A Thoughtful Thursday

Why do you craft?  The question was posed in the book I’m reading, Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin.  It’s funny that such a simple question stopped me cold for more than a few seconds before I read on.  I like the idea of crafting, but just to dance with semantics for a moment, I like to think about why I create things, and you may, too.  Not everything I create is a craft, and some of my crafts are, well, not very creative.

Why do I create?

A laundry list, in no specific order:

•     To avoid doing laundry, for starters ( I know, some people love doing laundry.  I will never understand you.  NEVER.  And I'm OK with that.)

•      Even on a bad day when I’m ripping out a thousand stitches,

LIKE THIS:

 
          it’s still nice to have the old hands busy working on something.

•     I love children’s clothes and love seeing them dressed in fun fashions.

•     My family has been creating things with their hands as long as I can remember, so it just seems a natural part of who I am to keep on doing it.

•       It is extremely satisfying to make something beautiful.

•       Making something is time well spent, even if the end product isn’t what I would call a stellar work of art.

•       On a spiritual level, I love the creation story.  God created everything with his words.  He didn’t begin with a raw material; he WAS the raw material.  He made everything beautiful, and when he finished, he said, “It’s good.”  I feel like when I am creating something, I’m imitating my Father.  I love to get to the end of a thing and say, “Now that is good.”

•       Crafting and creating is just plain fun.  When I think of my craft, I first think of sewing because that’s what I’m currently working on the most.  But with preschoolers in the house, just about anything can turn into a craft.  They call them “projects.”  If a few days have gone by without doing anything, they start whining, “Can I do a project??”  It’s whining that I’m happy to oblige most of the time.

•       We always have a card on hand for any occasion without having to run out to a store.  We just get the markers, scrap pack, stickers, and glue and let the kids create something!

•       Crafting relaxes me.  Maybe that’s why my husband lets me do so much of it. 

•       If, at the end of the day, I have a pile of laundry, some dishes left undone, toilet paper strung across the bathroom from my two-year-old, paint smears on the table (and our play clothes), play dough crumbs under the table, a tent built in the living room out of sheets, Connect Four and Zingo pieces scattered across the floor, . . . but I’ve had my hands on something I’m creating, it’s been a good day.  And, hey, the kids sleep eventually.  It’ll all get picked up, right?

Happy Creating!