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Splitcoast Dirty Dozen Creative Crew SU Design Team Alumni
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Michigan
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I had just turned 23 years old. I had never heard of "stamping" before until my friend Karen introduced me to it. Then I was hooked! I actually started out buying from a company called "Raindrops on Roses" and PSX. I swear I bought everything that PSX sold LOL. I didn't discover Stampin' Up! until the late 90's/early 2000. I bought a few sets but the one that sticks out in my mind the most was the Kid Prints set. I loved it. I made so many cute baby items with it.
Bugga - I love your story about the cloak room. I remember back in grade school, about 4th grade, my teacher would give me things to cut out of paper because I was so good with scissors (or, maybe just to keep me occupied). Mom and Dad bought us a set of Childcraft Encyclopedias which I loved because there was one whole book with crafts. When I was 11 years old, and Neil Armstrong stepped out of Apollo 11 onto the moon, I was so transfixed I walked to the Ben Franklin 5 & 10 and bought my first scrapbook. I cut out newspaper and magazine clippings and put them in the scrapbook. I sure wish I still had that scrapbook. When I was a teenager and babysat kids for spending money, I always brought crafts for us to make together. Kids would ask their parents for "the crafty" babysitter. My favorite Christmas presents were from my Aunt, because they were usually craft kits. And, finally, my mother-in-law, who was even more "crafty" than me, always put the nicest ribbons on my presents because she knew I'd save them to make cards.
What a great question. Thanks for letting me go down memory lane craft-style.
I started serious stamping in my mid to late 20's and now I am almost 40. However I had a lot of those little stamps in their own ink bases when I was a kid. I always loved playing with paper, ink, stamps, stickers, crayons, markers, etc. I imagine I will never stop.
...When I was a teenager and babysat kids for spending money, I always brought crafts for us to make together. Kids would ask their parents for "the crafty" babysitter...
What a cool thing to do! I wish I had thought of that, when I was a teenage babysitter. And as a kid, I would have LOVED to have "the crafty babysitter" myself. I'd be willing to bet that you inspired a lot of future crafters.
__________________ ~ Kitty ~ "If you can dream it, you can do it." - Walt Disney
When I started I had to travel 50 miles to get anything related to scrap booking which most people had no idea what I meant....I subscribed to magazines for ideas as there wasn't the computer sites to go on at that time or being able to order online. Now at 75 I love making cards and scrapbooks and there are more supplies and ideas than I can keep up with. You young women are very lucky. Enjoy and include your children in a great hobby.
I can't remember life without papercrafting. My dad was a sign painter and artist of sorts. He made little boxes out of cardboard. (I make my own card boxes from his pattern) He made hats out of newspaper, kites out of paper bags, and much, much more. I grew up recycling just about everything and my sister and I still make cards that way. I recently FINALLY threw away a Mother's Day card that I had made in first Grade. My favorite way to make a card is with old buttons, worn out denim, old calendars, pictures from magazines, vintage lace and whatever else I can find. Is there life without papercrafting?
I started scrapbooking when I was 23 and wanted to make an album for my mom. I had my first of four kids at 25 and really got into scrapbooking then. In my early thirties I added card making after someone introduced me to Stampin'' Up! I'm now 37 and all my kids are in school all day so I papercraft a lot now. I love it!
I attended my first Stampin Up workshop in 1998 and have been absolutely hooked ever since. I was 52 back then (should have been old enough to know better). Figure my kids can figure out what to do with all my stuff someday along with what else I have stashed in the house. I TRY to sell some stamp sets but I love too many!
Sue
17 years old. I didn't make cards at first. I wrote out long letters by longhand (my electric typewriter wasn't very portable). The internet did not yet exist, so no email addresses for my correspondents! I would stamp little images in the margins of the letters, and stamp on the envelopes. I would add to these with my own scribbled drawings, and colourful Lisa Frank stickers.
