How to Make time to do what gives me happiness – Nandita Pai shares about her creative Journey

Hello! I am Nandita ☺️

I have always been a person with varied interests and one who makes time to pursue each of these.

From a very early age, I discovered that writing came easily to me. I started writing poems at 10 and soon it became my means to express many emotions which I found difficult to speak about. I had a way with words that gave me solace in testing times and joy during celebratory or just everyday moments. I have each of my 200 plus poems handwritten for my record while a select few I post on my blog nanditapai.blogspot.com. About a dozen of my writings have also gotten published in the Women’s Era magazine as well.

It was soon after my marriage that I discovered my love for cooking and eggless baking. Bread baking in particular. Amidst home and office schedules I used to spend my free time experimenting with recipes and this hobby soon made its way into a food blog nansyumyums.blogspot.com. I absolutely loved maintaining it and connecting with fellow bloggers. It was during a clay modelling workshop that I attended, when the thought of conducting my own baking workshop struck me. I have always loved teaching. During my college days, I have fond memories of tutoring my neighbourhood kids while I myself have never attended tuition classes myself 😅 I felt a different kind of joy when I was able to teach another person something that I know.

So it didn’t take me too long to pursue the little thought and I went ahead and hosted my first baking workshop for kids in 2015. The experience was extremely satisfying that I did another 9 workshops in the next couple of years, for kids as well as adults. I do not consider myself an expert baker, but whatever little knowledge I had, I was happy to impart with beginners.

Once my little boy was born my primary interest shifted to planning activities and creating fun DIYs for him. In 2017, I began documenting our everyday play in yet another blog page sonshinemumma.blogspot.com

It wasn’t until 2020 when I explored the Instagram world and created my handle @sonshinemumma.

Another passion that I discovered during my pregnancy was sewing. I wanted to keep myself creatively busy and so just bought myself a sewing machine and taught myself to sew by looking up Pinterest tutorials. I got experimenting by sewing tiny baby things, mittens, hoodie blankets, PJs etc.

When my little one turned 1, I used a few of his first year clothes and created a Memory Quilt. The reception for that was amazing that I found myself starting my own little sewing venture @sewminimoments in 2017.

After almost a decade in the IT industry, it felt like I had found my true calling. Creative field is where my heart belongs. Over the past almost 5 years, I have sewed around 125 memory quilts and 230 quilts in total.

Last September a friend Bhavana and I pursued our love for early learning and started a venture @theplayalongproject where we curate sustainable play learning resources primarily made of wood.

I follow where my passions take me. I don’t sit around wishing and waiting for things to happen to me. If I want something and spot a slightest gleam of hope and opportunity, I pursue it with all my heart ♥️ I have grown up seeing my mother multitask, manage her household duties while pursuing her interests with 200% dedication and my father always making the best of the situations hurled at him and not wasting a second when an opportunity is sighted. I am extremely grateful to have inherited these qualities from them.

I sometimes get asked how I find time to pursue my various interests and that I am lucky to be able to. Well lucky yes, but there is also a whole lot of hard work, planning, struggles and of course blessings that goes behind pursuing what you want. 

Most importantly, I don’t FIND time, I MAKE time to do what gives me happiness ☺️