Will craft for....

Do you craft for the pure joy of creating?  Or do you actually make some money from your wares?  I like to work with my hands, so I guess I could say that I started creating for the pure joy of it.  It has come in handy in other ways too though.  I have done the craft fair circuit selling my cards, I like to give handmade items as gifts (canning season is almost upon me and I will be bottling jams and salsa to be given as Christmas gifts and eaten of coarse), I have even traded handmade cards for piano lessons.

I also happen to teach classes at my local Joann.  My favorite classes to teach are the Cricut how-to classes.  I love taking people from being afraid to take their machine out of the box, to feeling confident and hopefully inspired to go home and get creating!  Once in a while though, they ask me to teach some of their other papercrafting classes.  It's at these times that I realize that I might have become a little, can I say, lazy in my creating.

These were a challenge for me!  I know it's a little hard to tell from the picture, so let me explain.  These are all ATC sized cards that are from the Spotted Canary class Sew Natural Photo Tree.  They are intended to have photos placed on the back of the cards, mounted on a dowel and arranged in a vase.  But I have found that for display purposes, it's better to arrange my samples in a way that they are mounted away from wandering fingers.  These were all made using a Tim Coffey line of K & Company products.  Can I just say, I didn't even know stuff like this existed!  Well, maybe I know they existed, but I never really paid attention to them.  Why would I?  I have 2 Cricuts AND a Silhouette SD, so I guess I just don't think about buying pre-made cuts.  And I certainly don't take the time to pull out my embroidery floss and hand stitch my projects.  It was time consuming, and a little tedious, but I think they turned out beautifully.  Hopefully the customers at my local Joann will think so too and want to take the class!