While this blog is primarily about my garden and its effect on my mental health, I wanted to share the other great love of my life, which also has a major influence on my wellbeing. I have been a scrapbooker for many, many years. My love of photography sparked a “what do I do with all these photos” conversation and I discovered scrapbooking, which is essentially a way of documenting what goes on in your life and around you with photos, pretty paper, ribbons, paint. You name it, you can scrapbook on/with/about it.
I love to create things, to build something from nothing. I’m not particularly artistic but there is a place of quiet and calm my brain goes to when I’m cutting out bits of paper and gluing them together to make a memory. Choosing the right photograph, the right bit of ribbon, the right embellishment. The creative process is soothing and enriching. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not without glued up fingers and wonky cutting lines which drive me crazy but the end result is always therapeutic.
My scrapbooking eventually expanded to include 3D paper crafting which is made so easy by the use of a Cricut machine. It is an electronic cutting machine that combined with software can be used to cut out any shape you can imagine. And I really do mean any shape. From simple cards to full blown fairy houses, I’ve spent the last two years or so working my way up from the simplest design to building houses, gazebos, watering cans, perfume bottles clocks and lampshades.
The files used are called SVG files and while there are hundreds if not thousands of places online to download these files my own personal favourite is Dreaming Tree. So I’m going to add a gallery to this website of my paper creations but here are a couple of my latest creations. The joy of these files is that you are only limited by your own imagination – they can be resized, you pick your own colours and patterns, they are all truly unique creations even though we all start with the same downloaded file. I absolutely love scrolling through looking at everyone’s versions of these little pieces of art on the Dreaming Tree Facebook group.
The Garrett Garden 