The Crafting Journey

How did I end up here?

I thought long and hard before embarking upon this blog, "would I have anything to blog about", "how do you actually write a blog", "will anyone read it if I do write a blog".  I had reached a point where I was re-evaluating my life and my work/life balance.  My stressful career was causing health problems and working in excess of 12 hours a day and evenings/weekends meant that I just didn't have the time (or the energy) to do what I really wanted to do - make things, spend time with the family and enjoy my garden.

As I mentioned in my post about the decoupage table (here) I first started crafting when I was little.  I started out with learning to knit when I was 3 or 4 years old.  I progressed to learning to embroider and took great pride in making gifts for the family at Christmas and for birthdays by making place mats or embroidering initials on handkerchiefs for grandparents.  Embroidery then progressed to cross stitching (which is a passion I have passed on to my daughter).

When I was at secondary school we did Home Economics which included cooking and dressmaking/home furnishings (I think they call it Textiles now).  Whilst others in my class were knitting scarves or sewing a pillow case, I knitted a jumper, some finger-less mittens, made a dress and a blouse and also stitched a quilted pouch; I had the benefit of a mum who had taught me how to use a sewing machine and cut out a pattern at a young age.

My mum used to make a lot of clothes for me and my brother and sister.  This was really out of necessity as we were a one parent family and there wasn't the money around to be buying new clothes all the time.  I carried on with making my own clothes into my early twenties, but as work started to take over I had less time and found that my crafting projects were taking longer to complete, but I still enjoyed doing them and found them to be an excellent way of "switching off".

When I got married I made the table decorations for the reception gifts for the bridesmaids.  We started a family soon after we got married and I knitted the obligatory cardigans for the baby once born I started making dresses quilts for the cot. I even made a lamp shade for the nursery as I couldn't find one which matched the theme of the decoration.

Over the years my love of crafting and making things has continued, whether it be purely for pleasure, such as cross stitching, or whether it includes practical makes such as cushion covers, clothes or curtains etc.  I take great delight in the fact that I have been able to pass on my love of crafting to my daughter.

I almost feel as though I have come full circle and I am now back to the stage of enjoying my crafts, still learning new crafts and improving all the time on the old ones, and finally starting to think that I could develop this further as a living.  When I am at work all I can think about is my evenings and weekends when I will be free to do crafts - I know that those of you who are reading this blog will be able to share those sentiments.

Baskets made for my daughter to take to university - she has no idea what she is going to keep in them but she wanted them anyway!

I have been thrilled by the popularity of the Great British Sewing Bee (find out more here) - it is once again "cool" to be making your own clothes and to be able to sew in general and this is once more a skill that people want to learn.

So you see this blog is the culmination of almost 40 years of crafting during which time I have tried a lot of different crafts (still so many that I want to try though) but there is still so much to learn and pass on to the next generation.  If anyone who is reading this blog is thinking "could I do that" or "I would love to have a go at that" then DO IT!  One of the biggest things I have learnt (or at least have come to accept and realise) over the last 12 months is that you just have to go for it and stop procrastinating, no matter what "it" might be.

I am excited by where this crafting journey will take me and to sharing it on this blog as I hopefully start to realise some of my dreams.

I would really love to hear about your own crafting journeys and how you have reached wherever you are now and how you hope to get wherever you are heading.

Sharon x

Decoupage Sewing Box

When my mum got married over 40 years ago her work colleagues bought her this sewing table as a wedding present.

When I was growing up I have vivid memories of the table always being nearby and in use in the living room.  I have a brother and sister who are 3 years younger than me (yes they are twins) and I can remember when they were small going down for their afternoon nap and my mum would take out knitting or sewing from the table and sit with me quietly and just slowly teach me how to knit, sew, crochet etc.  As soon as the twins woke up the crafting would go back into the table safely out of the way until the next day.  As a small child the box always seemed quite big to me but is actually just a bit bigger than your average occasional table.

A few years ago my mum was having a clear out and sort out at home and asked me if I wanted the table - I didn't need to think about the answer and immediately said yes.  It didn't matter that I didn't know where I would put it in my house I just had to have it, there are so many memories tied up in that table, not to mention the practicalities of having somewhere to store at least some of my stash of crafty stuff.

