Present for Grandma:Kitty cat keychain, a collaboration with my daughter Birdie(Censored text on the tag is Birdie’s real name, which she wrote herself.)A drawstringgift bag for the kitty keychain! Grandma loves the ocean and pastel colors.A drawstring pouch with beads on the string for Birdie! She picked the fabric.Birdie modeling one of my homemade scrunchies!Two sock dresses I made for dolls I restored, featured in this YouTube short.A dress I sewed entirely by hand for my niece because my crummy first machine crapped out on me right before my flight to go visit her!
These examples are not at all in chronological order, nor are they the full catalog of everything I’ve done! They’re just some recent projects I’m proud of.
One of the biggest regrets I had about quitting blogging was that I had nowhere to document my sewing endeavors! Solo pen on paper journaling has never worked for me in adulthood, blogging holds me accountable to a schedule, and sharing on purpose makes it feel more worthwhile.
Learning machine sewing on a bad cheap machine (Singer Esteem ii) was unbelievably frustrating, but free is free. Our ex roommates left it behind. I think in the end it made me a better sewist, the biggest problem with cheap machines is that they don’t tolerate mistakes.
Now I have since upgraded to a slightly better machine (Babylock Joy. NOT sponsored btw.) and in comparison it sews like a dream. I can see a lot of ways in which an even more expensive machine would be better, but this does everything I need it to, and it does it consistently.
Sewing is not for the faint of heart, but it is for anyone who is passionate about textiles. It can be really frustrating, but it is so unbelievably rewarding. I encourage anyone with any curiosity about it to just give it a shot. If you love the process, you will overcome any obstacle that comes your way, just for the satisfaction you get when you succeed at making something. It’s addictive!
I am by no means a patient person, and learning is very difficult for me. My passion overrides my shortcomings in this instance. If you’re afraid of just getting started, see if maybe that will be the case for you. It might not be for everyone, but if it’s for you, once you pick it up, you’ll never want to stop.
I will definitely write more about this topic in the future. But for now I need to let good enough be good enough and just publish something. It’s been a really long week, and I’ve been putting off a lot of creative projects because of other responsibilities. I want to at least publish two posts a month here, if not on a weekly basis.
This is a mini poster I created for my closet door as a constant reminder of what I’m doing and why. Also makes a good TLDR for this post!
What
This year I will not be buying anything from the following five categories:
Clothes
Art Supplies
Fabric
Books
Dolls & Toys
Why
First of all, it just so happens to be convenient timing that I am starting this challenge at the beginning of the year. It could have been the middle of August and I still would have chosen to do a 365 day No Spend Challenge given the circumstances I had put myself into. This No Buy started on the 15th of January and will continue until the 15th of next January.
Let’s talk about the circumstances that led to me taking on this challenge:
I realized that I had prioritized buying little plastic women over my physical needs, when it occurred to me how much trouble I was having sleeping on my old mattress. With no money left to address this issue, I hit a rock bottom.
Debt is something I have feared for most of my life after seeing my parents struggle under the burden of it. So the fact that I got into even a small amount of debt in order to pay for a DOLL of all things absolutely baffles me. Retrospectively I really can’t believe I did that!!
One shouldn’t use pay-in-4 for a piece of plastic. Going into unsecured debt for things we can objectively live without, especially novelty items, is honestly ridiculous. I am really glad I realized this before I had done even more damage.
And while I do love many of the dolls I purchased, I could have purchased them slower and more sustainably. It would have been wiser to spread out my purchases in order to fit them into the confines of my small budget, instead of stretching my budget to fit my voracious appetite.
Not to mention how spoiled this was making my daughter, since I share my collection with her. I saw it affecting her too. She got used to frequent shopping trips and would influence me to buy even more. I’ve had to explain this No Buy to her and apologize for my behavior. I’m grounded, I told her! Surprisingly, she has taken this quite well.
My goal is to deprioritize shopping and no longer have it be a hobby for me. I am sick of feeling like anything short of prowling through thrift stores is boring, and I’m running out of space for more stuff anyway!
Most importantly, I want to embrace an abundance mindset and appreciate what I already have.
How
Not buying things isn’t always as simple as it sounds, so I had to make a plan of action. Each category has its own plan so I will break this part into five chunks.
Category #1: Clothes
Not only do I have more clothes than I actually wear on a regular basis, (despite having a notably smaller wardrobe than practically everyone I know,) but I’ve also spent much of the last year learning machine sewing and the basics of garment drafting and construction. If I am truly in need of something I can ask around or sew it myself.
