My Creative Story: Part 4 Newlyweds

Read Why I Am Telling My Creative Story and see each part of the story here. In January of senior year we get engaged and I plan to move to Georgia once I graduate and I have to make the decision of continuing onto grad school or getting a real job and of course there is that whole-figuring-out-newlywed-life thing to do.Our wedding quick started my creative drive and I was stamping invitations and collecting tea cups to decorate and planning very unrealistic ice sculptures to carve by hand, myself, day of.My supplies began to increase and as I was planning a move to Georgia from South Carolina, I realized how much crafty stuff I had accumulated over the years and how much I wanted to put it to good use again. When we got married, we had a small apartment that had two rooms. The second room we shared: his piano, my craft supplies and the guest bed. Quickly we realized though that my crafts would take over the coffee table while I was watching Friends reruns. Again I was just playing with pretty paper and mostly decorating our new house. Making pillows, curtains, painting items from the thrift store and trying to figure out who we were as grown ups. We were still in grad school so money was tight and pinterest and blogs were starting to come on the scene in a more popular way. (The only blog I can actually remember reading at this time was Young House Love.) Around this time I thought ‘why not sell some things I am making’. I started an Etsy store and was selling the most random items that I had already made for our house so I figured I could easily make it for someone else’s house: pillowcases, fabric covered buttons, curtains.Sadly, but gratefully, this is one of those sad etsy store stories. I put up some items that weren’t premade with terrible quality photos and sold none. Until! I made these adorable bird pillows and people really liked them! I actually sold quite a few of those. I even ‘expanded the product line’ by adding different colors of the pillows. I learned new ways to make pillow cases so I could just sell the cases and not the pillows to make shipping easier. But I quickly realized that I hated this. I hated sewing stuff for other people. I was making hardly any money and I would literally wait until the last-minute and sit up all night and make the orders because I don’t really like sewing, but I realized I like what I get out of it: a finished product to use in my own home. And these things weren't for me. So….this was a terrible idea and I eventually took down the shop. But now, I have an idea of what it’s like to sell online and how Etsy works and of its great power and potential. I learn what it takes to put in the work and how to be successful and the most important part is to actually really like making what you are selling.I also started my first blog not long after we got married somewhere near the end of 2010. It was called 365 Days of Newlyness. I saw someone doing a 365 project and knew that I needed to jump on this bandwagon. This was my first foray into goal setting and public accountability. Everyday, as newlyweds, we would try something new! A new restaurant. A new recipe. A new craft. Each day I would do a post about it and quickly realized that this was a completely not doable goal! I was writing SO much about making a squirrel on a popsicle stick as a class assignment for a therapy prop that I am embarrassed to admit that that was an actual blog post I posted at that time. Through this though I remembered that I actually really liked writing, just not about this project. We quickly dropped the 365 idea but I would randomly post things about what we did, where we went and crafts of course! It became how we were documenting our life as newlyweds and a way to share with family.In 2011 I graduate from grad school, Terrell decides to continue on after his masters and get his doctorate. So now we have a semi livable income, we move to a much better town home and I start working as a social worker at an alternative school. I remember in the interview when they said “Why should we hire you over the others”, I didn’t waste a beat and said “Because I’m creative and willing to try new things”. Boom. Got the job. Now I have 75 of the most difficult students I've ever met in my entire life and I’m supposed to ‘fix them’. Art and play therapy quickly become my BFFs and I am amazed to find that they legitimately work. I learn so much about my kids through doing simple crafts with them. I was hooked and really tried to learn as much as I could about art therapy and to create activities to help my kids. Also...did someone say bulletin boards?!So here we are still as newlyweds, in year two, and I really begin getting excited again about crafting and decorating a new home. This idea of living a creative lifestyle is still so present and even more obvious and necessary as I am creating individual plans to help each of my students, we are being incredibly creative in how to spend our limited income and are now surrounded by so much art, music and culture that the University town we live in has to offer. This is my life's formula for creative success. Read Why I Am Telling My Creative Story and see each part of the story here.