Hello!
I am Manasa Priya, an artist, and a crafter based out of Bangalore, India. I did my Masters in International Business Administration and Psychology and Parapsychology. Brought up in the beach city of Andhra Pradesh, Visakhapatnam. I always had this thing for art and craft. Constantly observing and trying out new ways to upcycle and reuse the discarded has been my biggest hobby, so I finally planned to invest my time to start out my own venture in the crafting business. Though I worked as a Banker with a corporate bank before I took up crafting as a full-time career and being a stay at home to my toddler son.
After Avyay (my son) was born. I decided not to go back to my corporate career, instead pursue my long lost hobbies and passion. My son is my inspiration, soon after he was born, I wanted to journal his progress and hence began scrapbooking, as I wanted to make some props for photoshoots and birthday. So it all began from there. Being a mother is a fantastic feeling. It has changed me a lot in a much positive way. I now learned to be disciplined and systematic with my work and balancing chores and motherhood. Motherhood has taught me patience and curiosity. The toughest part of being a creative mom is the constant crunch in time. It gets on the nerve sometimes when you have deadlines and it’s difficult to oblige last minute order. The flip side to it is, I learned to be more organized, systematic, and learned a lot of patience. Discipline and planning things ahead would be very handy. It’s always great when your passion and profession come along, you wouldn’t feel the burden.
After discovering my passion I broadened my craft spectrum to decoupaging, scrapbooking, card making, sos peso, quilling, fluid, and relief painting as I always love to have an indo-western touch to my projects so adopted the contemporary style. I have an immense love for a pastel palette.
Presently a design team member of Mudra Craft Stamps, Kraftily Konnect and I guest design for Craftreat. In the past worked with various brands like Itsy Bitsy, The element craft studio, Expressions Craft, Nakshatra Designz etc.I like working and reviewing new craft products with the market.
When it comes to inspiration, I see it anywhere and everywhere is open for recycling. It is our responsibility to save nature!
Manasa
I have my blog upcycledbymanasaa where I intend to share my craft work, inspirations, cool tips, and tricks, my take on various craft material brands, hits, and misses. Hence in 2017, I started to take up Crafting as my full-time profession and opened a Facebook page, Upcycled with all the support of my dear husband and family. Soon I began to have a great response to my work, recognized by many craft brands, and had good exposure in this industry. Upcycled was started with a motto of creating a lesser footprint and greater memories, that was the idea that constantly pinched my thoughts to have products that are sustainable. We have enough clutter around us, the least we can do is not to increase it. Hence Reusing, Recycling, and Upcycling have been my prime focus. For me, there is nothing which can be given away as when we throw anything it must go somewhere and that is why I make sure I can make something useful and beautiful out of anything. This way we can save nature, recycling is the right thing to do. The reason I kept my blog name as “Upcycle I do own a YouTube channel also Upcycled by Manasa where I teach all my followers how to do craft step by step with easy explanation and I share all my updated craftwork, inspirations, DIY’s, cool tips, and tricks.
To all the Indian Mothers out there I would say, no matter what If you are passionate about something, you will find a way. Always do the things that are right and that you love. I am sure, there will be ups and downs, sometimes you wouldn’t have the creative mojo, sometimes it gets a little too much with family and pressure, but, Never ever give up. Kids are our responsibility and love, passion is our right to pursue. We would only be happy if we can balance both and we mothers already have this balancing hidden talent 🙂
So Rise and Shine!!
