What are your favorite summer memories?

Star-watching. Swimming. Exploring the woods.

Root beer floats. Outdoor music. Fireworks.

Bare feet in the grass. Sun-kissed skin. wind-whipped hair.

Will you bring a bit of that childhood summer magic back with a quest into your imagination?

Can you retreat for a time beyond the mundane, the everyday.

Remember, imagination is only limited by the pockets of time we let it out to roam free, to play.

Play for adults is critical in our stressful go-go-go lives. Play has been shown to release endorphins, improve brain functionality, and stimulate creativity. And it can even help to keep us young and feeling energetic. Studies show that play improves memory and stimulates the growth of the cerebral cortex. ~Wanderlust.com

Your invitation:

Create a door—a portal to the faerie realm. Rectangular or round, hobbit style made from paper, wood, or cardboard with a window and door knob. Play with paint, colored pencils or cut from a magazine or our template below! Tape it to your journal cover, or a page inside. Then make another, for your bathroom mirror or dresser drawer. Be easy and just start. Remember, creativity is magnetic. Follow your impulse. If you can, we highly recommend you paint a door in the knot of a tree in your yard. Add a doorknob and sign, perhaps a ladder or stone pathway. The visual thrill and vibrational lift of a portal sighting will transport you to happier realities.

These are two way portals—a reminder to stay open to possibilities and the muses, to visit you! A declaration that you are open to inspiration!

One of the things that may often stop us from playing is that we, as adults, get very set on who we are and the types of activities that we do and do not like. But play is healthy and fun, so it benefits us to figuratively—or literally—roll the dice and allow play back into our lives.

~Wanderlust.com

Perhaps your adult rational mind is ready to dismiss this whole article as silly. Are the enemies to your creativity demanding that you stay in your comfort zone, avoid risks, and convince you that you just aren’t creative anyway? The very first way that creativity can be accessed is through PLAY!

An excerpt from Pam Gout’s Art & Soul Re-loaded addresses our barriers to creative practice:

Enemy #1—Procrastination. When you first commit to working on your art, you will hear a tiny voice. Or at least you’ll think you did. Or you did until the appointed hour arrives. And then it’s, What was I thinking? I want to be an artist, but not today. Probably tomorrow. And then you go on living the same life you’ve been living before, the same life from which you want to escape.

Enemy #2—Resistance. Change is uncomfortable. Especially something this risky. Every artist is on the tightwire. No longer cowering. No longer hiding.

Enemy #3—Self-doubt. You’ll hate everything you produce. You’ll look at whatever it is and think, “This is pure drivel. I’d be wise to stop.”

Perhaps it isn’t too risky to those enemies to simply color some pictures and allow yourself a little creative retreat?

Click to download a PDF of the PixiePortals

Will you start now? Will you take just 5 minutes and any supplies within sight to make your first portal?