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I always loved doing things with my grandmothers. My paternal grandmother always had special scrapbooks in her closet for me and my cousins. We each had our own and she would help me select pictures from magazines to cut out and put in my own scrapbook when I came to her house to visit. I She also had little sewing kits I could play with, with pre-designed shapes I could just stitch around. I loved doing these with my grandmother. My maternal grandmother was a great teacher. She taught me to memorize things and to sew a little more. I just loved doing everything with her. My mom is an artist. She paints and draws wonderful images. I can't draw or paint like her at all. I could never match that talent, she is so blessed with the ability to draw and paint very well. I think though, that I am creative. I found this craft a few years ago, and took off with it. I love it. When I am working on my cards or scrapbooks, I think of my grandmothers and my mom. I think of my days with my grandmothers as I craft today. I can still smell the paste I used with my grandmother when we would glue magazine cut outs in my scrapbook. Believe it or not, my father is also a hobbyist, and a very creative man. I also think of him when I look at my craft tools as he is a tool nut and is very highly organized. I think my passion for organizing and collecting craft tools comes from my Dad! To whom do you give credit for the love of this craft?
Gillian how wonderful to have so many creative people in your life as a child.
When I was young I was not creative and really didn't have anyone who was. I have to thank my sister in law for my interest in paper crafts, she introduced me to scrapbooking about 8 years ago.
My mother, mostly, and my dad a bit.
We grew up without television and were always encouraged to be creative. There was a big chest in the hall - the bottom drawer was called the construction drawer, and was full of anything that might be useful - felt, cotton reels, old-fashioned clothes pegs, small boxes and so on. We had a lot of make-and do books, and we always painted and had old-fashioned salt dough for modelling. My dad gave us a love for origami - alas, I didn't inherit any of his painting/drawing skills. I always sewed as well - there was a scrap box as well as the construction drawer, and basic woodwork for building tree-houses, or making things like carriages and boats for the toys. An early home movie from a holiday shows my sister and me both industriously stitching away at little felt finger puppets .
Well, my dad was an excellent artist, too bad he had to work so many hours at his factory job, he did not have time for luxuries like art. But he gave me many tips on drawing, perspective, etc. As he got older and sicker with COPD, his hands shook so much that he could not draw anymore. :(
When my mom passed away, she left tons of photos in photo albums that I used when I scrapbooked. So it was her photos that started me to scrapbook.
What a great topic for Thanksgiving weekend. I must credit and am thankful for my friend Kathy.
I never had a real hobby for years. My down time was always devoted to reading. In the mid-90�s I became a computer geek, followed by digital photography. But in 2007 a work friend gave me a handmade card she had stamped. It was beautiful. She invited me over for a stamping day and that was it! I�ve learned a lot from Kathy over the last 3 years, but as Joan mentioned SCS and YouTube have been amazing resources.
Location: not too far from the big mountain in n.h.
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Wow..great thread!
My Mom got me started on all this papercrafting about 8 years ago. She brought me up a stamp set, one ink pad, some white paper and a few scraps of colored paper. That first stamp set was "Friendships Grow" a 2001 Stampin' Up set. I still have it. I remember shopping with her before I got addicted and she bought a stamp that cost $5 and I was shocked that she would pay $5 for a stamp! Who knew?! LOL, it was a bargain!
How simple it was back then.......cutting was done with a pair of scissors and coloring was done with pencils and one black ink pad was all you needed. Now, thousands of dollars later, I'm a real stamper......ROTFL!
It would have to be my mom. She made just about everything that had to do with sewing and crafts that were available at the time, not for as much pleasure as for neccessity. There was not enough money to have store bought....anything. I had my very own designer clothes and did not appreciate the fact at the time. She made most of my clothes, all my sweaters as well as my siblings. She made all the drapes for our homes and recovered all the funiture when it needed to be done.
She spent 6 months refinishing a 1800 bedroom set with all the curlie ques on the headboard as well as a footboard plus the wash basin & dresser.
She was the scout leader for myself and my brother and was always making crafts for that. She still has the jewlery she made from corks and sequins as well as the "art objects" us kids made growing up. It just seemed natural for me to always be doing some craft with my hands and over the years I have settled on one craft at a time with paper crafting holding the lead for the last 10 years with no end in sight.
My inspiration for all things crafty came from my mom mostly. She was a fantastic seamstress (I KNOW I inherited the hoarding gene from her...her thing was fabric...mine is stamps and paper...teehee). I'll probably never be able to sew like she could. She doesn't sew as much as she used to, but she still seems to have some project that she's working on.
