I"m a southerner and I love personalized paraphernalia, diaries, celebrations, great tasting desserts, dressing to impress and the list goes on. Recently, I had the pleasure of getting to know someone who loves doing all the above and then some. She is a creator and she definitely wears many hats. I want to introduce Sharon Christian founder of Shae's Creation. This is her story from her own words.

“ I have always been a crafty person. I don’t think I really started following through with my craftiness until my youngest son was born. I have two sons. Eric, and Charlie. Eric will be 30 this year and Charlie would have been 20 this year (he passed away from Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) in December, 2009)

At the time of Charlie's birth, I worked for a local attorney. When Christopher ( Charlie) was born, he had a heart condition, I ended up having to stay home with him for about 6 months. Not knowing how long I would have him in my life, I started scrapbooking. It was my way of putting into words how hilarious my boys were and documenting the vacations we shared together. My boss at the time was a saint and said when I felt comfortable with having Charlie exposed to the public… he would allow me to come back to work and to bring my Charlie with me.

So, as I said, I didn’t know how long I would have with my Charlie, and in Dec.2009, 6 days shy of his 9th birthday, I lost my Charlie. At that point my life has been revolved around Charlie. My eldest son had moved out, went to live with my mother, whom had been diagnosed with Cancer to help take care of her. She passed away 8 months after Charlie. After Charlie passed away I took over full care of my momma. I had lost four of the most important people in my life within 8 months. ( My mother was my best friend..and I had actually lost both my grand mothers , my son, my job and then my mother… within a year's time).

So needless to say, I was LOST!!. The two people that I had cared for, and put all else aside, were gone and I didn't have a clue who I was anymore nor what I was going to do. My marriage was broken and I was drowning! When my Charlie died, I quit eating for three weeks. It was so bad that my sickly mother noticed at that tine. One evening I sat my eldest son down and told him I was trying to kill myself. I didn't see it at that time.. but I was spiraling down … fast!

My son came to me one day on his lunch break and refused to leave until I ate a cheeseburger. And he did that every day for a week. On the 7th day, sitting there eating with me, he said to me..” You know you have another son too?” I just stared at him blankly. He said, “ And I also need you” I was floored. I didn't realize how scared he was and I swore to him right then and there that I would never do anything to put myself in a situation to not be here on earth for him then I decided I needed to find myself. What better way to do that than do what I love.. crafts.

To keep myself busy, I got a second job at Michael’s …and my recreation began…lol

I started at Michael's as the scrapbook instructor. I watched every YouTube video on any and every scrapbooking idea. I would be watching scrapbooking and the next thing I would be watching is jewelry making and then floral…and on and on. When I would go to work at Michael's, I would get with the floral employee or the jewelry instructor and we would do a lot of demos for customers to see how to use our products. My store manager noticed that I was elbow deep into EVERYTHING he sent people to me that needed information about a product. Before I knew it Michael's woukd call me in my day off to answer customer questions. (lol) One success lead to the next and my manager asked me to start teaching Wilton Cake Decorating.