Glue, glitter and craft basket memories

My love of crafting started with Grandma Teddy. And Aunt Marsha, too.

Of course, I don’t remember us calling it crafting back then. I’m not even sure “crafting” was really a thing yet, at least not the way we think of it now. We were just making stuff.

Now that I’ve raised three children of my own, I have another theory. Grandma Teddy may have loved nurturing my creative side, but she may also have simply been looking for a way to keep me busy for a while. And honestly, I respect that even more now.

One of my clearest memories is sitting at her kitchen table, covered in newspaper, with little clear glass vases spread out in front of us. The plain kind you could find just about anywhere. We glued split peas to the outside, one at a time, until every inch was covered, and then we painted them white. Something my own mother would never have let me do in her house. Grandma Teddy was apparently a little more adventurous.

When they dried, they looked like hobnail milk glass. Not the real antique kind, of course, but close enough. And we’d made them ourselves.

Years later, on the covered front porch of the house on Gilbert Street, I somehow ended up with a craft basket of my own. I didn’t plan it that way. It just happened, the way useful things often do. Glue sticks left over from school projects, construction paper, glitter that never fully vacuums out of the carpet no matter how many times you swear you’ve gotten it all, googly eyes, pipe cleaners and Popsicle sticks all found their way into the same basket.

Eventually, I put a table out on the porch, and the basket became the center of what my kids and I called Wacky Wednesdays. We’d pull things out and make whatever came to mind. Sometimes we had a plan, but usually we didn’t, which was probably obvious from some of the finished products. We talked and laughed while our hands were busy, making things that often had no purpose beyond giving us something to do together.

That basket made it through a lot of years, although it didn’t survive all the moves.

The idea did, though.

One of the first Christmases at Lexi’s house, I found a big, beautiful basket and filled it with craft supplies. I wrapped it as best I could, which wasn’t particularly well, but I figured the contents were the important part. I wanted her to have her own place to dig around, pull things out and see what she could make.

When Aunt Marsha passed away, Lexi inherited a large part of her bead collection. Marsha had spent years turning those beads into beautiful Christmas tree ornaments, and now they had a new home in Lexi’s craft basket.

A couple of years ago, when Lexi came to Florida for Thanksgiving, I decided it was time to build another basket for myself. The original from Gilbert Street was long gone, but apparently, I had reached the point in life where I needed a dedicated basket full of googly eyes, hot glue and whatever else might come in handy.

I wanted to make an oyster shell ball, and Lexi loves working with seashells, so we went to the beach to gather what we needed. Afterward, we stopped at Jo-Ann Fabrics because neither one of us can pass a craft store without wandering through the aisles longer than necessary. We probably came home with more than we needed, although I’m not sure either of us would agree with that assessment.

Before long, we were sitting at my kitchen island surrounded by shells, hot glue sticks and plenty of laughter.

Yesterday, I tried punch needle and made my first mug rug while sitting on the couch during a storm I didn’t feel like dealing with. It was one of those little projects that made me realize how much I need a place to make things.

Not long ago, I turned the spare bedroom into a creative space for Coffee and Words. For years, I called it exactly that, the spare bedroom, and kept the door closed so the cats wouldn’t discover it and turn every surface into a landing spot for cat hair.

But when we returned from Indiana in May, all of the treasures from my parents’ home ended up in that room, and somehow it became something else. Surrounded by pieces of their lives, the room suddenly felt different. A little magical, actually. I started calling it Narnia.

As Coffee and Words has grown, I needed a place where it could grow, too. Somewhere other than my home office. So I moved my big work table against the wall of windows overlooking the pond and covered it with an art mat so I could cut, glue and create without destroying the tabletop. My Cricut is set up along with the mug press and a printer, and there are supplies within reach that I probably don’t technically need but am very happy to have.

And oh, how I love that room.

In the morning, the beautiful Florida sun comes through the windows and lands across the table and everything on it. I walk in, take a deep breath, and somehow the ideas start coming.

This morning, it’s Saturday, and before the sun has even come up over the pond, I’m sitting in my new studio thinking about what I might make next.

When I look back at it all, I realize the craft basket was never really the important part. It was the table. The porch. The kitchen island. Now, this little room I call my studio. Places where we could sit together, make something, make a mess, laugh a little and let the rest of life wait.

Four generations. Different houses. Different decades. Different projects.

But maybe the reason we keep coming back to it has always been the same.

It was never really about the crafts. It was about having somewhere to put your hands while everything else got to settle.

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My story stack for today:

BUT
[buht] conjunction
Origin: Old English, būtan
The gentle boundary you draw between the world’s demands and what your soul needs first.

FIRST
[furst] adjective
Origin: Old English, fyrst
The sacred acknowledgment that some rituals deserve priority before you give yourself to the world’s waiting needs.

CRAFTS
[krafts] noun
Origin: Old English, cræft, meaning skill, power, or strength of knowledge
Time disappears, hands take over, and for a while nothing else needs solving.

These mugs are part of our Coffee Stories collection – word stacks inspired by my personal journey shared in these posts. Each memoir piece becomes a stackable memory you can hold in your hands. Start your own collection and create combinations that speak to your journey.