In Awe

My mom taught me to craft.

I remember all the while growing up times of painting and stenciling under her tutelage. Chalk was a big form of entertainment whether it was on a chalkboard or concrete. And I couldn't begin to count the hours I spent with a big box of crayons and coloring books. Coloring can still keep me entertained =o) I spent a lot of my life watching my mom and learning from her. Seeing all she did to sew and help create things for church... so it would probably surprise you to know that there were times she surprised me!

I always thought I knew how capable my mom was... and then I was in Brownies where my mom was a troop leader. Our other troop leader was pregnant and my mom put together a project for us. I mean most people would probably just throw a shower. Buy some gifts. But we made a quilt! My mom, in turns, had each of my fellow Brownie troop friends over to our house to stencil a quilt square and before my very eyes, I watched my mom take all of those squares and turn them into a beautiful memory quilt!

And then, in the fourth grade, I learned how to knit. We learned for a class project after we read a book. It was called the Ernie and the Mile Long Muffler and, to be quite honest, I still remember all that it was about and I LOVED it! haha Anyway, for class everyone had to knit a square. Just a small square, but it was an assignment. We all learned how to do it and did it! So at the end of the time, my teacher had around 30 knitted squares and she asked MY MOM to put them together! So she used yarn to stitch the squares all together and then put fabric all the way around  to turn it into a blanket that my teacher hung on the wall for the rest of the school year!

My mom did that! And do you know how many people (besides me) think its awesome that my mom used to sew pretty much all of my dresses and halloween costumes when I was a kid? Not to mention all of the stenciled borders in our house and homemade curtains and everything else she used to do. My mom was DIY before DIY was popular!

It's pretty cool.

I hope that someday I'm the kind of mom that my kids are proud of...

Coloring

I remember…

I think that's how a lot of these National Craft Month blog posts will start. My memories. As accurate as they can be. Which is really only as accurate as my mind has made them. Some of them are recent, some are older, and some are from my childhood, remembered by that part of my brain that houses childhood memories… that makes them more precious.

And here I find myself back to my opening statement… I remember.

I remember my Grandma K. She was sweet. Lovely. She wrote poetry. She grew up on a farm. My grandpa loved her very much and referred to her as the "Queen Of Them All". She signed some of her things QOTA. She loved gardening, especially her roses. She had a fountain in her garden and while I can picture it, I can't begin to say anything about it other than it was stone. There was a big swing, I think it was red. I remember swinging on it with my grandma. I remember doing bunny ears, sticking out my tongue and kick-lines for the 8mm video camera with her and my aunts. I remember she loved Olga the Walrus that lived at Brookfield Zoo; Grandma had a picture of Olga stuck to a cupboard in her kitchen.

But what I remember most of all, was coloring with my grandma. After we finished our meal and after we had cleaned up the dishes and washed off the table, it was time! I knew what drawer held the white typewriter paper and where to find the little tupperware (I think it was yellow?) that help those treasured colors. I would get them and sit at the table with Grandma all set to draw…

In my mind, we always drew the same thing… I'm sure there were times we didn't, but I always remember starting with an apple tree; a good strong brown barked tree with big loopy green 'leaves' and bright red apples all over it. Then there was grass… there should always be a lot of green grass under your tree. It's more comfortable for when you nap underneath. The sun was next. A big yellow circle with yellow rays that came streaming out of it. We liked sunny days best =o) Sometimes there were birds in the sky! One of us would be climbing a ladder and there would be a basket under the tree to catch the apples that we picked. On another limb, there was an occasional tire swing and sometimes in the background there was a little garden or some little piggy's or cows. But the most important part, the thing that was always there, was the apple tree.

It may sound silly, but to this day if you see me with a plain white piece of paper and some crayons you can rest assured that I'm about to color myself climbing a ladder into an apple tree with a basket under it to catch all the ones I've picked.

A Month to Craft

Do you know what I heard on the radio this morning? Probably not, so I'll tell you!

March is National Craft Month!

If you're not a crafter (I did not think that was a real word! I thought I was going to get the red squiggly underline!) you probably aren't very excited about this. But I am! I grew up with a mom that liked to sew and paint and color and she taught me to love sewing and painting and coloring. And over the years I added a love of photography and decoupage and stamping and (sometimes) knitting …

As a matter of fact, some of my favorite memories have to do with crafting with my mom and my grandmas and my cousins and my friends... I mention this because I plan to blog once or twice a week this month sharing stories of crafting memories and photos in honor of National Craft Month!

Do you have any favorite crafting memories or stories or projects? I'd love to hear about them!

I feel like I need to...

do more crafting...

As I sat online while hanging out with RubyRed last night, while we half paid attention to a movie, she was creating a collage. And as I see the final masterpiece this morning on her blog, it made me think about how crafting used to make me feel a sense of peace... of calm... it allowed me to think outside of myself for a while... just long enough to get my focus back on track.

I know, I do turn to God for all of that... but sometimes it helps to not think about my own life and all of it's ridiculousness...

Perhaps I’m crazy?

I have decided that since I have Monday off, I’m going to make it a project day! Not the usual cleaning and such that I normally do on a 3-day weekend, but a fun craft-type project day!

I’m going to reupholster my lay-z-boy.

I’ll let you know how it goes =0)


(Does anyone have a staple gun I can borrow??)