Discovering new crafts
Do you like to try new crafts? I do. I like to step outside my comfort zone and try new things. I am always dabbling in something. Why not try new things. You never know where they can take you. I use to make children's Halloween costumes and adult costumes before I made dolls. Yep sure did. I can't even think of going back to just making that day after day. If you are up for new crafts there are lots of ways about you being able to find out how. In today's world there are so many crafting resources. You can purchase books and magazines. You can visit your public library. Research on the Internet. I love to find vintage patterns,books and crafts and make them into today's crafts. Just do a little bit of digging. Get all the research you can and then gather your supplies needed and play. Who cares if the creation your making comes out looking like your 2nd grade craft project. Be proud of it. You made it. Just know the next time you go to make your item it will come out better and better with each new creation. After a while you will get to know where your mistakes were. Practice makes perfect. (Oh you should have seen my first doll, giggle)
My mother sewed on the sewing machine when we were kids. When she was single. It seemed to occupy her time and she was way nicer to us when sewing was taking place. KIND even. I was able to learn from watching her. She did let me actually use her vintage Singer when I was taking sewing classes at school in the 7th grade in Home Ec. class. Just straight stitches and I think I made a small pillow case for my pet rabbit? My mother had always sewed since I can remember. When we moved back into my Mothers house at the age of me 5 and older sis age 6. (we lived with gramma before)I remember her sewing us Barbie clothing for our dolls. However I can't remember playing with Barbi's. For some reason tho I can remember her sewing up the clothing and the clothing was very very nice. (I was more of a baby doll girl, still am)She would make handmade quilts and sell them to the lady down the street who owned a vintage store with handmade crafts. The store was so little. The size of a bedroom. I remember that and the old vintage coke machine that was outside her shoppe. My mother can sew. And her stitches are perfect.
I learned to sew at my local high school. After school, I took a sewing class for 6 weeks and learned basic sewing. Best $25.00 bucks ever spent. My older sister bought my first sewing machine. She actually drive me to and from the school and took the class with me. My first sewer was a Brother, just a basic model. Little by little with practice and lots of ewww and giggles I started to sew and started getting better at it. I started to learn. I say if your interested in learning to sew you will need to purchase the most basic machine you can find. Read the manual. Study your needles so you know what it can sew thru and can't sew thru. Practice sewing on a zipper. Practice the button hole making. Sure it won't be all perfect the first time. Maybe it will. You might surprise yourself. When I was in my 20's (not being or even knowing that I was a crafter) I worked at my local Target Store. We were opening a new location at the time and the store was empty and we were setting things out and working but no customers out and about the store was still under construction. So my bosses put a few contests on to make things a little more exciting. You must enter a poster size drawing/painting/wording (something on a poster board) and it being about Us the employees and of course Target the company. Well I wanted to win something and take part. However I cant draw, paint whatever. I bought a poster board took him home and sketched out the looney tunes characters in pencil. Then raided my sons backpack and used his colored pencils and colored everyone. I made them all hanging around the target emblem. (which is just a circle and a dot) I gave them all names on their name tags (using employees names of course) and wrote something spiffy on the poster board about being TEAM PLAYERS! I was impressed with what I did. It actually looked nice. I am not saying it was PERFECT. Far from it. I then was like no I am not gonna turn this in. The next day I brought it and it was sitting in my car in the back seat. Everyone was turning theirs in. I saw LOTS of GOOD stuff. I was like NO WAY am I turning in my 2nd grade looking poster. after lunch, I went out to the car after one of my friends (who I drove to work every day and saw it begged me to go get it and turn it in) so, I did.
I won the contest.
I DID!! I was so freaking out. There was WAY better work than mine. TRUST me when I tell you. But for some reason. Mine was NUMBER ONE!
So you never know what you may learn. Don't be afraid to try it. I am always afraid and sometimes I don't even get it. But I won't give up. I will have to come back to it. Like knitting. Oh lord. I can never remember what to do and how to do it. Yet I keep going back to it.
I am able to research how to do crafts by a few other resources. Like youtube. There are lots of people taking the time and showing you how to make things on camera. if your like me and need a visual, this is the best way to get it. The next best visual is online tutorials. You can find these any where online. I would try using google search engine. I would also try flickr.com. They have some over there too. Lots of people will have tutorials on their web sites and blogs. So that is why google is a helpful search engine. You can purchase patterns and depending on the pattern maker you might just learn something from them. Some will even go that extra mile to help you out. So don't be afraid to ask if you need help. I know I offer help anytime with my patterns.
