Link Love for the Weekend: Encouragement

The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination.

John Schaar

My blog is about things that makes me happy in everyday life. It’s about being gentle with ourselves and others, and to share encouragement and hope. I like to every now and then highlight the community, other bloggers and things that I like, personally. Today I am sharing some great links that I hope you’ll enjoy, click through to and find encouragement in. I am sharing all of this in the hopes that you will find inspiration to be creative in your own life.

Lots of links today as well, because there’s so much goodness out there right now.

Creativity & inspiration

• Shine your light – creative encouragement and a collage exercise (to download) that I want to try in my art journal. Lucie writes (and this could be our NaBloPoMo theme of the month):

Now, more than ever, is the time to find your allies, connect with people who share your values, spread love and generosity, and build communities! There will be a lot of ups and downs but we have the power to lift each other up.

Lucie Duclos

• Circles and Stripes for Challenging Times by Jane Davis
• Blogging is part of my creative practice by Tammy [via DaisyYellow] – a blog post about the intersection of images (photography) and words on a blog, and how to work with that. I love the title of this blog post because it feels like a writing prompt to me, so I might use it as that and share my own thoughts later. But first, you go check out Tammy’s blog.

Textile art & craft

• The Truth About Knitting and Crochet….They are Good for You [via the Craft Yarn Council]
• Organize Your Sewing with Threadloop – a new app designed just for sewists – I’d download it immediately if I didn’t know I’d be organizing all my fabrics digitally for days and ignoring them IRL (in a horrible loop I’m sure, not kidding)
• NaKniSweMo 2025 – National Knitt a Sweater Month is also in November, who knew? At least I’ve never heard about it before, but I do love a fun abbrivational challenge. Maybe next year, huh? [via Laura at the well-appointed desk]

Reading & writing

• eReader Peace [also via the well-appointed desk] – this blog post (and a previous post about different brands of e-readers, including the comment section with recommendations) about what’s available out there peeked my interest in e-readers for the first time. As someone who loves physical books I have ignored that so many people are reading books digitally these days. Not sure it’s for me, but at least now I know more and I got a bit curious. Maybe I’d enjoy reading more digitally if I had a dedicated e-reader? Would it lessen my book clutter a bit perhaps?
  • Do you have an e-reader and what is your thoughts about it?
• On setting low goals and reading my way through the year: how I read 56 books [via Casey Brown]. Quote:

…the only book goal anyone should ever have is: one book. Because if you read one book per year that is a great year. But I also set my watch fitness goal for 5 calories so it congratulates me when I stand up and put my socks on in the morning. It’s not that I don’t want to be challenged, it’s that all I ever do is SO MUCH and I don’t need anyone or anything telling me that anything I did wasn’t enough. I want to keep reading because I love it and refuse to ruin it by self-imposed pressure to read more.

Casey Brown

As someone that reads a lot of books but would never set a numeric goal on my reading, I absolutely love this quote and the entire idea of setting a low yearly goal (if you really must set a reading goal). I think it is brilliant. I’d add that if you aim to read books, aim to read good, enjoyable books. That is the best way to keep yourself motivated and to keep reading. When I am reading a slow book or one that does not speak to me, I am not as eager to pick it up so it takes me longer to finish it and get to the next one. But if it’s a good one, then I race through and can’t stop reading. That truly is the road to success if you want to read “more”.

• 18 pieces of writing advice by Tao Lin – quick and easy tips on how to keep writing

Important but hard

• The path forward – to read if you’re in the US and in need of a little encouragement right now [via Ben Sheehan]
• Creative response [via Anna Brons, Creative Fuel] – Art is rebellion.

This week’s NaBloPoMo finds

Picking two silly blog posts out of a whole crap ton of beautiful, smart, interesting content. I think I needed silly this week.

• Things I say to my cats by Stephanie – just a sweet and fun confessional read, as are the comments.
• Top Five/Bottom Five: The Emoji Edition by Elisabeth – quick and fun idea, and the comments are also worth reading. Here’s my quick reply:

Video to watch

Craft time.

I was so tired last weekend that I couldn’t get a Link Love post out, and I almost gave up on NaBloPoMo. But then I remembered a text that I had written the previous week about art materials and thrifting, so I published that with a random image and called it Creative Maximalist. It’s a bit of a confession and very personal to me, but it felt good to get “something out” that was pre-built, almost. If I ever do NaBloPoMo again I’ll try to have a lot more planned posts. As it was a spur of the moment idea to do this challenge of one blog post every day for a whole month I have been a bit stressed out about it. Jumping in meant I had nothing pre-planned at all. But yes, I am on track so far, with only a week to go.

A huge thank you to everyone who’s left me a comment this week. That has been very encouraging to me.

This concludes today’s blog post, with some link love for the weekend. I hope you enjoyed it. I also hope you are feeling encouraged and ready to tackle what ever comes in your way.

Which of these links will you check out first and are dividing the links up by approximately topic a good idea? Do you also share link love to helpful resources and lovely blog articles on your blog? And if not, why the heck not? Link Love is our glue.

❤ You might also enjoy my previous Link love for the weekend: one thousand things

This post is part of NaBloPoMo where I write 30 blog posts in November. Thanks for reading and leaving me a comment, that will help me finish this challenge. To follow along subscribe to blog posts via email or RSS. I also have a sweet Substack Newsletter about art, craft and creativity that you might want to sign up for so that we can keep in tough in the future. I’d love that. On instagram I’m @ihannas and on YouTube Studio iHanna. Take care and stay creative friends.

Sign up for the Studio iHanna Newsletter here

Books on art, crafts & creativity

Stitch with love online workshop with iHanna