Struggling with Mediocrity...

For several years, I've gone through life with a nagging dream in the back of my mind.  A dream that involves me doing what I love and making a living off of it.  More specifically, creating beautiful things that people would want to purchase to make their own lives a little more beautiful and pleasant.  These beautiful things would be knitted, constructed, sewed, or whatever... by me. 

I'm sure most of you can tell, I like doing things and creating with my hands.  I've always loved hand-making cards for people, knitting soft warm snuggly things, baking yummy desserts, and so on and so forth.  And I think I'm generally pretty good at these things. 

What I struggle with is finding that one thing that I can do so well that it is worth something to other people.  I look around on Etsy and craft shows and such and every one of the artists has their niche.  They are really amazing at their one thing.  It's awe-inspiring to look at what each of these craftswomen who are able to do what they love and get paid for it.  (At least I assume they get paid for it, they charge enough...)  All I can say is, I WANT TO DO THAT!

But how?  I often feel as though I am the jack of all trades who is the master of nothing.  Ask me to knit something and it's done.  Wedding stationery?  Easy peasy.  Block printing?  Love it.  Paint a picture? No problem.  Want to eat something delicous?  Me too.  But what the heck?  I have yet to find the one thing that is different than what someone else is already doing.  

I think it's pretty near impossible.  Bummer.

I'm gonna keep trying anyway. 

I wrote this a couple weeks back when I was feeling particularly down on myself.  Since then I've opened an Etsy account.  (I haven't put anything up on it since the giant-ass rules and regulation page scared me off, but at least I'm one step closer.)

I've also realized that all those people who are able to make a living off of their arts and crafts have probably put in a ton of time and money into starting their business... ie, have taken giant risks.  I'm generally not a risk taker.  I'll have to get over that if I want to make my dream a reality.

I'm also thinking about writing a book.  That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to say anymore and get myself and anyone else excited about something that might not happen.  But it's in my head and I've started the preliminary stages of writing.  I hope it works out.