My Creative Journey

 

Hi my name is Laurie and I decided that 2014 would be my year for a creative journey.  When I was much younger, I was known as the craft a year person.  I have done most everything.  As a young child , I always asked for canvas and oil pastels for my birthday.  Several years ago when my grandmother died, I came across a piece I had given her probably for Mother's day or a birthday. The flower to the vase was way out of proportion and it all kind of made me cringe. As a depth challenged individual It may never get that proportion thing quite right,  but I was touched that she had kept if for 30 years and several moves to smaller and smaller locations.

As a young adult I continued on my crafty journey.  My paternal grandmother crocheted beautiful afghans and bedspreads and happily taught me.  I married young and we waited a long time for a baby so I eagerly  made Christmas gifts for my family every year.  I crocheted sweaters, made homemade food gifts and painted "stained" glass windows. They were family so they were always nice about them, but I doubt they ever used anything I gave them. I took a cake decorating class and started creating family birthday cakes.  Soon after my son was born, I discovered rubber stamps.  I thought I had gone to heaven.  Here was a craft that didn't care my drawing skills were lacking and would allow me to color to my hearts content.


I decided that I was going to figure out how to incorporate my love of stamping into a career.  I started a home based party business prior any of the ones that came later.  At one of my parties I met a client who owned a bead store and she approached me about a combined bead and rubber stamp store.  I was so excited, even though I still had a full time job, we worked it out and were on our way.  As you can imagine the new craft of beading got added to my cart.  I met some really cool people in the business including Kristen Powell designer and owner of rubbermoon.com.  She came and did a class at our store and I still have the pin I made. This was made with watercolor paper and it is about 20 years old and starting to show it's age, but I still love it.

The store ran successfully for several years when I suddenly became a single parent to a 6 year old son.  Soon after I moved my side of the store to a new location with a new partner and soon after that it was evident to both of us that I needed to concentrate on raising my son, so I sold my part of the business to my partner.  It ran out of a brick and mortar location for many years and has morphed into thestamproom.com and it's owner Kina remains one of my dearest friends and inspirations.  It is because of her that I have taken up this journey.  She has allowed me to grow in my craft which is now turning towards mixed media and is the source of most of my supplies.  Please look at her really cool store, she has tons of stamps not easily found elsewhere.

Although leaving the business was the right thing for my son, it pained my heart and took me away from my crafting and art for many years.  I put all my supplies in a closet and focused on my "regular" career as an accountant.  I went back to school, finished my accounting degree and became active in a handbell group as my creative outlet.  I still did a few things along the way such as  helping to build a gingerbread scale model of our church for a charity event with a group of really talented ladies.

 
With my son grown and on his way, some career changes had me relocating from the ocean shores of Jacksonville and Jacksonville Beach to Fort Worth Texas. It wasn't an easy transition, but I have an adventurous soul so it has been fun.   My fiancee followed me a year later and now that we are settled it is time for me to get back to my creative roots.  Luckily he thinks it has great and we are getting ready turn our spare bedroom in our studio/office.  He will be taking my pictures so I am sure they improve. 

My other passion is cooking and entertaining so don't be surprised if you find posts on recipes and other such stuff.  This Christmas I learned to make jelly and marshmallows, both from posts on other blogs.  My lovely fiancee Edward bought me a food scale for Christmas so I will be pulling out my book on proportions in cooking and experimenting.  I will share as appropriate.

I will be the first to admit that I am a bit ADD and so I can't promise you what you will find week to week on my blog, it could be about anything from mixed media art, stamp creations or an updated piece of furniture.  As you can tell from my blog name for me it is all about the story and the  doing.  I do things because I love them, not necessarily because I am good at them, but I hope to grow in my technique this year also. I hope you join me on my journey and enjoy your own meandering path through life.