In this month’s Martha Stewart Living magazine there is an article about how crafting makes a person happy. It’s called “This is your brain on crafts” by Lisa Borgnes-Giramonti. The author cited references from esteemed psychologists who have studied the phenomenon of how doing something you love, like crafting, has stress-relieving and calming effects on the brain. Well, duh! I could have told you that. A long time ago I started scrapbooking. At first it was just a fun way to get out of the house one Friday a month. But before long it became an outlet for me to let go of the stress of my job and just detach and think about nothing but the layout that was in front of me. Friday nights gave way to weekend scrapbooking conventions and overnight scrap-a-thons with my best girlfriends. Once I had an over-abundance of paper and embellishments, the card-making came naturally.
About 10 years ago I rediscovered knitting and my winter evenings were consumed with knitting scarves, hats, and the occasional pair of socks or brightly-colored dish rag. A few years later my mom taught me how to sew my first pair of PJ pants and suddenly I was sewing. Around that same time my niece Ericca taught me how to make earrings and other assorted jewelry. Finally last year I taught myself how to crochet via a You Tube video and have made several beanie hats with cute little crocheted flowers attached to the front.
As I get older I am experiencing first-hand how much less energy I have to stay at work until 5:30 and then be up until 10:00 analyzing professional journal articles for yet another critique as I write my master’s capstone paper. I practically drag myself into the kitchen to empty and fill the dishwasher each night. But put a box of beads in front of me and I could make earrings for 24 hours straight. Put me in front of the TV with a skein of yarn and a crochet hook and I could make hats through a full-day marathon of Sex in the City re-runs. Give me a big long table and my 3 best gal-pals and I could spend 72 hours scrapping Robby’s graduation and Sammy’s football season.
According to the article even cooking falls into the crafting category. I have really come to enjoy cooking over the years and find as much joy in creating a uber-yummy scratch-cake as I do sewing an apron for one of my nieces.
As I spend the next two months finishing my master’s paper I force myself to focus while my crafting supplies beckon. Nope, you didn’t have to tell me that crafting is good for the brain. My brain already knows.
