I love making things!

Over the last month I have been a busy bee. I haven't felt very good so I've tried to come up with things to keep my self busy and keep my mind off of things. Here's what I've done:

I crocheted this baby blanket:

 

  

I tried this new edge that I really like. I had to make up how to go around the corners, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Booties

When I was in AZ they had a craft / project day and everyone had something to work on but me. So we found some yarn and I crocheted these without a pattern....

(Not perfect I know but for making them up and never having done anything like it before, or even seen it done, I like them.) I think I'm still going to add a strap though... we'll see.

 

I didn't make this next one but it's part of my "organizational spurt"

Bobby Pin Tin

I have bobby pins in my hair all the time, and I usually forget to take them out till I'm already in bed. So the natural solution is to take them out and drop them on the floor to be picked up 'later.' (right). But even if I were to pick them up I have no good place to put them so they end up in random piles around the bathroom or just lost.

Problem solved with the Bobby Pin Tin!

I have one by my bed, and one in the bathroom. AND if I'm running late and need to do some getting ready in the car, they are ultra transportable and have LIDS so they won't spill in the car! Love it. It makes me happy every time I take out a bobby pin now.

We even hung the picture that we got back in May when we were on our cruise!

I love K.C. so much. It's fun to have little reminders around to see every day.

  

Hair Bow Organization! 

I was tired of these bows laying around and getting lost or crumpled... But I didn't have a lot of time or money to come up with a really creative solution so I hung some ribbon on the wall. I have plans for improvements, but for now, SO much better! Now I just need to add more bows...

  

I finally got planner refills. I feel like I can have order in my life now. I didn't realize how much I write things down, until I had nowhere to write them.

  

Art

I'm finally drawing Craig! I always forget how much I love drawing till I start doing it again. I've never done one for my self though so I hope that I'm not too critical of it and that it turns out.

  

Baby Quilt

And last (for this post :) a baby quilt. I was able to get the material with some birthday money that I had and so I once again made up what to do. I ended up borrowing a sewing machine (thanks shannon) because my is a suffering from being dropped. and quilted it on a machine. Very beginner work here but all I have to do is finish the hem and it's done!

 

I'm not sure why but I've had the funnest time lately FINISHING projects and getting organized. Not just getting organized but staying organized. I love the fresh clean, free feeling of looking around my clean house and being free to think of something fun to do or make rather than be depressed with all of the little house keeping things that I'm NOT doing.

I think that having parts of the house so clean is what is motivating me to scheme and dream up organizational things for the rest of the house. So every chance I get to do or make something that will simplify a mess... I love it.

Like I said I don't know how long it will last but I've been trying so hard and not letting things stay messy and picking things up right away... I hope it lasts, but I'm not going to get stressed out about it, I'm just going to have fun with it (I'm even enjoying the cleaning because everything has, or is beginging to get, a place!)

Well I have another project that I started today. I need to find some ribbon and then I'll finish it and post pictures. I have a whole list (in my nifty planner :) of ideas and projects to work on so I'm sure there will be more to come.

Art Display

 

I got to go to the mall on Saturday and display some of my art. It was fun because I got to work on the portrait of Craig that I'm doing. And I had some great entertainment because there were 2 freeze models that were pretending to be manikins. They were hilarious and so many people had great reactions as they tried to discretely (or not so discretely) find out if they were real or not. I spent most of the afternoon laughing.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to come and say hi to me. It's not like it was a big event or anything but it made me feel so good that people I knew would take the effort to stop and see me anyways. So thank you.

My Art

This past week I've been at Akela's Council. It's a cub scout training that is absolutely amazing. While I was there I had the opportunity to try painting something very special and it reminded me just how much I love art.

I haven't drawn in over a year and so I pulled out some of my old art work and that was just one more reminder of how much I LOVE ART! I've never taken an art class and I'm not sure if I ever will because I've had fun learning on my own.

So I thought I'd show anyone who might be interested what I've done.

1st place winner

2nd place winner

(don't be harsh she really was a little cross eyed)

I'm sad that this picture doesn't really do it justice. Because of the glass on this picture it was hard to get a decent picture without a glare and a flash or a reflection of me in it. So it looks a little blurry but I assure you it's not really. Same with the next picture. This is my Nephew.

This is my Uncle and actually one of my favorite pieces of art but I have yet to get a good picture of it.

My next project..... drum roll..... is to draw my son.

I'm excited and terrified.

Because I'm a perfectionist it will just bother me if I don't get it right. But in the same breath how fun to draw a portrait of my little boy!

Wish me luck!

Sand box town

Remember that pile of dirt that's been on our driveway for months?

Well we finally figured out what to do with it!

You see every time Craig goes out side he LOVES to play in that pile of dirt! We can hardly keep him off of it. And it was pretty nice dirt so we didn't want to just dump it somewhere useless.

So we went to Home Depot and got some plywood and 2 boards and made a sand box for him and put it in the back yard so that I wouldn't have to worry about him running out in the street! Brilliant!

But it doesn't stop there. since we only used half the sheet of plywood for the bottom of the box we used the other half as a lid. It serves several purposes this way.
a) keeps the cats out.
b) keeps it from blowing everywhere
c) keeps it from getting rained on and
d) provides an excellent place to play!

Craig was having so much fun on it that I decided it might as well be a fun place to play, so I started to paint a town on it for him to drive his cars around on! Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

I'm so excited about it! I'll have to post pictures when I get a chance because it's only just begun and it's already looking so good. I have no clue what I'm doing or how to paint but since it's not supposed to look perfect anyways it's the perfect opportunity to try something new and not stress about it. And we've wanted one of those 'town on a rug' things forever for him and this is even better.

anyways it's been a very fun project.

Watercolor

A while ago I said that I wanted to try watercolor painting. Well I had some paint and I found some watercolor paper from when I was 12 { I guess I don't go through my art supplies as often as I go through the other junk in my house }. Neither of these supplies were probably very high quality but I figure since I'm just going to mess up a bunch why not do it with these instead of expensive stuff right?

Well Here's what I painted this morning. I know I know it's the 'old barn' painting. I'm sure that every artist has to paint one of these before they can be called an artist but since I didn't have anything to look at it... well this is what happened.

I'm sure I've painted at some point in my life but never after about 12 (when I got the watercolor paper, realized that I had no clue what to do with the colors and gave up). So this is my first honest attempt. And I was trying a lot of different brushes and a lot of different ways of doing it and using water so there's many an 'uh-oh better fix that!'. But all in all it made for an enjoyable morning and now I'm thinking maybe it wouldn't be a waste of time to go to that class at Roberts Crafts.

Baby steps. Baby steps in the right direction.

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