As I mentioned last week, I was asked to participate in a blog crawl by a good friend of Vagrant Isle, Annika Martins. Her new website is about to launch, and she wanted to get her favorite blogs together to post on a loaded topic, “What do you need to celebrate?” Well folks, here you have it…

My favorite thing as a kid was making stuff, and believe me, I took a lot of pride in my “craftsmanship.” I loved coming home from camp with a macaroni-something-or-other and presenting it to my parents. In high school, I even dabbled in making my own clothes, which was… interesting*. Over time, those things faded into college assignments and late nights at the office and I lost the knack for creating. Even now, with a career based in art, I don’t make any.

One of the things I like the most about living in New York City, and Brooklyn specifically, is being in the epicenter of the Do It Yourself movement. Etsy’s offices are a mere stone’s throw away, and I live just blocks from 3rd Ward. There are people all around me making really rad stuff - why shouldn’t I?

It’s time we all started celebrating the things we make a little bit more. It’s time we start doing things our damned selves more. There are opportunities for both personal and financial gain out there using mere puffy paint! 

So, I’m kicking off this theme set with a challenge for myself (and hopefully, you too): I will make one thing - do something myself - every day for two weeks.

Human creativity is pretty wonderful, when you think about it. We’ve made everything from cave paintings to airplanes, merely by putting a hand to an idea and celebrating the hell out of it. Go forth and celebrate, *even if it means making three different dresses and having them all come out as identical frocks that a potato in prison would wear.

x

PS - If you’d like to check out Annika’s website or learn more about her Celebration Series (including all of the other bloggers in the crawl), click through the image below.