Creative Art Journey: From Childhood Lessons to DIY Crafts

Heather de Paulo
Nov 13, 2025
3 min read

I finished my recent pine needle project making a gourd basket! 🎉

Gourd Basket: A Product of creative art journey — The finished product: Gourd Basket

I’ve found that I’m now inspired to do another pine needle project. Maybe. 😊

How Love for Art Began

I would like to share with you how I developed my interest in arts and crafts. 🎨🎩

My love for the arts started when I was in first grade. Our art teacher took us outside and told us to look at the trees. When we went back inside, she told us to draw the tree from the image in our mind. After walking around the room, she came back to me.

Uh-oh, now I'm a nervous 6-year-old! She held up my drawing for everyone to see and asked, "What is the difference between your picture and Lei Lani’s? She is the only one who drew branches!"

A good thing! A compliment! From that point on, I was hooked and took art in every grade.

My Creative Art Journey: From Art Student to a New Path

When I started college, I was an art major thinking I would be an art teacher or commercial artist. I learned that commercial art was stressful, meeting timelines and hoping to make clients happy instead of doing what inspired me.

I thought I might do well as an art teacher, teaching children how to be creative and inspire them as that first-grade teacher inspired me. I would encourage them to try different types of art to see what might click, instill in them that everyone has a creative side, and that all art is good. Nothing but A’s for my students! 😄

Well, my life took a different path, but definitely a good one, eventually working at my dream job with the University of Florida.

Blending Creativity with My Passion for Plants

While working there, I still continued to find ways of expressing my creative side. A few years after starting with the University of Florida, I was contacted by Stephen Foster Folk Cultural Center in White Springs, Florida, and asked if I could demonstrate on the subject of plants and herbs. I loved it! Over the years volunteering there, I met so many creative people and was able to learn so many new things, like pine needle crafts and pysanka eggs, to name a few.

Playing with the arts and crafts is like being in nature, it energizes and inspires me! It has kept me sane in this crazy world over the years. It is like stepping outside on a nice day and taking a deep breath of delicious, clean air. 🌳

What’s Next on My Creative Journey?

So being creative and wanting to try new forms of art was always something I loved to do. I am now thinking about what could be next in my creative art journey. 😊

Are you interested in making your own pine needle crafts?

I created two YouTube videos. First one is more of an intro, explaining what you will need to get started. This was just published and you can view it here: