Both Ends of the Spectrum

When it comes to hobbies, cost is not a factor... or is it? It shouldn't be if you really love what you are making. But sometimes you have priorities and have to keep it down. I have hobbies that span the spectrum. Making junk journals from recycled junk mail envelopes is at the lowest end of it, but the most satisfying for me as far as design work goes. It's the least expensive but most rewarding.

 

My biggest expense in making these is the cost of paper to print on. And the glue. I use a lot of glue. I wouldn't use anything else but Aleene's tacky glue for this job. I have a Graphics Fairy subscription for the graphics, an ink tank printer which costs next to nothing for the ink, and a few laces and ribbons from my sewing stash for decoration. Occasionally I add die cuts to embellish the journals and little charms for decoration. Sometimes I sew in fancy fabric swatches to the pages to add interest. It's the one hobby I have where I can incorporate so many of my other hobbies into it and they all come together.

My mid-range hobbies include all my knitting and crocheting. I bought all my yarn when it was on sale and very inexpensive... not at today's prices. I have enough yarn to last the rest of my life and then some. So my cost has already been paid for this hobby. I now occasionally just buy a pattern for a few bucks when needed.

I also occasionally dabble in jewelry making. I don't wear a lot of jewelry but I do love to make beads, bracelets and dangle charms. I have all the jump rings and polymer clay any true artist would ever want so that's an expense that is just pennies to maintain if I need a few supplies here and there. The same goes with sewing, painting and paper sculpting/paper clay. I already have everything I need to make projects. My room looks like a craft store. Jewelry making can get expensive if you want it to.

But without a doubt the most expensive hobby I've ever had is paper card and crafting with Anna Griffin supplies. Ask me if this makes sense... You spend thirty dollars for one die cut set to make maybe three or four cards. You pay twenty to thirty dollars on the "Anna Griffin" paper and embellishments to make them, not to mention adhesive, foam adhesive, stickers, bows... all have to be Anna Griffin to participate in the Anna Griffin groups and her web site to show your creations. You can opt in to her on site classes for about a hundred dollars a year. You used to be able to pay reasonable by the month but now you have to do it all at once by the year. 

She sells boxes of die cuts, paper and embellishments with a theme from around sixty dollars and on up to five hundred dollars for her Create events once a year where you participate in online crafting weekends making items with her products in a classroom setting with hundreds of other people you can interact with at the same time. Can't afford that? No problem. You can pay on time with an app or split your payments for her stuff through HSN, her sponsor.

Without a doubt, this is my most expensive (and not too logical) hobby. It costs a lot but without a doubt the most beautiful cards and paper gift items on the market. Nobody compares to her high quality and gorgeous richness of product. This is definitely an obsession with the beautiful craft that she does.

These cards are so beautiful that people don't throw them away. They are keepers. And as long as I can afford it, I will be making Anna Griffin cards because nothing else on the market even comes close to the beauty and quality of these products. My Anna Griffin obsession is not only beautiful gift making for others but it's a gift I give to myself whenever I can afford to.

It's a love/hate thing. The cost is prohibitive for most of us. I hate the obsession and cost but I love the beauty of the embossed die cuts. So I try to keep it down by being more selective in my purchases and using more of what I already have mixed with the low cost of journaling. In fact I try to combine a little of several hobbies into one - my journals.

Crafty Blast From the Past

I'm a paper crafter from way back. I use to love joining crafting groups on Yahoo before they phased the groups out. I remember 10 - 12 years ago when paper crafting was at its height I was a member of several of these groups. I was a member of an ATC group where we exchanged and hosted swaps of 6 cards at a time. ATC (Artist's Trading Cards) used to be very popular and there were even a few books written about the phenomenon at the time. I still have binders full of all my ATC cards that I traded. 

Not just any old cards, these were heavily embellished with the latest trending glitter paints, embellishments, fabrics and paints from the latest designer's collection of crafting goodness. I did that for several years and enjoyed it very much.

And I was also a member of a hand made charm swap for several years where we would make and trade sets of charms made from little jewelry bits and polymer clay. We also did pendants and special projects. They all had a theme we had to stick to for each swap, a time limit to mail them in and return postage (it's really not affordable any more sadly). We would send in 8 to 10 charms in a set and get the same number back after the hostess swapped them out. I still have jars of charms and I do use them on my junk journals and I display them occasionally in my craft projects.

