Until a couple years ago, I honestly believed I didn’t have a “creative” bone in my body. I mean, I thought I was pretty good at creative problem solving, but that was about it. I couldn’t draw (actually, I still can’t, so that’s a bad example), and every crafty or artistic hobby I ever had was about following a pattern with skill (playing classical music, cross stitching), not creating.

But once I started exploring my latent right-braininess, I couldn’t stop! Now I’m obsessed with graphic design, card making, paper crafting, and bottle cap projects, I dabble in sewing, and I have a strong urge to start embroidering. Oh, and letterpress printing! Look, there’s a picture of the letterpress my husband made me (albeit and tiny, crappy cell phone picture), and one of me, so proud of the results of my first ever experiment with the letterpress. Yes, that’s a horse’s behind with the words “I’m sorry”—I really need to print some cards with that on it, because have you ever seen a more perfect apology card?

Are you wondering about the name of my blog / Etsy shop? When I started accumulating all the, well, crap, that comes along with crafting, we explored a couple of different ideas of how to reconfigure our existing stuff to accomodate it. At one point, we thought about moving our baby-baby-grand piano into the dining room and putting a craft center in its place. But since we’ve had the piano, we’ve always called that room (an extra room on the first floor) the “conservatory” (it helps if you say it with a snooty British accent while wearing a monocle). If the piano was gone, what would we call it? I know it seems like a silly thing to worry about, but issues like these are important when you live with my husband, who is as literal as a summer day is long. If a room doesn’t have a name, we’re eventually going to have a miscommunication (read: fight) about it. Anyway!…the other major installation in that room is the dogs’ crate, where they stay when we’re not home, so I suggested we call it the “crafts and dogs” room, which I immediately realized was a fun play on words with “it’s raining cats and dogs” and a business name was born—It’s Raining Crafts & Dogs. It’s also often an appropriate description of the state of my house, with crafty bits and dog toys, blankets, and hair all over the place!