Craftiness and kindness

I would like to invite you in to my crafty world to tell you all about some of my crafting activities over the years. Crafting, for as long as I can remember has always been a part of my life. I find crafting meaningful and useful, as well as the obvious, exiting and fun. I have made cloths and accessories for my dolls when I was young. I made jointed teddy bears when I was a teenager as well as children's novelty working clocks. As I got older I tried to take my crafting to a different level and began to learn about paint effects which led to painting furniture and using great new mediums tools and techniques. Some techniques were learned through college tuition some from books and TV, a lot through trial and error and so much more these days through media such as YouTube. I love to learn new things in this crafty world. It is a never ending happy adventure.

I have loved designing and making things using all kinds of crafty techniques all of my life, I remember right from when I was a child I made a tent for my Cindy doll, the tent frame was made from wire coat hangers. It had a pink towelling fabric outer cover and a floral lining with sewn in plastic windows, a zipped up entrance and a matching sleeping bag. My mum was brave to let me loose on the sewing machine, my mum had previously taught me how to use it safely, so off I began on my long journey of crafting. I had exciting future adventures ahead for my Cindy doll along with my friends and their dolls. In my eyes, even then, and those of a ten year old, I was not satisfied with the design shown and demonstrated to make a tent for my doll on a well known children's TV program. The project at the time was for for a boys Action Man doll, an army style tent. It was khaki green and the style was no way suitable for my Cindy doll. I loved making it. I still remember it like it was yesterday and don’t know how I managed it on my own, I sewn a contrasting inner lining into the tent cover, it also had a ground sheet attached which the boys demonstrated one didn’t. It had sewn in windows using clear plastic bags. I also swapped a music cassette tape with my brother for his army jeep style vehicle which I re-painted blue and hand painted on flowers and a dashboard. I converted it from an army green vehicle into a fun convertible vehicle which was a positively more suitable style for my Cindy doll. I always, even then, as I do now, want and look for something that’s a little bit different, which is something hand crafting can always allow you to do.

Wanting something different can have it’s downfalls though, as I find on a weekly basis. I can find it hard sometimes knowing where to start when I want to play with all the great tools, gadgets and materials, and, all at the same time, but I also think it gives me a great excuse to try out and venture into something new when it comes along and that new technique maybe one that will add or enhance another project at some point in the future, if I don’t try it I could be holding back my imagination and that is all the excuse I need to try something new when I can. I love mixed media crafting. I love to try new mediums and techniques and see how they can surprise you. I do believe in 'there's no mistakes in crafting', but only ‘happy accidents’ that can sometimes change you plans in a good and surprising way.

Among many of my current crafty ventures I find myself dabbling into, one of them is devoted to pet lovers and which gives me a real warm feeling when I am putting the projects together, and when they are completed they give me a real sense of a job well done. Even though the subject matter for these crafty projects is within a sad corner of the crafting world that most crafters don’t always like to tackle or venture into, I feel I am doing a very caring service within this area, which is the area of pet loss and this allows me to combine two loves of mine, pets and crafts and to work with both is just a pleasure. I do feel by the end of a completed project I will be giving a pet owner a piece of happiness to treasure along with a memory of their beloved pet and at a time that any pet owner dreads and needs some form of comfort, the day they have to say goodbye to their best friend. It may be a tough subject to discuss or tackle and it wasn’t an area I thought I would have been draw into but when you hear how much I have helped a pet owner/family get though a very sad time in their life, with something that I have created for them, I do feel a sense of doing something kind and meaningful along with doing something I love, which is to craft.

A few years ago due to the loss of my own beloved doggies I decided to design my own memorial casket for their ashes. I looked and looked over different markets, high and low for ages, but I just couldn’t find something that grabbed my attention and that was crafty and unique enough to place their ashes in, that something which also had to have that warm and happy feeling about it, It needed to be something that I was proud to have and show off in my home without having it shouting out to everyone who saw it what it was, I didn’t want it shouting ‘ Look at me. I’m am an ashes urn and I’m on your mantle piece in full view to everyone to see and I want to make you feel really uncomfortable while you look at me.’ I wanted my pets close by still in case I moved home but contained in something pretty and discreet. Visitors do not have a clue my boys ashes are in the frames unless I tell them. With this frustration in mind I designed my first two pet memorial frames with 3D hand crafted artwork in the front along with their photo. The frames were totally handcrafted and in the back of the deeply designed frame I lined the back and made a handmade pretty fabric pouch to contain their ashes.

