The Birth of a Trashy Crafter

The story of Trashy Crafter begins with my Grandma, as a little girl after school each day, once homework was done we were able to make crafts. She had an entire back room filled with baby food jars, paint, string, fabric scraps, cardboard, toilet paper rolls and old buttons. It was a place of endless imagination. I had always enjoyed using my hands to create, believe it or not my first artwork was graffiti art, I never used spray paint, but rather tagged on paper and would write friends names or words. In highschool I was too concerned with getting good grades and doing well in Band (played trombone) to have time to make crafts so it was on the back burner until my senior year of college.

My Mom and I loved going to the local thrift stores, and one afternoon noticed them throwing out 100's of damaged and outdated children's books, this broke our hearts, there had to be something we could do with them. I ended up making paper bead jewelry from the book pages. I had learned how to make paper beads back in 3rd grade from my teacher Mrs. Bryant. I started out with making bracelet sets, then that lead to earrings, necklaces and now lanyards as well. Mom and I made them together, it was a lovely way to spend time together as I was much closer to my Dad while I was a little kid, so getting to spend time with her was great. My Mom recently fractured her wrist and is still recovering from that, so my boyfriend of 8 years Dave decided to try rolling beads and he loves it, and is great at it.

Our goal is to use all income from Trashy Crafter to pay off my student loan and become debt free. I like many in the United States was the first in their family to attend college, and went into debt. My new passion and drive is to pay off my student loan in two years so I can be debt free and have more freedom and joy, and I wish to share my message of hope, inspiration and knowledge with others who dream of becoming debt free and following their dreams! I owe all that I have to Lord Jesus Christ, without him or my family I would not be where I am today, I only hope that I can serve others in the most kind, caring and compassionate way, blessings!