Do what you loved as a kid

Children have the biggest amount of creativity, because they don’t yet know the boundaries of what is possible and what isn’t. That’s why you should absolutely think about what you loved doing as a child, either once or regularly. We usually remind the things we loved doing the best, so this should not be too hard. Maybe you really liked drawing with no prompt or fingerpaint. Maybe you really like playing with your mom’s make up products or tried to design clothes. Also think about what you liked doing and seeing in nature. Many of us forget how much inspiration and creativity a forest or meadow can bring into our lives.

Create something similar to what you usually do

Do you already like drawing random doodles with your ballpoint pen? Maybe you should try making a mixed media painting out of one of your doodles by adding watercolor or alcohol markers. Maybe you really like baking chocolate cupcakes and should try to make your own recipe or a cake that has a lot of details. Think about what you already do and how you can create an outside of the box version of it. Getting out of that routine will usually give you a boost to do new creative things more often because they feel rewarding.

Pick up a new creative hobby

Whether you’ve been wanting to try something new or not, you should really start that new creative hobby. Have you seen a lot of gouache paintings recently that you wanted to recreate? Get a small set of paints and start trying to use it more often. Or maybe you’ve been wanting to learn how to dance or sing. Find a group or teacher for the things you struggle with committing to, but don’t be too rigid with your routines either. Creativity should balance you out just as much as it challenges you.

See what you can take from a different medium

Especially in the age of online short-form video content you might see inspiring visuals that you should try drawing. One of my favorite examples for this is sketching people’s progression of movement in dance videos. It can be as easy as trying to paint a sunset with acrylic paints or as hard as challenging yourself to get better at proportions of the human body. Another idea if you are a visual thinker is reading poems rich with metaphors and descriptions and painting something to them.

Change your routine

This tip is not spoken about enough. A lot of our creativity is lost to being in a dul routine that we’re not trying to break out of. Often this is because it takes so much energy to break out of a routine, but if it’s done right it will give you some form of energy back. For some people that is energy through social connection and for others it is just being in a new environment. Both instances can be heavily inspiring to our creative side. Maybe you should try doing some of your admin work in the local library or have a weekend picnic. Even if it doesn’t give you all the creativity you want, it will certainly give you energy for something. That can be work, conversations or creating new systems in your life. 

Make creativity a daily habit

This one is also a tip many don’t take to heart as much as they should. You don’t need to spend one hour daily on being creative, because that might be unsustainable. What you can do is adjust your daily creative output to your energy levels. Personally, I’ve had the pact with myself for 3 years to write something every day. That could be a journal entry, a blog post, a social media caption, a short fictional text or a summary of something I’ve learned. Because of this variety I rarely had a day where I didn’t write something and my English has gotten amazing during that time. The same can be applied to drawing, nutrition, movement and many more creative things.

So these are some of my tips for how to be more creative. These have all helped me to stay creative and made me feel less guilty for task switching between creative activities. Don’t put yourself too much into a box unless that box is a system you can fall back on when in doubt.

I have written more about getting out of an actual creative rut in a little eBook for my email subscribers. It’s filled with ideas and prompts to get out of that silent mental space. Go check it out:

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Coloring book

Coloring is meditative and helps you focus. Two mindful things that will concentrate you on the present moment. And if there is one thing about being present, then it’s the absence of negative emotions. I often color things in on my iPad if I have a bad day or struggle with my concentration in any way. 

Collages

Physical or digital, doesn’t matter. Collecting nice pictures, colors, and words and putting them together into one neat concept will always be satisfying. It is also a great exercise in optimism if you make your collage about your goals and dreams. I haven’t made one in a while but I know so many people that simply make a little Pinterest board whenever they feel stuck.

Challenges in sandbox games

Creativity doesn’t have to be limited by fixed visuals and animation. You could start up a sandbox game like Minecraft and do creative challenges, alone or with others. When I was in my late teens I had entire phases where this helped me relax in the afternoon. Let out the inner child a little bit and have some fun.

Writing based on prompts

As someone that has been both a non-fiction writer AND a fiction writer as a hobby, I absolutely love how helpful it can be to just take a prompt and create something around it with words. Being caged in by a prompt can really spark innovation in how you attempt writing. Note to self: I should really do this again, I haven’t written fiction in a while. 

Painting challenge

For example, making paint blobs on a piece of paper and using a liner to make them into little monsters. Or you could challenge yourself to draw 5 different styles of houses. Anything that is challenging takes all your focus and that is what we need to distract ourselves from a bad day or mood.

