Sunday, 20 October 2013

Craft Divergence and The Range

I used to paper craft as a child and my paper shoes were legendary, if not functional. My Mother's war cry was always over our single pair of missing household scissors which I had always had and could never find. Interestingly, as I grew up I actually recognised our long, round tipped shiny household scissors as actually being long handled surgical operation scissors but I never got to the bottom of where they had come from as we had no medical connections.

As I got older I rather left paper crafting behind though I retained my love for all thing stationery and have an impressive collection of paper, pens and related items. In her young days my Mother had been a bookbinder, as were many of her family. Some years ago we took some bookbinding classes together at the former Glasgow College of Building and Printing and made some lovely journals and restored some antique books including one for a hospital library. I found it so sad one night when my Mother told me that when she had been working she'd have loved to go to college but they reserved that for the men preferring to teach the women in-house. It just goes to show how times have changed and why both my parents were so supportive of our learning. It was a great course and I learned loads including how to be even fussier about the quality of my stationery, though I'm not sure this was needed!

I love making my jewellery gifts as beautiful as possible and presenting them well. Sometimes I find commercial packaging, tags or cards just don't allow me to personalise gifts properly or more often I spend all my time on the jewellery and end up scooting into the nearest supermarket to grab wrappings on my way to the recipient! I have bought some magazines which come with all the kit to make a card or tag, and they've saved my bacon a few nights when I needed a gift to be complete for the morning but they have languished in the cupboard mainly. I am definitely a bit OCD and if I'm giving something to someone else it needs to be perfect which can be hard with handmade paper crafts.

The Range opened in Glasgow a couple of months ago and awakened my paper crafting interest. I hadn't heard of this English store before but they pride themselves on their arts and crafts ranges. I am stinking mad at this as I cannot believe I could have had access to their stock when I was on my trips down south if I'd only know about them....! I also made a trip to a craft store in Hillington around the same time which is HUGE and, although they do a variety of crafts, paper is obviously their main theme. My purse is now significantly lighter AND I now need more boxes to organise all my paper crafty goodies

These have come at a very useful time tho' as I've been needing paper, card and frames. I've been inspired to make a box framed bathroom sign and am loving planning 3d butterfly wall hangings as I've been ordering Martha Stewart punches like a thing possessed too.

I know I am a complete dilettante when it comes to wanting to learn new things. As soon as I've mastered something I move on. This may make me seem flighty but I usually end up applying the skills and techniques from one to the other so I reckon it is a bonus not to be limited to one mindset. I have also had much to deal with this year and sometimes doing something creative is a refuge. For too long I've been purchasing craft supplies and tools and need to start actually applying myself to actually making the things I've been planning.

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