I want to clarify a few things. I'm not against kits. I think kits are fine. Kits are an easy way to introduce people to a new craft. Personally, I'm more a fan of the kit that gives you tools, materials and instructions for a technique you can personalize (with sample project ideas) than a kit that gives you only one thing to create. I'm not personally a fan of the make this exactly same thing and there's no room for your point of view kit. I like it when the kit has flexibility and suggestions of ways to implement it. If you're making the exactly the same thing, as someone wisely mentioned yesterday, basically you're just free labor in that scenario. Personally if I can't imprint it in some way, I'm bored.

Here is my "Hook Rug Kit Theory." Back in the 70s, everyone made a hook rug. Or at least everyone started one. Then it lingered in a corner and eventually got shuffled to a closet. If you finished it perhaps it became a pillow that got sent to the Goodwill in the 80s or a framed work of "art" long since sold off at a yard sale or tossed into the trash. Mine was Ziggy and a rainbow. I have absolutely no clue what happened to it. The hook rug was the paint by numbers of the 70s, and it was a one trick pony sort of a sale. Meaning you made a sale, but you didn't create a customer. The bread and butter of our industry and the key to our survival is in creating a customer. Creating a lifetime crafter means creating a lifetime of business.

It is my personal belief that everyone is creative.

I mean that.

Here's what I mean by that. When we were five and someone handed us a box of 64 Crayola crayons and a roll of blank paper, we didn't say to ourselves, "Oh I can't do this, I'm not creative." We blissfully drew whatever wandered into our minds and we absolutely did not give a hoot about rules. Skies could be green, grass could be purple...we colored outside of the lines, inside of the lines, over the lines, above, below and around the lines. We dared, we dreamed, we imagined.

Then someone, somewhere along the way (maybe even ourselves) told us, "Hey, that's not what a cow looks like. You're not a very good artist."

That was that. The die was cast and the crayons went into the box never to come out again.

I teach creativity seminars where I help to demystify the creative process for the non-artist. There is no finished project. When the students enter the class I have a table strewn with images. Usually vintage paper items and new magazine ads that I ask them to peruse and select four items that speak to them on some level. I start by saying that we are all not Van Gogh or Monet or O'Keefe and we may never make extraordinary art, but that doesn't matter. We all have something to express and we should express it without worrying about what other people think. Then I talk about the rules of color and composition, I show examples of great art and design. I suggest that they think about their personal palette as reflected in their wardrobe and their home décor. I ask them to consider what makes a design intriguing. I make them think about the items they selected and explain why. Then I have them do creativity exercises in groups and individually using a sketch book and colored pencils to render ideas. They use the items they selected as the jumping off points for design concepts. Most of the students aren't what you'd consider creative types. They almost all start the class with arms crossed and sour expressions on their faces. As the class progresses the excitement builds. By the end of each class every student has one fully fleshed sketched concept ready to explore and several seeds of ideas upon which they can build. One of my students won first prize in the Swarovski Create Your Style design competition with something she conceived in my class, that was very cool.

I've only ever had one student who categorically refused to have fun. She "just wanted to make a necklace." I told her that was absolutely fine, but that she could if she trusted herself move beyond that level of creativity. She is the kit customer and she's certainly not alone, I just don't believe she's in the majority.

My classes are all about helping empower people to be creative and the people who take them are often retail craft store owners looking for new ways to inspire customers. By showing them new pathways of creativity, I'm helping them to do the same for others. Which is the point I was making yesterday, there are so many products on the shelves people don't understand that they often turn to the kit out of desperation. A smart retailer is going to figure out how to show people how to use their products and beyond that a smart retailer is going to inspire creativity and exploration because in doing that, they're creating a lifetime crafter. If you're relying on the impulse buy or the hook rug kit customer, they're going to be fewer and farther between when the economy is weak. It's the creative soul who fuels the craft industry and it's freeing those who are afraid they aren't creative into believing they are that will fuel it even more.

We don't have to homogenize or map it all out for people if we make the effort to show them how to free their minds. That requires effort and outreach, but it's not impossible. I think the next generation of crafters thinks this way and I also think that the older crafter would too if given the tools to do so.

Just my two cents...or actually more like my fifty cents! Thanks to everyone who commented on my various blog posting sites, I'm blessed to have such thoughtful readers.

Until tomorrow...craft on with your bad selves,
Madge