I believe this category will be extremely easy. I will also not be needing any new bags or accessories. Shoes likely won’t be an issue either because I already have a backup replacement of my everyday shoes waiting in my closet. My hardcore minimalist phase taught me I need significantly less clothes than I had originally thought.
Category #2: Art Supplies
I’ve done this before. I only made it to the end of October, but 10 months of not buying is still a big deal and a huge victory in my books! However, I am confident in my ability to stick it out through the whole 12 months this time.
In my opinion I have not been using what I have enough to justify how much I own. In fact I’ve actually been continuously on a Low Buy since that initial No Buy, and I still feel like I have way too much, even after many rounds of decluttering.
I feel like I make more art when I’m limited to just one art supply, like a single ballpoint pen, which is kind of what I’ve been doing lately. I tried Inktober again this year, and for fun I decided to make it Pinktober. I was only allowed to use pink art supplies. This mostly resulted in me only using a pink ballpoint pen. I am still working on that challenge and that sketchbook!! It might take me all year but I will get it done eventually.
I am going to count jewelry making supplies in this category as well. Findings can be purchased if necessary to complete a project, but any beads or charms will have to wait. I have plenty already. And I have polymer clay, as well as resin, to make my own! It’s even more gratifying to make something completely from scratch anyway.
Category #3:Fabric
This one is a little more complicated, because I am still very much allowed to acquire fabric, I just can’t be spending any money on it. This is because my local library has a fantastic fabric swap, apparently we have a huge local quilting community! There is so much fabric I can acquire for free, there’s really no good reason for me to spend money on this category.
Notions can be purchased as necessary to complete a project. However, I’m required to shop my stash first and see if there isn’t a suitable substitute.
Category #4: Books
Quite simply, I do not read physical books enough to justify buying any more, and I am running out of room to store them!
Thanks to the ADHD I’m far more of an audiobook person, I process books better and remember them more clearly when I’m listening and doing something simple and repetitive with my hands. Like drawing, or hand sewing!
I have a fantastic library system at my disposal, that comes with a large catalog on Libby as well. This is a privilege denied to many. It’s not like I don’t use it though, more than half of the books I’ve purchased come from my library’s book sale!
Considering my very limited income, it’s silly that I’m spending any money on books that I don’t even read when I could just check them out instead. Libraries are awesome!
Category #5: Dolls and Toys
Ah yes, the category that started this whole thing! It was really hard for me to add this, everything else is so easy in comparison, but it is probably the most important category for me to tackle. It sounds so silly because mass manufactured toys, mere fancy pieces of plastic, are not at all essential.
The fact of the matter is that I was being influenced into purchasing more than I really needed to. I have noticed it has been quite easy not to buy dolls because I have significantly cut back on my doll related media consumption. When it comes to dolltube, I only watch restoration and crafting videos now. I am not allowed to watch shop-with-me, hauls, unboxings, or review type content anymore.
Even though my YouTube channel about my doll hobby originally started with thrift haul restorations, I have decided to change my focus but keep making videos. I am going to make the kind of content I want to see, doll appreciation videos that do not center around buying and accumulating.
Primarily I will be restoring dolls I already own, sewing them clothes, and crafting accessories for them. I will also openly discuss my No Buy whenever it feels relevant. I have stopped calling myself a doll collector and moved towards the label of doll enthusiast instead.
In conclusion
I really just need to de-center shopping as a hobby and pastime. I already see the benefits and it hasn’t been that long. At the time of writing this, it has been 21 days since I’ve made any purchases in any of these categories. I’m past the acute withdrawal stage, I no longer feel a burning desire to go to the mall or hit up a bunch of thrift stores. I blocked eBay and Mercari on my phone as well, so that I would not be tempted by scrolling. In fact, I have these websites reroute to the shopping addiction subreddit using a site blocker add-on for Firefox!
Place your bets now! Will I succeed with a home run? Absolutely no purchases in any of these categories? Will I have just a few slip-ups here and there, getting right back on the horse every time I fall off? Or will I throw in the towel before Spring is over? Only time will tell!
Wish me luck, and hold me accountable, I’m going to need it.
I found that I miss blogging about my art and crafting endeavors very much, and I’ve considered returning many times, but I haven’t set aside the time to do so.
The “cocoon project” as I called it, in which I stopped posting any art online for a year, did have its benefits, but it went much further than the one year I planned on. In the end there was a point in which it stopped being beneficial, and I found myself needing to share my work again. Maybe that means it’s finally time for me to break out of my cocoon and try out my new wings.
I restored most of my old posts, culling only what I truly didn’t want in my archives anymore. I had thrown them all into my drafts. I couldn’t bring myself to really delete all of them, and I’m glad that’s the case. I painstakingly made sure to keep them in their original post order, though unfortunately in some cases the true original publishing date or time is off by a bit. WordPress makes it a little too easy to mess that up!
