In December 2025 I discovered That Glasgow Witch on Instagram and liked some of her posts about manifesting intentions, and so I committed 13 intentions for 2026 to paper and for 12 nights I sent an intention into the ether by setting it alight. I had no idea which intention would be left, as I did not open any of them before burning and just trusted that the intention leftover would be one that was meant for me.

I know that some reading this may not think that doing something like this will have any impact, but I do believe that what is for you will find you and I’ve actually found a new lease of creative life by actioning the 13th intention that was left to me.

Since the start of the year I seem to have fallen back in love with creating…and I know my neuro-spicy brain may well be just obsessing and will be fickle and change gear soon…but, my 13th intention, the one that fell to me through fate, was to create whatever art my true self wants to.

I’ve returned to my love of photography, something I was good at to degree level once upon a time. I’ve always got my phone with me and often have to stop and capture the natural world which surrounds me in our tiny rural village. I will at some point find my old SLRs out and see if I remember how to use them, but for now, my phone camera will do.

I’ve been drawing with pencils and pastels and that has been joyous. I’ve not got much confidence when it comes to drawing on paper, I think that stems back to being told I wasn’t good enough to take GCSE art, but that won’t stop me from trying.

Over the number of years that I’ve been a HLTA in primary school, I’ve often taught art, and one of the lessons I’ve always enjoyed has been creating sculptures with clay, and I’ve played about with it at home every now and then, but never really felt skilled in what I was doing.

Then one evening we were watching a documentary about an archaeological dig in Pompeii and I saw a candle holder which had been excavated and, thought I’d love to make that. So I did! I found out a block of clay I’d bought months ago and within an hour I’d recreated the candle holder, ish. It’s not worthy of including a picture here, but I thought it wasn’t bad for a first try.

Since then I’ve made many more things, my favourite of which is an octopus I did with my 16 year old. She’s studying art for A Level and one of her studies at the moment is the tentacles of an octopus.

My most recent creation, which is still a work in progress, is a fairy door…it took ages to cut the wood effect into the clay, but it was so therapeutic. I’m looking forward to it drying out so I can paint it.

As the year progresses (how are we in February already?) I’m hoping to create much more of what I want when I can. As a working mother of 3 neurospicy children, sometimes all I want to do when they’ve gone to bed is sleep, but I also like to shut off my thinking brain and often have an itch to create. If you follow me on social media you’ll know that I’ve been creating a lot recently. I’ve had some enquiries about whether things will be for sale and I’m looking into Numonday as a possible platform, so if that happens I’ll let you know.