Get Crafty

LEARNING art and craft can be a means to check boredom and pick up a handy skill in making personalised gifts, said Adelina Lee of Craft Haven.

Come Sunday and it’s time with family, kids and friends. Inadvertently, the question of what to do will pop up.

Here’s an idea. Instead of trooping outdoors, why not gather in the comfort of home and initiate an art or craft project.

Inspired: Art and craft projects can help one relax, much like reading a good book, says Adelina Lee.

There are a million things one can make like scary face masks for the children or a scrapbook of family photos.

And if you ask Adelina Lee, she will tell you that the possibilities are endless.The 34-year-old said the idea is to let your creative side out.As opposed to the rigidity of logic, there are no boundaries to what the imagination can conjure.

“Anything is possible. For example, a cat can be pink in colour. True, there are no pink cats but art and craft is about opening your soul so that your creativity shows.

“Insisting that a cat cannot be pink for example, will only stifle one’s imagination,” reasoned Adelina.

A trinket box and pretty polymer clay figurines.

Err, having a good imagination is well and good, but how does one go about executing one’s ideas?
When it comes to making a flower, for example, this is not something that comes naturally for first- timers, right?

“Ah! That’s the sort of mindset 80% of my customers have. They believe they are not creative but l tell them: ‘Never to be afraid to pick up a scissors or a brush.’‘When you say, ‘I don’t know’, it’s the fear that is stopping you. There are always references in magazines, the Internet or friends. Once you overcome your fear you will be surprised at what you can do,” she enthused.

A craft project, is no doubt, a stress reliever for those involved in technical jobs which require strict adherence to rules.

An eggshell that’s been turned into an art object.

An accountant, for example, will definitely learn to see things in a new way through art and craft. This will spur the individual to explore his creative side and help him develop problem-solving and analytical skills.
The plus point here, Adelina said, was the allowance for time to ‘forget’.

“Doing craftwork is like reading a good book. You become totally absorbed in the process,” said Adelina in explaining that art and craft have a therapeutic effect on those who need to untangle a muddled mind.

As for the rewards of craft, there is no describing the feeling of satisfaction upon completing a project.

“You feel a sense of achievement because you know you have worked hard on it,” she said.
It is also her belief that art and craft can play a positive role in child development.

“Art and craft projects help children to develop the left and right side of the brain because the activity requires one to look at the whole as well as the parts.

“It requires us to be intuitive as well as sequential and to be logical and random too,” she pointed out.

And having been in the line for eight years, Adelina from Klang, who is married to an airline pilot, said she has found much comfort in what she does.

This former Methodist Girls School student teaches the making of polymer clay figurines, scrapbooking and glass painting at her shop.

“All of a sudden, all I wanted to do was to play with wax,” revealed Adelina on how eight years ago, she came to give up her job with an advertising agency to venture into business.

The rest of the story, she laughed, was serendipity. Having caught the candle making bug, Adelina discovered a new market for novelty candles. It so happened that in the course of candle-making, Adelina had to source for containers to hold her products.

Unable to find any, she decided to make her own and that was when she discovered a brand of paint which she fell in love with.

This in turn resulted in her applying for distributorship with Pebeo, the paint company in 2002.

“The time finally came when our clients asked if they could look at some paint samples at our shop. And that was when I decided a shop selling craft items would be a good idea,” she revealed.

“Of course, I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t have any apprehensions, but no risk, no gain, right?” said Adelina, looking back on her decision to open Craft Haven in 2003.

Adelina added that craft projects may also help in bringing the family together because the whole thing about craft is to share ideas and techniques.

And even if one is not too nifty with one’s hands, the sense of togetherness, said Adelina, will still come in other ways and she cited as an example how her sister and family members would come in and pretend to be customers when the shop first opened.

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and get crafty!

For more info on craft classes at Craft Haven call 03-77273541.