Put together outfit ideas with your closet

Another thing I have on my own to-do list currently. We often wear the same type of outfits or don’t think about them at all. That’s why taking a bad day to just create outfit ideas and look good in the future might be a really good idea. Also helps with self-confidence. We all have that one piece of clothing we don’t know how to combine until we actually take time to figure it out.

Do a visual meditation

I absolutely love doing these. It’s not something that works for everyone, but if those visual journeys from elementary school relaxed you, then you should really try this again. Imagining positive places and situations in your mind can be such a mood booster. I sometimes ask myself why I haven’t done a visual meditation earlier once I’m done with one.

These were some creative activities for bad days. There are more in my free mini-eBook about getting out of creative ruts. I also included a prompt list in there in case you are interested. Get it sent to you by joining the newsletter squad:

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What do you want to show on your profile?

This is a great exercise, no matter if you’re just starting or want to reset your goals for your account a little bit.
– Which topics do you want to post about?
– What niche is your profile gonna be a part of?
– What type of pictures you you wanna post?
– Is there a strategy you have to posting (tiles, rows, etc.)?
– What colors would you like to be prominent?
Knowing these things can help immensely with planning ahead with your feed and preparing content to post.

How to get great pictures

The best case scenario is that you already have a great digital camera or a DSLR with a tripod. Don’t worry if that isn’t the case, your phone is perfectly fine for taking Instagram pictures, but be aware that the camera facing you always has worse quality than the one facing away. So you might want to grab a friend to take pictures with if you wanna post lots of pictures of yourself. Plan your feed ahead and what should be in the pictures. Having an inspiration board on Pinterest might help with that.

All the planning ahead will help you with batching the content. Take all the pictures of you on one day with someone else and all the pictures you’re not in on another day. Then edit on a third day and you might end up with enough content for 3 months. I personally lay out my future feed in the app “Preview.”

My tips for the most common pictures

Flatlay tips

– Have different backgrounds
ex: white table top, colored paper with your branding colors, contact paper with patterns, blankets
– Have decor fitting to your niche
Fashion – Sunglasses, a Vogue and a bracelet
Beauty – Lipstick, Nail Polish and brushes
Crafts –  Paint, brushes, glitter
Studygram – text markers, sticky notes
– Always try to rearrange the props multiple times to have more options when your want to edit later.
– Have your hand or legs in Flatlays to make them look more lively.

Headshot tips

– Have something white to reflect light from under your face or the side depending on where you are sitting for the picture and where the light is coming from that you want to balance onto the other side of your face.
– Try out different smiles and loosen up your face in between so you don´t look like you hate everything internally.
– Look into the camera, not the viewfinder!
– Don’t put on too much make up unless it is true to you. I personally always have colorful lipstick on in my headshots because I feel 10/10 while wearing them.

other self portrait tips

– Make a secret board on Pinterest and accumulate your favorite pictures and analyze the poses.
– You will learn with time and have random ideas. I also don’t make the nicest pictures when it needs to look realistic but photogenic. Being comfortable makes a big difference.
– Props can help a lot with hand placement!

How to edit the pictures

Depending on what kind of pictures you want to post there are different apps and programs you can use to edit your pictures. On my phone I personally use VSCO and Snapseed the most, sometimes Facetune. If your pictures are a little bit more experimental I’d suggest PicsArt or Procreate for iPad.
If your content has a lot of quotes or graphics in it I’d suggest Canva. It’s not that good at filters but it’s amazing when it comes to illustrations, fonts and creating templates. AND it has Instastory templates you can use.

I personally also use Lightroom. It’s an Adobe program for your computer (there also is an app but that’s not really my fav) that lets you go super in depth with editing pictures. I made some filters on there that fit into my Instagram feed. You can either use it through Adobe Creative Cloud, or you pay a decent amount of money once and then have it forever (which is what I did. It’s not as expensive as paying for it monthly)

What to check for in your analytics

If you wanna do this like a professional Instagrammer and blogger, you obviously need to check your analytics to cater to your audience a little better. First of all you should find out who is seeing your content until now. Young girls? Middle aged women? Men in their 20s? Find out how to work with that or if you just wanna ignore that and start fresh.

Then find out which days are the best for posting and what time is your time to post. This might change with time and may be dependent on where your followers are from. Mornings and evenings in a workday are a good time to post in my experience.

After that you can check which pictures you posted in a certain time frame got the most impressions, likes and comments. I tend to go after impressions and comments since likes don’t say THAT much, but if you’re still a small account it can absolutely make a difference too. This is the analytics that I check the most together with the best time to post.

