I'm a former marriage and family therapist turned full-time content creator sharing design inspiration and tutorials on all of our DIY home renovations and crafting projects throughout the year, though I'm always in a particularly joyful and crafty mood come Halloween and Christmas!

I've had a creative brain for as long as I can remember, and always had a love for home design in particular (raise your hand if you too changed your bedroom theme every couple of years growing up); but I really started putting it to use and learning new skills when my husband and I moved into our first home in 2018.

We purchased a 1755 colonial house in New England and were determined to add our own character and old world charm back into the updated rooms, but we didn't have it in our budget to hire out... we still don't.

That's when we took it upon ourselves to tackle as many cosmetic upgrades as we could, just the two of us on a shoestring budget, learning most of it as we went (which is still our process to this day). It helped me fall in love with building and home design, but also with crafting, which has allowed me to fill our home with the kind of unique decor I envision in my head or see out in the world that I want to create or replicate when I can't actually find it or afford it.

Not to be morbid, but I want to be buried with my 60W High Temperature Full Size 18V Cordless Glue Gun!!! And a few packs of those extra long, Tough Stick 10" Full Size Hot Glue Sticks to go with it, of course. It is hands-down my number one tool for the majority of my DIY projects, big or small. A battery-operated glue gun is genuinely pretty life-changing for a DIYer. Having no restrictions on movement or range, or even where you need to set up to work on your project, has made all of my crafting so much easier and less frustrating.

Those extra long glue sticks are a game changer too. No more running out after a few squeezes and having to wait for a new stick to heat up before getting back to work! Plus, the Tough Stik is specifically formulated for hard-to-bond surfaces, so I can trust that they're gonna do the job when it comes to even my heavy-duty projects.

I find that I get the most excited to recreate or reimagine something I've seen from my favorite movie and television sets, so I would definitely say set design inspires and motivates me the most to keep creating new things. I'm a very visual person, so having something to base my own ideas off of is a really important part of my creative process. The thing I love most about creating something from scratch or upcycling is the ability to picture something in your mind or see something in the world that you can't necessarily buy yourself, and being able to bring that to life (usually, for a great price too!).

The flip side of that, of course, is the frustration when something isn't quite turning out as well as you pictured it in your mind, haha. I think aside from the occasional creative burnout that I experience as someone who does it for a living, that's the hardest part: dealing with the annoyance and disappointment that can arise when your project is either taking longer than you anticipated, not coming together properly, or on occasion, physically harming you over and over again (anyone who has poked themselves repeatedly with those spiked barbs while needle-felting will relate to this one). But the end results are almost always worth it.

I have been absolutely enamored with Brooke Darwin (@itsbrookedarwin on Instagram, and @brookedarwin on TikTok and YouTube) for years!! She is a fellow Halloween-lover, so I have loved seeing her spooky season DIYs over the years, but her Christmas and year-round content is just as amazing. I just find her projects to be so incredibly creative and out-of-the-box and unexpected and *insert 100 other positive adjectives here*. AND most of what she makes is on an extreme budget using recycled, thrifted, or very inexpensive materials (like a packet of clay and some cheap acrylic paint), so they always feel like doable and accessible projects for anyone to recreate.

She just recently shared making giant paper mache bagels to hang from the ceiling of her bakery, and then, as if that wasn't creative and adorable enough, she went ahead and added large bat wings made out of cardboard to give them some Halloween flair for the season.

I really love people who go the extra mile for the little details (I truly think they matter A LOT), and Brooke always does...like adding crinkled up paper to the cardboard wings to create actual bat wing texture before painting, or sticking clear wire into plastic store-bought Halloween rats to make sure they have realistic-looking whiskers. She even pours her creativity into her video voiceovers, almost as if she's writing a story for those of us watching. Long story short, I simply find her to be incredibly talented, artistic, entertaining, and one-of-a-kind. She will forever be one of my favorite, go-to creators to follow.

Oooo, I'm so glad this question is here because I did mention above how real the creative burnout can be! I feel like this isn't unique advice, but trust me, it's good advice: just take a break! Whether you need a 30-minute break in front of the TV to pause on a project you're stuck with, or you need to take weeks off between projects or seasons to recharge... take the break.

Being creative is supposed to be an outlet, not a stressor... yes, even when it's a source of income. And if you try to push through when you're burnt out, the burnout only gets worse, and your projects suffer. If you're not feelin' it, pause and come back to it when you are.

If it helps, this is me nearly all Spring and Summer every single year. Honestly! I push myself so much August-March with holiday decor and home renovations when there's nothing else to do in the cold weather, that by the time April rolls around, I don't have much motivation left to even think about anything creative until August rolls back around again. And I've learned to just embrace that as much as I can because if I didn't take that time to recharge, I definitely wouldn't look forward to doing what I do, or be able to push through that burnout when I want to be creative the most.

Oh, yeah. It happens to the best of us. I find that my most consistent fail is that my projects, whether renovation-related or craft-related, ALWAYS take me at least 3x longer than I think they will. Sometimes, that's just because I'm too optimistic and work slowly, but other times, it's because I'm hitting unexpected roadblocks along the way.

The best advice I can give if this is you too is to 1) be patient with yourself and simply go into projects anticipating that it's going to take you longer than you think it is, so be sure to account for that extra time if you're on a deadline so you don't stress yourself out to the point of burnout, and

2) INVEST IN THE RIGHT "EQUIPMENT." Having a little tool bag of the crafting and/or DIY tools and supplies you use most can make a challenging project a lot easier. Based on your own projects, figure out what your essentials are and put together a little kit that you keep well-stocked and close to your work area. It will definitely help you work smarter, not harder.

Rely on what's already out there to help you! My husband and I could never have done all that we've accomplished on our own, in our home, without learning so much of it from existing tutorials on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

There is some element of "you've gotta just go for it and start somewhere, and eventually, practice makes perfect" in that equation, but there is a lot of really helpful information out there to at least guide you on where to even remotely begin with something you've never done before.

I also think having reference photos to work off of when building or crafting is a really great place to start, and will forever be a useful trick of the trade for me personally as a visual learner. And most importantly... it may be stressful at times, but make sure you HAVE FUN WITH IT :)

The next project we have planned for our home may be the most exciting, creative, and challenging one yet!! But in true Halloween spirit, it's under wraps for the time being ;) so be sure to follow along on Instagram for the big announcement at the end of October!