Entering Blogland!!

To say I'm out of my comfort zone is putting it mildly! Until very recently, technology and I only agreed to co-exist on the same planet as long as there wasn't much interaction between us. Now here I am - much to the amazement of my daughters in particular - posting my first entry into Blogland! You see - I'm the one who still hasn't figured out how to take pictures with my cell phone. Consequently, I have lots of photos of the inside of my purse! Oh well, that's what I have a camera for anyway!

Not sure how to begin, so I'll just start. Recently I created an online shop with Etsy; it's called Fursdon House. I love it! I actually have a shop on-line!! I'm so excited!! I've wanted a shop of my own for as long as I can remember; a place where I could showcase items I had created entirely myself and also a place to sell other beautiful objects. You see - I have this knack of finding items that I think are particularly beautiful or useful (per William Morris I believe), or at least items that could be beautiful or useful. And I embellish them, rework them, repaint them, revamp them......whatever you want to call it. I just make them over into my own personal treasures as opposed to "cookie cutter" items that everyone else has. I also like to start from the ground up, which is what led me to create my own tea cozies. Seemed like all the ones I found looked too similar to each other, so I decided to develop my own! I was extremely fortunate to find a wholesaler nearby (The English Table in Huntsville, Alabama) that agreed to carry my cozies. But after creating about 80 of them over the past two years, my interest was starting to wane. Finally I got the nerve to put a few on Etsy and here I am today!

Somehow, the act of opening Fursdon House on Etsy helped me realize I was no longer limited in what I created and the floodgates have been open ever since! I have so many "ideas" floating around in my head it's all I can do to sleep at night. This isn't overly helpful when you consider I have a full-time job as the Chief of Medical Records and the Privacy Officer at our local military medical treatment facility (Fox Army Health Center, on Redstone Arsenal, AL). I have to admit though - my wonderful husband, Nigel, and my lovely mother, Joy, make my creative endeavors possible. Without them constantly "picking up the slack", I'd never have had time to do half of what I've already accomplished!

As for creativity, I've been blessed with a family that has it in spades! My grandmother, both my aunts, my mother, my cousins, myself - we all have a great desire and ability to make things uniquely our own, whether it's sewing, cooking, writing, painting, poetry. . .the list seems endless. My own daughters say they aren't creative in the typical sense (though I think otherwise), but my granddaughter already has her own sewing machine and she and I frequently spend time together "creating" in our studio!

Having said all this, it wasn't until the past year or so that I finally admitted to myself that I was an artist! Okay, so I'm a little slow. I just never thought I'd ever be considered an artist by anyone, so I didn't bother considering it myself. But there's something about approaching (and now turning) the 50-year mark that puts things in a different perspective altogether. That half-century mark is what I consider a right of passage! It's as if I've finally "come into my own" and the feeling is fabulous! For the first time ever, I feel as if I can create anything I want, just for the sheer joy there is in creating it!

So......having said all this, I'd better get busy!! Creation is waiting in the wings!!

May God Bless,
Jan of Fursdon House