As you would expect after 40 something years of use (and some abuse) the table is showing its age (don't most 40 somethings?!), so I decided to give it a bit of a face lift and have decided that I am going to sand it down, paint it white and decoupage the lid with sewing/crafty themed images.

I have therefore been busy cutting up my crafty magazines (after reading them cover to cover of course) and finally, I now have enough pictures to cover the top of the table.  This is what I hope it is going to look like once I have finished.

I just need to get the paint and the modge plodge and I will be able to make a start.  I plan on taking photos along the way and will post a follow up with pictures of my progress.  Hopefully by the end it will mean that this table has many more years ahead of it.

Sharon x

Hooray for the sun....

I can finally start to finish my garden make over!

During the couple of weeks of sunshine that we had last year I decided that we were going to "tidy" our garden. What started out as a bit of a tidy up then morphed into a complete make over.

We don't have a large garden but what we do have we have managed to use for growing fruit and vegetables, herbs, flowers and squeezing in "green" ideas of compost bins and water butts.

Prior to my "tidy up" we had a raised area with some "decking" and our veg plot was fenced off at the side of the garden. The previous owners had fenced the area off for their dog and when we bought the house we took up the decking and opened up the soil and used that for our vegetables.

The idea is that we want to get a greenhouse to increase our growing potential and slightly increase the area that we use for growing the vegetables.

Unfortunately due to the weather then conspiring against us it became too wet and then too cold, with the ground too frozen to work with, for us to continue the make over so we have been left with this for the best part of a year.

Providing that the good weather continues throughout the summer (and we haven't just experienced our summer for the year) the plan is to get the garden finished. I will try and share more "in progress" photos as we work.

I have already planned what I want to grow in the raised beds I want to put in (not quite the Good Life but close!), fingers crossed that by this time next year it will all be done and we will have planted our seeds to harvest next summer.

Sharon x

What's in a name?

When I first started to think about writing a blog I knew that if I was going to do this I wanted to write about crafting and "other bits and pieces".

I started searching the web and found various blogs all with a similar theme (you can see my favourite ones on the right) but all with different approaches to the content of their blogs and obviously all with different names.

What interested me was the different approach people seem to have taken to naming their blogs. Some have included their name in the title, other blogs seem to "do what it says on the tin" and others have, what at first glance appears to be a random title, but which further reading of the blog reveals to be an obvious connection to the writer or the subject matter of blog.

I think I fall under the third category.

I started thinking about writing a blog at the same time that I decided that I wanted to start selling things that I made and so decided to open a shop on Etsy; problem being what to call my shop.

After much deliberation and deciding that names I was coming up with were too long I decided on Bluerana; "Why?" you might ask. Well Bluerana is an anagram of the names of my children (any ideas what they might be?). So with my Etsy shop started focus shifted to the blog and it seemed to make sense to use the same name, and so here you are reading the blog of Bluerana.

So that is what is in the name of my blog, what is in yours?

Sharon x

A productive day

Having spent yesterday making a cushion for my daughter and a doorstop (at her request) for her to take to university with her, today was spent baking bread and making key chains for my Etsy store.



Visit my store for more details and to take a closer look.

Sharon x

At Last!

So I have finally bitten the bullet and joined the blogging fraternity!

Having just finished reading the wonderful "Be a Free Range Human" by Marianne Cantwell I have stopped procrastinating about writing a blog and decided to just do it. No more "maybe one day" or "wouldn't it be nice to..." so here it is.

This will be my space to share my crafting loves and makes, maybe some observations on life in general (nothing too heavy I promise) and also to share my experience and ideas for helping you to organise your lives (and free up your time to do what you really love rather than the mundane and minutiae of everyday life).

Whilst it feels very strange to be writing this not knowing if anyone is actually going to read it I really hope someone out there does and decides to come along for the journey with me; if you do I would really love to hear from you in the comments below.

Well I am off now to put together the first offering to you so I hope you will come back soon and see how I can help you get back the fun in your life. In the meantime why don't you pop over to my Etsy shop and take a look at what's on offer over there.

Thanks for reading this far, come back soon.

Sharon x