I was also for a short while a member of a Marie Antoinette swap group where we would exchange little paper and lace themed items like cards, paper dolls, jewelry, booklets, laces and trims, fans, cake, paper shoes, etc... anything related to Marie and I loved that group. It was so feminine. Until one of my jewelry charm swaps was returned unswapped with a note that it just wasn't good enough (in so many words). Maybe I didn't use real rhinestones or for whatever reason, I decided to quit that group. I remember thinking at the time that they were not very helpful or friendly and just plain too snobby for me. You can still look these things up on YouTube and see the sort of Marie things we made back then.

What I really loved about being a member of these groups was that we shared free patterns and helped each other learn to make pretty stuff. Well I still love Marie Antoinette and the fancy stuff. Jeanette at Mi Cottage Crafts is heavy into the Marie Antoinette style that I so love. I remember her when she was called ScrappinHappy. She is still current but has a long list of videos and links to free patterns all things Marie. You can find something to love there.

Does anyone remember Terri Heinz from Artful Affirmations? Remember Teacup Tuesdays? I do. Thirteen years ago is a long time on the internet. I remember her Fairy School tutorial that was so popular back then and I remember seeing her beautiful fancy teacup collection. I actually made a fairy school following along with her videos. Years later I tore mine apart and repurposed it into a book. The shoebox was a real dust catcher and hard to display. Joyful Compass was her YouTube channel. I was a fan and sorry when she quit crafting online.

But most memorable was her Marie Antoinette mail art group shoe swap. The pink shoe above is from that swap. Do a search and look it up on pinterest. Those were beautiful! Terri Heinz still has a free paper shoe template you can get here.  There were a lot of these swaps back then. And a lot of paper, flowers, ribbon, fabric and faux jewels used on them. Aren't these beautiful?

 

Just taking a trip down memory lane and remembering the crafty past is fun sometimes... maybe longing for the craft way it was and maybe missing my friendly (some not so friendly) art groups. And there's nothing wrong with wishing it were like that again but it's probably not going to be. Postage is not going to come back down because businesses have bottom lines. It's just cost prohibitive now as are most things done in the past. So many more people can participate in crafts now without joining a "certain special" group because of all the social media platforms. But I'll always have my memories.  And truthfully I'm grateful for the way it was and all I learned and shared. Time marches on and here's to looking for the brighter crafty days to come!

Create 9 - The Last 4 Classes

Well, it was a blast and even better than last year if that's possible. And it's bittersweet. Such a good time with kindred spirits and kind, supportive friends and hard to see it come to an end. I will miss it until next year.

But I got so much done and so many beautiful things made. I know Anna would rather have us wait until it begins before we dig into that box and make stuff but I cannot wait. I could not wait last year and I could not wait this year.

The best I could do was wait to post my makes until the class was in session and try not to post before it was the right time.

But I'm not alone. A lot of us could not stay out of that box and had a lot of stuff done. I prefer to watch the demonstrations and participate in the chat instead of working for that perfect piece of card that I can't possibly get done anyway while chatting and posting on the wall. You can only do so much and sometimes you have to just choose which parts you want to do the most.

So I make stuff beforehand. I make stuff all the time year round so why not? I can't not make stuff. It's what I do and when I get that big box of crafty goodness in my house... I can do what I want. I paid for it so it's mine and it's just sitting there urging me to figure it out like a big puzzle box. 

I liked the perfume boxes a lot but it was a toss up which one was my favorite class. I liked them all this year. I'm going to make more stuff too. I've got quite a collection of foil paper now and it wants to be used.

I'm already planning on going to Create 10. It's something I must do as a gift to myself I think. It's my birthday and Christmas all rolled up into one big, beautiful, crafty present just for me.

Until next year Create! Thank you Anna for another wonderful event!

 

Create 9 Update

We're half way through it now so I thought I would post a few of the projects I've done. 

Class 1 Beautiful Birthday cards:

 

Class 2: Victorian Christmas

Class 3: Gift Tags

Class 4: Christmas Crackers

Class 5: Photo Frames

Only four more classes left. One more class today and three tomorrow and then it's a wait for next year's Create 10!

Let the Fun Begin! Create 9

Well, this is it. The crafting event of the year is about to happen tomorrow. Anna Griffin's Create 9 and if you love paper crafts then this is for you. I love Anna Griffin dies and paper sets so this is what I look forward to.

I won a ticket to Create 8 last year and was over the moon. This year I had to do a little juggling to make it happen but I was able to get my ticket at the last minute. 