Instastory tips

Instagram Stories are an important feature if you want to connect to your audience and wanna seem more human. If you tend to post a lot of perfect pictures you definitely want to show the more real sides of you too. Talk about your day, give tips, have story times, use the little features Instagram gives you.

If you want to have nice looking stories I’d suggest the apps Unfold, Nichi & Canva. Unfold sadly switched over to a monthly fee for new templates (which I think is a little over the top), Nichi also has a monthly fee, but only for features you might want to add, which is nice. Canva is mostly free, but also has a monthly option if you want to have access to everything on there (which I don’t suggest unless you’re also using their desktop version and all of their stuff for more than just Insta). Canva is the only app that lets you export videos too. Unfold can only do that on iOs.

Be social on socials

You can be as active and perfect as you want on Instagram, the followers only come through hashtags that work with your content and you actually being social on social media. Comment under every post you see with something that actually makes sense. Share cool posts you find on you story. Ask your followers questions in your captions and in your stories. DM people compliments or answer to their stories if you have something to add to it. Livestream to connect to your existing followers. If you can, you should do little giveaways every now and then. All these things will help you grow and make new friends on the platform.

Wanna expand your business?

In my opinion you should put your eggs in multiple baskets and a good way to do that as a social media addicts is through your own blog. You can send your followers to get advice on your blog or create freebies for them. There currently is a flash sale going on at Ultimatebundles.com with a bundle of digital products all about blogging. Dozens of products for a fragment of the usual price. I think you should check that out HERE if you wanna go all professional. Don’t need all those resources at once? I linked the must haves down below.

You’re just starting out? Here are my recommendations.

You’re just starting out with blogging or simply search for new ways to further your business? I have a few recommendations for you:
Bluehost – my hosting service for the last 3 years, I’m super happy with it!
Grammarly – this tool makes sure my grammar is right in all my social media posts.
Tailwind – Tired of manually pinning every day? This tool helps you get your pins in front of a bigger audience and I’ve been using it for a year now.
ConvertKit – Want to start an email list to generate more sales or just to keep your readers updated? This is a great service to use.
Blogging Bossbabe – a course I made for all the people wanting to start a blog and make it successful. Everything you need to know in one place and affordable if you want to save some $$$.
Blogger Starter Pack – a completely free email course that helps you with the basic beginnings of starting a professional blog. Sign up for it down below and get started now:

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The ultimate Instagram Guide by Rabea

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Notebooks and Journals are an obsession for a lot of people but they are never really used effectively. That’s why I wanted to give you some ideas on ways to fill a journal to use it more frequently and actually improve your life.

Gratitude Journal

This is by far my favorite way to use a journal. Write down 10 things you are grateful for everyday and try to not repeat yourself too much. After a while you will notice a difference in your daily mood and mindset since you search for more an more things to be grateful for. You can even write down a mantra everyday to put it into your mind more. That helps a lot when you wanna build confidence and give yourself a confidence pusher everyday in the Gratitude Journal. If you need a pre-made gratitude journal you should try THIS.

Art Journal

As long as you don’t use super high end products or alcohol based markers you can use almost every notebook as an art journal. I personally always make little watercolor paintings in the back of my bullet journals when they have pages left at the end of the year. Even with thin paper you can still use fineliners and practice outlines and make little studies on how to draw certain little things. There are tons of resources on Pinterest and Tumblr for that. Moleskine has a specific art notebook line that you should check out if you wanna start this.

Diary

This is the most obvious option of what to do with a journal. It might come off a bit weird for an adult to have a diary but it is actually super great to get your emotions and stress out. If I am overwhelmed I write it out to get a clear head and organize my thoughts. Trying to use a journal at least once or twice a week actually makes a difference in how stressed you are and how you manage overwhelm. I personally use a Leuchtturm 1917 lined notebook for this or write on my computer.

Business & Brainstorm season

I have a journal like that for almost three years now and it is super helpful. I write down any ideas I get for my blog or business and brainstorm ideas for projects in it. I also use it to write down things I learn about marketing and similar things. You could also track your followers and sales in there. If you don’t have a big hobby or business you could just use a journal like this for big life projects or big goals to write down actionsteps. For example: I wanna get into acting more and I can write down to look into acting groups and agencies, etc.

Bullet Journal

You have seen it everywhere and some of you might already have one. The basics of the bullet journal method are actually great for everyone with a lot of tasks and stress. Most people have a bit more fun with it artistically and add pages into their bullet journals that someone using it for the pure effectiveness of it wouldn’t do. I personally switch up my spreads very frequently based on my workload and how much I actually open my bullet journal. For my bullet journal I use the Leuchtturm 1917 dotted notebook with Sakura Mircon Fineliners.

