I truly admire creative people. You know the type…they have an eye for putting colors and patterns together that look amazing; they can paint or draw; or they can come up with a very cool business idea and make it come to life.

Unfortunately, I am not one of those creative people…

I am more crafty than creative. I can read the directions of a crafting project and make the finished piece look just like the picture. But don’t ask me to come up with an original craft idea. Even when I was little and my brothers were making creative monstrosities out of legos, I was the one looking for the printed directions for building a house.

Not very creative!

When I was in college, I think my junior year, I needed an elective and found an Art For Non-Art Majors class. It sounded interesting and I figured, hey, how difficult could it be if it’s for “non art majors?”

Well, what I didn’t know was that “non-art majors” was really secret code that meant “artists not yet admitted into the art school.” So imagine my surprise when our first projects were handed in. I felt like I was a kindergartener who time traveled into the future and woke up in a college classroom.

Luckily there was another poor soul who had the same misunderstanding I did so we decided to laugh about it and just do our best. We were having fun even if the teacher glared at our final compositions.

But I’ll always remember during my final portfolio review (of which I was SO proud that my self-portrait actually looked like me!!) my professor looked over my projects and asked me, quite seriously, “You’re not thinking of pursuing art as a career, are you?”

I kid you not.

Luckily I was able to laugh and told him no but geez…I would have been crushed had I wanted to be a designer of some sort.

So now I take comfort in my counted cross stitch kits and follow the printed directions which give me beautiful works of art. I’ve made each of my daughters a birth sampler plus I have some other larger and more complicated samplers scattered around my house (and lets not forget about all the unfinished projects I have in various corners of the house). I love having my hands busy doing something and, if I do say so myself, my work is excellent

To discover even more Artsy Mamas, visit Mom’s Talk Network for a list of links!