I've started a new business! And so, a new blog. This blog will keep track of my works in progress as well as projects I've finished that will be put in my Etsy shop. I hope that I can build relationships with those that are interested in my work, and get feedback on how to make it better, and therefore have a more successful business.
I suppose I should tell how it started this time. I've always been into arts and crafts. I've tried just about every single standard classical art form out there: oil painting, watercolors, acrylics, pastels, black and white pencil, colored pencil, charcoal, clay sculptures, found object sculptures, plaster sculptures, pointillism, etc, as well as ventured into the less common disciplines of pysanky eggs, origami, polymer clay, quilting, knitting, sewing, beading, jewelry making, wood working, and more. I was my high school art teacher's pride and joy, and I have left a legacy there for the students who would follow me. 6 years after I've graduated, students I've never met know my name. They have been told of my skills. I am a legend, and once every few years when I go visit her, every face in the room stares at me, unblinking, burning my face into their minds to go with all the stories they've heard. I always wonder if I am what they imagined me to be.
I got married in college after I found out my newly air-forced husband was getting sent to Italy. This is when I dabbled in knitting and earned the nickname "old lady." A made some beaded ornaments in here as well, but other than that, my art was put on the back burner. I was constantly traveling between Italy and the states for school, and after he got stationed in North Carolina, we bought a house. I was desperate for money to pay my student loans, but because the economy was in it's lowest point at this time there were no jobs to be had. Then the earthquake in Haiti happened. It seemed like hundreds of soldiers were deployed overnight, leaving their families ill prepared for their absence. The unfortunate event in Haiti led me to become a very successful babysitter. Once the summer came I started working as a lead lifeguard, which kept me very busy as well. In the fall, my husband got stationed in Montana, and I signed up for a tax class with a well known tax preparing company. It was the most brain-coma inducing thing I think I've ever done. I passed and got a job preparing taxes in the spring. Half way through the season, after three and a half years of marriage, my husband told me he wanted a divorce.
So, I packed up and moved to Montana.
At this poi
nt it had been years since I've really created anything other than a delicious meal. I didn't realize how badly I needed it. One night a friend of mine introduced me to stumbled upon. It immediately sent me to some origami type sites. My first project was a kusudama flower ball made out of wrapping paper I picked up from the dollar store. I also bought a single page of pretty blue scrapbook paper, and started folding cranes with it. They turned out beautiful! I decided to fold a slightly smaller one and it turned out to be just the cutest thing I'd ever seen. So I folded yet a smaller one. Feeling inspired, I decided to do a little searching of my own. I found the work of two artists: http://thepapercraneorigami.com/home/ and http://stacietamaki.com/origami_cranes_gestures.html and I decided that I would make origami ornaments to sell while working on a grand sculpture of tiny cranes to put in an art museum. Unfortunately, I couldn't find glass bulb ornaments anywhere in town. How I missed Hobby Lobby with their permanent Christmas section and "everything is on sale all the time" attitude. Silently cursing the universe from keeping me from my intended path of Christmas ornament making, I began looking at the cranes I had made, and realized they were so cute I had to do something with them. I would make earrings! I bought some glass pearls, ear wires, silver beads and beading wire and made a crude yet gorgeous pair of earrings. I posted a picture on my Facebook and was immediately bombarded with supportive comments and requests for custom pairs. Lady Grace Crafts was born!
