Well, here we go

The older I get, the more I realize that at core, I am a creative person.  I am not particularly skilled in fine arts or music or the like, but I do seem to need a creative outlet to survive.  This has particularly come to light now that I have three small children and no time to actually make much.  The thing is, nursing two babies in a row and co-sleeping with them leaves little time and space for spreading out projects, but it does give hours and hours of dead time to troll the internet looking for inspiration.  Now that the youngest has moved into his own room, I have years worth of housework and immigration paperwork and reading and writing to catch up on, but I do have a bit of space to try to actually work out a creative endeavor or so.

Ever since I got my first digital camera, I've had an iPhoto folder called "Pictures of Projects."  I have been debating whether or not to post a few of my projects on my family blog or not, at least so I could occasionally see a sweater or two I've knitted up there on my Pinterest boards among all those other creative people's beautiful work.  (Ah, Pinterest.  If that little girl who used to pour over the one old doll making and single gift wrapping books in her town and school libraries had only known that one day, the creative world would be at her fingertips -- well, she might not have graduated high school, so I guess it worked out just as well this way.)  Well, I decided as easy as it is to start a new blog, I would try to go this route instead.  At the moment, with three kids between 1 and 4 I don't see this getting many posts or much traffic for a while, but you have to start somewhere.

And now, what to call it.  Currently, I am an American living overseas trying to get back to America. (That's easier said than done, though, with a family of five on three different country passports!)  But some day, when I am home and the babies are a bit less clingy, I have a dream of throwing my hat into the ring and opening up an Etsy shop to sell things that little girls and boys and their mother's could delight in.  I don't see this being my career or anything, but it would be nice to sell enough to pay for a few of my balls of yarn, at least.  Well, one day I was thinking about what I would name an Etsy shop were I to have one, and I thought it would be nice to name it after my daughter, as so often is the case.  Her name works well in French, so I was playing with French-i-fied versions of her first and middle names and stumbled across a painting by Renoir nicknamed "La Petite Irene."  Happily, it happens to be the picture of a beautiful little girl dressed up in her finery, lace, and bows, exactly the image I would choose if I could.  I spent my childhood fixated on the olden days and have always loved long hair and the color blue.

But the Etsy shop is for another day and another continent, most likely.  For now, I thought I would start a blog to keep track of my crafty endeavors attempted from time to time to help keep my sanity, if nothing else.  And so, here we go ...