By Laura Churchill Duke
Special to The News
NEW GLASGOW
Debbie Crosby has been a creative person for as long as she can remember.
The New Glasgow woman has turned these creative skills into an online business and now considers herself a multi-passionate entrepreneur.
When scrolling through Crosby’s online Etsy shop, one can see a wide range of her creative passions, ranging from candles to miniatures, printable planners to stickers and journals.
“I like interior décor, printables and stationary, especially planners, and love making miniatures of all kinds and scale,” says Crosby. “I am self taught and always like to try new things.”
Miniatures – the art of creating tiny replicas or models to scale – are growing in popularity, with tiny replicas like the ones Crosby makes finding homes in lavish dollhouses, fairy gardens or dioramas.
Over the years, Crosby says she has had many online businesses trying different things, but always seems to come back to something creative. She says she gets a lot of her inspiration from Pinterest and input from other creative people.
By day, Crosby is employed as a counsellor working with abused women and children, a field that she has worked in for approximately 17 years. She says her art is a great outlet.
Deb’s Arts and Odds does not have an official brick and mortar shop, but people can find her online at Ebay, Etsy and Amazon. She currently has 48 listings available, ranging from tiny dollhouse gravestones to a miniature 1:12 scale wooden potting table that comes complete with tiny seed trays. One of her items, a fairy garden miniature bed and vanity set, incorporates natural elements like moss, wood and tree bark into the design to give it a natural look.
Her other projects include planner pages and smashbooks – a decorated journal that allows the user to write, draw, paint and add embellishments and memorabilia that is similar to a scrapbook.
One reviewer commented on her work in April 2017, describing a hard-cover mixed media motivational smashbook as “truly amazing…it is a work of art…it is a big splash of happy in my day.”
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