Crafting on the Computer

Greeting cards, banners, photo scrapbooks, an online projects that use software as well as your imagination.

Jul 17, 2006

Computer Crafting? What's that? There's the question I get asked at least a half dozen times a week. People ask what I do. So I tell them.

They get that head-tilting-to-one-side quizzical look for a second or two. At that point I often wonder whether they are running the term through their head again to make sure they heard right or trying to figure out if they have come across a certifiable loon.

Well, I won't waste your time trying to convince you I am not certifiable. Not even sure I could do it! But you did hear right and if you are not a computer crafter I know what you're thinking.

Ok, computer crafters; here's a task for you. Let's find another term for what we do. And for those of you who are not "savvy" - computer crafting is simply a way to describe the largest tool in the arsenal of this crafting genre.

Yes, we are now a "genre". We used to be a niche. And a tiny one at that. But computer crafting has grown so explosively over the six plus years that I have been running my little website that it now has a new magazine and more and more books being published on the topic every year. Mine is only the latest.

It used to be that computer crafting basically meant making greeting cards and banners. It has now evolved into a method of crafting that runs the gamut from those old quarter-fold greeting cards to photographic manipulation and even home decorating.

Computer crafting is the one crafting field that encompasses just about every other crafting field - from sewing, and scrapbooking, to quilting and card making, drawing and painting, even flower arranging and cross-stitch. The personal computer is no longer a tool for just paper. It is a tool that allows our imaginations to expand beyond boundaries that once held us back.

Yes, folks, for computer crafters and those still scratching their heads trying to figure out how to use a computer to sew or quilt or paint, I will now step off my soap box. I've only one more thing to say on the topic.

The copyright of the article Crafting on the Computer in Scrapbooking & Paper Crafts is owned by Mary Welling-Bonney. Permission to republish Crafting on the Computer in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.