featured seller: creativeplace

This weeks featured seller is another lovely lady named Ashley from the Creative Place, whom I met via Etsy almost a year ago! I bought one of her paper packs, then started reading her blog, and now we have kept in tough ever since. She is such a sweet and genuine lady so please take the time to read her interview and get to know her. You can also check out her shop and her blog.

Please tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your life.

I am a 28 year old stay-at-home-mom to a precious 3 year old little boy, and I am married to the most amazing man who is truly my best friend, Rob :) I am a Christian and am so thankful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

I have a love for paper, fabric, anything vintage and thrift store-ing and flea market-ing. I've always loved art, crafts, and being creative (I ended up earning a degree in art/graphic design several years ago at James Madison University in Virginia :)). Growing up, I was always the one who got art sets, markers, crayons, and paper. I remember my mom taking one of my sisters and I to a paper factory when we were little and we got to dig through barrels of all different sorts of scrap paper. I was giddy with delight at all of the paper :) That is my first memory of being excited about anything having to do with paper and crafts :)



What is the significance with the name 'CreativePlace'?

Actually, a very close friend of mine and also a graphic designer and crafty person (Ashlee of Ashlee Proffitt Design) and I came up with the name several, several years ago. We were going to make a little business of it (I still have sketches and notes about it! :)), but life got busy, our families started expanding, and it all got put on the back burner :) Upon deciding I wanted to open an etsy shop, I checked with her to see if it would be ok if I used the name. She's such a sweetie and said "Of course!" and was super excited about it for me :) I regularly email back and forth with her, and she truly understands my obsession with paper and craftiness- so it's fun to have a name that also serves as a reminder of our friendship! :)



Your blog has so many amazing tutorials. If you had to pick one, which would be your favorite and why?

I would have to say the Woven Paper Journal Cover tutorial. I loved developing that tutorial and figuring out how to weave all sorts of paper together. It's fun to be able to look at so many different papers all at once!



What inspires you?

I love to read-- books, magazines and blogs, as well as talk with other crafters. I love coming across new-to-me things-- I usually will have a spark of inspiration and then my imagination will develop new ideas and concepts. I keep a journal/sketchbook full of written ideas I have, or clippings or other blip-its I've found. I am constantly going back through my journal and finding new ideas that I hadn't "seen" before.



You get to be a stay-at-home-mom with your son Jimmy, what is that like? What is a 'normal' day for you?

I don't really have a normal day, ever. LOL! Every day changes (which is fun, but can also be frustrating at times).

I've had a lot of my friends (mostly all who have children) ask me how I'm able to get crafty things done on top of caring and playing with my son and keeping up with housework. It is quite a delicate balance, and I often fail. By the grace of God, I am learning more how to balance everything. I do most of my craft work during naptime hours and during evening hours after Jimmy has gone to bed. My hubby and I have "work nights" when we are both doing our own thing - he has a small business consulting and building/installing sound systems mostly for churches, studio recording, and other audio stuff (that I don't quite understand, lol :)). So some nights we are doing that, other nights he is at church with band practice; so I work, and other nights we have hang out time together.



Sometimes during the day, Jimmy will "help" me in my studio/work area by coloring, playing with fabric remnants or pulling all the scrap pieces of paper out of the trashcan. He is also very good at helping me "clean up" or "dah-ba-dee-ing" (his words for cleaning), and loves to help with cooking, laundry and loading the dishwasher. Also, he is good at keeping himself entertained sometimes so I can clean the bathroom, fix supper, etc. We have lots of play time, though, running in circles around the house, and he loves for me to sit on his ride-a-long Lightning McQueen and he pushes me around the house-- Biz (our miniature schnauzer) barking the whole time at us (I'm sure this would be QUITE hilarious to watch and I often wonder what it would look like if we got it on video ;)).

But like I said, everyday is a learning process, and I'm quite thankful for God's grace with me as well as Jimmy's grace with his mama. I read a great post on one of my fave blogs awhile back, and it was a great reminder to me about how one day Jimmy will be all grown up, and I don't want to regret missing any of the small things with this precious little one God has blessed my hubby and I with.



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