As for paper crafts, however, I need to give credit to my elementary art teachers. I mean...oh my gosh...I was in HEAVEN on art days! And, as an elementary teacher myself, I just love doing craft projects with my kids. Who knows, maybe I'm inspiring a future paper crafter!
__________________ Always behave like a duck...remain calm and unruffled on the surface, but paddle like mad underneath! Jackie J.~Proud SU demo since 1996 My lil' quack-tastic gallery
What a fun topic.
I would have to say it's all my husband's fault. I moved to the US not knowing anyone but him and he had/still has several hobbies. So while I was waiting on my work permit he said to me one day I needed to find a hobby, I did try other things before I got stuck with paper crafting, but if he wouldn't have encouraged me to find a hobby I'd probably have a clean house all the time, and would watch tv as a hobby. Instead the house is covered in papercraft and the tv is neglected LOL.
Well my mom was pretty crafty, in a different sort of way. I credit my love for paper crafting to a whole slew of people but what really got me going was............................................... .................................................. ..................................................
SPLITCOAST STAMPERS
__________________ ~Valerie~ My Altered States "If you cant be a good example then at least be a horrible warning."
My mom. She always had paper and colored pencils in her purse for me if we got somewhere where there were only adults. I loved paper dolls. I have loved cutting, coloring and pasting forever.
Then my best friend invited me to a Stampin' Up! party. Several years and one million dollars and I LOVE IT.
I have been blesses with a niece in law that papercrafts also.
I look at it more as an offspring of my career as a fourth-grade teacher. I always liked making bulletin boards and my own learning games. I took up stamping to make bookmarks and cards for the students. Now that I'm retired, I'm an SU! demo.
I look at it more as an offspring of my career as ...
Me too in a way. I'm not a teacher, but I was an engineer for a long time and became an engineer because I wanted to build things. I've always done one craft or another. My grandmother started me off with knitting when I was about 6 or 7 years old, then I started sewing in junior high when I started home-ec classes. But I wasn't the typical student instead of the cooking semester, I took metal shop and made a cute planter. I took up partying in high school so crafts were out. Then university, and I took a dried flower arranging class to work off some stress, ended up teaching that for a couple years. Then took up sewing and knitting again and that turned into a full blown addiction. Then when I got married I started off with digital scrapbooking, then moved to paper scrapbooking, and now stamping and card making which is again a full blown addiction. So, I guess I credit (blame) my grandmother for getting me started.
My two younger sisters who were scrapbooking and making cards long before I came to live near them. I always loved the cards they sent me and it was easy for me to get hooked too when I relocated to live near them...I just love our times of card making together...blessings.
I have to blame Creating Keepsakes magazine. I bought the very first issue when it came out because I had never seen anything like it before. I was hooked! I've been elbow deep in paper pretty much ever since...my family doesn't get it because no one else is crafty. But I love it all: paper, quilting, rug hooking, cross stitch...So fun and relaxing for me!
I'm the only one who really does any crafting. My mom used to sew skirts - no pattern -for my sister and me and would make curtains but that to me isn't crafty. It was done out of necessity to save a few dollars. I've done macrame, needlepoint, crewel embroidery, and crocheting. I got into stamping because I was interested in getting into scrapbooking and ventured down the stamp supply aisle in Michael's looking for scrapbooking stuff. Saw the stamps and that was that.
For papercrafting, it would be my sister-in-law. We lived far apart, but when visiting she encouraged me to get into stamping because she knew I was crafty. She even showed me an early SU catalog, but I didn't bite. Then 5 years ago I moved near her. Went to some SU parties and thought, ok...but then I found SCS 2 1/2 years ago and WOW!! I was REALLY inspired! So here I am.
My mother and grandmother always made things, much of it out of necessity. As a child, my mother taught me sewing and embroidery and I took off on that. Now I do most forms of needlework. Sewing and quilting take up most of my time, but I do love making cards too.
I saw this thread a few hours ago and I had to think about my answer for a while... My paternal Grandmother wasn't particularly creative but she played the organ and piano and I think that's where I got my musical talent from, but crafty/artsy/creative? My maternal grandmother quilts and sews but it's always been strictly utilitarian and functional (she doesn't have a designer's eye for colour/pattern/composition or the like). SO! Like a couple people earlier mentioned, nowhere? From myself? I am a creative person (jazz is predicated on both patterns and creativity) so I guess some that musicianship creativity became crafty creativity!
I just hope some of this rubs off on my son!
