Books

I thought I'd share some of the books with you that I had for my birthday. The first one is 'How to be an explorer of the world' by Keri Smith. It's a real fun book that aims to make you look more at the things around you.
Here's an example of one of the 'Exploration' exercises. This one encourages you to record everything you consume or purchase in a day or week.

And this one encourages you to look at colours more closely around you. By using the colour chart chips you match them to what you se around you.

It really is a fun book and I'm going to take it on holiday with me. Keri also has a great blog called 'Wish Jar'. She's very generous and you get to share how she develops her ideas into the books she writes. I think it would be great book to share with children - or like me being a big kid just think its great fun.

The next book is 'Secrets of Simplicity' by Mary Carlomagno. A really beautiful book to look at if you look at the Amazon site it has some great photos of the art work.

Besides looking beautiful it does have some good ideas. Mary Carlmagno has a company called Order. It has some interesting insights from well known individuals and looks at things in a more simplistic and positive way - well worth a look.

And finally 'How to have Kick-ass ideas: get curious, get adventurous, get creative' by Chris Barez-Brown.
A really fun book.

I love this idea and I tried it out with how to find time to be more creative. The aim is you write down every idea you can to tackle the issue you have - and there are no wrong ideas - and then you see how realistic the idea is and the more practical for you - the more near the centre of the circle.

One of my ideas to have more time for creativity was to give up work - great idea but then I'd have no money to spend of stuff or food come to think about it.

I then thought about reducing the number of days i work - not such a bad idea - but perhaps in a few years time.

Then - the idea was to make out specific days for creativity and also to try to do a little bit each day. Now that is practical.

Chris Barez-Brown joined the ?What If! The Innovation Company in 1998 and many of the ideas in the book are used by them with larger companies.

I'd love to hear what books you've enjoyed recently.

Have a good weekend and take advantage of the great weather we have at the mo.