Sonya Cheney

Writer. Witch. Creatrix.

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onward + embracing what might be a futile effort.

June 17, 2022 by Sonya Cheney 1 Comment

Another hideaway in my backyard

I saw a post–an Instagram story–earlier today that sparked a feeling of unfamiliarity in myself as I was, of all things, brushing my teeth. It was a pair of people in a park working on zines together, and I found myself wondering where that part of me went over the past few years. I’ve tried repeatedly to put out a new zine, even getting so far as writing, printing, and pasting a few pages together, but I can never seem to follow through. As much as it feels like something is missing in not creating zines in any regular fashion anymore, I also can’t find a desire strong enough to do it.

I also realized over the past few months that I don’t write poetry anymore. It’s as if I forgot how to do it one day. I forgot how much I enjoyed it, the feeling of sitting outside with a blanket and notebook and water bottle just writing. Instead, my days became full of toddler time–a different kind of joy and commitment, as I’ve changed diapers and cooked meals and generally tried to keep him entertained. Through it all, I just–forgot. In the best weeks, I would work for a while on my young adult novel, but after almost two years, it doesn’t feel much further along than after I finished the first draft. (Someday…, she says with fingers crossed.)

As you might notice by looking at the date of this post and the one before it, I haven’t found it in myself to blog in over a year, either. I’m not sure why, because blogging feels at least somewhat less–futile?–than assembling an entire zine that only four or five people will read. It’s not that maintaining a blog is easier, but rather that it’s more immediate. I can write for an hour or ten minutes or five days, and I can hit publish as soon as I feel satisfied with what I’ve put down on the digital page. As long as I don’t look at my blog traffic, I have no idea if only five (or zero) people read my posts, compared to selling zines and knowing exactly how many copies I’ve sent out of any given issue. And to be honest, it’s pretty easy for me to ignore the traffic numbers these days. Consider it just one more IDGAF side effect of another year going by.

The most recent page in (one of) my art journals.

I suppose, after a year’s hiatus, an update of sorts is in order. Let’s do it in the form of a currently list, shall we?

Currently

Watching // lots of YouTube–scrapbooking and art journaling channels, plant person channels, and witchcraft channels mostly
Reading // She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Listening // podcasts: Someplace Under Neith, Last Podcast on the Left, Faculty of Horror, Sounds Like a Cult, and Good Mourning Nancy; plus a lot of emo + riot grrl playlists on Spotify
Making // prep/foundation pages for my Week in the Life scrapbook for next week’s community documenting period
Feeling // sad, grieving over the loss of my sixteen-year-old cat Charlie last week; grateful for the kind of life I get to live each day with my family
Planning // trips and visits with friends, all the way through November!
Loving // oddly enough, summer days. I was never much of a summer person growing up, and it still isn’t my favorite season (autumn, of course), but I’ve found ways to enjoy it so much more over the years, and I’m finally appreciating days full of lemonade, playing in the yard with Finn, and forever attempting to maintain a vegetable garden. (Spoiler alert: This was not my year.)

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: art journal, currently, life, personal

scenes from my art journal.

May 19, 2021 by Sonya Cheney Leave a Comment

Mixed media art journaling has become a major part of my life and routine over the past couple of months. I look forward to sitting down at my craft desk at the end of a few days throughout the week and making an absolute mess. A few months ago I managed to get two Jane Davenport mixed media journals for $5 each (the last in Michaels!), and since then I’ve been filling each page with paint, crayons, paper scraps, and so much more. I thought I would pop in and share a few of the spreads I’ve worked on since then.

This was the first page I did inspired by Roxanne’s (bybun) Lyrical course, and I learned so damn much from that course. You’ll see in the other spreads in the post that certain techniques have stuck with me since I first worked through it. At the time, I was listening to the Anne with an E soundtrack pretty much on repeat, so I had this song by The Tragically Hip stuck in my head for days. It only made sense to use it in the spread. To be honest, I’m not even sure if it’s finished. Technically, I got to the end of the course with it, but I can see some details that I could add or improve on. I may or may not go back to it in the future.

This one was actually inspired by the colors before the song. I was in the mood for a good pink spread, and I was struck by the idea of adding lyrics from a Hole song to it. I listened to a couple of songs from Live Through This over a few days, but it wasn’t until I got one of those special edition magazines at Target–this one all about witchcraft–that I figured out where to go with the spread as a whole. The image, the lyrics, and the contrasting bubblegum color was way too much fun in the best possible way.

Finally with this last one I moved away from the song lyrics and ended up with a quote by Maya Angelou. This spread is in progress, and it was a challenge for me because I don’t often work with most pastel shades of blue, but I’m loving the push outside of my comfort zone. It started with gelli printing on the two pages just to have a somewhat prepped background, and when I saw the butterfly page in the P13 Always & Forever paper pad, I knew I had to fussy cut them and use the butterfly imagery as a centerpiece. From there, I just googled “quotes about butterflies” until I found one I liked. I actually wouldn’t have ordered the pack myself, but it came free with a Scrapbook.com order, and I’m glad I added it to the order because I’m loving what’s come of it.

I’ve also started making mixed media artist trading cards, and that’s such a joy in itself. You can peek one at the top of each photo. I’m planning on sending them out with orders when I reopen my Etsy shop next month, and I’m having a fun time getting a collection of them ready to go.

