Creative Doldrums

I have not been around in blogland much this year yet and the reason is that I've been in the creative doldrums!  I do all my arty activities on my kitchen table so I had to pack everything away for Christmas and having packed it all away I simply could not get going again this year despite having received some new crafty prezzies.  What does one do when stuck in the creative doldrums?  This:
ask a friend round who wants to play!  My friend Sue came round and spotted my Scripture cards which I did all through last year and wanted to make some too.  I couldn't say no of course, so we took out paints and stencils and stamps and played and I'll show those in another post soon.

It was just the encouragement I needed.....it was fun!  So next day I picked up my art journal and though I still felt 'rusty' and like I didn't have much inspiration I got on with it.  Here is my page:

I started off with a bluey wintry backround, inspired by the wintry theme at Art Journal Journey.  I'd felt like I was hitting a brick wall when I was in the middle of the doldrums so it seemed like a good thing to add, plus I love doing walls!

I added more stencilling and finally the hearts which is the theme for the current challenge at PaperArtsy and seeing all the projects with hearts which I love using was also wonderful inspiration.

This heart was a freebie with Craft Stamper magazine:

I stencilled some hearts with texture paste and sponged in red for a splash of colour:

and I added trailing string to each heart to make them seem like they are floating up and away:

Do you ever get in the creative doldrums and what do you do to get out of them?

I'm linking up at:
PaperArtsy
Art Journal Journey
Craft Stamper