I was contacted recently by a lovely felt crafter who had purchased a bottle of Powertex at the NEC some time ago, but hadn’t managed to work out what to do with it yet! It’s a common trait of crafters, isn’t it? We all think, ‘that’s a good idea, I’d love to give that a try sometime...’, buy all the kit & then never get around to having a go!

Now the world is opening up more – hugging, socialising, visiting – it’s time to treat yourself to a bit of ‘me time’. Or as life coach, Jackie Meek puts it ‘essential maintenance’! As we try to fit more and more into our lives now, the stresses and anxiety of the past year can become difficult to put behind us.

Essential Maintenance helps us to build our resilience and be the best person we can be. After such a testing time, it’s important to recharge our batteries, boost our self-esteem and spread our wings a little. That can be a bit daunting though, can’t it? But if we don’t love ourselves, who will?! It’s the little pleasures and essential maintenance that helps to get us through the daily grind.

Like many people, we’ve missed out on a few holidays abroad in the last year and nobody can say for certain that we will be able to seek out sunnier climes this summer either.

We are lucky to have our Cornish Artistic ReTreat, Valley View but that’s (thankfully) all booked up with visitors through the spring and summer 2021 so we won’t be able to enjoy any time there ourselves until later in the year.

Our enforced ‘staycations’ in the UK have made me really appreciate the fantastic country we live in and whether it’s countryside or coast, we are trying to make the most of what is on our doorstep.

As artists, we are constantly looking for inspiration in our surroundings and travel gives us the opportunity to experience a whole different view of cultures and surroundings. For some, the sense of wanderlust, the strong desire to travel, cannot be suppressed for much longer! With this in mind, I’ve been searching the Powertex supplies for an amazing selection of travel themed items.

So where do you want to go first?!

I’m a big fan of making lists but over the past few months I’ve got out of the habit. I just didn’t feel the need as much. I suppose because life was so different, I wasn’t juggling Artistic ReTreats workshops, my own art classes, studio work, Valley View bookings and family stuff – I was focussed on home schooling and not much else!

To ‘spring’ into the month of March, I excitedly created my first ‘to do’ list of the year. Is this a sign that things are starting to open up and I need to think about what my new ‘normal’ will be in 2021? Yes, I think so! But after the satisfaction of making the list, I came a little unstuck, I was out of practice in the art of actually completing the tasks and didn’t achieve as much as I’d hoped.