Anyone got a start button to spare?

I'm like so many people out there. I procrastinate and while I love to create and come up with ideas, I'm really bad at the starting stage, at actually start working on anew project. Sometimes I've got good reasons for not being able to start a new projects, other times it's just a bunch of pretty lousy excuses. I know I'm not the only one having these issues: there's someone who's done a survey and figured out how many love to push things ahead of themselves (just read a column on procrastination in today's morning paper) and if you google self sabotage you'll find lots of thoughts and texts on the issue of procrastination among creative people.

Today my excuse is partially ok: I've slept with my head in an odd angle I think, probably due to the seven cats occupying my bed last night, which have resulted in some neck pains. I'm stinking of tiger balm right now (my favourite remedy for neck pains and headaches), which hopefully will help alleviate the tense and tender muscles. But I will start something today, no more procrastination. Either some freeform embroidery or trying to catch up on the TAST challenges (so far behind it's embarrassing, but I don't want to quit either). No matter what I choose, blogging about it means putting the goal out there, making it harder to forget about it or procrastinate but also maker it more real as I have to put it into words, shape it into something more or less concrete.

I'm thinking of doing some challenge or other too, just to get a deadline to work towards. Probably not a challenge including a blog hop at the moment as it can be a bit overwhelming with the hopping and commenting if a lot of people sign up. But right now I'm focusing on some sort of embroidered stash-tackling projects. Something freeform, like embroidered/beaded doodles that require no planning, no idea of the finished result (meaning whatever you end up with it isn't a disappointment as it's not deviating from that brilliant image in your head), no pattern to follow. Just working with a needle, focusing on the process rather than the result. Just doing it.

So what kind of things do I have to work with today? I've shown lots of samples and bead mixes on this blog. But two things come to my mind: the bouclé yarn and pearls above or a pink-and-silver bead mix as seen below (sans the shell flower and MOP beads).

Pastels like the peachy pink in this mix aren't my favourites so using this mix could be a way of not stumbling on that all too common hurdle of not not wanting to use my best beads (as they're for special projects, as they're too expensive to use/replace etc). That's also one of the reasons I never sell all the beads I cull from my stash: they can be useful for samples and experiments as I don't have to worry about using beads I care about or find too expensive to sacrifice on something that isn't a perfect project.

There's also some sequins I'd like to use (preferrably before buying new ones -- Sarah, it's your fault I want to buy more sequins now! *lol*)

And then I'm hoping to get at least a little birthday money so I can justify shopping for some tools and supplies. There's a lot of things I want to buy, but I'm focusing on one shop this autumn.

On top of that I hope to be able to get some new embroidery threads too. First some fun floss (hope to be able to update you on that next week, fingers crossed), but I do want some more interesting threads and cords too to play with. Gold threads would be fun, but I'm not sure I want to know the price of such threads...

But I'm digressing. Right now it's time to focus on what I have, not what I want, and work from that. Fingers crossed I'll at least have some WIP photos to show after the weekend! And now for the trickiest part: to get off the computer before it's already dark outside... Wish me luck...