These were my favorite ways to fill a journal. I personally have a bullet journal, business journal and diary at the moment but wanna start an art journal again. Tell me what you use your empty journals for in the comments under this post.

If you need more ideas on how to be creative inside and outside of a notebook you should check out my free mini ebook about getting out of creative ruts. It has a ton of ideas and inspiration sources in it. You can download it in my freebie library which is accessible after signing up for my newsletter:

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It’s officially holiday season and that means the struggle of gifts is starting. Especially with creative people it can be hard to think about something to gift to them that’s not too cheap but also not too expensive and that’s why I made a little gift guide for creatives.
*This post contains affiliate links.

Artists

Can you gift an artist art? Yes, but here are some other ideas since that’s not the only way to give an artist a great gift.

Good watercolors

Getting good watercolors can be really hard and sometimes really expensive. But it is totally worth it to invest in a few colors as a gift. Since good watercolors can be mixed better you should be good to go with 3-5 colors. I personally love Schmincke watercolors because they are super high quality and last forever. You can also check out Etsy for people who make watercolors themselves in little sets and support a small business in the christmas season if you want to.

Big Magic (Book)

This is the number one book to gift to creatives. It’s all about the struggles and life lessons of a creative and how to get through different phases of being a creative. I read it two years ago and to this day I remind myself of little things from the book. Elizabeth Gilbert also wrote “Eat Pray Love” and is in general the ultimate creative that I would take advice from.

Blogging / Building a business

In the digital time we live in more and more young and old people have the idea to start a blog, a shop or an online business. Helping them out with the start is one of the things that will make an impact forever.

Bluehost

If you want to start a professional blog, shop or portfolio the number one thing needed it always a hosting service for the website. I personally use Bluehost for this blog and never had any problems with it. The price might be a bit high but starting a business is a longtime investment and putting in a hundred dollars for this will go a long way. I have a Bluehost Review coming up soon to help you decide a bit easier.

Tailwind

A blog needs views and the easiest way to get attention to your blog is Pinterest in most niches. I personally love Tailwind to automate all my Pinterest postings and let it pin for me without needing to be on the page everyday and pin manually. This is a big help and all the big bloggers are using it. I recommend investing in the yearly package since there are more pins included which helps tremendously with traffic.

Creative Market Credit

A good creative business has a good branding. Finding nice fonts, graphic elements and pictures for a blog, shop or business website can be hard but on Creative Market you can find everything in one place. I wrote a whole post on my favorite blog designs from there and love the little packs of graphics. I personally use this page a lot and don’t want to miss it. You can give your friends a little coupon and give them Credit on the website after they created an account and they can take it from there to buy little things.

Writers

Writers also seem a bit hard when it comes to gifts. I personally consider myself a writer with all my fiction stories, novels and blog posts I write every year and my answer is easier than you’d expect.

Good Books

Writers need inspiration and good books are always appreciated. I wrote a whole post on life-changing personal development books that you should definitely check out. I personally prefer personal development books since I think creatives need the practical tips in them but if you know that someone loves to read fiction novels you should definitely check out the bestsellers there.

Home Decor

Writer sit in front of their computer a lot and that is either on a desk or in bed. Gifting them little home decor items from pages like Society6 and RedBubble can make a big difference. They can even me writing themed, full of book quotes or have motivational sayings on them. I personally have shops on both websites and would love it if you would check them out and might even leave me an idea for a new design in the comments below so I can diversify my portfolio.

This was my little gift guide for creatives. There are a lot more things to make others happy with but I hope this post could get your mind going with ideas. Always remember to support small businesses, self-employed people and local businesses!

Oh…almost forgot! I have gifts for you that you can have right now! I have a whole library full of free downloadables. They are all self-care, personal development and business themed. All you need to do to get them is signing up for my newsletter for free:

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Creatives need a platform to connect with other creatives and potential customers. Youtube is a great way to achieve that and I will tell you why every creative should have a Youtube channel today.

This blog post contains affiliate links*

You can share ideas easily

If you are like me you have tons of ideas every day that you share with only one person or nobody. Through videos you can share way more ideas and excite others for them. If you are good at presenting ideas this will be a great way to make new customers and even if you are not good at presenting in the beginning you will get better with time.

