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Please Welcome Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Abernathy Graham

by on Aug 30, 2010

Happy Monday, Curbly! This week, we’re very excited to welcome Elizabeth Abernathy Graham as a featured guest blogger. Elizabeth is an author, teacher, and crafter who’s incredibly passionate about creative reuse. She’ll be sharing her expertise and lots of great projects from her newest electronic publication, Nuno Magazine.

created at: 08/30/2010

Here’s a bit from Elizabeth about herself:

 I grew up in a very creative family. My father was a professional landscape photographer and my mother, sister and I traveled with him frequently. My mother is an excellent seamstress (a skill she tried to pass on to me, but that I did not learn to appreciate until well into adulthood). Every one in our house always had an unfinished project of some kind strewn about the place. It was an ”If one of us can’t make it or grow it, we probably don’t need it” sort of upbringing.

My first “creative” job was at 16, teaching crafts to kids at a sleep-away summer camp.

I went on to get a degree in elementary education and taught for a number of years; one room school, English as a second language (in Korea), 3rd and 4th grades and  kindergarten.

My years of teaching help me to see the real value in instruction as a starting point for creativity. With a basic craft skill or technique as a starting point, I believe there is endless scope for variation. Creativity is building on an existing idea and making it your own. When it comes to craft, basic techniques are often centuries old. Modern craft is just a reinterpretation of ancient ideas.

Over the past few years, I’ve become more conscious of the waste that we, in developed countries, produce. This waste, along with our out-sized consumption of energy to produce new goods to replace the ones we’ve thrown away, has begun to alarm me. This concern has steered me in a new direction. I now look for ways to creatively use discarded things, rather than buying new. That desire to reuse and recycle has had a huge impact on my creative pursuits.

I’ve been blogging about my quest to creatively reuse and recycle for about a year now. It has been a wonderful experience. I have benefited greatly from the creativity and generosity of my fellow crafty bloggers. I really do look at things in a new way.

Blogging has led me to take on an even bigger project. In collaboration with my sister, Rachel Braff, and the support (and photography skills) of my husband, we’ve just finished our very first copy of Nuno Magazine. This autumn issue, “Forest” is 150 pages of projects made from salvaged materials and inspired by a walk in the woods (something I do a lot!). I had great fun with it and am now working away on projects for the winter edition, “Shades of Grey”.
     
I currently live in central Washington state with my husband, Royce, in a little house we built ourselves.”

Elizabeth has also been kind enough to team up with Curbly to create one monster giveaway! Stay tuned for details.

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