Lovely Lucy Jackson is a fellow new member of the Glasgow Craft Mafia and I had to feature her here because her beautiful handmade books are absolutely to die for! Please note that due to Flickr’s privacy settings and a lack of time on my part, I wasn’t able to show any of Lucy’s photographs. I urge you all to check out her Flickr photostream to see her amazing work for yourselves.

What do you make?
Everything! Well not quite everything but I am addicted to crafting so I find myself trying lots of crafts. At the moment I am making a lot of books and journals, felt brooches and button hair slides. My newest products are kits for making your own felt brooches.

What got you started in this field? Were you always a creative type?
We have always been creative in our house some of my best childhood memories are of my mum and I making things and being crafty, I think it was inevitable that I would be a crafter!
I started in business gradually, one Christmas I made cards for everyone at work and then come Valentine’s day and Mother’s day some of my colleagues asked if I could make cards for them and that’s where it started, I realised people wanted to buy the things that I was making.

When and how did you learn?
Like I said I did a lot of arts and crafts with my mum as a child, my dad is artistic too so it was encouraged in our house to be arty and crafty. I loved art at school and then went on to study product design at college and went on to get an MSc in Product Design and Development at Uni. After Uni I found that the jobs were all in the computer side of product design and I was more interested in the creative thinking, idea generation and making the products. When I want to try something new I learn from books, other crafters, classes and YouTube is a great way to learn things there are so many people sharing their skills and techniques.

Do you make things by hand?
Yes, pretty much everything is hand made, I have some cool gadgets to help me along, a bind-it-all a crop-a-dile and a corner chomper.

Do you believe that being creative is good for you?
Oh yes, you get so many warm fuzzies from crafting; when you successfully complete a project, when someone buys something you have made and showing people how to make things themselves is also good feeling.

Is there anything that frustrates you about being a creative type?
Sometimes you can be misunderstood and people don’t get you! Trying to differentiate myself as a craft business and not a craft hobbyist.

Do you believe the internet has had an effect on your creativity?
If anything it has made me more creative as it has created avenues to sell and an infinite resource of information, tutorials to learn new crafts and there is the buying not just of other crafts but tools and materials.

Thanks Lucy for doing this interview and thanks again to all of our crafters who agreed to be featured this week! If you’d like to find Lucy online, here’s where to look:
Lucy Jackson Designs
Lucy’s blog
Twitter
Folksy
Etsy

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