I couldn’t guess how much this new hobby would mean to me when I first started on it, but wow. Wow. I am blown away by how positive it has been for me these past few months, and I’m so grateful to have jumped in.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: art, art journal, mixed media, paper crafting, paper crafts

one little word 2021 | february vision board

February 26, 2021 by Sonya Cheney Leave a Comment

I’m pretty sure the vision board is one of my favorite parts of One Little Word. I love the tactile nature of sitting and flipping through magazines, cutting and pasting the images down. It’s one of those activities that I don’t do often, but when I do, I berate myself for forgetting how much I enjoy it.

As I worked this time around, I tried to remember my word–CULTIVATE–and choose the images and words that reminded me of the word and what I’m hoping to get out of it. Most specifically I included images to emphasize a cozy home; my growing witchcraft practice; slow, mindful living; self love + self care; and of course my literal garden that I’ll be officially starting this weekend.

I’m always saying that I’m a visual learner/person, so this activity is always relevant to my interests. I go through phases of binge-making Pinterest boards, deleting and re-curating certain themed boards. It’s nice not only to do a real world version, but also to pick through all of the relevant Pinterest boards and print out a few photos that were perfect to include. Basically it was a whole lot of dorky fun for me.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: one little word, scrapbooking

handmade, cottagecore, and intentional living.

February 12, 2021 by Sonya Cheney Leave a Comment

It’s a mystery exactly why I started knitting in high school; I simply don’t remember. The best I Can recall is that I just thought it was neat, so I gave it a try. I do remember that an aunt of mine had taught me years earlier, when I was about seven, but by the time my interest rekindled as a teenager I was learning all over again. I started with the usual basics—scarves, mostly; some simple rectangular pouches; fingerless gloves with holes (only holes, no gussets) for thumbs. It wasn’t until a few years ago, ten years or so after I’d even started, that my skills really began to branch out. Now my sock drawer grows plush with handknits and several knitted tops and sweaters fill my closet space. Another sweater sits currently on my needles. I would estimate a good thirty percent at least of my brain is taken up by thoughts of knitting.

Until I was about thirteen, that same aunt of mine lived on what was once my great-grandparents farm and became hers. As I was growing up, the land was home to pigs, chickens, honey bees, and cows. Emus even graced the space for a time. (What a strange time.) My memory of collecting eggs is faded, but it’s there, keeping company with the memories of fresh honeycomb, waxy and sweet; spicy, red and white radishes from the garden rinsing in a colander in the sink; scruffy barn cats giving birth to barn kittens; and never quite getting the hang of ice skating out on the pond. Backyard badminton. One Christmas at the piano, pretending I could play. It feels like a dream or a period film. This is what they mean when they say the word nostalgia.

I only signed up to TikTok for the aesthetic—specifically, the cottagecore aesthetic. I have wasted many an hour staring at my phone screen, drinking in these dreamy, vintage-filtered videos like cold lemonade on a hot day. I still can’t get enough. The soft pastels, the pastries and berries, the soft breezes in the greenery on my little phone screen. It was comforting; it is comforting. And it’s inspiring. It makes me want to bake cakes and sit in the grass with a picnic. Aesthetic labels—any label—can be limiting, but they can also be such a jumping off point to who you are on one level or another. And as Whitman said, I contain multitudes—but it can be helpful to identify those multitudes sometimes.

Last weekend, I finished my first skirt, the Picnic Skirt from my #makenine2021 post, and I am in love. I want six more, one for every day of the week. I’ve been so satisfied with knitting my own wardrobe pieces over the past few years, and now I want nothing more than to expand that into sewing vintage-inspired pieces. It’s so hard to find affordable, plus size vintage (or vintage-inspired) clothing, and even then it won’t necessarily fit quite right. My Picnic Skirt is, in fact, a little big, but that’s fine because it was my mistake and it gives me the chance to learn how to adjust it. It’s an opportunity that I’m glad to have—and if I’m lucky, with my birthday will come a dress form that I can use to have an easier time with making my own pieces. (I am shuddering with excitement at the thought!)

These seem to be disparate thoughts and stories, I know. But I promise, I have a point. Maybe it’s a result of connection overload; maybe it’s a yearning for simplicity in a time when things seem anything but. I find myself grasping more and more for less screen time, more earth time. I want desperately to tear myself from my little black box and plunge my hands into a bowl of flour and water. I am literally nursing an aching thumb from so much scrolling in the past week, and it makes me remember a time—because I remember a time—when phones had cords and buttons that clicked and beeped and you never knew who was on the other end when you picked up.

There’s nothing wrong with the advancement of technology; it’s an amazing endeavor that brings so much good to the world around us. But I’m finding myself searching more often for the ever-elusive concept of balance between the screen and the simple, the connection and the disconnected. How do I stay connected to distant friends I’ve made over the years without feeling handcuffed to Instagram? Without constantly thinking about my phone? Without feeling that damned phantom buzz in my pocket in the hope that someone responded immediately? And that’s my biggest concern these days, just staying connected to the people I care about most. I spent much of yesterday going back and forth over the possibility of deleting my Instagram account entirely. I settled on unfollowing another two hundred accounts that did not, as they say, “spark joy.”

In the spirit of my One Little Word this year, one concept I clearly need to cultivate is “balance,” and I’m still figuring out what that looks like. I know it’s a lot of slow living and finding beauty in the everyday. I know it’s a lot less time with my phone at the corner of my vision so I can always keep one eye on it. Maybe it’s finally deleting Instagram; maybe it’s not. But for now, it’s settling into my chair to knit this cardigan I’m working on and trying to appreciate the click-clack of the needles as the only sound around me.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: cottagecore, country living, farm punx, personal

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Sonya Cheney © 2022 · Hand Crafted by Alt Jade Studio.