Amy Tangerine - Craft a life you love : infusing creativity, fun & intention into your everyday

Editor: Cristina Garces

Designer: Danielle Young

Production Manager: Rebecca Westall

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017944948

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3006-1

eISBN: 978-1-68335-297-6

Copyright 2018 Amy Tan

Cover 2018 Abrams

Published in 2018 by Abrams Image, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Abrams books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

ABRAMS The Art of Books
195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007
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To JC and Jack:

The family weve created is everything.

Thanks for showing me a happiness I never knew before, and for putting up with all my crafts and crazy ideas.

You inspire me to be a better person every day.

All my love.

CONTENTS

PART ONE
Crafting the Soul

PART TWO
Crafting the Right Mindset

PART THREE
Crafting the Right Environment

PART FOUR
Crafting Happiness Through Habits

PART FIVE
Crafting Your Way Back

PART SIX
Crafting Your Passions

INTRODUCTION

This book will take you on a journey into the past and into the future. My main goal is to give you the tools for reflection so that you can craft a life that you love today. It has been broken into six sections, with each section representing a different stage of the process of crafting a life you love.

In , Crafting the Soul, we learn why crafting is so important and, specifically, how to discover what it is that you love to do. You will get permission to spend time crafting each and every day, and you will see that, in fact, spending time developing your hobbies might just be the most important part of your day.

In , Crafting the Right Mindset, we examine how to reframe your thoughts and outlook to better position yourself to grab control of your own happiness.

In , Crafting the Right Environment, we look at your environmentphysical and mentaland discuss how to change and update your surroundings to live the best possible life.

, Crafting Happiness Through Habits, is packed with some of my favorite practical tips for creating positive habits to feed your creative soul.

, Crafting Your Passions (a brand-new chapter created for this new edition of the book!), give you tools and inspiration for the future.

Each chapter of this book ends with an exercise (or practice) to help you move one step closer to the life of your dreams.

AMY

PART ONE

the most important part of your day (its not breakfast!)

We hear a lot of clichs about believing in ourselves, about how we are perfect just the way we are, and how we cannot love anyone else until we learn how to love ourselves. From the time we are children, most of us are told to reach for the stars and dream big because we can be anything we want to be.

There is some truth to all those clichs, but each of them ignores a big part of the equation: You probably cannot feel good about yourself unless you are participating in things that you feel good doing.

This is one of the reasons I am such a huge proponent of taking time to cultivate your craft and to integrate your hobbies and side projects into your daily routine. Your hobbies might seem trivial to other peopleI can assure you that plenty of people have let me know that they think scrapbooking is a silly and outdated hobbybut participating in your chosen hobby is an important part of feeling good, building confidence, and infusing happiness into your days.

This is why creation is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

You will probably have a hard time cultivating feelings of confidence and happiness simply by telling yourself that you should feel confident, believe in yourself, and love yourself just the way that you are. You need to engage in activities and behaviors that reinforce good feelings. Something magical happens when you prioritize your hobbies: You cultivate the feelings of being happy, believing in yourself, and loving yourself. You participate in and become aware of positive behaviors. You cannot help being happy and feeling confident when you are actively engaged in hobbies and side projects that bring you joy.

It seems so simple, doesnt it? Yet so many of our days are packed with things we should be doing, such as driving our kids to school, running errands, working, and making dinner. A lot of us spend the vast majority of our days serving other people, but, sadly, we fail to spend quality time serving ourselves. The side projects, crafts, and hobbies we want to do get pushed to the back burner day after day. No wonder people can go from loving their lives to feeling dissatisfied in tiny incremental steps, without even recognizing what went wrong.

Often, what went wrong is that you did not carve out five minutes here and ten minutes there to do things that make you feel good!

Dont ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

HOWARD THURMAN

It does not matter if you love making tiny birds out of origami paper, baking elaborate cakes, or knitting baby socks. Your hobbies are important because they feed your soul. Never feel ashamed of them and never feel guilty for carving out time for them. In fact, your hobbies might be the most important part of your day. How can you be the best employee, the best partner, the best parent, or the best friend unless you feel your best?

My dad made his living as an engineer, but he also built furniture in his spare time. He did this in part to save money, but he was mainly driven by the desire to work with two-by-fours and to design and construct furniture from start to finish. He was also an amateur photographer and he played tennis at least twice a week. When I watched him participate in these activities, I could see the joy on his face. It was palpable.

I bet you know people who have hobbies that make them feel childlike and alive. My mom gets giddy when she sees my son, Jack, wearing something she hand-stitched. JC, Jacks dad and arguably my better half, is full of energy when he is in the kitchen cooking an entire meal for family and friends. I practically bounce around when the subject of crafting comes up.

What do you love doing?

When are you most inspired to do this?