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I too had to think about this one. I feel as though I've always had an eye for art....just never knew it until recently. My Mom, maternal Grandmother were sewers, knitter's and crocheter's. When I was younger whenever I would see something made out of paper in a magazine or receive a manufactured card I would always say to myself "I can make this myself". I would see the stamps at Michael's and DROOL but never bought because it was too over whelming. If I had know my SU Demo then my life would be different. That was in my mid 20's. I am now in my mid 40's and I started scrapbooking about 10 years ago because of a dear friend of mine and then met my SU Demo about 4 years ago. I will always scarpbook but stamping has taken over my world. So to whom do i contribute my crafty ways too.....
Grandmother, miss her had made sweater
Mom, thanks for all the sewing tips
Cathy, dear friend, thanks for all the fellowship until the wee hours of the night
Barb, SU Demo, the retired art teacher that has shown me the countless ways to use a stamp
My friend, Tena who is also my business partner! She asked me to come to a stamping class. About a year later I told her I was starting Technique Tuesday and asked her if she would join the company. That was about 8 years ago. I'm so glad I said yes to her and took the class. And I'm even more glad she said yes about joining the company!
Bev
my husband, but not in the way one would think.....first or second year of marriage, and we got in a HUGE fight. i left the house in a huff, and called a friend from my car. she invited me to "run away from home" to her house for a few hours. it happened to be a night she was hosting a SU party, and the demo (who is now a dear friend) did heat embossing. i had never seen anything so magical in my life. i was hooked. let me tell ya, many a day my husband has regretted pissing me off that night, LOL
I adore this thread and I've been trying to think of who to credit. My dad for the gene pool of artists he came from, and my mom, who gave me the time and space to be crafty when I was little - it seems like kids have less time now than I did when I was little. The companies that made fun crafty toys - (any one else make their own creepy crawlies when they were little, or those wire butterflies that you dipped in liquid cellophane?) The Brownies, 4H, my sister who is extremely crafty in every conceivable way and taught me how to read and sew sequins on stuff, and all my grandmothers and great grandmothers and aunts who were like roving Smithsonians of crochet, needlepoint, embroidery, cross stitch, knitting and painting. My grandmother's paintings are among my favorite possessions and she painted constantly.
I suppose a family that appreciates and oohs and aahs over your macaroni paintings gets all the credit in the end Splitcoast is my grown up version of that.
I have always enjoyed art/craft, and being a dressmaker by trade, love fabric. I have always been interested in altering fabric to make it unique. When I saw stamped fabric, I really wanted to try it. I never really did anything about it.
My sister joined the Mormon church and got into a little scrapbooking herself, in researching our ancestors. She said I should preserve my own family history (i.e. my husband, children and grandchildren). I never really did anything about that either.
Then one day, my daughter's best friend gave her a brochure with a time table for the LSS. My daughter booked a lesson and was hooked. She said: "Mum, you want to go, it was so much fun and look what I made". So I had to go, didn't I. So after a couple of lessons, I discovered they had a Saturday stamp club as well. So naturally I had to learn to stamp. Which I did, but now I have taken it much further, and yes, I am stamping fabric to make it unique and I use lots of other embellishments that I would never have dreamed of before.
My daughter and I did the Scrap Book University the LSS offered and made off the page items as well, so I have taken that further, too, and I make books, boxes and wall hangings, etc.
The secret? Having fun. this is a really relaxing artform, and I am glad we went to the LSS to learn. It has taken us in so many directions over the years.
Tampa Bay Karen, I'm kind of like you. I wasn't crafty at ALL for the longest time. I spent all of my spare time reading.
If I was to credit anybody, it would probably be my kids. If it hadn't been for them, I don't think I would have found my crafty bone! (you know, "I don't have a crafty bone in my body...oh wait! I do!" I still remember seeing my sister in laws dining room table full of crafty clutter that she and her 2 year old played with, and telling her I was not crafty at all. She said, "You will." Boy, was she right!
My Mom was always doing some sort of crafting. She did needlework, She knitted. When I was in school we had to wear dresses. So one year my mom had a seamstress make me several wool skirts and she knitted sweaters to match each one. So I could mix and match my clothes. Then she made the three wisemen. They were about 2 feet tall. She would buy the heads and hands at a craft store and she made some mixture with glue and starch and would dip towels in it for clothes. She would paint these and make the different gifts they were bringing the baby Jesus. She quilted so anyway you get the picture. When I could afford to start crafting I did ceramics. Then I started doing counted cross stitch and many other crafts. Then about 15 years ago I started scrapbooking. Thousands of dollars later I am addicted to stamping. So I am thankful my Mom gave me the crafting bug. I lost her two years ago but I have many items she has made for me and I treasure each one.
