Having grown up in a tiny village in a valley on Utah's Wasatch Front, my life was saturated from a very young age with the virtues of femalehood. One thing most of the women I knew growing up had in common was the love of crafting. The truth is, we were steeped starting at a very early age, in paints and glues, seashells, acrylic grapes, needles, hooks, hoops, and fibers. I loved it. I loved it to excess, probably.

When I was taught to operate a crochet hook (5th grade, I was a Mormon Merry Miss! 9 years old. I was in craft heaven for years. I still have the first rug I made back then. Purple and pink.

In grade school we did watercolor, ceramics, leatherwork, lettering, and drawing. Mr. Mellor, the principal, taught some of the art classes. I also got in plenty of trouble through these years because I drew during class when other things were happening. I can still remember a sub, or student teacher named Mrs. Crab who smacked my desk with a yard stick because I was drawing during math.

As I aged into my teen years I took advantage of as many crafting classes as I could. My mom encouraged me. She signed me up for art classes and took me to mother daughter craft classes. I grew up with the hum of some type of craft running through our home. She sewed clothes for all of us. She finished solid wood kitchen chairs for her new 5 bedroom home. She did tile work in the foyer, and had a huge planter full of green life, well cared for and succulent. We didn't always see eye to eye (we still don't, but things seem to have settled into routine for us.) We still craft together. Most of the time when I am creating my polymer clay pieces I'm sitting at the table with my mother who's just as crafty now as she ever was. Each Christmas she gifts everyone she feels close to at least 1 of her creations. Tiny trolls in tea cups, and dragons or cactus in a diorama. things she has been working on through the year.

In adulthood there was a room in my home dedicated to crafting. It's where I "worshiped", if you could call it that. Doing this stuff is cathartic for me in a way nothing else is. It's rest and refresh. The Typsy Gypsies was created in 2009 as an Etsy shop. In 2014, on a whim, I began designing and selling "yoni orchid's". At the time I didn't know what would come of it. But, as they say, the proofs in the pudding. I think I am doing alright. I create beauty and wonder. And I love it.