I started stamping when I stamped on my third graders' papers. Much cheaper
than stickers, but then I got hooked on card-making. That was back in the mid 80s.
So I guess I've been at it for about 30 years but still not as good as I wish I were!
It is so much fun and helps me relax. Although it's expensive, I've been told it's
cheaper than therapy! ??????
I started as a child cutting up the Christmas cards my parents received and making little Christmas cards for my dolls! But of course, I grew out of that. But when I was around 50 I decided to start repurposing beautiful cards in a more sophisticated way than I did as a child and then I needed a Merry Christmas stamp and some ink to add sentiments to them, and that caused me to discover the whole huge world of rubber stamps! I'm now 62 so it's been a great 12 years!
__________________ Susan
My SCS gallery is here should you care to look! Or please visit my blog, Cardmaker's Garret.
I started making cards when I was 29. (about 6 years ago...) My start date coincided directly with my "join date" here at SCS. Instantly hooked and hopelessly addicted!
__________________
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I design for: Stampendous!, There She Goes, Technique Tuesday,
SRM Stickers and Deconstructed Sketches.
17 years old. I didn't make cards at first. I wrote out long letters by longhand (my electric typewriter wasn't very portable). The internet did not yet exist, so no email addresses for my correspondents! I would stamp little images in the margins of the letters, and stamp on the envelopes. I would add to these with my own scribbled drawings, and colourful Lisa Frank stickers.
Oh my gosh Sophie I did the same thing! Your post made me smile. No, those electronic typewriter's were not portable. I remember when I first got my portable word processor I was over the moon.
I made most of my stationery with stamps. I was decorating my envelopes with stickers and stamps. Can you believe envelope art is an art form now? I always had to draw.
Oh my gosh Sophie I did the same thing! Your post made me smile. No, those electronic typewriter's were not portable. I remember when I first got my portable word processor I was over the moon.
I made most of my stationery with stamps. I was decorating my envelopes with stickers and stamps. Can you believe envelope art is an art form now? I always had to draw.
oh ho!! I think we must be about the same age!!
I did splurge and buy preprinted stationary sometimes. However, I LOVED LOVED LOVED typing on it, and around the graphics, if they protruded from the margins. Remember life beFORE the electronic typewriters? We used white-out and then those fancy strips of "typeover" (?) papers... I had to write out all my rough drafts by HAND. When WordPerfect came out it was like heaven. < insert the Hallelujah chorus here >
Depends on what is meant by paper crafting. Paper was about the only craft medium we had growing up in the late 40's and 50's, so my mom splurged on good scissors for us girls so we could cut out store-bought cards that we received and make them into greeting cards, gift cards and even wrapping paper. I still love to cut today. I always had coloring books and got a new box of crayons for Christmas each year (still love to open my drawer with crayons in it and take a whiff) and that's not so much different than what people do with digi images today, is it? My daddy was a draftsman and taught me how to letter, so when I got older, calligraphy was not a huge step. I kept a book of sayings as a kid that in many cases I lettered myself. We were always cutting up old magazines to make "scrapbooks" but in those days they were by theme, like butterflies or lizards, etc. I made my husband---before he was my husband---a "happiness book" using magazine pictures and completing the sentence "Happiness is.." for each page. Then when I had kids and there was absolutely no such thing as a scrapbooking industry, I made scrapbooks for my kids of their growing up years using magazine pictures along with the photos I took and records of growth and development that I lettered by hand. These went all the way through high school and even included a few college things. Now that they are all in their 40's they finally have these books in their possession! Always enjoyed making my own cards and even did a Market Economy project with my classes where they produced their own artwork on cards and sold them. Didn't actually get into stamping (reluctantly, if you can believe that) until about 13 years ago when fellow workers invited me to join them for stamping with a small group. The rest is history, as they say, and in my case the future as well.
oh ho!! I think we must be about the same age!!