Recently I have found myself becoming a little bit of a YouTuber. I’ve been making videos about restoring dolls, which includes some sewing. Machine sewing is a new skill I took on in the last year. I found while learning sewing I felt a strong desire to blog about the process of learning this brand new skill I have wanted to acquire my whole life.
I’m also taking on a 365 day No Buy challenge of certain 5 categories of items, which includes art supplies as well as dolls and toys. The need to blog about this has been eating at me! Sharing my journey strengthens my resolve and gives my challenge purpose.
So yeah, I’m back. I have to be! This blog is the closest thing I ever had to a consistent journal and in retrospect I can see the tangible benefits of maintaining this blog during the time I did. I deeply regret that I ever left. I know I was feeling overwhelmed, but a simple smaller hiatus would have sufficed.
More to come, hopefully quite soon. But for now… I need a nap! See you later!
AKA: Why I haven’t posted in 6 months, and deleted all of my old blog posts.
It came to my attention that I was feeling overwhelmed by sharing my art online. So I decided to stop, and not just for a little while, but for an entire year. My intention behind this act is to take time to “cocoon” myself and my work from the outside world, to just focus on making self-indulgent art, so that I can better get to know myself as an artist.
Someone, probably a YouTuber, said the way to find your style is to just draw the things you love drawing. Style emerges in the way we solve problems, the way we tackle capturing a subject. Because I focused too much on appeasing my audience, I couldn’t find my style, as I wasn’t focusing on drawing only what I love.
Believe it or not, you don’t actually have to be capable of rendering any subject thrown at you in perfect photorealism in order to be an artist. It’s actually okay if you only ever draw anime girls. You can still be a successful artist by focusing on the subjects that actually capture your attention. Especially if you change the way you measure success!
…
Note from January 30 2026:
This post was never actually published. I let it collect dust in my drafts. It’s unfortunate that I left without explanation, but I was just so burnt out I didn’t have it in me to finish this post.
(Since I don’t know exactly when I wrote this I will guesstimate 6 months after the post that preceeded it and make that the publishing date!)
To continue off what I was saying and bring this post to an actual conclusion:
…
If sharing your art is overwhelming you to the point where it makes you afraid to create in the first place, you don’t have to. It’s okay to keep some or all of your art to yourself. It’s okay to only make “comfort art” and stay in your comfort zone, it’s okay to never actively try to get better at art despite all the pressure from the art community to do so. Simply showing up and making stuff for the sake of making stuff will give you far more than all the forced practice and study that you don’t even enjoy and eventually give up on ever will.
This wasn’t relevant at the time of the original post, but it is now: in a world where pictures can be generated at the click of a button, all human-made art has significantly more value. What you create is special because it is uniquely yours. Just because there are significantly less job opportunities for artists now doesn’t mean we need to lay down our pens and brushes in defeat. Continue to create as an act of resistance. Splatter paint, doodle stick figures, throw random found objects together… All in the name of expression and communication from your unique human soul.
In retrospect, there is something so special about sharing your art with a tiny audience. Find the people that will love and appreciate what you make exactly as it is in this season and don’t bother trying to appeal to the masses. Be yourself and the right people will come.
Touching just one person deeply matters so much more than barely skimming the surface of millions. I have found that the genuine connections I make with a little handful of people is so much more important to me than clout and fame ever could be. The heartfelt conversations we’ve had mean the whole world to me! Rather than parasocial acquaintanceships, I can build actual long distance friendships.
Some of my most favorite songs, illustrations, YouTube videos, etc. come from TINY creators with virtually no following! I am so glad they shared their work in spite of that. And besides, everyone starts somewhere. Sometimes you start niche and then fame happens randomly, but you’ll never know if you never start.
I’m reviving this blog because if I can help even just one person, that is more than enough for me. I have seen it happen, I have done it before, and it’s been done for me. Being niche is not a failure. Sometimes it is even a huge asset.
Sparing the gritty details and drama, my dad-in-law and his girlfriend broke up. Since she and her 3 kids all moved out, a lot of room has opened up in our house. The best part is that we have been given permission to use a room with not one but TWO built-in desks! This is now officially our craft room.
These are my Before pictures, I took them before touching anything in the room.
Already looks pretty tidy right? Well… Yeah that’s an illusion. All of the clutter is hidden away into every storage compartment in the room. In every drawer, behind every cabinet door, and lurking in the closet is LOADS of unsorted miscellaneous stuff. A lot of it is trash, and the rest needs to be donated.
