creative self-care in motherhood: finding your way back to yourself

February · Softness · Identity · Rest

There was a time when creativity wasn’t optional in my life.

It was my major.
My discipline.
My language.

I studied Fine Arts in college, with minors in education and graphic design. Art wasn’t just something I enjoyed — it was how I understood the world. How I processed it. How I expressed who I was becoming.

Creation felt natural then. Required, even.

Somewhere along the way, that rhythm grew quieter.

When Creativity Became Quiet

After moving to Pittsburgh, life shifted in ways I didn’t fully anticipate.

Then motherhood reshaped everything again.

I closed my graphic design business. I stepped fully into being a stay-at-home mom. My days are centered around nurturing, tending, holding, teaching, cleaning, cooking, and remembering everyone else’s needs.

It is good.
It is meaningful.
It is holy work in its own quiet way.

It is also consuming.

Art didn’t disappear — it just grew quiet.

Not because I stopped loving it.
But because survival seasons don’t always leave room for softness.

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Starting Again — Imperfectly

Last year, I began carving small pockets of time for myself.

Not hours.
Not elaborate projects.

Just small returns.

A sketch while dinner simmered.
An idea written down before bed.
Paper spread across the table during a quiet afternoon.

I don’t do it perfectly.
I don’t do it as often as I would like.

But something has blossomed in that space.

Not in productivity.
In presence.

Creativity has become less about output and more about grounding. Less about proving and more about remembering.

It steadies me.

It reconnects me to the part of myself that existed before roles and responsibilities multiplied.

Maybe you feel that too — that quiet distance from who you used to be. Not lost. Just layered beneath everything else.

Creativity as Care

For a long time, I thought self-care had to look obvious.

A routine.
A reset day.
A perfectly protected block of time.

But creativity has shown me another way.

Care can be ten quiet minutes.
Care can be drawing without a plan.
Care can be allowing something to unfold slowly.

When I sit down to create, even briefly, I feel myself expand instead of contract.

It reminds me that I am not only a caregiver — I am also a creator.

That remembering is powerful.

Creativity as care is bigger than surface-level self-care.

It’s me trying to find myself back — piece by piece.

You don’t have to be an artist to return to yourself. Maybe for you it’s journaling. Baking slowly. Rearranging a shelf. Planting something small. The form doesn’t matter. The remembering does.

When Care Becomes Vision

In the middle of these small creative pockets, an idea began to form.

What if the space that has helped me reconnect could exist on paper for other mothers, too?

Not something loud.
Not something trend-driven.

But slow, intentional coloring page sets — and later, coloring books.

Emotion-led.
Gentle.
Rooted in growth.

Florals emerging from stillness.
Soft figures at rest.
Moments where nothing is performative.

Each set is small. Unhurried. Four or five pages at a time. Something a mother could print, sit with, and return to.

Right now, it’s still early. I’ve drawn two pieces. That’s it.

And I’m letting that be enough.

Because this idea didn’t come from pressure. It came from care.

From understanding how easy it is to feel unseen in motherhood. How rare it can be to have five quiet minutes that belong only to you.

If creativity has given me back pieces of myself, even imperfectly, maybe these coloring page sets — and eventually, full coloring books — can offer that same gentle return to someone else.

Not as productivity.
Not as performance.

But as presence.

Coming Back Softly

This season doesn’t require spectacle.

It doesn’t require scale.

It only asks for gentleness.

So I’m protecting small creative pockets.
I’m honoring the ideas that surface slowly.
I’m allowing growth to happen quietly.

And maybe that’s what creativity as care really is.

Not building something impressive.

But coming back to yourself.

Softly. 🤍