march meet the maker : day 1 : story

march meet the maker : day 1 : story

hey friends!

it's time for the yearly tradition of #marchmeetthemaker, an instagram challenge i stumbled across a few years ago. the designer of this challenge, joanne hawker is incredible and her instagram feed is definitely worth checking out. she sources so much inspiration and talent. 

because one can only write so many details within a photo on instagram, i decided once again this year to share my journey with additional details here on my blog. sometimes i think the photo can be a little vague and we all know i like to talk, so why not share some of the behind the scenes information?

here we go with day 1 : story

i guess i could say that my creative story goes back to when i was a kid, coloring at the dining room table with a fresh box of crayolas - and i do think that's where it started. [i was lucky enough to have a momma who believed in buying me a brand new pack of crayons each school year, regardless of how many boxes i already had stashed away. anyone else love the smell of fresh crayolas?!]

it might also have been in junior high when i started making all the collages of everyday teenage life with cut-outs from magazines, catalogues and anything else i could find to cut up. many a night and weekend was spent creating art from disassembled pages. these pieces of colorful creativity filled my walls and picture frames, along with notebooks. 

[sadly, i don't have any photos of these collages]

collage making and mixed media art slowly transitioned into scrapbooks and memory keeping - along with a passion for photography. i took photos of everything - events big and small and everyday adventures, especially in college. long before the days of cell phone cameras, we had digital cameras and long before that it started with the disposable ones - and then the wait to see what you actually photographed. none of this instant gratification stuff. 

out of the piles and piles of photos that were captured, scrapbooks in all shapes and sizes were made. 6x6, 8x8 and 12x12? of course. but also albums made out of blank cd's - covering them with designs and stories. origami unfolding albums? oh yeah, once made one with 365 "pages" as an anniversary present for an old boyfriend. photos and stories became my love language - and i often gave them away as gifts. 

who doesn't give a card with a gift, right? so i started making cards to match - using the same materials or themes as if to give the recipient a sneak of what was to come.

soon i had friends requesting the cards by themselves and thus was truly the start of what was to eventually become 1cre8ivemess - the small business i've built by making snail mail for any and every occasion.

while my heart still pitter-patters for scrapbooks - and i continue to make them [both as gifts for friends as well as telling the story of our everyday adventures], i've also grown to love the feeling of making small works of [he]art and sending them along to brighten someone else's day. i've always been a firm believer in kindness and what better way than to share some of the handmade variety?

selling cards at shows and events as well as online here in my shop - i would eventually like to reach more people on as many platforms as possible. 

i've got lots of plans, details and goals to share, but you'll have to come back to learn about each one in this month-long journey of meet the maker. 

thanks for coming to learn about [part of the story of] 1cre8ivemess.

i highly encourage you to check out the following hashtags, as this is where i've discovered so many talented makers, bakers, growers and creatives. 

#marchmeetthemaker
#marchmeetthemaker2020

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