When I create a frame I like to use different tools, materials and mediums to create a really unique and personalised frame for the pet owner and wherever possible, if I can, I like to get to know the pet via stories or their photo I will be using. I like to have the image beside me when I work on a frame, the one that will be placed within the aperture at the front of the frame. I look at the photo to be placed and I try to coordinate the colours that I find within the image with the 3D artwork I will be designing for the front of the frame. Sometimes the pet owner will say what they want and I love the challenge of designing what the pet owner wants with the photo I am given. I also try to design a frame to incorporate a memory of a pet so I can give the pet owner a real treasured and personalised frame for their beloved pet. The frame doesn't have to hold their ashes, it could be a place to save their collar or name tags, photo’s etc, there’s room in the frame for something to remember them by.

Arla was a miniature hedgehog who’s home was decorated in the style of a coffee shop so I designed a background for the front of the frame with coffee beans. I hand cut a coffee bean shape in paper as a template, with scissors. (with ‘paper’ scissors mind, not fabric ones, read on and you’ll understand my thought here) The coffee bean shape was then hand cut from foam, this was used to make a stamp for the coffee bean background. I also hand cut a coffee bean and other elements like the coffee cup and saucer which were layered in a 3D style to help give a sense of Arla’s coffee shop styled home. I felt I had really captured a memory of this very much loved little hedgehog. I love designing the frames, I use different tools to form flowers and flourishes. I also have hand tools to help transform the elements to get the best out of them as they are mostly made from a flat piece of card. While designing my frames I am able to apply many types of crafting techniques, using various materials and mediums and these projects give me what I need to satisfy my need to dabble into many a crafty area.

I treasure all my crafty tools that I have collected over the years and take good care of them so to allow me to continue to have fun with them way into my future. I try to buy the best quality tools that I can when pennies allow. I do remember when I was introduced to one of these essential tools when I was a teenager, they weren’t mine, they were my mums fabric scissors. I know now they were a quality pair of fabric shears, and still are. There was a time though when they were so nearly not so loved and was so close to becoming and everyday pair of scissors. Kids don’t know the value of a pair of sewing shears, a pair of scissors is just a pair of scissors. Oh! how much I have learned over the years. I have learnt that scissors are not all the same. I would be horrified to see my son using my (my mums) 40 year old fabric shears to cut... paper. When I was a teenager my mum bought these fabric shears along side a new sewing machine. I did not know the value of looking after tools too well then and (sewists, please do not be horrified, as no lasting harm was caused to these fabric shears) these shears were occasionally used for all sorts when other scissors were not to hand, including cutting paper, don’t cringe! I can see your faces. I know now, but when I was younger I didn’t and when I learned to never! ever! cut paper with fabric shears I re-homed them and hid them in the form of ‘I’m just borrowing them’ When I left home they came with me and they have never ever had to cut a slither of paper ever again and they are still cutting my fabric pouches very well and are living happily ever after among my sewing tools.

I think I got my crafty needs from my nanna who made the best knitted and sewn dolls and characters for all her grandchildren. She is not with us now and I wish she could see all the amazing craftiness that is at you fingertips today and to watch at the touch of a TV remote the craft channels that weren't available when she was alive. This tech wasn’t there then and even crafty groups where not around in the same way they are today. My nanna would truly be amazed how we can venture into so many crafts and not find it difficult to find tools and materials like it was a few decades ago. Even if you physically cannot access some crafts you can still get so much enjoyment watching or reading about them. I would love to see her face and spend time crafting with her today in a way I didn’t or couldn’t when I was younger, when she was around. I so regret not learning how to knit and crochet from my nanna, something I still haven’t tackled yet. Just not enough hours in the week. Maybe one day I will tackle them. I do think her crafty genes have been passed on to several members of my wider family. Many of us seem to have ventured into crafts and arts in different ways, my nanna would be so proud.

Crafts of all forms excite me and I always look for inspiration in many areas to help and expand my own imagination and knowledge and when I come across a new tool or technique I really want to learn about it and try it out. I am hoping in the near future I can learn to, and, have the time to pass on all my gathered snippets of crafty knowledge that I have rambling around in my head and my heart so someone else can see and get to try and experience with the same excitement as I do and maybe find something that will give them as much pleasure as it does me.