Creative Challenge Group on MixxMade

I've been feeling a little stuck lately in the creativity department. It's a combination of things most of which are beyond my control or in some cases beyond my want to control.

Part of it is that it's summer and we want to be out and about as much as possible. Part of it is that it's been so hot here that the only thing I want to do is sit on the couch in front of the fan in a soaked down shirt and melt. Part of it is that over the three weeks my husband has been MIA at home due to band practices, lessons, birthday parties, weekend long stag parties and surprise visits from old school friends. Part of it is that I've been suffering from flash migraines; split second migraine headaches that make me shudder to consider how I'd be feeling if they lasted more than a second or two. Part of it is that I'm considering focusing only on my photography shop on Etsy and letting my other shop alone for awhile. I'd like to take some time and overhaul my shops; tweak shop announcements and add some alternate sizes of the same images and maybe a few new items featuring my photography but aren't photographs. Overall, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed .

I've needed a little fire under my butt to get me going in the creative department, just to get me thinking and moving. So I started a group on Mixxmade that would add some deadline pressure. The Creative Challenge group takes a word, phrase or idea and runs with it in any medium and then shares the outcome with the group via links to blog posts, online shops or personal websites. This months challenge was Fire and the two images at the top of the post are my entries. Photographs of the controlled fires being set in the Rocky Mountains to control the Pine Beetle epidemic. No flames are in the images just thick smoke trudging through the trees giving the forest an eerie and ominous feeling.