Switcheroo

I'm tired. Not just end-of-the-week tired but middle-of-blogging-every-day, middle-of-Craft-Month tired. So I'm switching out Scrappy Saturday and Finishing Friday. We'll have Scrappy Friday tonight and tomorrow I'll get on with the task of finishing, and returning to some of the projects from this week that took longer than I thought they would. We've got a three craft pileup going here.

In my continuing efforts to use up my scraps, I found this card that used thin strips to weave a pretty background.

I do thank all of you who have left comments this month. When I start feeling like I might be done with this crazy project, your cheerleading does spur me on. I appreciate it!

Sagaciousness of Owls

Owls come in parliaments. Sometimes congresses. But today's parliaments and congresses don't seem to be as wise as the owls symbolize. (Did I just write a sentence from which I could not extract myself?) Anyway, one of the suggestions I've seen on the internet--so it must be true--is a sagaciousness. Since I attended one of the handful of colleges that have an owl as the mascot (representing Athena), I like the sound of that better. I've also been enamored of the owl trend in decorating because, hello! alma mater.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what colors to use. After not being able to come up with enough small-patterned paper, I remembered that I had won that Stampin' Up! stuff at the silent auction last fall, including two packs of printed, double sided paper. Then I tried to decide what room would benefit from a sagaciousness of owls and gave up and went with red, white, and blue so it can be used for various summer holidays.

Here's a close-up of one of the owls. They're quite easy to make  but you do have to be bold enough to draw a "u" and a heart freehand. You can do that, right? Instructions here.

Day 2 Report

I got some grief from a friend that I was showing my "first day of craft month" on March 2. Then she marveled that I am doing this craft-a-day thing in real time. I may have gathered the ideas and some of the materials already, but each day I sit down to make a new craft--start to finish. And then I try to find the time to blog about it. It gets a little busy. But it's fun!

Yesterday, I made something that you cannot take on an airplane...an exploding box! (Okay, take it but call it a photobox or something.)

Once you take the top off, you have four sections of three pages each that you can use to display (very very small) photos. I made this in Christmas papers because I figured it would get the most use that way. I was thinking of putting photos from a variety of Christmases in there and giving it to a deserving relative. Cute, right?

Tutorial here; she starts out in inches, but ends up in centimeters. Don't be afraid, you can figure it out. That is what Google is for.

Tomorrow: A sagaciousness of owls.

Sticking Together/Sticking it Out

The dude reads a lot. A lot a lot, like last year, for instance he read (according to his goodreads) 13859 pages. He's over 3K already this year. He needs a lot of book marks because he just plain wears them out! He likes a certain kind best, though he's a wonderful husband and he uses all the ones I made him for Christmas three years ago. But you just can't have too many when you read 13859 pages a year.

I often use "You are here" when I make bookmarks. This is my idea of a joke. Of a sort. This explains why I am not a stand up comic.

I love this letter set. I use it all the time, and I especially like to snug the letters right up together and cut them out.

When I saw the directions for these magnetic bookmarks here I had to make one. Yes, that's a magnet! He loves those magnet clips that come in all sorts of shapes--planets, coffee cups, monkeys--but they wear out so quickly and they cost so dang much. I'm glad I know how to make them now. Though I will say this one is HUGE compared to the ones he usually uses. I'm sure I can figure out a way to scale these down.

Six days to go...National Craft Month can't end soon enough.

Matchbook 20

People, it is worse than I feared. The print edition of the newspaper with the library stitching article has a photo of my fat face on the front page. I'm wearing my cheaters in addition to my cozy sweater. Ack! So much for going incognito. And try explaining to the ladies who aren't 90 that they're my surrogate grandmothers. Yeah, I was popular today.

The dude took a day off yesterday so we took the dog on a long walk at Valley Forge where Stella saw horses for the first time. She was utterly transfixed. I'm pretty sure she wants to be one now that she has discovered the beasts. Last night, we went to the movies, so I had to squeeze in a quicky-craft (not like any of these are particularly complicated...)