It’s a lot more work to declutter other people’s things than I expected. Even with absolutely no emotions involved, there is so much physical labor in pulling everything out and sorting things into donation boxes and trash bags! Not to mention the mental labor from the amount of gross stuff that needs to be touched. Yuck.
Once everything is cleared out and cleaned up, only then will I start moving our art supplies in. Then I will try my best to organize everything in a way that not only looks good but functions well too. I look forward to sharing the finished product with you all!
I do not wish to cause anyone envy, so I apologize if this post comes off as braggy. That was not intended but I suppose it’s somewhat unavoidable. I do recognize how privileged I am right now because I haven’t always been. I grew up in severe poverty and so a desk shoved into a corner is all I’ve ever been able to call my “studio” up until this point! I am just very excited and simply cannot contain it. Please allow me to share this journey with you, as I wish the same amount of luck and fortune for you as well!
Until next time, take care, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Rather than resolutions or goals, I prefer to set intentions. Feels more open-ended and flexible.
My art related intentions for the coming year are:
Try to fill at least one sketchbook from each category, yes including watercolor! (If I manage to do this in 6 months, I’ll shoot for 2 of each category!)
Carve out time for watercoloring. Yes, it’s more difficult with a toddler, but she does go to school now so I really don’t have an excuse anymore!
Speaking of carving… Work on those linocutting skills!
We’re either at 12 or 13, the most recent number I wrote down is 10. I’ve filled 2 for sure but maybe 3 since then.
I can’t recall when the travel sketchbook I finished up recently was completed, but I know for sure we finished up two (a medium white and medium black) in the last few days. I’m pretty sure we’re at 13 but I won’t know for sure until I go through the finished sketchbook bin and count!
This is such a funny milestone to reach. Only 4 years ago I had never filled a sketchbook from front to back in my life, now I can’t recall for certain the number of books I have filled.
Here is a small sample of some favorite pages from the 2 sketchbooks we just filled up. I say “we” because my partner and daughter both draw in my sketchbooks too! This time around there’s a lot of Beastars studies. I’ve been drawing from referencing the manga, I love Itagaki’s style and I’d love to emulate it in my own anthropomorphic work!
I want to make an attempt at doing sketchbook tours in video format in the near future. A lot of people are moving out of our house soon which will free up a lot of room, I’m hoping to have a place to record in private. All I have is my phone, I don’t have any fancy equipment, but I figure it’s worth a shot either way! Stay tuned…
Until next time, take care, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
These aren’t my best work, but that’s the point! I’m learning a new set of skills: hand lettering and brush calligraphy.
I’ve never had good handwriting. It’s usually quite legible, but it’s not neat and tidy. So many girls I went to school with seemed to have beautiful handwriting by default, while my handwriting was more like that of most boys.
However, I was lucky enough to be taught cursive by my mom when I was in kindergarten. My generation wasn’t taught cursive in elementary school, but those times had been recent enough that they still had the instructional banners on the classroom walls. So I never forgot how to write in cursive and I think that has been a huge benefit for present me who is trying to learn brush calligraphy!
Drawing letterforms has always interested me so I have dabbled in hand lettering before. I’ve also been fascinated by design and typography for a very long time, so it’s something I have an eye for even though I’m not yet skilled in doing it myself. When I make something that looks good, I know it. But the same is true for when I make something bad, which is far more often currently! But that’s the point of learning, and the point of shamelessly making bad art, one day my skill set will have grown to the point that executing my ideas properly will come more naturally to me.
I think I will include something to do with practicing these skills in my New Years resolutions for 2023! I’m not sure what exactly that will be yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.
Until next time, take care and have a wonderful day!
On day 27 I did a very low effort sketch and filled the rest of the page with journaling about how burnt out I was feeling.
Undertaking any art challenge comes with the risk of burnout. Inktober is a 31 day challenge that asks you to create 31 inked drawings in that time period, and even assumes you will work at a 1:1 day to illustration ratio. On top of that, it is probably today’s most popular art challenge, meaning you have endless options for art to compare yours to, which adds a significant amount of pressure to make each illustration good.
Inktober is the perfect recipe for burnout, and many artists acknowledge this. Some artists simply refuse to do Inktober for this exact reason. I decided to take it on anyway, knowing full well the potential consequences. Thankfully I took steps to make it easier on myself, and I know I would not have completed the challenge otherwise. Despite my efforts to streamline the challenge, I am still left feeling incredibly drained! Even as someone who draws almost every day for pleasure, Inktober really pushed me to my limit.
