Welcome and enjoy!

Welcome to AlishaMisha - A place where I can share things I have created with others.

Crafting is one of the biggest parts of who I am. I live and breath crafts like it's my job (which may be someday). I go to thrift stores looking at what items "could be", go to JoAnn's to window shop, and horde seemingly non-craft related material because I know I'll use them someday on something. It's an illness, it really is, but at the end of the day I can sit back and feel a sense of accomplishment when I look at what I have created. It gives me a purpose when I feel I don't have one and it keeps me whole and sane. Crafting means something different to each and every person and that is a beautiful thing. Whatever your meaning is, I hope you enjoy.

To start off this blog I would like to talk about my favorite crafting website and that is Craftster.org. Craftster has been a HUGE influence on my life. I discovered craftster indirectly through a Walt Disney World forum called WDWMagic.com. Disney as a whole has been an obsession and illness of mine since I was born really, so it was only natural that it lead me to another love of mine. Anyways, through a thread talking about Disney themed crafts people have made, I discovered that two of the members had also been members of craftster. They explained that they had received the crafted items from each other in a craft swap hosted by craftster. I went over to craftster and my crafting love quickly became an obsession.

In the not so distant past crafting was a skill you learned out of necessity. You would gain a skill such as sewing or knitting from your mother or grandmother, and you too would pass down your skill. During those times it was considered economical. Through craftster I discovered that crafting wasn't just your grandmother's way anymore. In this day and age we have sass and we are not afraid to show it! We have taken crafting and have turned it into something more than necessity; it is now a sense of self expression. You can look at an item someone has created and find a piece of the creators soul.

Like I mentioned before, craftster hosts craft swaps. Basically, without going into detail, it means that you make items for your assigned partner and they make items for you. To get an idea of this you can look at my "Swap Archives" on what I have sent and received. Swapping has been a big part of my life for almost three years now. To date I have participated in 14 swap themes and have the joy of swapping with 28 different people. These people have come all over the U.S. and some from Canada. I have not yet had the joy of swapping with anyone outside of North America.

So with all this talk about craftster it has to lead somewhere right? The main purpose is that it saves a lot of questions about what swapping is, because a majority of things I make are for swaps.

So welcome. Steep some tea, open up your mind, and enjoy.