My Crafting Story: How It All Started

So how did I get into crafting? In April 2008, my maternal grandmother passed away in Ecuador. In May of that same year we held a mass commemorating the one-month anniversary of her death, something that is very common in Ecuador. As a way of remembering my grandmother through the years, my mom and I decided to make a scrapbook with pictures of my grandparents and family.

We began by going to Michael’s. It was the first place I thought of since years prior, when I turned 16, we had bought all of the decorations, embellishments, and souvenirs for my Sweet 16 at Michael’s. We bought a black scrapbook that said memories on it and we bought black and silver colored embellishments. We also bought ribbons, papers, and odds and ends in the same color scheme.

Next, I went about finding images of my grandmother. Fortunately, I had many old images and some newer ones. I printed them out in black-and-white, cut them up, and then started creating each scrapbook page. Once the book was done, we brought it to Ecuador and passed it around to each table at the tea we held after the mass.

At the end of that same year, I started asking myself, ‘How can I make some extra money?’ I was working in the city as an editor, but I wanted to make some side income. In all honesty, that desire was the catalyst for getting into crafting. I thought about the book we made for my grandmother and I remembered we had some supplies left over. I didn’t want to make scrapbooks though. I wanted to make cards!

Since my mom worked on the scrapbook with me, I asked her if she would go into business with me. She, naturally, said yes. So we grabbed our old supplies (which were all dark colors and not at all conducive to our new venture of making Christmas cards!) and then headed to Michael’s once again and began buying card-making supplies. And boy did we buy a lot! You must understand, my mom doesn’t do things lightly. When she’s interested in something she goes all out. I knew I made the right decision inviting her along on my new venture!

That winter we made so many cards! It’s funny when I look back on that first year because our cards… were so simple! We were just starting out and didn’t know anything about how to properly embellish a card. We mostly just glued stuff onto the card front, hahaha. I have pictures of all the cards we’ve ever done and will post old ones against new ones.

Now, 8 years later, I don’t just do cards. I make decorations, party hats, banners, home décor, gift boxes…. I’ve branched out a lot and I still love crafting as much as when we first started!

So here’s what our cards looked like in the beginning:

And then things started getting better:

And better:

And finally some favorites:

My Crafting Story: How It All Started is a post that first appeared on the website: Baby Henry Likes on May 31, 2016.

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