In May, I gave myself a tiny dare: make one small thing every day, just to see what happened. It turned into a inspiring, creative outlet and attracted lots of lovely Substackers into my feed.

So I’m doing it again — and this time, I want you in.

Joy Experiments in July is a daily creative challenge: one collage a day, in your sketchbook, for the whole month. That’s it. No rules about being “good.” No pressure to share. Just fifteen or twenty minutes of cutting, sticking, and seeing what shows up on the page.

Fifteen minutes. That’s the whole ask. Do it with your morning coffee or while dinner’s in the oven.

In May, I ran a version of this with a stamp + punch technique and had more fun than I’d had in ages… the loose, playful, no-stakes kind of fun we forget to make time for as adults. July’s is even simpler. Pretty, easy, small. A creative practice that fits into a real life.

A little on why I love this: I’ve spent years teaching people how to make vision boards — over three thousand of them and counting — and I’ve talked about it on NBC News twice.

What I keep coming back to is that the magic isn’t in the finished thing. It’s in the fifteen minutes you give yourself. The collage is just the excuse.

Here’s how to join:

• Subscribe so you don’t miss the daily prompts and details. Everything lands right here

• Grab a sketchbook, a glue stick, and a stack of anything you can cut up (magazines, packaging, old cards)

• Show up for July, one small page at a time

I’ll be sharing prompts, my own pages, and a few gentle nudges to keep you going all month.

Hit subscribe and let’s make something joyful together.

Subscribe now

This month I’m dedicating myself to the art of the stamp cutter, my sketchbook, and a found image. Fifteen minutes, maximum. One tiny stamp a day for 31 days.

Come and join me ( here’s the full instructions ) or just follow along and see what transforms.

I’ll be documenting the journey right here as the month unfolds.

May 1 — Day 1

31 days of stamp cuts in my sketchbook. Let’s go.

Here’s what I know so far: I’m already obsessed with the stamp punch. I’m stamping everything in sight. It’s just so satisfying… that perforated edge, the way it turns any scrap of paper into something worth keeping.

I’m noticing things differently already. Actually looking at magazines, catalogues, old books and hunting for the perfect image, the right colour, the fragment that catches my eye. It’s the experiment within the experiment: training your eye to find beauty in what already exists.

I’ve also built up a little box of stamps ready to go, and it’s already giving me an idea for paid subscribers: a surprise in the post. More on that soon.

A few things I’m doing that you might want to try:

→ Conducting tiny experiments within the experiment - this week I tried a blue theme, and restricting myself to a handful of stamps as my limit for one page. Constraints are surprisingly freeing.

→ Batching. Life happens. On creative days when I’m on a roll, I’ll make a few days’ worth of stamps at once so I’ve always got one in my back pocket. I’m not rigid about this. If I’m inspired, I let it flow.

→ Selling. I’m starting to think about selling some of these beauties. We’ll see.

One thing I’ll do differently next time: one page per day, not using both sides of the page. My sketchbook is getting wonderfully, gloriously thick.

May 17 — Halfway

I’m halfway through this tiny experiment and it’s already changing me.

Fifteen minutes of daily creativity. That’s all it is. And yet it’s giving me something to come back to every day. Something that’s just mine. I’m learning, I’m growing, and I’m noticing that the days I sit down to make a stamp are different from the days I don’t.

The pages are building into something I didn’t plan. A collection. A visual diary of May.

Day 29 — Almost there

Nearly at the end. Here’s a few more days of stamps to see.

The body of work is real now. I can see it. Twenty-nine pages. Twenty-nine tiny decisions about what’s beautiful.

Day 31 — That’s a wrap. 🎉

Thirty-one days. Thirty-one pages. One month of showing up for fifteen minutes, just for me.

I’ve thoroughly loved this experiment. It gave me a small creative act every single day. It gave me focus when everything else in life felt noisy. It gave me a growing collection of tiny, beautiful things that I made.

The feedback from some of you along the way has been genuinely moving. You tried it too. You sent me your pages. You told me it gave you something to hold onto in a busy month. That means everything.

Here’s what I’m taking forward:

🎨 I won’t do this every day forever, but this practice isn’t going anywhere. It’s become part of how I see. And it’s a joyful moment to add to any day.

🎨 The next experiment is already forming. I want to send stamps out in the post and share my found images with others so they can include them in their own art. A real exchange. A physical thing landing on your doormat. That idea is growing.

🎨 I’m thinking about Etsy. And about what a paid subscription to Joy Experiments could look like - something tactile, something in an envelope, something that surprises you.

*this stamp cutter idea was inspired by Pam Vale. Thank you!

What’s next and how to stay close

If this experiment has given you anything (a moment of joy, an idea, a reason to dig out your own sketchbook) I’d love to keep going together.

Subscribe to Joy Experiments (free) to follow along as the next experiment takes shape. You’ll be the first to know when I launch the stamps-in-the-post idea, and the first invited to whatever creative challenge comes next.

If you want to go deeper, a paid subscription is coming and yes, it will involve something arriving in your actual postbox. 📮

And if you tried your own stamps this month: drop them in the comments. I want to see what you made.

xo, Louise 🫶

On 1st May, I’m starting a new tiny experiment 🧪

And I’d love you to join me.

Last September I committed to one page in my sketchbook, every day, for a month. I didn’t know what it would do to me. What I didn’t expect was how much it would open me up.

Last week, I was inspired by a post from Pam Vale, so decided to mash up her creative medium with my Joy Experiments to create a 31-day stamp experiment.

So I’m going again. But this time with a twist.

This month, the experiment is stamps.

Here’s what you need (affiliate links):

• A sketchbook (I like this one by Ottergami)

• A postage stamp cutter (the craft punch that gives you those amazing perforated edges around £10)

• A glue stick

• Found images: magazines, old books, wrapping paper, catalogues, anything beautiful that crosses your path

That’s it. I promise that’s it.

Here’s what you do every day in May:

1. Cut one small stamp from a found image and stick it in your sketchbook. Five minutes, max.

2. Or, create a whole page of stamps in your sketchbook. Fifteen minutes, max.

You cannot do this wrong.

Why stamps?

There’s something about that perforated edge that I’m obsessed with. It turns a scrap of paper into a specimen. A fragment worth keeping. A peacock feather. A stripe of midnight blue. A line of handwriting from an old book.

And collecting the images? That’s half the magic. You start seeing differently. The catalogue you’d normally bin. The birthday card you can’t quite throw away. The colour in the corner of a magazine page that makes you stop and look.

This is what the September experiment taught me: creativity doesn’t need any plan. It needs a page. And fifteen minutes.

The (optional) rules

✂️ One stamp (or page) per day, every day in May. That’s 31 stamps or pages.
✂️ Found images only. No drawing, no printing, go full analogue.
✂️ 15 minutes max (set a timer, the constraint is the point)
✂️ Stick it in your sketchbook.
✂️ Share with #JoyExperiments if you want the community to cheer you on
✂️ There are no other rules

If you’ve been feeling creatively flat or if you just want a tiny, joyful daily practice that’s just for you, here it is.

I’ll be sharing mine every day here. Drop yours in the comments. Let’s see what we create in May.

Are you in? Let me know what you’ll be doing in the comments.

xo, Louise 🫶

P.S. If stamps aren’t your thing, do the experiment in whatever form calls to you. One tiny creative act, every day. That’s the experiment.

These are The Joy Experiments.

Tiny experiments to bring you greater joy.

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