I made these little (2"x2") notebooks. (Printed the instructions a mere five years ago!) If I did these again, I would make them the size of Post-It notes. Unless you had an industrial strength stapler, you couldn't use a whole pad, but you could certainly put 10-12 sheets in one. (I'd staple them so that the sticky end is not stapled, to preserve the stick.)

Today's craft is similar in construction, but I'm still going to make you wait to see it.

Pumpkins

Thank you for your good wishes for the old lady--and for my sainted aunt. I'll keep you posted. If you want to send a get well note, please email me.

I have been so busy with the silent auction and my job-that-had-previously-only-given-me-an-hour's-worth-of-work. It's good to be busy, and especially to be busy and get paid for it. (Second place: busy and the library gets paid for it.) A few photos for your infotainment.

I finished Frost at Old Lady Stitching two weeks ago.

I have been working on Button Border Pumpkin.

I tried to make the yard look respectable.

I signed up for another class with Shimelle Laine.

Swing of Things

So hi! Remember me? It's been like a million years since I updated you on my thing-a-day. Partly, it's a photography problem and partly it's a problem getting computer time. But here I am. It's nice to be back.

Lately, my thing has been a scrapbook for Stella. I've been doing one page a day, so here is the last 10 days worth of work. I still have another 10 days on this, but I'm tired of black-and-white-and-red-all-over jokes.

When I scrap, I could be a bit of a perfectionist--and each album would take a million years-- so what I try to do is limit my color palette, papers, and embellishments. So far, so good. In no particular order:

I'll be updating over at the Olympic Stitching blog today too. So check out what's happening with the mermaid.

I also put in some quality time in the craft room, and I am happy to report that the craft table is cleared! It's nice to walk in and not be assaulted. Well, there's still an assault of stuff, it's just slightly more organized now. I've decided to get rid of the 10 years of Piecework I have in there. I am probably going to sell it on ebay in one year lots; if you are interested in them, we can work out a "buy-it-now" deal before I put them up. No rush. The dude will have the computer all weekend for an exam, and you know how long it takes me to fulfill my good intentions.

Thing-A-Day

You didn't tell me about Thing-a-Day. You probably realized that it was way more than I could handle. But I found out anyway, and I'm doing it (unofficially).

Here's my thing for today, a shadowbox of the dude at four (not sure when he made the handprint). But that stuff has been cluttering up our bedroom. And now we can hang it on the wall. (In addition to 15 minutes a day in the craft room, I'm doing 15 minutes a day in the master. I'm making much better progress in there, and it's keeping me going on the craft room.)

The striped paper (from a Christmas paper pack!) almost matches his little 1970s shirt. He's so cute!

Today marks 18 years together, so it will double as a nice little anniversary gift.

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Michelle asked about the cookbook. It was Cake Mix Doctor which is my favorite dessert cookbook. I buy cake mix in bulk because with just a few tweaks you can make it taste fabulous!

It's true that I can't cash the checks (unless I find an unobservant teller)--checks go "stale" (technical term) after 6 months. I did call my aunt to apologize, and she offered to make them good. But it is absolutely wrong for me to expect the offer of money to be open ended. Especially since she retired yesterday. Catherine's right. I should hang one up to remind myself to oh, say, not shove mail into a backpack that I don't open for four years. And then let three dozen pairs of shoes (and a stray boot) pile up on top of it. Live and learn.

Pictures of Another Kind

It's the 25th tomorrow and time for more photographs. I think tomorrow's may be the most boring ever. I will be holed up in my office avoiding my evil boss and the dude is leaving for a conference in Chicago before I head to work. Oooh, but I will be picking up the farm share. So look forward to photos of my feet, the sky*, and some vegetables. Aren't you glad I own a camera?
You can see my previous photos here and here.

Photo courtesy of Shimelle; used by permission.

*Check out the pdf for the reference.

Another Photo Op

I've already taken my first photo this morning. Others to follow: MIL and the dude in our new garden, then the three of us at Chanticleer Garden, maybe us having dinner with Sissy, and I think, maybe a finish. You heard right! I started stitching again last night, and I think something may be done soon.


