Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone!

We officially made it to 2026! I hope your holidays were filled with exactly what you needed—whether that was a lot of productivity or absolutely nothing at all.

If you caught my last post, you know I was reaching a breaking point with "performance" blogging. I was tired of feeling like I was turning in a term paper every time I hit Publish. Well, I’m happy to report that the winter break was the perfect "reset" button. I traded the smell of school acrylics and the stress of cardboard gingerbread houses for my own journals and zero deadlines.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t pick up my phone to doomscroll as much as I thought I would. Instead, I spent a lot of time exploring my city, journaling and leaning into the community side of my creative life. I had a meetup with Bay Area Paper & Plans, the stationery and craft club I started, and it was exactly the soul-fuel I needed. We spent the day making vision boards and just chatting—no pressure, no "grading," just vibes.

I’ve decided that one of my goals for 2026 is to keep this momentum going. I’m planning more events for the club with the goal of meeting up at least once a month. In fact, we already had our January event on the 17th! Our "craftivity" for the day was making Bingo Boards and Punch Cards (because who doesn’t love a little gamified productivity?).

It turns out, when you stop treating your hobbies like a second job, you actually want to do them. Imagine that!

I’m heading into this year with a "done is better than perfect" mindset. So, expect more random life updates, more raw art shares, and definitely more of those "occasional typos" I mentioned before.

I’m so excited to see what we all create this year. Let’s make 2026 the year of low stress and high creativity.

Cheers to the New Year!