Currently, I don’t even want to take photos of my Inktober drawings. Looking for a place with good, consistent lighting and then setting up my desk easel and then meticulously framing each shot… It all sounds like too much for me. I’ve also been waiting for a sunny day that probably won’t come, November is very cloudy and rainy here, so I will end up having to settle for subpar indoor lighting and photo editing. More work for me!
It really doesn’t help that problems in my personal life have come up at the same time as I was working through this challenge. Even without a day job, I find myself overburdened with responsibilities. Currently I am juggling: Raising a one year old, caring for three cats (including one who is elderly and terminally ill,) house chores, running errands, countless appointments with Doctors and the like, caring for myself, my romantic relationship with my partner, and a primarily text-based social life. It is important to note that I also struggle with physical and mental disabilities! I think the fact that I completed all 31 prompts within the 31 day period is nothing short of a miracle.
Honestly, the truth of my victory is messy. Sometimes I would push off my other responsibilities until the next day, or stay up too late and sacrifice my sleep so I could work while our baby slept. Ironically, I seem to do my best work while tired, so this worked both for and against me. I often had to sketch ahead of time to account for the days I would just not be feeling up to creating. Sometimes I would just count starting the illustration as a victory and then work on it little by little in the days following. This experience has made me incredibly grateful that I don’t sell my art for a living, and especially grateful that I rarely take on commissions.
Now I question if I will ever do Inktober again. Maybe when our daughter is older, and by then we will also have less cats. While I am extremely satisfied by my success and all that I learned through this challenge, I’m not sure if it was worth the blow I took to my mental health.
I am excited to share what I made with you all, but please be patient with me while I heal and rest. Take care of yourselves, have a wonderful day, and I will see you again soon.
Do I regret attempting to go an entire 365 day year without buying any new art supplies? Absolutely not! Is it time for me to admit defeat however? Ultimately, yes.
This isn’t to say that I’m now going to go on a wild shopping spree and buy every single thing that has tempted me over the course of this year! I intend to continue on with a Low Buy for the foreseeable future. I want to buy new supplies on a “need” basis, rather than just because I’m itching to try something new. There’s no need for me to buy, for example, chalk pastels if I haven’t already come up with a project in my head that would benefit from having that particular supply.
Earlier this month I decided I wanted to make my 1 year old a low hanging gallery wall in our shared bedroom with simple artworks for her to admire. The biggest problem with this though, is that we had run out of nontoxic art supplies! The crayons we had bought for her to use were constantly going in her mouth, so we would dispose of them as she’d break them to prevent a choking accident. I needed her to be able to touch the art, even rip it off the wall and chew on it if she so desired. Nontoxic supplies are an absolute must for a project such as this.
And for a while I had been wanting some cheap water-based markers for coloring pages and quick washes of color in my sketchbooks. I love my alcohol markers but they always ghost and sometimes bleed through pages. They are also inherently more expensive, even though we use the inexpensive Ohuhu brand, so I am a bit precious with them. Using them for coloring pages feels wasteful somehow, even when it’s my own lineart I am coloring!
So I caved, and I bought a 50 count set of Creatology water-based markers. (NOT sponsored.) I have to say, I am extremely satisfied with this purchase, and I find they were worth breaking my No Buy over. And with this purchase, I was able to do what I set out to do, and created a cute gallery wall for my daughter’s viewing pleasure!
At first I felt a lot of guilt about this purchase, despite buying them for a good reason at such a low cost. As I investigated these feelings I started to wonder who I was even doing the No Buy for! I have concluded that my circumstances have changed since the time I decided to do a No Buy in the first place, and I have already grown significantly as an artist through this challenge. Finishing up 5 abandoned sketchbooks in 10 months is no small feat after all! This challenge also helped me realize I really do thrive while working on just one main sketchbook at a time!
Something else that necessitates changing up some of my tools is that I’ve realized I’m leaving my mandala period. It slowly snuck up on me and I never saw it coming, but creating mandala art no longer brings the same kind of joy it once did. For some naive reason I thought I’d be specializing in mandala forever… Now I question why I ever expected that. I’m certain I will still create mandalas on occasion, especially digitally for coloring pages, but they’re just not my main thing anymore and I have recently come to accept that. Now I am missing the giant set of Ohuhus I bought and donated out of buyer’s remorse… when I was specializing in mandala it felt unnecessary, but they would definitely suit the work I am making now so much better. Oh well, live and learn.
So while I might be unceremoniously ending my No Buy early, I promise it’s with the best of intentions. I have zero regrets about taking on this No Buy, and zero regrets about ending it earlier than planned! I have learned so much and I intend to carry those lessons with me through the rest of my life.
I will see you all again in the next few days as we welcome in November and celebrate the ending of Inktober! Until then, take care, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Ari October Art 