I did splurge and buy preprinted stationary sometimes. However, I LOVED LOVED LOVED typing on it, and around the graphics, if they protruded from the margins. Remember life beFORE the electronic typewriters? We used white-out and then those fancy strips of "typeover" (?) papers... I had to write out all my rough drafts by HAND. When WordPerfect came out it was like heaven. < insert the Hallelujah chorus here >
How can I ever forget the days of White Out, lol. I see techniques done with White Out today and I think "Thanks, I will pass!" ROFL! I swear my papers use to be painted in it since I was such a goof. I recently did buy a White Out correction tape that has Hello Kitty. I can still find typeover papers. Office supplies were so cool then. You know all the twenty year old girls reading this are probably doing the Google image thing right now or they think we are old, lol.
Depends on what is meant by paper crafting. Paper was about the only craft medium we had growing up in the late 40's and 50's, so my mom splurged on good scissors for us girls so we could cut out store-bought cards that we received and make them into greeting cards, gift cards and even wrapping paper. I still love to cut today. I always had coloring books and got a new box of crayons for Christmas each year (still love to open my drawer with crayons in it and take a whiff) and that's not so much different than what people do with digi images today, is it? My daddy was a draftsman and taught me how to letter, so when I got older, calligraphy was not a huge step. I kept a book of sayings as a kid that in many cases I lettered myself. We were always cutting up old magazines to make "scrapbooks" but in those days they were by theme, like butterflies or lizards, etc. I made my husband---before he was my husband---a "happiness book" using magazine pictures and completing the sentence "Happiness is.." for each page. Then when I had kids and there was absolutely no such thing as a scrapbooking industry, I made scrapbooks for my kids of their growing up years using magazine pictures along with the photos I took and records of growth and development that I lettered by hand. These went all the way through high school and even included a few college things. Now that they are all in their 40's they finally have these books in their possession! Always enjoyed making my own cards and even did a Market Economy project with my classes where they produced their own artwork on cards and sold them. Didn't actually get into stamping (reluctantly, if you can believe that) until about 13 years ago when fellow workers invited me to join them for stamping with a small group. The rest is history, as they say, and in my case the future as well.
Jeanne- I love your story. It made me smile. All of the story was just lovely. That would be a pretty story for a crafting magazine. I sincerely mean this.
My Mom recently made me a beautiful scrapbook about horses. It's just a big book of different horses she collaged from magazines, cards, old beat up books. No fancy designer paper, fancy adhesives or die cuts. Each picture cut by hand while she watched reality TV. I love that book so much.
I crocheted and did embroidery when I was young, but I have never been craft. When I was 61. I started scrapbooking, but a year later, my daughter introduced me to card-making. At 66 I am going crazy with the card-making. My DH and I are going to Italy in May, so I may have to make a scrapbook again.
I started about four or five years ago, so my late 20's. My close friend was having a KU (go Jayhawks!) themed baby shower. I wanted to get her a card that went with the cute lil KU baby clothes I've found. Alas, I could not find a single card. So, I decided why not make one. There began my love of card making. Why buy when you can make something twice as cute! A friend saw the card I posted on Facebook and invited me to her Stampin Up card club. Oh the fun I've had since
i started paper crafting, making our own Christmas cards, when my two little girls were around 6-7 years old. There weren't all the dies, inks, beautiful papers then. There was only your imagination using very simple things gathered from around the house for embellishments. Now I am 67 years old so that would make it around 40 years ago or so. It has only been the last 15 -18 years that I think the industry has really taken off with every embellishment man, woman, or child could think of that we NEED! LOL. I love making greeting cards for everyone I know. I used to even sell them to local women at the bank. That was when they were simple using just rubber stamps, assorted inks and cards stock from the local printer. But, sold them I did and quit when I found I wasn't enjoying the freedom to "just make a card" anymore. I love card making so much that often times just looking at the paper makes me drool and I cannot for the life of me cut into it. That's when I have to get a grip! So, until my eyes fall out I will be making all occasion cards to my delight for a long time yet to come!
