Yes, as the heading explains, my dreams are coming true!

In general, I’m a relatively private person. I like my online persona to be distinctly separated from my real self.

But today I’m going to share a part of my personal journey with you, my followers. I want you to see how long the journey has been, and how far I’ve come.

Had you met me as a child, I would have told you, “When I grow up, I want to write books, and I want to make doll clothes.”

Hard as this is to believe, I actually started sewing at age 3. And I don’t just mean those little cards that you threaded shoestrings through — no, I made myself a little yellow floral purse when I was only three years old. It was sort of like the purse that’s shown below, which I posted instructions for, in an article I wrote for the UK Crafts Directory about a year ago:

But my aspirations were crushed as a teenager when I was told by several adults in my life, that these goals — becoming a writer and doll fashion designer — were simply not realistic. How would I earn a living? Those aren’t real jobs, after all…

But designing and sewing doll clothes helped me purchase little things along the way, as I paid for college out of pocket (while raising my younger sister). And my love of writing helped me earn a degree in English Literature from Washington State University.

Once I began teaching English, I continued to write and design my own doll clothes. I ran an after-school creative writing club, called the Adventure Club, with students — some of whom grew up to become published authors themselves. My doll clothes I sold at craft fairs or gave to charities (or friends or family).

And eventually I was blessed with two beautiful daughters of my own, who had the best dressed dolls in town, as you can imagine!

Back in those days, I would get up at 5 AM and start writing books because I still dreamed of becoming a published author, but during the day, I devoted my time to my children.

Eventually my passion for writing and my love of doll clothes design led to the creation of the Romeo and Juliet stop motion video. As my daughters got older, they were always on their phones. I wanted them to do something in the REAL world, so I suggested that we work together to film Romeo and Juliet together.

It was a genius idea! It combined their love of cell phones with my passion for doll clothes design, and we all worked together to create the script for each scene from the original Shakespeare play.

The photo below was used in a Chicago Tribune article about our project:

But as life sometimes gets in the way of one’s goals, we never completed the Romeo and Juliet stop motion videos. I still have all the footage for all five acts, but the last two acts haven’t been edited yet.

It’s something I still want to do, but my girls got older and their focus was on other things. That’s only natural, I suppose. Eventually I hope to finish putting together the videos for Acts IV and V, but right now, I don’t foresee having the time.

Instead, I’m building a series of paid tutorial videos for Creative Spark.

This is where the “dream come true” comes into the story!

My dream has always been the same, since I was a very young child. I see myself as accomplishing two really cool things during the course of my life:

• I will write books
• I will design doll clothes

And Creative Spark has suggested that if enough people sign up for my classes through Creative Spark, I’ll be offered a contract for writing books with C&T Publishing!

A dream come true, indeed!

So if it seems like I’m talking about Creative Spark in my blog posts an awful lot… well… wouldn’t you? If you saw an opportunity for your dreams to come true?