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If you have followed Sweet as April for any length of time you already know that this business has never been just about bonnets. It has always been about creativity in its fullest form - the textiles, the storytelling, the documenting, and somewhere woven into all of it, the painting.
But for a long time I kept those two worlds pretty separate. And even longer than that I kept one of them almost entirely to myself.
The Cycle I Have Come to Love
There is a rhythm to my creative life that I have only recently stopped fighting and started embracing.
Every month or so I pour myself completely into bonnet designing. I am cutting into textiles, upcycling things I have been hoarding for years, documenting every step of the process, and genuinely loving every second of it. I am fully in it - the fabric, the trim choices, the little decisions that make each bonnet completely its own. And then something shifts.
My attention turns entirely to painting.
In between fulfilling bonnet orders, I find myself at my desk with a brush in my hand, losing track of time in the best possible way. The bonnets are still getting made and shipped with love but my creative energy has quietly moved somewhere else entirely. And for a long time I felt guilty about that.
The Pressure I Put on Myself to Stay Consistent
If you followed me when Leia was around three years old you would know that I ran this business like clockwork. You could genuinely set your watch to when my posts would go up. The photos, the adventures we went on, the way everything tied so neatly back to Sweet as April - it was consistent in a way that looking back now I can see was not entirely healthy for me.
I pushed myself to show up that way because I believed that consistency was the only path to growth. And in a lot of ways it worked. But it also cost me something.
For years I felt like a failure every time my creativity shifted. Every time I wanted to paint instead of sew, or rest instead of post, I told myself I was falling behind. That I was letting people down. That I needed to get it together and get back on schedule.
It took me a long time to unlearn that.
What Elliot Taught Me About Showing Up for Myself
The shift started when I really began paying attention to Elliot and the way his hyperfixations move through him like seasons. Thomas trains gave way to Five Nights at Freddy's which gave way to NASCAR and now we are deep in a Minecraft era and honestly I am so here for it.
What I noticed is that he is at his absolute happiest when he is supported fully in whatever he is into at that exact moment. No pressure to still care about the last thing. No guilt about moving on. Just pure joyful focus on whatever has his heart right now.
I support him in that with so much love and zero judgment every single time.
And one day it occurred to me that I deserved that same grace from myself.
I am a creative person navigating a creative life outside of just being a mother. My interests shift. My focus moves. Some weeks I am a bonnet maker and some weeks I am a painter and some weeks I am both and some weeks I am just a person trying to keep all the plates spinning. All of it is valid. All of it is part of who I am.
Why I Am Finally Sharing ALL Of My Paintings
I paint almost every day. It is the thing that quiets my mind completely - the closest thing to meditation that I have ever found. A brush, some watercolor or gouache, and whatever is blooming in my imagination that day. It is where I go when everything else gets loud.
For a long time those paintings ended up tucked into folders, stacked on shelves, and honestly seen by almost no one. Some of them became textile and wallpaper patterns for my fabric shop. But the originals? They just sat there.
And I finally decided that they deserve better than that.
They deserve to live on someone's wall, get pasted into a scrapbook, sit on a shelf where someone walks past them on a Tuesday morning and feels something. That is what art is supposed to do. And I am ready to let mine do that.
My First Garden - Now in the Shop
I have started adding original paintings to the Sweet as April website and I could not be more excited about it. You will find tiny pocket paintings - my heirloom mini ACEOs - as well as slightly larger pieces, and so much more to come as I continue to paint my way through this season.
My first collection of larger paintings - small three and a half by five inch cards - is listed as My First Garden and I am honestly so proud of how they came out. Each one was painted during a quiet focused session and each one carries that moment in time with it. When one finds a home it is truly gone.
You can see a few of them here in this post and click through to the full collection to see everything that is available right now.
I hope that whoever brings one of these paintings home can feel the peace that went into making it. That is really all I have ever wanted my art to do. 🌸
Browse the full original painting collection here - and thank you, as always, for being part of this little world I have been building for over ten years. It still means everything.
Love and bonnets - and brushstrokes,
Carrie