Photo by Shimelle; used by permission.

Documenting the Day

A random day can be quite boring. Here are some of my photos from the 25th.


Up. Dressed (new $10 skirt from Ross). Breakfast. Bus. Pedicure (Opi Black Cherry Chutney). Lunch (Eggplant Parm, Top Tomato). Shopping for a new top for Saturday's Campaign celebration (H&M, black sweater with a tie at the waist). Dinner (Spicy Cashew Chicken, Cheesecake Factory).

I love how the first photo of the day came out. I took it from bed. If only it came out a little blurrier to represent my bleary eyes. We took photos at dinner like we had never seen food (the dude had fish tacos) and we took photos of each other. I kept blinking so there were about 5 pictures of me. The teenagers at the table next to us thought we were nuts. The good thing about being 40 and not 18 was that I didn't care what they thought. I took about 30 photos of the day, but there aren't many people pictures. I was pretty shy about photographing the woman who gave me the pedicure and our waitstaff. Maybe next time.

{25}

You may have heard me occasionally claim to scrapbook. If you cast your memory way back, you'll even remember that I've shown you a thing or two that I have done (okay, just one, but it was a double book). I read Shimelle Laine's blog because she makes some beautiful stuff, and I hope that someday I will too--you know, with paper and page protectors instead of linen and fiber.

Shimelle recently announced that the 25th of every month will be "Scrap Your Day" day. When I first read about this, I looked to see what the 25th of every month will be: Friday, Sunday, Wednesday, Monday, Thursday, Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday (and Christmas!). I thought this would be an interesting way to document the everyday which was, well, the point. She has a few pointers available. More here. Even if I don't get around to putting these photos in books, won't it be nice to have the pictures to remind myself that I exist on days that don't include cake and ice cream or aren't preceded by a long airplane or car ride? Yes, I think so.

Tonight's big excitement is the craft circle at the library. I'm bringing a new start. You guessed it!

Nostalgic

I want to thank everyone for sharing their stories about how their childhood ambitions took them down the road they're now on. The reason I asked is that I am taking an online scrapping class with Shimelle Laine. Rosemary, who is a guest artist for this class, always had such cool books that she had made after a class with Shimelle, I thought I should try it. This class is called "When I Grow Up," and we're doing a book about what we wanted to be when we grew up. And I wanted to be all sorts of things: a princess (my real parents were going to rescue me--although I had a very nice home life), a baseball player (MLB), art teacher, pilot, doctor, mother (of eight, which now I think is fucking insane, but I also planned to marry rich which I didn't manage), marine biologist, international economist (in Russia!), geologist, literary agent, lawyer, book editor, and English professor. Now I'm a writer, although I did get pretty far on the last three. Anyway, hearing what others had to say was supposed to jar some memories. And it did--in another forum someone mentioned wanting to be Miss America. I used to imagine the speech I would give when I won--usually an Oscar, but also the Miss America crown...And now, I write speeches as part of my job, but not for anything very glamorous.

It's funny because really these projects just start with writing prompts. And, hell, I was a writing teacher for 8 years, I know my way around a writing prompt. But I never make prompts for scrapbooks. Instead I look at the pile of pictures I have to scrap, quiver a bit, and walk past them without picking them up. (Please, let's not even mention the book I started for best pal and haven't finished because I'm confused about dates.) What's a little funnier is that I don't even have photos for this book, so it's really going to be a journal. But in the end, I'll be one step closer to having pictures in albums--psychologically if not in any sense of the word "really."

Souvenir Explained

Lee wants to know the stories behind my choices on Drawn Thread's Souvenir Sampler, and I'm happy to share what I have so far. I am stitching this for my parents' 40th anniversary, so the souvernirs will reflect that. The owl next to the B is also going to be next to my initials. (I'm waiting because CZ said you should attempt an even distribution of color.) The owl is the symbol of my college. Because the owl doesn't really fit in the alloted space I stitched the box--in our school colors, yellow and white. The dog next to the M is all brown because my parents have a chocolate lab. I stitched the castle to look like (I hope) a sand castle. Next to it I will write "Wells, ME" when I can find an alphabet I like that also fits. This represents my parents' house at the beach. Further down you can see my parents' initials over the house, which sort of looks like theirs. Definitely the right color. I chose the yellow trees with falling leaves because they live in NH.


