Craft For Health

Post-Partum Hope on Paper by Kellie Ideson

 

 

After the birth of my first daughter Emma, I struggled with post-partum depression. For nine months, I kept this secret. Trying to find my own way out of the darkness. My days were full of negative thoughts and hopeless energy. Finally, the fear took over and I sought help. While medical support and love from my family were very instrumental in my healing, the discovery of scrapbooking was an unanticipated anecdote.

  

  By putting my daily events down on paper, creating beauty instead of negativity, through my thoughts, I regained positive focus. Call it, the healing power of creativity. The artistic person I had always been was no longer squandered under those clouds of doom. And, it absolutely regenerated my world through a fresh network of other Moms and fellow scrappers. The sun began to shine in my life again!

 

This hobby has been an enrichment in my life ever since. For as long as I can recollect, I have yearned to be an author. My ideas are plentiful. And while the subject matter has changed over the years, my desire to write has never waned. Alas, reality has set in. With the advent of two babies, a house and a small business, I realize this ideal is on hold. Or perhaps… has just taken a different path. In launching my own custom album business I have the opportunity to be the “author” of many wonderful, fulfilling stories. My own life has been so blessed by the stories my clients have allowed me to “write” using their photographs and memorabilia. Through their generosity, I can weave a tale that will be embraced for generations; a treasured book among the other novels and literature on their family bookshelves.

 

 In this joy of building legacies, there lies a silver lining. Whenever I feel a disconnect with all that is true in my own world, or the bigger picture we know as the universe, I can sit down and get lost in a wonderful tale or journey that I may never experience myself. I am so privileged, ten years later to still be doing what I love and…finding the therapy I need from the beautiful life stories that envelop me.

 

Thank you Kathy for the gracious invitation to your blog. Crafting can be the finest therapy, I am grateful you found me through the words that I used to hesitate to share…

  

Kellie is a scrapbooker who creates custom keepsake memory albums.

 

Compulsive Knitting is Her Safety Net by Daniela Edburg

 

I had an idea for a photograph in which a girl stood on a knit patch of garden in the midst of a desolate landscape, for this photo I took up knitting, in the photo I used the knitting to represent a safe place, but while knitting for the photograph I realized the activity itself was a very effective form of occupational therapy. I developed several characters, compulsive knitters, and ended up becoming one myself.

This whole series of photographs and knit objects was made during a deep depression, when the one thing I could do was knit. One day, looking down at the long pink strips I had been knitting all week, I realized I was making me a new brain. A soft pink cushy brain, much better than the one i was using at the moment.

Now that the depression is over and I can see beyond my own brain, knitting and crocheting have become a medium where a single strand of yarn can be turned into anything, the absurd can be palpable, portable and extremely real.    www.danielaedburg.net

Crafting From The Heart by Ana

 

When creating something, no matter what it is (a piece of jewelery or painting on canvas) remember to create it from your heart.

 

Don`t worry about the rules and what others say it should look like. Just follow your own instinct. Listen to your inner voice, that is the only rule you should follow.

 

When something is created with love, others will recognize it and reward it.
And even if they don`t ----it is a great way to fight stress in your life.--- And a great way of expressing your feelings and letting go of the past.

My name is Ana and I'm an artist  who lives in Croatia and sells her art on Etsy called Moon Through The Fog.  I  create my art with both my heart and my mind and I do not limit myself with technical guidelines. Each piece of mine is a little story, and each story has a message.
I find inspirations in visual art, music, psychology, history etc...
Beside painting and photography, I also design handmade jewelry.

Crafting and Quilting Through Chemo by Rosalie

 Sewing and crafting have always played a huge role in my life from the time I was a young girl.   Many of my most blissful childhood memories involve sewing with my Grandmother and Mother.

 

I had been successfully running my own full time craft pattern business, Rosalie Quinlan Designs  for quite some years and had begun a second craft pattern business with my younger sister Melly, called Melly & me  when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006.  As a 36 year old mother of three teenagers this came as a devastating shock.

 

 

  

Working with my sister Melly on our new venture gave me vision, purpose, distraction and heaps of joy.  Our pattern designing took a whole new direction after my diagnosis as we decided to outdo each other with ridiculous looking softies to make each other laugh.  We even brought our crazy softies to Chemotherapy to make others laugh and to get some really fun blog posts.  I am sure the viewers would rather see the softies plugged in for Chemo than me!  Because as sisters we were facing such a difficult time, we turned to humor and huge doses of crafty goodness to get us through.  This strengthened our bond as sisters as well as bestest friends.