Last edited by dottiejdavis; 03-10-2013 at 03:15 PM..
I have always been somewhat artsy/crafty. When I was a child, I loved to color. Of course I had to outline and stay in the lines. As I got a little older, I majored in Art and went to an art college. I did some drawing for a while. In my 20's, I started doing counted cross stitch. I had a dry period for many years. I did a lot of computer cards and stuff. About 6 years ago, I had foot surgery, and a friend started taking me to her stamping club. The first day, I was hooked. I started buying stamps and other things and haven't stopped since! I am in for thousands! I now own just about every toy known to stampers! I had 3 Cricut machines…now down to 2, and just ordered a Silhouette Portrait! Since I have an incurable cancer, I try to spend my time in my studio. It really relaxes me a lot. I have also started doing Zentangle and sometimes combine stamping with my tangles. I just turned 64!
I was almost 50! My youngest daughter, then in high school, wanted to start SB'ing. So we both did. I found SB'ing too intense for me - my kids' memories were involved and I'd literally spend 24 hours (over a week or so) per page! When I started making cards, it was a smaller "canvas" and since I didn't send cards, I had no real use for them except to MAKE them! LOL! :-) I found making them less emotional.
I wasted a ton of $$ on misc stuff from WalMart and the big box craft stores before I found SU. I've been an SU demo for close to 9 years now. It's a great ride! I don't plan to EVER stop stamping! :-)
__________________ ~ Susan - Celebrating 19 years as an SU demo! Grammy to Anna 15, Elizabeth 14, Nora 12, Abigail 12, Kendall 10 , Isaac 10, Evan 7, and Hudson 3 with me in my avatar Proud to be SCS Fan Club Member since the beginning!
I was almost 50! My youngest daughter, then in high school, wanted to start SB'ing. So we both did. I found SB'ing too intense for me - my kids' memories were involved and I'd literally spend 24 hours (over a week or so) per page! When I started making cards, it was a smaller "canvas" and since I didn't send cards, I had no real use for them except to MAKE them! LOL! :-) I found making them less emotional.
I wasted a ton of $$ on misc stuff from WalMart and the big box craft stores before I found SU. I've been an SU demo for close to 9 years now. It's a great ride! I don't plan to EVER stop stamping! :-)
Instead of just hanging on to all those wonderful cards you have made, take a picture, if you want a record, and donate them to OWH. They would love them.
I was about 9 when I started with scrapbooks (those magnetic albums)... then I met a friend who did Creative Memories and got started with that when I was 29. I still haven't converted all my old albums yet.
I started stamping two years later.
If my adult era crafting started at 29, then I've been at this for 9 years. wow!
Oooh another fun topic! I don't remember how old I was when I started paper crafting. I like to say I was born with a pair of scissors in one hand and a pack of markers in the other, ha! I loved to play with clay and learned to sew as a child too, but playing with paper and art supplies was always my favorite. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of the times I spent drawing, coloring, cutting, and pasting. This thread has been fun to read because it brought my own memories up, which I hope you don't mind me sharing a few of with you.
Things like how I always used to LOVE the first day of school when I was in grade school (late 1970's/ early 80's), because that's when they gave us new boxes of crayons and notebooks and our own scissors and bottles of glue. It was a fun ritual watching the teacher open the boxes of each new supply and pass them out to us one at a time. Oh the anticipation! The joy of new unused crayons, lined up in their box with perfect new points on them, and new unused notebooks just waiting to be filled! I know you guys 'get' that thrill of a new unused notebook, haha! And then I also loved the last day of school, because that's when we cleaned out our desks. We had those desks with hinged lids that would lift up, and over the school year everything inside got buried deeper and deeper toward the back, and on the last day of school it was so thrilling to me to dig out all my piles of unused papers and leftover crayons and half-empty glue, because that meant a whole summer of freedom and papercrafty fun. I would write little stories and illustrate them, and make little "fun books" filled with word puzzles and mazes and games, and take them on our road trips to occupy my time.
