• Set your goals. List several short term (day, week, month) and a few long term (year to five year) goals. Break the goals down into steps. Check off the steps and celebrated every goal reached! Calibrate the celebration to the size of the goal!
  
  
• Add something new and different to your routine. Change materials, color themes, or motifs of your current work. Step back and view your work. What can be added? What can be changed?
  
  
• Take a class or teach a class. Learning new skills or developing learned ones adds new light to your craft. Teaching others brings in new perspective. Our students are often our best teachers. Listen to your teacher or your students.
  
  
• Take a walk; visit a park or garden, people watch at a mall. Exercise builds energy and energy gets you motivated. Nothing inspires like nature so surround yourself in the sights, colors, smells, motion, and taste of it. People-watching is a joy. Listen to the kids laughing. Find the seniors smiling. Observe the buyers browsing!
  
  
• Organize your supplies or rearrange your work area. Think of ways to find your supplies easier or more efficiently. Rearrange your work area to add more light, more color, more stimulation. If you are bored in your work area, you will be bored in your work! Personalize your space. Make it yours! The routine of organizing often helps you relax into creativity.
  
  
• Visit the local gift shops in your area or take a day trip to a nearby big city. Schedule a trip to a museum or special exhibit that might be in the area. Invite your friends over for a creativity party! Pick up a new magazine you've never read before.
  
  
• Buy a book on your favorite craft and read it! Learn more about what you do and the others who also enjoy your medium. Or you might try reading a new book on selling, marketing, design, writing skills, bookkeeping. Update your knowledge with the latest information. New date will refresh you and might inspire new ideas you can't wait to get started on.
  
  
• Take time out to play. Experiment each week for an hour or two with your medium. If a painter...just spend sometime mixing colors. If a quilter...play with fabric shapes and colors. If a woodworker...try new cuts or sanding techniques. Don't put any pressure on yourself to "complete" or "create" anything...just play.
  
  
• Visit a trade show or consumer show. Find out what craft, gift, toy, or stationary trade or consumer shows will be in your area. Visit at least one trade show every one to two years if a professional in crafting.
  
  
• Take a vacation! May be not a vacation where you travel by car, boat, or plane, but a vacation from your craft or your business. Take a day, two days, or even a week and don't touch, do, or even think crafts. Absence often does make the heart grow fonder. Don't risk burnout! And make sure you have a hobby if you are a craft professional. As a craft professional what you do for a living is what others do to relax! So treat yourself to a leisure activity outside of crafting or select a craft to enjoy for fun not for work/profit.
  

Maria Nerius is a Professional Crafter, Author, and Contributing Writer and Columnist to industry trade journal, Craftrends.