 

  

Further into my treatment I began on my favorite appliqué quilt to date.  It is called "The Joy of Life" and was designed and sewn during the trying months of Chemotherapy.  I would design a block before my treatment when I was feeling creative.  I would then appliqué the pieces in the weeks after treatment when my creativity and energy were low.  In this way I worked towards a goal and created beauty during an otherwise ugly time.  Many of the nurses in hospital were also quilters and enjoyed seeing my blocks grow with each visit.  I even appliquéd some of the blocks in the waiting room before surgery.  I felt an immense sense of calm and order as I sewed the fiddly little stitches in place.

 

Now that I am well I can look back and see just how valuable creativity is in working through a crisis.  My sister's friendship and support combined with our love of crafting were vital in my healing process.  Crafting and sewing continue to play a huge role in my life as this is how I make my living and my joy!

 

  

My name is Rosalie Quinlan and I’m a design craft patterns called Melly and Me. 

 

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Journaling For Healing by Judie

A year ago I lost one of my twin daughters in a tragic ATV accident.  People say - and I know it is true - there is no greater pain than the loss of a child.  I've struggled with this soul-wrenching agony for a year now, and one of the things that uplifts me when I desperately need it is artful journaling. 

 

For so long I felt void of color and creativity, and after six months of "hiding" in my bedroom watching tv, reading, and crying, I decided to journal to my child.  I started a journal called "The Book of Hearts".  Each page is a poem, a letter, a drawing, a collage, all dedicated to my daughter.  Although I don't journal every day, it's there when I break down and need that communication. 

 

I'm sharing just a few of those very personal pages with your readers here because I want to let anyone who has lost a precious person in their life know that it does help to journal about it.  Your spirit is released, your tears cleanse, and your soul finds a few hours of peace while you write and craft in your dedicated journal.  And if in fact there truly are angels and they see what you are going through, then they will know how much you still love your lost one. I urge you to try it.  Each page will bring you a step closer to peace within your soul, I promise.

 

My name is Judie and I am a mixed media artist/muralist who "gave it all up" a year ago.  I'm hoping to find my artful spirit again, as well as get back to blogging sometime soon.  A tribute to my daughter can be seen here  .

Crafting My Way Through Grief, Confusion and Exhaustion by Alice Braga

 

When I became a full-time mother almost seven years ago, my days as a free-spirited musician (with a day job supporting her art) came to a halt. When my daughter was diagnosed with a chronic illness two years later, what was left of my identity as a singer-songwriter was all but buried beneath grief, confusion and exhaustion.

 Once in a while I ventured into the recording studio and also started a home-based coaching business, but the economic downturn of 2008, not to mention a highly competitive hunt for a good kindergarten, put an end to that.

 

During some of the roughest patches, the only thing that cut through a fog of fear and inertia was color. The rich palette of my daughter’s oil pastels. The vibrant images in Anthropologie and Sundance catalogs. The vivid pinks, reds, and yellows of roses in my courtyard and outside markets on Broadway.

Between my husband’s photo trade magazines, the plethora of catalogs I receive almost daily, and my daughter’s art (she provided the heart in the pink hope collage) I’ve become a collaging fiend, filling journals and three-ring binders with playful and wise phrases and poems juxtaposed with gorgeous scenery, jewelry, horses, whatever catches my fancy. I try not to analyze why I’m drawn to a picture or theme, but I do notice clues to my heart’s yearnings.

 For a while, England kept showing up in my collages, and within a few months, my husband was called to London on business for a week, and my daughter and I were able to join him. I can’t say for sure whether my collages manifested an international trip for three, but I can say the images opened my mind to the idea of crossing the Atlantic with a child on a very strict diet. No small feat!

 

 At a friend’s suggestion, I began blogging earlier this year, and I found myself illustrating my mini-essays and musings with collages and snapshots. After 14 years of delegating photography to my husband, I am having a ball reporting on the beauty and whimsy of New York (and my imagination) in both still photos and video. No longer holding on so tightly to my identity as a writer, I’m excited about visual storytelling and what else it will reveal to me. And more importantly, I am at peace with the choices I’ve made to help my daughter thrive.

 

Links:

http://www.AliceBraga.com

http://www.YouTube.com/RabbitHoleReport (“A Barrage of Collage” gives you a peek inside one of my collage binders, including one of the British collages)

http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/AliceMarie

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/alice-marie/id4067062

Creating Decorative Bread Helped Me Overcome Post Partum Depression by Stephanie Petersen

 
 


Most of my life I've been nicknamed "Sunshine".  I'm naturally a happy, encouraging and energetic soul.  I am a pastry chef.  I'm creative by nature but also mathematical.  Baking became my life's work early on. I graduated from Culinary School in Scottsdale, Arizona just after my twenty-first birthday and continued to pursue pastry.  It was my heart.  However, I had a life long dream to be a mother as well.  Magically, I found myself married to a sweet husband and we desired children.  None came.  It took several years.  Finally, when the opportunity arrived to be a full time mom, I jumped at it.  Little did I know that after my second pregnancy I would face the awful and dark reality of post partum depression.  My normally bright disposition was shaded.   

