Oh Creative Lady: Meet Maggy from Red Ted Art
Maggy from Red Ted Art, in my humble opinion, is Kids Arts and Crafts Blogging ROYALTY.
Her site is chock-a-block filled with ideas and tutorials. All hail Queen Maggy!
I adore the way Maggy aims to inspire kids to independently create with her simple and fun projects, even if they have limited access to materials.
But what I admire most of all is how generous Maggy is with her time and advice to fellow bloggers. Maggy has been blogging for a very long time now and has an extremely successful site as testament to that. Many bloggers in her field look up to her and Maggy is always willing to share her pearls of wisdom.
Enough fan-girling from me. Introducing Maggy from Red Ted Art!
Through blogging and Instagramming, I’ve been introduced to an amazing Virtual Sisterhood of Creative Ladies.
The Oh Creative Lady series is your chance to meet these incredible, kind-hearted, inspiring <insert ALL the happy, positive adjectives HERE> women.
I am… Maggy from Red Ted Art! Where I share fun and EASY crafts for kids. I am passionate about getting kids crafting and excited about art (I hear far too often “but I am rubbish at crafts”… no, you are not.. you have just not been helped in the right sort of way.. but I digress). I am also author of two books – Red Ted Art (now out of print, sniff) and Paper Crafts (be the first to get it on pre-order!) Quite excited about the second book – as it really brings crafts back down to basics: LOTS of great ideas using more or less just paper! Hopefully making crafting more accessible to a LOT of kids with restricted access to materials!
I am also mum of two (a now 11yr and 9yrs old – crikey, they grow up so quickly) and married. We have a house of full of pets (some now deceased but still in our hearts) – cats, chickens, gerbils, hamsters and now the kids want fish. It feels like a zoo. But isn’t that what childhood is about?
We live in big, smelly BUT wonderful London and we feel very lucky to be here.
In my spare time I love to read.. and devour more or less any book given or lent to me.
I find inspiration… mainly in other people! Everyone around you is inspirational in some form or another. We all have some special and unique to contribute. And I love seeing how diverse my friends are.
I love going to art galleries and seeing how you can bring “real” art into the home and inspire the kids. In London, we are so lucky to have so many great galleries on our doorstep and for free! My favourite has to be Tate Britain. They are always so friendly and welcoming to kids and families too.
I am excited about … Ooh I am excited about two big things for Red Ted Art.. the first.. as mentioned above already, is my brand new book – out in September 2019! I love the concept of the book (which is quite different to my “old” book) – all about crafting with JUST paper. I focussed on providing different techniques and ideas of how to craft with paper in the book. Keeping the crafts as simple as possible, but also encouraging the readers to make their own versions and designs. I love that all you need is paper, a glue stick and scissors (well.. more or less!). I am hoping that this book, a pad of paper and some glue will make for great Birthday Gifts for many children going forward!
The second, is that I am finally rebranding Red Ted Art. I say “rebranding”.. Red Ted Art was never really “branded” as such. The current branding is taken from my first book – which is nice, but was never thought through. I am about to do a big brand reveal and can’t wait to share the new logo and… MASCOT! So excited!
When I’m in a creative slump, I… Give myself a break. Other times I power on. It really varies. I am lucky enough, that my blog is quite “big” now – by that I mean it has a LOT of content. Well over 2000 craft ideas. So, I know it is “ok” to give myself a break and just revamp and republish some old content or to focus a little more on SEO. Other times, I find “powering on” works. Yes, I may not FEEL like making, but I Have a huge list of content ideas.. and I just start to work my way through it, until the spark comes naturally again.
I accept that creative slumps are totally normal and am not too worried by them!
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I’m really proud of… my kids! What else can I say.. right?! But if I had to pick something other than them… then it is Red Ted Art as a whole and the community that supports it. If you had told me 10yrs ago, that it would be what it is today, I wouldn’t have believed you. I love receiving emails from my readers sharing what they have made or hearing their stories of how my crafts have helped them in some way. It is really lovely! And leaves me feeling chuffed.
Someone once told me… I would make a living from crafts. It was my brother. I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t work out how crafts could possibly be profitable, there is so much labour involved in creating. Luckily, my brother believed in me and when I started Red Ted Art, really supported what I was doing. And somehow I ended up on this path of blogging. I never planned to write a blog… it was meant to be an add on to another business idea. But there you go. Never say never! Anything is possible.
My advice to you is …. make your dreams come true. Ha yes, that is a bit of a big statement and can be quite daunting. But the thing is.. whatever you are passionate about.. just do it! And be prepared to change your path along the way. If you don’t even start, how are you going to get anywhere? Having said that, do have realistic expectations of yourself, allow your idea to grow and develop over time. Accept any failures along with the successes. Just keep at it.
You can find me at …
Facebook and my Easy Crafts for Kids group