It All Starts with Family
I’m a crafter. I love to scrapbook and make handmade cards. I also knit and crochet. My love of all things crafty started with my family. DIY, Crafts…I grew up with it, though at the time, didn’t necessarily realize the impact it had and how it would shape my life. My appreciation for crafts and arts grew over the years.
My mom was a textile artist, though she probably would not have referred to herself that way. She was a master knitter, keeping my brother, sister, and me warm and cozy in our hand-knit wears and teaching classes at the local yarn shop. She sewed clothes for us, and for our Barbie and Ken dolls too. In later years, mom began hand making cards. I kept every card she sent to me. These cards are important touch stones as my mom passed away in 2020.
My love of scrapbooking, I now realize, started with my maternal Grandma. I would occasionally spend the night or weekend at her apartment. And when I did, I loved to pore through the trunk filled with old family photos. My grandfather was the family photographer and used to label our old family photos with a black marker, right on the front of the photo. Now, I appreciate the fact that I can identify every single person in those old family photos – though I prefer to write the information on the back or in my scrapbook journaling blocks.
My Aunt Dena, my mother’s sister, is amazingly artistic. After high school, we happened to live in the same apartment complex. She would make glorious collages. That inspired me to make a collage and scrapbook from photos and memorabilia I had gathered during a high-school exchange year in France. This was my first scrapbook.
The arts and crafts that surrounded me growing up inspired not just me, but my extended family. What a gift to have so many inspired artists in my family. My sister is a talented sketch artist, painter, quilter, and glazer of pottery. Her nickname is the glaze doctor. My brother is an amazing photographer and wood worker. He also makes handmade fishing lures. My niece is famous local potter in McKinney, Texas. My cousin Kathy crochets the most amazing blankets and has made an afghan for each cousin.
Of course, my partner is also artistic. It’s part of what attracted me to him. Trust me, the man has never met a craft that he didn’t like or a crafting tool that he doesn’t need. He draws, paints, leather works, felts, and has recently started knitting as a part of a project to research the lost art of making chechia, a hat worn predominantly in North Africa and similar to the Fez.