You learn SEO

SEO is the short word for search engine optimization and is pretty self explanatory. You will learn how to improve videos to rank higher for certain search words. I personally use a tool for this which made it 10x easier. It’s called “Tubebuddy” and if you are just starting out you only pay 4.50$ for it to scan through youtube for the best tags, show you your best video SEO and tons of videos on how to use TubeBuddy and YouTube better.

You can start multiple income streams from there

Videos are a great central point to send viewers to other pages. This is a great way to make an income through multiple techniques. Most youtubers have merchandise, some have an art store (i.e. Etsy) or get supported through Patreon. There are a lot of ways to make a little extra money and make it your main income with time. I think Patreon is a great way to start out with since it’s fairly easy to make people excited for your projects.

Share tips with new creatives

Since you can film yourself through your processes and your growth with time you will be a great source for tips for other creatives. If you are already good in a field you should totally share more about your experiences and knowledge to make it easier for others to grow. I personally always like to share advice on mental health and blogging since I’m into both topics for a few years now and want to make it easier for others that might not know as much.

Make videos for your blog posts

If you are already a blogger after my post on why every creative should have a blog you can totally make videos that go with some or all of your blog posts. I made videos for some of my longer and more important blog posts and it is a great way to make two things out of only one written piece. You can also start writing blog posts based on videos you made, it goes both ways.

This is why every creative should have a Youtube channel. There are a lot more great reasons but some of them need to be experienced before you can truly understand what I mean. Building a community is one of the most beautiful things ever and everyone should do it in my opinion.

Do you want to get into blogging first? I made a whole course just for blog beginners to have an easy start and it is still growing with new content. Check it out HERE.
Need motivation to start? Download my free Motivational Printables from my resource library. To access the library you only need to sign up for my newsletter here:

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As a creative you are constantly overwhelmed by things you could try out and create and this can be very costly. That’s why I took the time to gather the most important tools you´ll need as a creative and put them in this post. Invest in these things if you are a creative!
This post contains affiliate links.

High quality watercolor

There is a lot of watercolor out there but a lot of them aren’t really something you would use everyday. I personally own very few high quality watercolors but I use all of them pretty frequently. Investing in some really good ones will save you time and money in the long run…unless you are so amazed by them that you empty them quicker than expected. I personally own THESE ones and a cheaper option that I would use on the go is THIS option.

Washi Tape

I don’t mean that you should own boxes over boxes full of washi tape. Buy all the basic colors and a few very cute ones and you will use them pretty frequently. If you love to make gifts or you simply just decorate your planner a lot you will use them so much and it takes a long time till they are used up so you don’t need to buy them every year. This isn´t a must for all creatives but I wanted to include it since a lot of you love these a lot. For the start I would recommend THESE ones.

Canvas & Acrylic paint

This sounds more expensive than it actually is. I mostly buy my canvases very cheap in dollar stores or stores similar to that. Most of them are 2-10$ and are totally fine to work with. My acrylic paint also is almost always a cheap one. I´d recommend THESE or THIS one. I just love to sit on an art piece a few afternoons in a row and destress. It’s a great form of self-care. If you need a bit of inspiration you can check out my Drawing Inspo Pinterest Board with all kinds of art forms on it.

Water based markers

These are a bit more on the expensive side but you can do a lot of cool things with them since they are water based. I love them for my planner but also to refine my watercolor paintings. A lot of people love to use them for hand lettering and other fun stuff. I personally want to recommend the Tombow dual markers. They are by far the best ones if you listen to the planner and bullet journal community.

Adobe CC

I didn’t forget the creatives that love to work digitally and I know you will instantly think “Ugh, Adobe. It’s so expensive!”…you´re not wrong, but it is definitely worth it. Especially if you are still in school/college or in some kind of relation to places that give discounts on Adobe CC. I use it and love it. I mainly use Photoshop and Premiere, but also want to get into Illustrator, InDesign and After Effects. There is so much to learn that could help you make some extra money.

Procreate (for the iPad Pro users)

This is something a lot of you won’t be able to use but I wanted to include it for the people that already use an iPad Pro. Buy a freaking Apple Pencil and the Procreate app. It’s an investment but I love it. I love using Procreate for all kinds of things and also use the Apple Pencil to make notes in an app called Good Notes. If you are a big brainstormer like me or just love to sketch out a lot of thing really quick this is definitely for you.

These are the things you should invest in as a creative in my personal opinion. Feel free to tell me which of these you want to invest in next.
If you need some tips on creative ruts you can download my mini ebook about breaking a creative rut in my freebie library. You can access it through signing up for to my newsletter for free:

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