Listen, we've all gone through it at some point in life.

Those creative juices aren't flowing. You sit down to try to create something, be it something on paper. Maybe it's a craft that you want to try and nothing comes out of your hands. You're just looking at this blank palette and literally there's just nothing. Everything's just....blank.

In today's post, I'm going to give you some tips on how you can break through that creative rut based off of very personal experience. I'll give you a few examples of some things that I've gone through and some of the ways that have helped me break through. So if that sounds good to you, grab you something to drink and let's get into it.

There's a few things that can kind of contribute to your “creativeness” disappearing. I've gotten to this point actually a few times in my creative journey. I mean, there's a lot of things going on in the world that can contribute to it, but stress can be a huge factor, be it financial stress, relationship stress, or possibly housing instability.

The one that has personally affected me the most has been financial instability. There have been some things going on in life where I thought, “Okay, am I going to have enough money to get everything done that I need to get done for the month?”

I completely understand and I feel you if you're in that same boat.

Another thing that can contribute to your creative juices not flowing is having to deal with grief. That's another thing that I've personally had to deal with. In January, we had the sudden loss of one of our fur babies and everything happened so quickly. And that really took a hit to my creativeness.

My main creative outlet is sewing. I love to sew. I love to create unique pieces. But at that time, everything with our furbaby happened right after my birthday this year. It's like we celebrated this one day and then all of a sudden I've got to grieve. And grief definitely can present itself in different ways, and it can take some time to get your creativity back.

Another thing that can just stop your creativity is burnout. That could be burnout from life in general. It can be burnout from a very either stressful or toxic job, that could definitely takes a huge toll in your creative flow and and being able to have that outlet, where you can do something that's not just for profit and not something that you're going to sell, but something that's literally just for fun.

Let's get that creativity back!

One of the things that has helped me get through these creative ruts, is don't force yourself to try to create. Forcing the creativity is only going to backfire. There was a point in time where I was thinking to myself, “Okay, I don't feel like sewing anything. There's nothing that is speaking to me. There is nothing that says, hey, let me try this or try that”. So I tried to just make myself make something.

I told myself, “I'm going to take this time and I'm just going to make something and I'm just going to do it no matter what, come hell or high water”.

Well, that kind of backfired because then it just turned into, “Well, now I'm resenting what I'm making because I'm not making it for fun. I'm just making it because I'm forcing myself to do it”.

And that is not the way to go. You've just got to be patient and confident that it will come back,

because, trust me, it will.

It may take it longer than you want it to, but you cannot force yourself to do these things that you don't want to do, especially when it comes to something that you're doing for fun.

The second thing that helped me get through my creative rut is just being able to

…....slow.....things.....down.

In a life where everything seems hectic and everything is just a constant gogogogogo....rush rush rush....fast fast fast. It really does help if you're able to just slow your roll, and just chill for just a little bit. It kind of goes along with the not rushing yourself into things and forcing yourself into doing something that just does not feel right.

I have noticed even when my creativity was at its highest, it was one of those things where I felt like I needed to just make a bunch of upcycled items, push myself to my limits.

Yeah, that's hasn't and is not really working out that well for me. And I wonder why.

Just being able to slow down is a way to give yourself some release and some time to just be able to process whatever you're going through.

Keep it simple.

When it comes to figuring out a project to help get your creativity flowing, don't forget to keep it simple. Don't try to make some long, drawn out project that's going to take eons to finish.

Unless that's just what you really want to do, haha.

To me, it was much easier just to keep things simple. One of the projects that I did to help me get my sewjo back was I had a pin that I found on Pinterest, and it was a simple autumn style hat. It was kind of like a witch hat, but it wasn't as rigid....a kind of a floppy hat.

And I thought, oh, that's fun. And it seemed easy enough.

That was one of the projects that really was able to get me out of whatever rut that I was in and helped me get my sewjo back.

I actually made a video tutorial of this project, you can check that out by clicking the photo above!

The biggest thing and one of the most important things that I feel like that can help you through a creative rut is just trying something new. Whenever my sewjo left and I didn't know where she went, I did not want to have a project that's too complex.

I just wanted to keep things simple.

I'm not really a “painter”. I mean, we have paint in the house and we have paint brushes, but I don't really “paint”. But what I ended up doing was I got some watercolor paper from my husband's art stash, got some paint, got some brushes and just started painting.

I ended up making about 100 little art cards, that are called ACEOs. If you don't know what an ACEO is, it stands for Art Cards, Editions and Originals. It's a whole subculture of mini art that's very popular on sites like Ebay. It's pretty amazing. You're basically buying miniature original art from people, and it's like a whole thing, I love it. I had never heard about it until I looked it up a few months ago.

So yeah, I made a whole bunch of those and it was so helpful in just helping me be creative when my sewing brain wasn't there.

If you still wanted to do something with sewing, but you didn't want to get the machine out and you didn't want to think too hard, slow stitching is also something that I feel like can be huge benefit for your creativity. I'm not huge on slow stitching myself but it definitely something that just helps you slow down, and ease the mind.

Have you ever had a creative block and you weren't exactly sure how to get out of it? What did you do to get out of it?

If you got this far in the blog, I really do appreciate you reading. Cya next time!

- Christina

Contact

christina@secondhandstitches.com

© 2026. All rights reserved.