an inevitable side effect of all of my doomscrolling, perhaps it’s me trying to find some outside validation while I can’t see other people as much.

To let you see what I see, here are my social media stats as of 18th November (ish) alongside some of the meaning I give them. This ended up being a weirdly cathartic exercise for me where I tried to take two difference perspectives on the numbers.

I’ve steadily seen a decrease in Instagram figures this year and an increase in blog numbers. My pinterest can vary wildly hour to hour, I think there have been points where it’s been in the millions of monthly views and in the tens of thousands. 

Without context, these numbers mean absolutely nothing. With context, I’m not sure they amount to much either.

I’m present enough to understand that social media statistics are not exactly correlated to “creative” success and also that follower counts are used by certain potential clients as a qualification for consideration. I can see that paradox in my mind as well as the personal one that says while a lot of my illustration work comes through personal connection so word of mouth rather than hashtags should be important, the work I share has led to many of those personal connections. I can even grasp that social media statistics are not a signifier of my success and not directly correlated to anything that I want in my life but that I also understand them as a marker of success for others.

Ultimately, I think it’s paradoxes that have me paralysed when it comes to these statistics. 

I care enough for it to niggle away at me but not enough to make content that just pleases an algorithm. 

If all I wanted to do was increase the numbers I shared I’d start to tag more brands and “influencers” in my work, I’d create illustrations and graphics in formats that were more on trend, I’d focus solely on optimising. Perhaps it’s a false sense of my own abilities, but I think I could do it. I’d never be a power player but I could certainly do a lot better.

But I don’t think that’s what I want to do, because while playing the slot machine-like game that is social media could be fun, it sounds unfulfilling and frankly even more dangerous for my mental health.

So, the logical conclusion, the one I get to every time I have this argument with myself, is don’t care about the numbers, just make whatever you want to make and be done with it. 

While I can follow the logic of “why feel bad about something that you’re not focused on changing?”, I can’t make it stick. It’s not so easy to ignore messaging around certain statistics as a signifier not just of success, but of quality. It’s not easy to detach yourself from platforms that have become the primary way to promote your work. It’s not easy to fight against millions, billions of dollars of social engineering. Especially if you’re not able or willing to turn off every figure.

I still see social media as a big part of sharing my work, but I can’t live trapped in the paradox of whether or not to care about the stats it comes with. So I made myself this decision tree tool to help me make sense of what those numbers mean and what I should do about them. Every option comes with an action, because I’ve found that just sitting with the same information does absolutely nothing for me. 

This month I made a book full of collages. The first sketchbook I’ve finished in who knows how long. 

After inktober, I was feeling nostalgic from school art lessons. I missed making to learn and having someone else set me challenges. Every term’s project at school started with an inspiration gathering exercise that always included a good week of collaging. We would spend hours searching through magazines and draws of art cast offs to find hidden gems that sparked some joy. Then we’d assemble them into a beginning to an adventure. 

I feel like I’m back on the start of a journey with my art, so I went back to those pages of pasting to ground me. 

I also wanted something that would feel like pressure free making in a different way to inktober. That exercise had been all about the mechanics of drawing, now I wanted something that was all about feeding the magpie in me and having fun. My favourite part of any piece is the deciding what to make. 

Cutting up all of our discarded Big Issues and any other scrap paper, washi tape and flat paraphernalia I could find really was a throw back. I think I spent as long finding good bits of pattern and texture as I did trying to pull them together as something coherent on a page. 

I ended up making what felt like alternative worlds and spaces. I think I was inspired by Emma Carlisle’s sketchbook club and all the tiny zines Austin Kleon made at the start of lockdown. They were abstract combinations to escape into rather than the literal mood boards I created when I was sixteen. That said they still got me thinking. The act of finding corners of beauty and interest and then collaging them into something new made me reflect on the compositions I choose, the contrast in what I make, texture and perhaps most surprisingly and importantly what I want to say with what I make. These pieces said nothing directly and got me trying to fill in all of the blanks.

Making a collage book is incredibly intuitive, but these are the steps I took if you want to take an afternoon to make and make meaning for yourself.

Make your own collage book

1. Gather up your materials.

These can be anything flat enough to stick down. Any old magazines or newspapers you have can be a great start, but if you don’t have any or many of those you can turn to packaging, tape, fabric, leaves, postcards, photos. Like I said, make a pile of anything flat enough to stick down.

2. Cut anything that you like, be a magpie.

You can either go with a theme or question in mind as you leaf through, like we did at school, or just go with an open mind and eye. As you look through try to pull out parts of images rather than full pictures. I often find it can help to hold whatever you’re looking at upside down to try to find something new in it. I cut out my pieces using a scalpel and a cutting board, but you can’t go wrong with scissors and ripped edges can offer some lovely softer texture. Try to have a mix of shapes and sizes by the end. If you’re collecting over a longer period of time, I highly recommend keeping bits in an envelope – you don’t want to lose your treasures!

3. Piece together, play on a page.

When you’ve got an envelope full of good stuff, it’s time to put it together. I’d recommend tipping everything out so you can see it all at once. Pick up something you like then try combining it with other pieces in a range of combinations until you find something that sparks some joy. I used a little muji notebook I already had in my draw as a canvas, but if you don’t have a spare notebook you can make a tiny one using these instructions.

4. Stick down and add any flourishes.

After moving your elements around, hopefully you find something you like and you want to capture. So, the only thing to do is to stick it down using an appropriate glue (pritt stick works for most things) and add any hand drawn flourishes. So many of my collages felt like worlds so I added a few trees and houses as well as some pops of colour that I couldn’t find in my paper stash.

5. Fill your book and come back to it when you’re feeling stuck.