This week doodling was given a little press in the news. You can watch the CBS News report here. Though the dictionary may define doodling as “drawing made absentmindedly” according to the news report, Sunni Brown, the author of The Doodle Revolution disagrees.

“It’s totally inaccurate,” said Brown. “It’s not an accurate representation of what’s happening for a doodler.” Brown is convinced that doodling isn’t a mindless activity, but instead engages the mind in a way that helps us think.

Melinda and I give you permission to doodle to your heart’s content. Don’t know what to doodle? We’ve found a website that will give you lots of doodling ideas to practice called TanglePatterns.com. From that site I linked to this tutorial. I started playing around with that design in my sketch book.I thought that a variation of that design would make a nice border and decided to make a border around a heart shape. I took a cardboard heart pattern I had and drew an even number of dots spaced around the heart. Then I alternated the curves between dots. After enlarging the dots inside each curve (they remind me of old telephone receivers) I added the squiggly curve to connect them. Since we are nearing Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be fun to see if I could make a stamp out of this design. I pulled out a sheet of self stick craft foam, cut out a heart and using a ball point pen, drew the same design pattern I had drawn in my sketch book. If you are wondering how to make stamps from craft foam, read this post. I attached the stamp to a piece of clear acetate, rubbed an ink stamp all over it and stamped my design. When I pulled it up, I laughed.When making words on a homemade stamp, you must remember to print the word backwards on the stamp so it comes out forwards when you print! So I cut the center out of the stamp to make a new stamp.It works. No harm done!I started over on a new stamp. This time I tried writing the word “Love” on a piece of tracing paper with pencil, turned it over onto the craft foam and rubbed it with my fingers. Yes, the pencil transfers to the foam. I am not very good with writing backwards yet!And it turned out right!

Are you ready to try some doodling? Your doodles just might lead to a new design idea.