You really get a lot of crafty goodness in those boxes. All the materials plus extras and three days of class instruction on how to make this beautiful stuff happen. It's like a paper crafter's convention in real time on Swapcard. You have access after the live events too in case you missed something.

Last year I made a few things in advance because I wanted to participate and watch the classes and I didn't get stressed about it trying to keep up. That was the best advice I got before the event. This year I also made stuff beforehand and just left the ones I couldn't figure out. I will just make a few more things during the class but I'm not going to feel rushed since I've already got most of it done. You can't have too many ornaments or tags. You could say I got the hard stuff out of the way.

The one thing I didn't think I would like was the Christmas crackers. They are so easy to make without dies and they always look pretty. I cut mine out with my paper cutter instead of dies because they are just straight cuts and I lost the ribbons that came with them but I have more ribbon I used instead. I really liked making them so that was a surprise.

But the main thing I loved about this box was that gorgeous photo album. I didn't like the colors at first but by the end of cutting them out, I was in love with it. I even found some photos to go in it but I'm not showing it until after the event.

 

These are my scraps in the lid from all the projects. Boy do I have some organizing to do to move all the leftovers into my stash when this is over. I've looked forward to this all year. What a blast!

Documenting the Family Tree

On this one I used a composition book, pulled out a lot of pages and made a family history book using ancestry.com where I've stored my family tree for several years now, a software called Family Tree Maker that keeps my records on my computer and with Ancestry up to date and mirrored. 

I also used a paper pack I bought from etsy from a designer and lightened them considerably for my use. I combined those digital papers with my scrapbooking papers (remember I'm trying to use them up) to make this book.

I had to document the five main branches of my family. I blurred out personal info, names and some pictures of the living and pictures I don't have permission to publish. 

Most of the pictures were mine so I didn't blur those out. I used the house and tree pictures to make a smaller half page background and front covers for the documented ancestry trees. I also made little pockets in the pages to hold copies of documents. And I put pictures of the houses of each family in their section.

I think people that live in houses have attachments to those houses so I used houses and trees as my theme with a brown, tan, black and gray color scheme. It looks good with b & w and color photos and gorgeous with sepia and tin type photos too.

This took me a long time to decorate and gather the info but all my family tree has been worked on now for over ten years so I didn't have to gather all that together, just print out the tree diagrams I wanted to use.

I also burned the family .ged file, dna info, all my pictures, documentation, research and all other information on to dvd to fit into the front of the book in case someone else down the line might want to expand on it. Each section has their own family tree pullout so you can match up the names with the place in the tree and see where they fit into the family.

I also backed it up on a zip strip aka thumb drive. I learned a lot being a web designer and developer all those years about backups. 

I also printed extra tabs, papers and left blank pages for someone to add their branch to the book if they should so desire in the future.

I'm not aware that anyone else in my family is even interested in being the next family historian but it's all there in case one comes along down the line. 

I never had an interest in history in school but it's different when you do something personal about your own family. When I started my family tree years ago, I never thought I would trace my maternal grandmother's side back to Denmark in the time of princesses, Queens and Kings. I traced my husband's family back to 16th century Scotland. I never thought I would discover the connection my Van Hoose ancestors had with Daniel Boone's family and how they helped to settle the Appalachian trail. And I never thought I would discover notes on death certificates that gave me insight into their lifestyles and habits, some good and some very bad.

I never thought I would locate pictures of people that looked like me through dna matches and houses still standing I could locate on census records where my grandparents lived way before I was born.

What sparked my fire years ago was when my grandmother died and my uncle found a huge box of photographs in her closet and almost all of the people in the photos were not recognized by anyone still living. Nobody knew who they were.

I thought at the time that it would have been wonderful to hear stories about all those people and know something about them and how they were connected to our family but unfortunately all that information and all those wonderful stories were lost forever. What a shame. So I decided to not let that happen again. Always label the back of your photos people! In three generations or less you will become unknown by your descendants. Who is going to tell all your wonderful life stories? Without documentation, you are just a memory to those closest to you and all your goodness and maybe a little badness will be lost.

I've digitized all my photos and named them in this book. So here's hoping my descendants will spring forth with a good detective or family historian in the future who will want to add to it. 

I never thought I would get this involved with the family history but I can honestly say after working on it all these years that I did my part to keep it alive. I published my first family tree in 2009. This book didn't happen overnight. It's up to them to keep it going.