As a young mother it was very hard for me to find time for myself, yet I knew that in order to give my children all the emotional strength they needed, I would have to take care of my soul.  In that pit of depression and despair, it became ever so difficult to face even the basic needs of myself and children.  Often the only light of joy I saw in a day was the brief time that my children napped and I could pull out my bread books and make a new creation.  Over time, I discovered a renewed  passion for decorative bread.   That feeling I had missed for so long was returning.  I had something of my old baking life back and it felt good to remember how much I loved to create.  As my children grew, I included them in my baking experiences.  Often we'd mold homemade play dough for hours on end in our humble kitchen.  More times than I can remember, I was sculpting life-like flowers next to my son's "dough-cars" and squiggle-haired silly-faced characters.  I found myself encouraging his heart creatively and in so doing, found a common interest that has continued.  Creating bread pulled me out of the darkness, along with the loving support of dear friends and family who finally saw a glimpse of "Sunshine" coming back. 

 

 
I never imagined that I would ever see my children grow up. Yet they have passed those toddler years and are now in school during the day.  The depression is all but gone and I have that passion for life and creating that I knew before.  I've taken that love of creating to many others through teaching as a private instructor.  A few years back a dear friend who I had attended culinary school with, encouraged me to write a food and baking blog to share my bread and cooking skills with the world.  Needless to say, yet another creative outlet has been discovered. I love to create amazing artistic breads, foods, and share those creations with the my blog friends.  The bread painting I do has been featured in Australian Baking Business Magazine, as well as Food Network's blog.  A local TV station producer saw my bread and asked me to come visit the station.  That has grown into a part time passion as a regular featured chef on the NBC and Fox  local TV stations here in Phoenix.    In so doing, I have seen countless souls discover their own baking creative-genius.  It has been so fulfilling and exciting to play even a small role in helping others face any challenge in life.  It is my passion to help others find their creative spirit.  In that spirit of love, I have found light and peace.  I thank God everyday that I was able to come out of that darkness and I know that anyone facing those challenges in life, need only begin to hope that there may be a spark of light left in their soul.  Let that hope grow.  Create something. It may seem small, but it may be just what your heart needs to see the sunshine of day once again. 
 
 

 http://cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/search/label/Decorative%20loaves

 http://cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/search/label/Decorative%20loaves

http://cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/search?q=sculpted+flowers

 

Crafting with Breast Cancer Survivors by Kathy Peterson

As founder of Craft For Health, I'm always looking for ways to help spread the good word of how crafting can really help us heal.   Last month, WPBF- TV 25 and ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach gave me the opportunity to gather four Breast Cancer Surviviors for a segment on how crafting during breast cancer helped these women cope with their challenges.  I hope this inspires you.  I called these women my brave girls! 

 Please click on the image below to watch this inspiring video.

 

 

http://www.wpbf.com/video/25504779/detail.html



My Mind Moves Beyond it's Worries with Candy Wrapper Folding By Emily O’Chiu

 

I recently quit a job at a telephone research center.  I quit because I couldn't make myself go there and make the same phone call asking the same questions over and over again anymore.  This came as a surprise to me because boring repetitive tasks are my forte.  I love counting things in large numbers, sorting, alphabetizing, and even stuffing envelopes.  I think this skill of mine is the biggest key to the success of my business Candy Calamity. 

I started making bracelets from folded candy wrappers while I was in college.  Years later, when I thought about turning my hobby into a business, I knew that I would never make it unless I could create dozens of bracelets or more.  Since deciding to go for it, I have make close to 100 bracelets, many candy wrapper coin purses, and even some purses made from folded potato chip bags.  That equals thousands of tiny folded pieces.

So what was so wrong with the call center?  My brain was forced to spend tedious hours thinking about things like satisfaction scores, efficiency quotas, and demographics.  It was repetition for the brain, not the hands; a far cry from my beloved candy wrapper folding.

 

When I do my folding, my hands fall into a familiar rhythmic pattern, my body relaxes, and my mind moves beyond the worries of today.  After a few minutes I no longer think about what to fix for dinner, what chores need to be done, or other mundane things.  Instead I dream of future projects to be, the possibilities of tomorrow, or sometimes simply nothing.  The allure of the daily moment of Zen is what draws many crafters back to their craft time and time again, be it knitting, cross stitch, painting, lamp working, or even making jewelry out of candy wrappers.

My bio:

Emily O’Chiu of Candy Calamity uses candy wrappers to make bracelets and earrings, potato chip bags to make pouches and purses, and all manner of things to make fun magnets and pins. She says:

I can get inspired anywhere, even the grocery store.

Links:
www.candycalamity.com
www.candycalamity.etsy.com
candycalamity@gmail.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/candycalamity/