I received an email last night from a sweet girl called Elizabeth. Elizabeth wanted to start a blog to share her DIY's and perhaps open an Etsy shop selling the little things she makes. All well and good I thought, another Etsy shop is always appreciated. But Elizabeth then went on to express her dismay at not measuring up to the "DIY skills of Luxirare". WTF?! I freely admit that I got quite angry at that statement. Has everyone become so competative that feeling inadequate because someone you don't know, somewhere in another part of the world can sew better than you is somehow reason enough to stop you doing something you really want to do?
Now I don't know for sure because I've only been on Luxirare's site perhaps once, maybe even twice, but from what I saw I'm guessing she studied fashion design. Her work simply cannot be classed as DIY. DIY is for those of us who are unskilled, playing at sewing. We don't have our own labels, we don't have our own packaging. It's just for fun. There doesn't need to be any skill level with DIY. If it falls apart after one wear, but you had the best night of your life whilst wearing it, then that's a success. No you didn't get it photographed in a studio in great detail, but so what - you don't need to. DIY is just silly fun.
I admire people with skills and I sometimes even wish I had those skills, but it never dents my own confidence. I have other skills so I am happy to concentrate on them. My advice to Elizabeth was to ignore what other people are doing and do what gives her pleasure. Maybe no-one will come on her blog and tell her how she's killing it epic style, or whatever, but that shouldn't be the reason to start a blog in the first place.
To show Elizabeth that skill level doesn't mean you can't create fun stuff, I took two lengths of grommet tape I had lying around and literally just wrapped them around my thigh high boots to make them look a wee bit different. It took no sewing and two minutes and my Prince took the photo's outside in the binstore!
It's not beautifully lit in a studio but it doesn't have to be. My Prince picked me up and put me on the recycle bin and we had fun! It's not slick and it's not glossy. It's fun! So please Elizabeth, don't compare yourself to anyone, just do your own thing and, yup, you guessed it...have FUN.
Queen Michelle
