SO Art Studio

Yes, it is hard to say, but I am a magazine addict.  I think I come by it honestly, genetically, from my mother’s side of the family.   I wasn’t always one, there was a time when I only bought the occasional holiday Magazine to make a cookie recipe or for a decorative technique to spruce  up the holidays.   Mostly, I think that was because there was no money for magazines and the choice was limited.   I remember visiting my aunts in my early twenties, one had magazines in every possible cupboard (even in the bathroom, yes no towels in the linen closet, just magazines).  My other Aunt had a special VERY  long cabinet (like 15 feet long) that the entire bottom had her collection of magazines.   I could not fathom, why they would have SO many, at the time.

I promised myself that I would never be that bad.  Then I met my husband, who read several different magazines, and convinced me to subscribe to a quilt magazine that I had been picking up at the drugstore.  Now this was before there were tons of these on the shelves like there are now.  It was difficult to find a quilt magazine with block patterns at the time.   So, I subscribed, and I saved every issue, they were like books to me.   It was all I subscribed to for about 4 years.   Then quilt magazines started coming out more and more and I subscribed at one time to about 6 of them.   I kept them all, think I would get to all the lovely patterns inside them.   I did actually sit down and go through them looking for patterns for several years and was greatly inspired by them.   That was my downfall, the inspiration factor.   It wasn’t that I would always make something from the patterns inside them, it was that I would be inspired to make something similar with my own twist, that was the addiction making itself evident.

I stuck with Quilt magazines for about 10 years as I practiced my craft.   It was then that I found the courage to finally toss the first 4 years of Quilt magazines.   I realized I had stopped referencing them and had no space for them, so off they went.  To the garage, where they languished for about a year, before I could let them fully go.   It was also around this time that I started expanding my artistic horizons and was inspired by painting and other hobbies.   I eventually stopped all my quilting subscriptions except for ones that came out only a couple of times a year so that I could keep a hand in the quilt world.

Now, I subscribe to beading and paper and Quilt magazines.   I save most of them, they are inspiring when I feel like creating.   But, I have to be careful, if I feel like working with paper and open a  beading magazine the two will collide and I will begin to try to merge the two.  Sometimes this is ok, and other times a complete disaster.   Like ironing fusible to wrapping paper and then trying to iron it onto paper.   Did you know paper warps badly when heated?  I do….

Have a great week and if you have time check out some of my new tags on etsy… Click here

Here are some pictures of some of my newer tags for the holidays. . .