Practically the only thing I remember about my first grade class was the day we made woven place mats as a gift for our parents for some special occasion, and my teacher held us all in rapt attention with a handful of strips made out of special papers which she passed out to us one by one to add into our mats. They were made from embossed foil papers, much like the stuff you can get to wrap bouquets in at flower shops, and I remember how eager I was for my turn to come and how much I hoped the one she chose for me was really really special!
When I was in second grade they had everyone enter the PTA Reflections contest. We got to color posters! The theme was "look out your window" and I colored a picture of a sailboat on a lake because we had just built a new house with a very nice view of Bear Lake in northern Utah, and that's what I saw when I looked out our living room window! (Mind you, the sailboats were a speck we were so far away, but they were there nonetheless!) When the entire school gathered in the library to return everyone's posters and announce the winners from each class I waited eagerly to see if they had liked my poster. I felt very small in my spot on the floor with the rest of the little kids, surrounded by the legs of big kids and teachers standing around me, new to the school and very insecure about whether I was accepted by them or not. Imagine my dismay when the last poster had been handed back and mine was not among them! I was so broken-hearted that they had forgotten about me and lost my poster. Some adult saw my tears and learned that I had not received my poster back and then it was discovered that not only had my poster been accidentally overlooked, but that it had won the grand prize for the whole school! THAT was awesome vindication for an insecure seven-year-old! My prize was a book and all I remember about it was the characters were little animals like mice and things and my mom bought me a new set of markers to celebrate my win and I colored all the pictures in it in the car on the way home.
My favorite holiday during the school year was always Valentine's Day because in my experience it was a holiday completely dedicated to the giving and receiving of floofy decorated stationery! XD We got to make covered shoe boxes to hold our valentines in, which was always a fun craft day at school, because of the doilies and lace, and hearts and cute little cherubs to trace and cut out, and pink and red construction paper. (It was a special occasion when the teacher passed out the colored construction paper!) Usually my mom got store-bought valentines for us because I was the oldest of six and I don't think she wanted to hand-make that many cards with us, lol! I loved the little white envelopes they always came with back then, and the ritual of making sure I got every child's name written on one of them, checking carefully with the class list the teacher gave us, choosing exactly which conversation hearts to put into each one because my best friends got more than the rest of the kids and it would be an absolutely unlivable tragedy to tell a boy 'luv u' or 'kiss me'. Haha.
My favorite memory from fourth grade was when we made shoebox dioramas for Halloween. We cut out spooky trees and picket fences and tombstones and black cats and the perfect Halloween moon, and glued them in to make a scene, staggering them all from front to back. (My young mind thought that was the coolest thing ever.) We cut a hole in the front to peek through, and a hole in the lid to provide light, and my teacher had yellow-tinted cellophane to cover the lid's hole with, which made the scene inside so deliciously spooky.
One year for my birthday money was tight so my mom took me to the grocery store in our very small town and let me choose some things from their very small selection of office supplies. I chose a box of crayons, a package of colored index cards, a bottle of glue, and a small pair of scissors. Then we left on a camping trip because we always went camping around my birthday (which is always around Father's Day), and I took the supplies with me and spent all weekend coloring and cutting and pasting in my tent or at the picnic table.
I used to love making my own little sets of stationery with matching envelopes and stickers (colored on labels from the store). One day my mom was cleaning out a filing cabinet and gave me a stack of used carbon paper. OH THE MAGIC! I could layer my paper between the carbon paper and draw my design on the top one time and make multiples! I still have the set of stationery I made that day-- pink paper with hearts drawn through the carbon paper, and matching envelopes stapled up the sides because I hadn't discovered how to make 'real' envelopes yet.