My plan is to put in loads of symbolic charms where there are buttons because buttons just aren't that evocative for me. I've paid most attention to the parts that are standard because they're easiest to stitch on the bus!

I want to thank everyone for responding to my question about stitchbooking. I do have to say, especially to Rosemary, that mostly we're stitchers, so that's what we want to see in our magazines. We're happy that scrappers stitch in their books! We stitchers who scrap--as opposed to scrappers who stitch--don't want to be consumed by scrapbooking. I subscribe to Simple Scrapbooks but they've never offered a stitching chart, tellingly. (Although Paper Crafts has shown a couple of cards that have stitching on them.) We're not against you, we're just for us!

The Chapter on Whales

I'm in a bit of a mood. I haven't been stitching. I reorganized the scrapbook materials on Tuesday because my husband asked if we had "to have all this crap all over the place." Mostly he's a good guy and he understands my need for crap all over the place. But it took me some time to put into place a new filing system for 8.5x11 papers and all scraps. It'll do until I have my fantasy craft room. It would be a whole room that would have big windows, and two comfy chairs with ottomans (because my legs are short and no comfy chairs are ever short enough). Two, so stitchy friends could visit. Then I'd have bookcases for all my craft books and also my giant binders with my cross-stitch booklets. I'd have a nice big closet for the yarn and fabric stash. Maybe the room could be lined with bookcases and the yarn and fabric could be stored on them in lined baskets. There'd be a section to keep all the 12x12 paper flat--like in stores. And a big work table. I'm not sure if I want it waist-high or chair height. Two tables! And I'd never have to pick up after myself or take my cross-stitch projects off the edge of the chair or ... or... or... That'd be nice. What's your craft room fantasy? Are you living it? Maybe you should e-mail me instead of using this stupid comments feature I can't read.

I had to send off the knitted goods to England, so on Wednesday I finished the baby's hat.

On Thursday, I played hookie--I was sick of going to work--and ran errands all day and cleaned my kitchen and packed because we are off to San Fran this weekend for a wedding at Grace Cathedral. I'm wicked excited to get out of Dodge, but I find it deeply troubling that I have put aside the afghan for so long. And for this weekend too. It's just too big when we're carrying everything on with us. I did bring a couple of UFOs: Carriage House Samplings's "Hearts and Flowers" which I almost finished in time for my "cotton anniversary" and Bent Creek's "Wooly Zipper" which I bought to do on this kind of trip. There may be one or two more little projects tucked in the bag, but no scissors. After a heart-wrenching moment in the Tulsa airport, I am meticulous about scissors. Will that hold you until Monday?

Where does the time go?

I began a new square on the afghan; this one is a hydrangea. The backstitching on this is going to be a bitch because every one of those tiny flowerettes that make up the snowball of a hydrangea flower has to be backstitched. Ugh. On the happy side of things, I calculated that this design should only take about 27 hours which means one hour of stitching per night during the week and two on weekends, and I should finish on schedule. Of course, I calculated that on Friday night.

On Saturday, my sister came over to use my scrapbooking supplies and since the materials were all over the dining table, I did a couple of pages. And she got me a gift certificate for the scrapbooking store, so I had to go spend that. I have absolutely finished my honeymoon album--that one just had two pictures that needed to be blown up and put in. Then I started in earnest on our cross-country drive in 1993. Of course, while the stuff's all out I want to work on that, and I did on Sunday too. I also got a significant portion of last Christmas's photos done for my aunt--this was her birthday gift. Scrapping is just another distraction at this point--I've got to plug away on the afghan. I promise to put all the stuff away tonight. And I'll do the hydrangea while I watch Monday Night Football, or not depending on how badly the Chiefs slaughter the Raiders. Can I make up 4 hours lost in one night?