So explore new crafts. Check out the local crafting magazine that are for sale on your crafting racks. Try new things. Keep playing. It may not be what you pictured at first. But you never know what someone elses likes are. You could be making something someone wants and you don't know it. You could be getting it right the NEXT time. Don't give up. Try, experiment and play. This is "studying for your crafts"!
My mother sewed on the sewing machine when we were kids. When she was single. It seemed to occupy her time and she was way nicer to us when sewing was taking place. KIND even. I was able to learn from watching her. She did let me actually use her vintage Singer when I was taking sewing classes at school in the 7th grade in Home Ec. class. Just straight stitches and I think I made a small pillow case for my pet rabbit? My mother had always sewed since I can remember. When we moved back into my Mothers house at the age of me 5 and older sis age 6. (we lived with gramma before)I remember her sewing us Barbie clothing for our dolls. However I can't remember playing with Barbi's. For some reason tho I can remember her sewing up the clothing and the clothing was very very nice. (I was more of a baby doll girl, still am)She would make handmade quilts and sell them to the lady down the street who owned a vintage store with handmade crafts. The store was so little. The size of a bedroom. I remember that and the old vintage coke machine that was outside her shoppe. My mother can sew. And her stitches are perfect.
I learned to sew at my local high school. After school, I took a sewing class for 6 weeks and learned basic sewing. Best $25.00 bucks ever spent. My older sister bought my first sewing machine. She actually drive me to and from the school and took the class with me. My first sewer was a Brother, just a basic model. Little by little with practice and lots of ewww and giggles I started to sew and started getting better at it. I started to learn. I say if your interested in learning to sew you will need to purchase the most basic machine you can find. Read the manual. Study your needles so you know what it can sew thru and can't sew thru. Practice sewing on a zipper. Practice the button hole making. Sure it won't be all perfect the first time. Maybe it will. You might surprise yourself. When I was in my 20's (not being or even knowing that I was a crafter) I worked at my local Target Store. We were opening a new location at the time and the store was empty and we were setting things out and working but no customers out and about the store was still under construction. So my bosses put a few contests on to make things a little more exciting. You must enter a poster size drawing/painting/wording (something on a poster board) and it being about Us the employees and of course Target the company. Well I wanted to win something and take part. However I cant draw, paint whatever. I bought a poster board took him home and sketched out the looney tunes characters in pencil. Then raided my sons backpack and used his colored pencils and colored everyone. I made them all hanging around the target emblem. (which is just a circle and a dot) I gave them all names on their name tags (using employees names of course) and wrote something spiffy on the poster board about being TEAM PLAYERS! I was impressed with what I did. It actually looked nice. I am not saying it was PERFECT. Far from it. I then was like no I am not gonna turn this in. The next day I brought it and it was sitting in my car in the back seat. Everyone was turning theirs in. I saw LOTS of GOOD stuff. I was like NO WAY am I turning in my 2nd grade looking poster. after lunch, I went out to the car after one of my friends (who I drove to work every day and saw it begged me to go get it and turn it in) so, I did.
I won the contest.
I DID!! I was so freaking out. There was WAY better work than mine. TRUST me when I tell you. But for some reason. Mine was NUMBER ONE!
So you never know what you may learn. Don't be afraid to try it. I am always afraid and sometimes I don't even get it. But I won't give up. I will have to come back to it. Like knitting. Oh lord. I can never remember what to do and how to do it. Yet I keep going back to it.
I am able to research how to do crafts by a few other resources. Like youtube. There are lots of people taking the time and showing you how to make things on camera. if your like me and need a visual, this is the best way to get it. The next best visual is online tutorials. You can find these any where online. I would try using google search engine. I would also try flickr.com. They have some over there too. Lots of people will have tutorials on their web sites and blogs. So that is why google is a helpful search engine. You can purchase patterns and depending on the pattern maker you might just learn something from them. Some will even go that extra mile to help you out. So don't be afraid to ask if you need help. I know I offer help anytime with my patterns.
So explore new crafts. Check out the local crafting magazine that are for sale on your crafting racks. Try new things. Keep playing. It may not be what you pictured at first. But you never know what someone elses likes are. You could be making something someone wants and you don't know it. You could be getting it right the NEXT time. Don't give up. Try, experiment and play. This is "studying for your crafts"!
1 comments
You such an inspiration, thanks for sharing.
HUGS
Shannon