A crafty life. Transition from enthusiastic toddler painter to scrapbooker.

Hi

Over  at High in the Sky, Sian has been doing a lovely series on her crafty life, detailing turning points in her crafty adventures. It has been a pleasure to read so I, inspired as I was, set out to create something similar.

Now, I only have eighteen years to look back on, most of which I can't remember so this may be considered a concise version of my crafty life. Or to put it a different way, there is photographic evidence to suggest that giving a paintbrush to a baby will mean they will be a crafter in later life...maybe.

 So, to begin. I have always liked paper. A good start I think.

I liked paper so much that I insisted on playing with those gold paper stars. I think this may have been my way of saying "mummy, please can I have a die-cutting machine?"

 My creative talents though stretched further than paper. Paint. I liked the colour blue. What? You can't tell what it is? Neither can I but I'm sure my three year old self could.

I loved drawing. I clearly remember having a draw in my bedroom just full of plain white paper which I would draw and colour on endlessly. I still find drawing very relaxing.

See that amazing blue line of sky at the top of the page? I have a very vivid memory of my Dad showing me at about this age a painting in the lounge. He pointed to the sky and showed me how it reached right down to the ground. From that time on I never drew the sky just along the top of the page.

 I have never had a problem with getting messy.

 This was a favourite christmas present. A box of pens, pencils and coloured paper. I spent christmas day sitting in my room drawing.

A year later and I got my first craft book. A wealth of new craft ideas was born, demonstrated in my multi coloured version of a pencil tree!

Another christmas and another craft book. This time art attack and the joys of papier mache. I was a papier mache addict for several years much to my mothers constination.

 The pinnicle moment. Christmas age thirteen. I opened my present and it contained a digital camera and a scrapbook set. A hobby was born. For the first time my creative streak was chanelled into something. Over the next five years I had made five albums and countless pages.

I still indulged in my other crafts though...say nothing.

Craft slowly moved from being paint and pencils to wool, sewing and more layouts. I got published in scrapbook magazines and started to discover more scrapbooking on the internet. I completed my art GCSE and took up photography A level. I also got my first DSLR camera.

My eighteenth birthday. Most people ask for a car, jewellery etc. I asked for a sewing machine and if I am honest I have used it, loved it, shouted at it, cursed it, listened to it and enjoyed it far more than anything I could have asked for. I have discovered quilting, I have made my own clothes again and sewn on scrapbook pages.

My craft has moved around a different corner in the form of blogging. I am able to share creations, write tutorials, pick up advice and find new projects. Blogging has opened up a new world of people who share my love of all things paper and glue who have steadily become not only fellow enthusiasts but also friends. 

I am so blessed that my parents encouraged me in my craft. It means that I will always have the tools I need to make a house a home, to record memories and express myself. It also means that for the forseeable future my room will always be littered with pieces of cotton and torn off scraps of paper.

Where has your craft taken you?

Thanks for stopping by and a big thank you to Sian for the inspiration.

Loves xxxx