So, I may of talked in a old blog about the fact I've been into knitting and art since I could first hold knitting needles and a paint brush, I must add not at the same time, but may try that out one day... Or maybe not! Anyway, I have always found art and crafting enjoyable, and I got to a point when I started to have the Confidence to make things for people, then the requests started coming in, I wasn't getting paid for it, and it didn't occur for me to charge as it felt cheeky for whatever reason, forgetting all the time that went into making the garments and toys. When I started to realise this, and people started to say how much did I want for the items, I still felt bad (and I don't know why looking back now, doh!) so I said for them to put whatever they thought it was worth in a charity box, to be fair I felt cheeky as it was my mum's wool that she has passed on to me, but people said I deserved something for the time put in, but as I wasn't buying the wool myself, I felt it fair it went to charity, I must add, my mum was a professional knitter, she had a room full of wool, but became ill and didn't want to do it anymore, so she wanted me to use it, which I was very grateful for. I started knitting more and more for charity, doing some for the ward my dad was on with his dialisys, and the prem ward in the same hospital too, my mum's wool supply got smaller, but my love for knitting didn't, I'd met my lovely partner Jon by then who saw how much people took advantage of the generosity, which he wasn't wrong about, I had a 'friend' who wanted a gang of knitted toys made, and he threw 1p in a British heart foundation charity box, that's when I started to sell on etsy, and we did craft fairs too, which we've decided not to do now, but now I was buying my own wool, I was not letting anyone walk all over me. I had one 'friend' who ordered cabbage patch knitted wigs off me, she started to add another one, and then another one to the order, I wasn't giving any free, I told her a price and she was OK with it. But getting her to pay up was near to difficult, the materials weren't free, and the petrol to get to the shop wasn't either, it's like that thing a lot of fellow artists, crafters and musicians reading this will understand, getting paid in exposure, people forget the time and effort that goes into making things, especially when it comes to the arts. So, when I usually say now that I do charge, people have said they'll get their nan to make it, fair enough, do that, no freebies anymore, unless it's a Christmas present I'm making for someone which I love to do. I think I upset some people and I didn't trust anyone, only 1 person I can think of who I know that I can trust and knows how much effort I put in, and anyone else I don't trust really, and I don't mean that horrible, I will learn to trust again, I am just fed up over the years of people taking me for granted that they can get freebies off me! So, I don't know where it came from, but I had this daft idea to film myself doing crochet on youtube, no way my face is being shown though, and then a video of a timelapse doing a diamond painting, which at this moment in time has over 4k views! This give me a little bit of a kick up the rump to make more, it added to the creativity and a challenge, I even tried talking on a video, I hate the sound of my voice, there's this horrible scouse twang to it, yak! But, I love to make the vids, and my parter helps me a great deal, I find it hard to remember how to do things and I'm struggling with some bits, I'm learning slowly but surely, the buttons and sequence of pressing them was frustrating to learn and I get upset if I don't get it right, but it is good to learn and rewarding when I eventually get it right! I have a lot of red button syndrome at this moment in time, I could show you the difference in my art work if it's filmed and if it's not filmed and there's definitely nervousness in the pieces where I've been filmed and do many mistakes, practice will help with that though, I make a lot of mistakes in my vids, but I hope that people watching it will think aaah, I know not to do that with that art supply and that in it's self is hopefully helpful to people. I think people are sometimes trying to attain perfection, and that's not me, I'm human and make mistakes and I think to be too perfect can put people off watching it who are new to some art supplies. I'm sure everyone reading this who makes YouTube videos will be on my side with this one, how many people doing a piece of art get into the zone, then the battery needs changing, or the memory card fills up with footage, it is best to keep it short and sweet so that's another reason why my work differs with what I do on and off camera. Another element of learning is something I previously wrote in another blog about how much school I missed due to allergies, I basically failed school because I missed so much of it, so I wonder how much sense my speech makes, and how poorly written my blogs and scripts are, but I write about what I know in hope it helps others, I hope people can forgive my poor grammer, oh and there's another thing, my accent, I hope people can understand what I'm saying with my regional accent, it must be weird to someone who lives Halfway across the world! I will get better and improve at this youtube thing, I've met someone who has made me realise I shouldn't be taken advantage of and has given me the confidence to sell my arts and crafts, I didn't think any of it was good enough to sell, but we have a total of 62 sales on etsy, which isn't too shabby is it lol I remember the very first sale, I thought it was a dream and wasn't real, and pretty much every single sale is like that, yes it is part validation and all that but, the fact someone wants to buy something I've made myself is indescribable and makes it worthwhile, my partner has a shop on etsy called Heathen Emporium which has chainmaile jewellery handmade in it, I've tried to make chainmail but it doesn't do it for me, but he's amazing at it and very skilled, do have a look at his work it's amazing, and my shop is called Boowoopcrafts aka Any Knit Netty, I also sell my art on redbubble, 2 sales on there which has shocked me, I didn't expect to get 1! We Also sell on shutterstock with our photography so very busy bees!
I will get better and improve with youtube, it's going to take a lot of confidence, there's a massive complex story as to why I have my confidence so badly knocked but that is for another blog and fingers crossed a book one day, that's if anyone can understand my terrible writing, aah well, if reality TV stars can write a book, so can I!
Until the next one, TTFN x
Comments
Post a Comment