It was a few years later when I was in high school that I discovered the magic of carving my own stamps from rubber erasers, and making my own dry-embossing templates out of index cards cut with an X-acto knife. I was also into calligraphy, and "desktop publishing" had started to take off in the computer world (late 1980's) and I was enthralled with the ability to print fancy fonts and clip art and lay out pages with columns like in a magazine. My homework was very creative sometimes! Haha. I experimented with how to do notepads with glue across the top because that looked more professional and official than using a stapler. Once I left my Sophomore yearbook on the floor and one of my brothers kicked it and the spine tore, revealing the mechanics of the binding inside, and then I spent weeks teaching myself how to make my own hardcover books with sewn signatures just like my yearbook.
When I was in college I discovered the world of artistic rubber stamps through a random encounter with a stamp boutique in a mall while on vacation. Then as a newly-wed in 1995 I was invited to a Stampin' Up party and that's when my obsession really took off. So I've been stamping for hmmm, twenty years now! Wow. Time flies.
I know this post is really really long! But I just have to share one more thing, since some of you were talking about how you like the smell of new crayons. My mom was always very crafty too and she used Sculpey clay to make a little nativity for Christmas one year. (Which she just gave to me this Christmas, and I'll treasure it forever because it was so fun watching her make it when I was little!!) Sculpey clay had a very distinctive smell back then which I'm not sure it does any more. That smell will forever represent to me that cozy feeling of love and celebration and magic surrounding the Christmas season. I have a ball of the unbaked clay tucked into a container, which nobody is EVER allowed to use, and every once in a while I open it up and take in a deep sniff of childhood contentment. LOL
Thanks for letting me share!
__________________ Heather
Last edited by heatherchabries; 03-31-2013 at 11:09 PM..
Reason: OBVIOUSLY NOT BREVITY! HA!!
Your memories bring back a lot of my memories which I have already shared in this forum. However, one of your memories of the first day of school was just the opposite. The SCHOOL gave you crayons, notebooks, scissors and glue? The only things our school gave us each year were textbooks (and they weren't new). We had to bring those other things from home. My kids did, too, and that was a different generation, a different state and one in a large city/one in a small town. You must have had a very rich school in your little town! Lucky you.
Yup, my grade school gave us our supplies. I thought that was normal until my own daughter was in school. I was sad that she wouldn't get to enjoy that first day of school ritual of the handing out of the supplies.
I don't know that I'd say our school was rich; I was a kid, so I have no idea. But it was a VERY small town, and there were probably less than 100 students in the grade school. My grade always had an average of 14 kids over the years, and we were one of the larger ones. The school building housed grades K through 12 in the same building, separating the grade school on one side from the jr. high and high school (combined) on the other. We all shared the gym, lunchroom, and library in the middle. One of the 2 years when I was in jr. high, the sophomore class had 5 students in it. Total. Then the summer before 9th grade we moved to Salt Lake and my school had hundreds of students for just grades 7 through 9. It was quite the culture shock! :cool:
Stamping? I was 25, but I've been crafting forever.
Sewing by hand - 5 years old
Crocheting - 8
Sewing with a machine - 10
Needlepoint - 14
Bought a serger - 20
Scrap booking - 24
Stamping - 25
I'm 35 now and my favorite craft is definitely stamping!
Wow this is almost me except I got my first sewing maching at age 8, didn't start stamping until I joined SU 6 years ago and I'm a twee bit older than 35
I did stuff with paper while teaching. I had the class make some sort of seasonal project for each month. In September the kids made apples for back-to-school. I gave them a half apple to and they saved the seeds to glue onto their project. we made fractured hearts in February. We used to be able to hang them from the ceiling until the fire marshal put a stop to it.
I started stamping/making cards after I retired at nearly 56---so nine years.
__________________ Suzanne Lifetime 10/16/08 Back to WW 8/9/18. Down 108.4 pounds. Lifetime2 - 11/23/2019 My Gallery