That's easy for me. My great-grandmother. She was an artist and I stayed w/ her a lot of weekends as a child. She taught me about painting, though she loved oil and I love water color. And my mom for encouraging me and buying art supplies when I was young. And making sure I was able to take all the art classes in school. And band classes. And piano lessons. And ballet. Until now, I hadn't realized how busy my mom kept me, lol. At least the art and music parts stuck.
Well actually I picked it up on my own. Nobody in my family does papercraft before I started on it. In school I hated art and craft lessons. So can't be the teachers either.
Like the OP ,my grandmothers.
Paternal one was an artist and crafter and loved to try her hand at any new colourful activity...from painting her plain white canvas sneakers with fabric paints to reproducing the works of old masters in oils such as the MOna Lisa. She was good too!
I remember being terrorized as a kid because Mona's eyes would follow me around the room!!!
Maternal one was a fabulous sewer-especially embroidery and smocking and crocheting
Great thread!
It was a fabulous CTMH demonstrator who got me hooked on stamping!
She came to do a demo at a hospital volunteer luncheon I was at and it was love at first sight with stamping. I booked a party with her at that lunch and the rest is history......
"Kay" has been a big part of my and my sister's life ever since that first event almost 16 years ago. She's become a good friend and we go to her parties and hang out with her.
So, thanks go to Kay for starting me on the hobby I love!
__________________ Lorraine
Wife to an awesome DH, Mommy to an adorable DS who is on the spectrum for autism, and Twin Sister to Linda
My Aunt Alice! She was the most creative person I�ve ever known and she shared her love of all things crafty with me. Although she never got into paper crafts she encouraged my love of it. We were poor folks but my aunt thought me I didn�t need fancy supplies to make a beautiful card. She thought me to save and use bits of ribbon, string, wrapping paper, old calendars, candy wrappers, seed packages, magazines, store bought greeting cards and anything else I could get my hands on. I will forever be grateful to my Aunt Alice for encouraging and nurturing my talents.
I think my love of crafting came about from a number of sources - when I was young, my sister and I would make our own dollhouses, using cardboard boxes and old Sears catalogs - we'd choose rooms from the catalog and paste them onto the "walls"... I would have to thank my mother for allowing us to cut up her catalogs. And my dad got me some great craft kits - thanks to them both for putting up with hours of grinding noises, while the rocks were being polished to be made into jewelry. (Remember those rock tumblers?)
Then later, I babysat for a neighbor who had the neatest craft room. I'm sure that influenced me. I have always loved paper, crayons, markers...it's just blossomed from there.
In high school, I was editor of our school newspaper and got to really learn a lot about layout design, photography...I made my own scrapbook my senior year. Then about 1997, a good friend introduced me to scrapbooking by inviting me to a CM party.
Stamping came a few years later and seemed like a natural progression.
My parents started both my sister and I on the crafty path. Mother and Daddy have created their own hand-crafted Christmas cards every single year since they married. This year they are sending out their 61st edition. They finished all 120 and had them addressed and ready to go at the end of October. I'm sure Mother will be putting them in the mail early next week!
After my sister and I got into serious card making about 10 years ago, we convinced Mother that she should be making the rest of her greeting cards as well!
I wish I had found this passion a lot sooner than I did!! Six years ago my brand spankin' new DIL invited me to a SU workshop. I went. Reluctently. Didn't know anything about stamping and really thought I didn't want to know.Then I went to a Stamp Camp with her. A few months later I hosted my own SU workshop. Thirty people showed up!! I signed up to be a Demo that night!! Several of those girls are still my customers! Needless to say I have branched out and discoverd a lot of different things involved in this craft. I LOVE IT ALL!!! So I guess it was Kim. That's who my DH blames anyway!!
__________________ God watches us at all times. Let's try to be entertaining!! (River City Rubber Works)
To whom do you credit your love for paper crafts?
Actually, I can think of alot of people that have influenced me along the way. My mom, she loves to sew and cross-stitch and I picked up the cross-stitching and while I have a sewing machine, can't sew a straight line for the life of me. For awhile when I was little, she did at home daycare and for every holiday had some little craft project for the kids to make. My dad is more of a designer and can look at things and picture the finished result and I have some of that ability, although with that I also got his tendancy for procrastination, possibly why I am on SCS so much
