Arty, Crafty or Creative?

Arty, Creative or Crafty?

Is this something you've ever thought about?

I admit that I have wondered about it myself. A lot.

Is there actually a difference between being arty, creative or crafty?

Perhaps being arty means you can draw, paint, sculpt or collage. Maybe being creative is more about ideas, writing, design and imagination. And crafty covers all those wonderful handmade pursuits involving glue, thread, paint, sawdust and the occasional hot glue gun burn.

But how do you define yourself when you're painting watercolour flowers one day, making papier-mâché butterflies the next, sewing yourself a dress after that, then creating cards, mosaics and hand-painted garden pots on the weekend?

At what point do you stop trying to label it and simply accept that you have an incurable urge to make things?

Or are you just bloody clever?

• 

  Arranging Flowers

• 

  Upcycling a picture frame

• 

  Restoring a vintage table

In my first florist shop Upcycling a frame with Chalk Paint Restoring a replica antique 8 seater table

Can you be creative without having an artistic bone in your body? And can you be a fine artist without knowing how to open a tube of glue without creating a disaster?

I suspect there's a fair bit of crossover between all three.

I'll use myself as an example.

As a youngster, I loved drawing. Pencil on paper, sketching as accurately as I could. Paint-by-numbers was the highlight of a school holiday, and I spent hours sewing tiny outfits for my dolls by hand before graduating to my mum's Bernina sewing machine at the grand old age of eight. Early beginner? Absolutely. Fearless? Apparently.

Knitting kept me occupied as a teenager (and probably kept me out of trouble).

I even tried embroidery as a young mum, but it demanded far too much concentration and patience—two things that tend to be in short supply when small children are demanding attention. Constantly.

Throughout my life I've created.

I've tried hypertufa pots, floristry (eventually training and opening my own flower shop—that's another blog entirely), pottery, soap making, candle making, fairy dresses for markets and retail stores, gardening, decorating, renovating, furniture makeovers and enough paint projects to keep the local hardware store in business.

• 

  Botanical Soaps

• 

  Vintage silk dress

• 

  Wicking beds

Organic cold press botanical soaps Vintage Silk Fairy Dress Obsession Wicking beds - mostly made by hubby

And yes, I absolutely consider creating a cottage garden to be a creative pursuit. Anyone who has ever stood in a nursery trying to decide between twenty-seven different salvias knows exactly what I mean.

I completely and utterly fell in love with Angel from Escape to the Chateau and her crafting. Her wallpapers and fabrics are uniquely exquisite. She's an enormous inspiration and very much a girl after my own heart. She'll happily turn her hand to almost anything—including hand-painted tiles, which have firmly landed on my ever-growing "must-do" list.

(It's a very long list. At this point it probably needs its own filing system.)

Many moons ago I discovered how frustrating it can be to want to try all the arts and crafts.

I can almost understand why some artists and poets were so tortured. Think Van Gogh and that unfortunate ear.

Imagine all those ideas swirling around your head. Wanting to choose one thing to perfect, while simultaneously being distracted by seventeen other possibilities involving colour, texture, words, flowers, fabric, paint and a completely unrelated project you've just seen on Pinterest.

No wonder they struggled with their sanity (Don McLean "Vincent" vibes - great song).

Do you ever feel like that?

So much to try and so little time.

At the moment I'm creating scented wax tablets for wardrobes and small spaces. They're poured with love, decorated with botanicals, hand-labelled and sold through the website and carefully selected stockists around Australia and New Zealand.

They've been so well received that I'm currently adding beautifully boxed candles to the collection.

Of course, there are a few more ideas swirling around in my already overcrowded brain.

Naturally.

• 

  Wax Wardrobe Tablets

• 

  Watercolour Pear

• 

  Acrylic painting of a pot

Scented Wardrobe Tablets - a hit! Having a go at watercolour This pot - better than my blobby flowers

And on top of that, this year I've dived back into art.

I've explored free workshops and short online courses in Chinoiserie, Abstract Art, Surface Pattern Design and loose floral painting.

Abstract Art taught me something important: I am terrible at it.

Apparently my brain likes rules, structure and knowing where things are supposed to go. Random paint splatters that look effortlessly brilliant when someone else does them but somehow resemble a kitchen accident when I try (like my exploding kimchi jars - that too is another blog).

Surface Pattern Design, however?

Love. Absolute love.

I'll be working on this over the next year - yes, I'm giving myself plenty of time to research and practise, you'll be invited along for the ride on Instagram and more blogs - keep your peepers peeled.

And loose florals? I'm determined to master them. At the moment my flowers still look slightly more like technicolour blobs than wild, dreamy blooms, but I'm choosing to call that "part of the artistic journey."

So, what's your take on Arty, Creative and Crafty?

Do you think they're different things? Do they overlap? Are they simply different branches of the same wonderfully messy tree?

Or is it all one big creative space where ideas, art, craft and imagination mingle together without worrying too much about labels?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Shar