MOSES LAKE — Portia Hebdon has crafted since she was young, scrapbooking at an early age, thanks to her mother, Kenna DeNiro.

Hebdon, who lives just outside of Moses Lake, said her mother could do just about anything she set her mind to when it came to crafts and worked primarily as a sewer.

Hebdon kept up with her scrapbooking, but said her craft projects took on a whole new level when her mom died around 2004. Left to figure out what to do with all of the craft materials and projects her mother had done, Hebdon said her paper craft works evolved.

“I just started getting inspired by some of her crafts in a version of my world involving paper,” Hebdon said. “So I found lots of inspiration through that… It was a huge part of me getting started, as well as pushing me past what I was comfortable with, as well as inspiring me when I’m kind of stumped on what to do. I like to flip through some of her crafts and look at some of the things she’s done.”

Hebdon started experimenting with some more three-dimensional paper craftwork, some mixed media and altered art, and eventually launched her own craft business in 2012, called The Embellished Boutique on Facebook.

The online boutique offers Hebdon a chance to share her paper crafts, which include a variety of items, such as advent calendars, custom frames, and other projects that have come from expanding her artistic work while incorporating a lot of the scrapbooking strategies she was already familiar with.

She said she started a crafts page, focused more on scrapbooking, before deciding to expand her operation with the boutique. It was a custom floral arrangement Hebdon made from some old books her mother left, which really showed paper could go beyond the scrapbook page.

Hebdon said a lot of her crafts are inspired by works her mother made.

“She had made a sewing box that when you opened it collapsed, and it was made out of fabric because she was a sewer,” Hebdon said. “I made one out of paper that was an exploding album that held pictures instead.”

While not a seamstress herself, Hebdon said she had a lot of the buttons and other sewing materials from her mother, which she slowly incorporated into her own crafting as she worked with mixed media.

Hebdon said she did a lot of research, joined crafting groups online, entered competitions, and started to meet a lot of other artists from whom she could gather inspiration. Mixed media was completely foreign to her when she began, so seeing what other artists were doing really benefited her.

“I still learn every day and some things I try and they are an utter disaster,” Hebdon said. “They don’t work, so I try something else. But I don’t feel like you ever stop learning; there’s always an opportunity to improve and to learn and get better.”

Hebdon said a continuous learning mentality can be carried over to almost every facet of life. The more experience she gets with certain projects or materials, the more confident Hebdon said she’s become. But, she said failing isn’t something that stops her from trying anything.

She crafts her works in a craft room in her home, and does most of the sales online now. Hebdon said the time she invests in the boutique varies, depending on what she has at the time. She has started to focus more on the online side of her business as her kids get older and are running around more, and it’s nice having the luxury to pick her own hours.

Holidays, particularly Christmas, are usually the busiest time of the year, Hebdon said. The advent calendars she crafts are some of her more popular items the last few years. She said the advent calendars were her first project she crafted while beginning to explore working with mixed media.

For the more intricately-crafted paper products, such as the flower bouquets, Hebdon said she started with some origami. More recently, she said she uses a die cut for the flowers, with each petal cut individually and formed together. In the process, she said she’s come up with a few unique designs of her own.

Hebdon said it’s kind of crazy seeing just how far she’s come with her work.

“Looking back on some of my original works that I thought were pretty good, now I think ‘wow, that’s pretty bad,’” Hebdon said. “It’s cool to watch that growth, but I’m more excited to see where I’m at in another 10 years.”

Down the road, she said she’d like to offer a wider variety of products and is excited to launch new lines of changeable home decor soon. A long term goal of hers is to possibly work with one of the scrapbooking companies she purchases from, showcasing her work with their products.

Casey McCarthy can be reached via email at cmccarthy@columbiabasinherald.com.