The Creative Bucket List Club

creativity lights my soul and makes my heart sing - Emily Charlotte Powell

We’ve always been makers.

Long before we called ourselves artists or crafters or creatives, we stitched, carved, wove, painted. We told stories in patterns, in pigments, in pots and cloth and in charcoal and ochre on cave walls. We shaped the world around us with our hands; out of need, because of beauty, out of love. It’s a part of being human, this impulse to create.

And for as long as I can remember, I’ve felt an effervescent bubbling excitement at the endless possibilities of what my hands might make, of where my imagination might wander, of what magic might unfold from a few simple materials and a moment to explore.

The spark was ignited in my childhood, growing up in a home where making things was stitched into the fabric of everyday life.

I knitted scarves and gloves and crocheted granny squares. I built caravans for my dolls from empty boxes, drew wallpaper with felt-tip pens, transformed offcuts of fabric into colourful curtains, and filled them with cardboard furniture. I pressed flowers and turned them into cards. I made models from matchsticks and shaped bright coloured clay into animals, and flowers and jewellery and ladies with sweeping gowns and decorative hats. I made a clay hippo moneybox at primary school and painted it a glorious dusky pink. I sewed costumes for mice, carved ducks from wood, and made marquetry pictures from veneers of oak, ash, walnut and ebony.

And I drew, endlessly.

It was a world where creativity wasn’t just a hobby.

It was how we lived, how we played, how we dreamed.

And it remains to this day how I live, how I play, how I dream.

Creativity is woven through every facet of my life, not as a single thread, but as an infinite tapestry, of warp and weft. Refusing any pattern or consistency, but filled with bright ribbons of curiosity, intricate gossamer of fine detail, twining strands of instinct and wild imagination, scraps of ideas reworked into something new, and glimmering filaments of inspiration that crackle and spark unexpectedly, from the edge of a dream, the pages of a book, caught in the corner of my eye.

I’ve thrown pots on a wheel, dipped them in pale blue slip, and decorated them in spidering swirls and delicate feathers of cobalt. I’ve painted murals on hospital walls to brighten the space for those who pass through and on my own walls to brighten the space for myself and my family. I dabble in photography, capturing the stunning and intricate creativity of nature; the artistry of a blackbird’s nest, the delicate crystals of frost on the petals of a daisy, the play of sunlight on leaves. I scribble poems and prose when the words alight like birds on my windowsill. I have conjured velvety muzzles and soulful eyes, from nothing but paper and graphite, and summoned faeries and magic with the stroke of my brush

Creativity makes me feel more alive, it lights my soul and makes my heart sing. Endless excited butterflies of ideas and inspiration flutter in my stomach and flit up into my throat. The fireflies of imagination glow and pulse in the twilight meadow of my soul with never-ending enchantment.

And I want to fill my life with it.

With paint and paper, string and clay, wire and wood, fire and thread.

Here are just a few of the things on my creative bucket list:

✨Crochet another rainbow jellyfish
✨Make a lino print cat
✨Carve a tiny whale from wood
✨Stitch another miniature book
✨Sculpt a wire fairy
✨Create a highland cow from clay
✨Weave a wicker deer
✨Finish my magical cello music box kit
✨Pyrograph a crow
✨Press flowers, fold paper, write poems

And anything and everything else that lights that quiet spark of wonder.

wont you join me?

I have been making tiny bouquets of paper flowers and miniature envelopes as gifts for friends and loved ones. They are so simple to make and if you would like to try for yourself, I have created a video to show you how. I will pop it behind the paywall in a few days and future Creative Bucket List letters and resources, including more videos and Bucket list chat threads will be exclusively for Creative Adventurers (paid subscribers!)

I’ll send a tiny bouquet and letter, handmade with love and a touch of magic to anyone upgrading to an annual paid subscription in April, or, if you’d prefer, a little kit so you can make your own.

With wishes for endless inspiration,