Jenny's Thoughts: Crafti-wha??

A sleeping beast has been awoken from deep down inside of me. I’m almost ashamed to admit it because I’ve denied its existence for so long now. The beast is: Crafty. As in craftiness, as in crafts. As in artsy-fartsy making stuff that you could just buy for sometimes the same price if not less, but instead you MAKE for the joy of the process. For years now, I’ve poo-pooed craftiness (particularly scrap-booking which, at one point, became the bane of my existence when I lamely attempted it). It’s not that I don’t appreciate crafty-skills in others. I admire them greatly! I just never ever thought that I could qualify as crafty. I even bragged about just how NON-crafty I was. But I can’t deny it any longer.

Yes, the stupid-yet-wonderful time-sucking obsession that is a website called Pinterest is partially to blame. It didn’t wake the beast, it’s just helped feed it. Especially with settling into a new home in mind, Pinterest provides an endless supply of home improvement, “diy,” crafty projects. A couple of my crafty ideas (particularly for the garden) have come from Pinterest. But, if anything, looking on Pinterest and at other people’s creative ideas has encouraged me to come up with my own. The juices are a-flowin’. I mean, if everybody just puts ALL of their ideas on Pinterest, there will be no more original ideas! I’ll admit I’ve even checked Pinterest to see if one of my craft plans was on there – I was thrilled that it turned up no hits. Yes! Finally, I – the anti-crafty – came up with a do-it-yourself, crafty-craft that 368 people haven’t already “pinned” on to a Pinterest board. Am I perhaps, somewhat original in this day and age of everything-is-already-somewher-online or in an app?? But my next thought was, if I do a good job with my craft, I WILL take a picture of it. I WILL post it here, and then what if someone snags it to put on Pinterest?? OK, at that point, I’ll still just be so surprised with my own craftiness, I’d be honored and probably wouldn’t stop bragging about my ‘pinability.’ But, still, the whole thing: my new found love of certain craft projects, the amount of craft ideas out there, the amount of time one can spend looking at craft projects for your home on-line…the whole thing has kind of become obsessive and time-sucking, really.

I’ve slowly been evolving into this craftiness but have been in denial. I’ve painted furniture – the blackboard kitchen table has been a plan of mine for a long time (pre-Pinterest, thank ya very much). Painting our last house in way more bold and bright colors than most people deem normal and appropriate. The tile table and mosaic that the boys and I did a couple of years ago were probably my main gateway drug into the adult crafting world. Before that, I’d dabbled in pottery painting (with a bit of a success, but that just wasn’t practical and was too expensive – which defeats the point of craftiness, if you ask me!). I tried knitting and successfully knocked out a few scarves that were mediocre at best. Back in my youth, my craftiness came out in the form of jewelry making. Now, I’d say, my craftiness is definitely specific: I like crafts that can beautify my home, yard, or act as a nice (and doesn’t look like a 2 year old made it) accessory for me and/or others. Quite frankly, I have all these plans for doing homemade craft-type Christmas gifts for people, but I just don’t know if I’m quite there yet. I enjoy the fact that I have children though and can always give them credit (or blame!) if my attempt DOES look completely juvenile. Or if it’s really bad, I might go so far as to say it was created and purchased from a blind and limbless craft-creating animal of some sort. I’m sure those are out there. I’ll look for some on-line.

The history of craftiness:

Matthew's bday party last year -- note the sneaky craft lurking in the background.