Behind the crafter

How it all started

I’ve always been crafty, although I’m not sure we even called it “crafty” back then. I was just handy and liked making things.

If I needed curtains, I made curtains. If I saw a top I liked, I figured out how to sew something similar. I dabbled in a little bit of everything, usually because I wanted or needed something and thought, “I can make that.”

Funny enough, stamping was definitely NOT one of those things.

Sometime in my 20s, I was wandering through a big-box craft store with a friend when we passed the rubber stamp aisle. She casually said, “My sister stamps.”

My completely serious response was…

Stamp what?

I honestly had no idea what people were doing with all those rubber stamps. She didn’t explain, I didn’t ask, and we kept walking.

And that was that. Or so I thought. 😉

Fast-forward a few years, and I had kids of my own. I decided to make them a little book showing the five things they needed to do before bed each night. Because apparently when Mom says it, it’s negotiable. Put it in a book with pictures, and suddenly we have official documentation.

I took pictures of them doing each bedtime task and headed back to a big-box craft store looking for supplies to make what we would probably call a mini album today.

That’s when I hit a problem.

I found paper I loved, but nothing else matched. The ribbon was almost the right color. The stickers were sort of right. And those two shades of pink that looked perfect separately? Put them together and… absolutely not.

While searching for supplies, I discovered the card-making and scrapbooking magazines that were everywhere at the time. I was fascinated by the beautiful little works of art people were creating on greeting cards with stamps, watercoloring, paper, and embellishments.

Somewhere in those pages, I discovered Stampin’ Up!®

Then I learned about the color coordination.

Wait. The cardstock matches the ink? And the ribbon matches too?

NOW I understood.

After my adventure with fifty shades of “almost pink,” the idea of having products designed to coordinate was pretty revolutionary.

I found a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator in the next town who seemed to be pretty involved with the company. That turned out to be Tami White, one of Stampin’ Up!’s top demonstrators, practically in my own backyard.

I went to Tami’s house for a class, tried heat embossing, and watched that powder melt and transform right in front of me.

I was hooked.

I came home and told my husband, affectionately known around here as Mr. Crafty Stampin’, that basically…

I wanted it ALL.

I wanted the colors, the tools, and the techniques. Most of all, I wanted to see something beautiful and know I could figure out how to make it myself.

And bless Mr. Crafty Stampin’, he said okay.

Nearly two decades later, those little kids I made bedtime books for are grown, and I’m still here creating, learning, teaching, and surrounded by more stamps, ink, cardstock, dies, and ribbon than that twenty-something version of me could ever have imagined.

Apparently I finally figured out what people stamp. 😉

And I still love it.