Mojo Monday

It's Monday y'all! Time for a Mojo Monday sketch to get things rolling! I've been cranking out a couple simple designs this weekend, and I'm up to a whopping FIVE cards to ship in for OWH. Looks like someone needs to hop on the card-making train! So, without further ado, the new Mojo sketch and some much-needed inspiration!

Loads of idea-neurons are firing away up there, time to get to work!

Remember THESE???

TA DA!

Once I began re-organizing my craft room, I discovered that all my rubber stamps are huge, except these handfuls of little ones. The larger stamps fit perfectly into one of my black cube drawers, but those little guys above got lost in the back of the drawer, and they're actually the ones I end up using the most I think. I knew I couldn't leave them floating at the back of a foot-long drawer, so I decided to try them in these little shelves. Voila!

I'll be hanging them up on the wall as soon as I can find a small plaque of some sort to hang between the two. (I absolutely cannot hang a grouping of TWO on a wall, has to be 3)

I just painted these with white craft paint, then cut pieces of white, black and hot pink (remember the filing cabinet?) paper to fit inside the cubbies. I cut the paper just the tiniest bit bigger than the space they were to fit into, so I could just push the paper to the back and use a bone folding tool to push the edges in nice and tight. No glue needed!! Now that's MY kind of wall art. :D

Baby blanket is finally done!

I finally finished the baby blanket I'd spent the last month or more crocheting for my friend Sara's baby shower! The shower was yesterday at 2pm, and I was just pulling it out of the dryer at 1:45! But hey, it was finished and I am so incredibly proud of myself! I have started many, many crochet projects but never actually finished one! So, for your viewing pleasure, here are a few pictures of the blanket. It is a soft baby yellow and very soft yarn!

This first picture shows how I wrapped it all up for her. I folded it, tied with a silky pink ribbon and placed a hand-made card inside the ribbon. Of course, I still have that terrible habit of making cute on-the-fly cards and sealing them up before I remember I should take a picture of them! The tiny little striped tag opens up to say "I am machine washable! Wash me in warm water and add fabric softener if you'd like. I can even go in the dryer! Just keep the heat nice and low, I only take about 20 minutes to dry completely. :) " I think a lot of people expect a handmade item to be too fragile to wash, but not this one! I washed and dried it myself just to be sure, and it held up beautifully.

Just to show a little detail on the rippled design. It has a divine texture!

This blanket ended up about 52 inches long! I wanted to keep it for myself!

Plenty more crochet projects to come in the future, but to avoid arthritis in my 22-year-old wrists, I am turning my attention to an important sewing project and more wood painting later this week. Keep checking back for new updates, which I had better remember to post!

Learning to paint

As you can see from pictures in past posts, my craft room is mostly white, the hardwood floors and sewing table are a darker wood stain, and I use hot pink, black and Tiffany blue as accents. So what would you do with a $5 corner shelf and two $1 unfinished divided shelves (these are small and are meant to hang on a wall) like these? They definitely don't match the decor but for $7, I have to use them! Well keep your socks on, they are currently in the process of an overhaul. I can't wait to show you what I've done with them!

Hooray for Friday!

It's Friday! Last day to run errands and get MY stuff accomplished without the "help" of my husband! I know we're about due for some pictures here, I promise they're coming tomorrow. Here's what I'm up to today, I need to finish a couple of items before the hubs gets home from work, or he'll try to lend a "helping" hand and just end up doing it himself. It's not going to happen this time though! I really do want to do these, all by myself!

Alright, so remember the white filing cabinet I adhered hot pink and black papers to? So I guess my room is white, hot pink and black now! That $5 corner shelf I got has been sanded down and I'm on coat 2 of 4 of white paint. After that I'm stenciling a pretty flower design in -yep- hot pink and black. I also had some unfinished, divided wood shelves I was laying flat in my dresser drawer and using for jewelry. Well I de-cluttered and got rid of a lot of ugly, cheap-o jewelry, so I painted those shelves white last night as well. I have big plans for them, but I can't tell you what they are...it's a surprise! Hopefully I can get them finished and post pics tomorrow!

I'm also about 1/3 done crocheting my friend's baby blanket. I only have 5 real days left to work on it before the shower, because I start school on Tuesday. It's pretty cool that I set up my school schedule this fall so all my classes are earlier in the day, and only on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, meaning we could leave town on a Thursday night and take a long weekend through Monday night, anytime we want! :P I know, I'm a pretty lucky chick.

Oh ya, and I have that gift scrapbook album I was making for someone who is very special to me. Just in case, I can't tell you about it till it has made it into the recipient's hands. We've all become such online stalkers these days, you never know who could read your blog at any moment!

Wow, after typing all that out I just grabbed my "fall project list" notebook, and I've barely skimmed the surface! So much to do, and so VERY LITTLE TIME!!!!

It's time

It's time to "forget [my]self, and go to work." Too many hours spent lounging in front of the television (only acceptable if there's a crochet project in my hands), too much money spent out of sheer boredom, the list could go on and on, but I don't have time to come up with more! The point is, enough time has been wasted, and it ends now. Time to go to work, being an influence for good.

Blogging to pass the time...

I got a ton of great storage (mostly wood 3-tier shelf-type stuff) for my craft room yesterday at a yard sale. Now it's all sitting, back to back, in the center of my room with heaps of yarn, paper and fabric in bags and laid out all over the floor. I can't even get into my own hobby room! (Much less walk around in it!)

So I'm sitting on the chaise, hoping to put the mess that cannot be avoided out of my mind. My fave blog at the moment is Craftaholics Anonymous. I mean this girl is just fabulous! But in my attempt to procrastinate, I found myself reading an article titled "you know you're a craftaholic when..." and I just HAD to share a few that seemed to apply readily to me!

1. Whenever you go shopping you end up buying nothing because you think you can make everything yourself!

2. You pass the craft store and have to tell yourself out loud: No. Groceries first!

3. Your guests have to sleep on the couch because you have a craft room instead of a guest room.

4. You would rather spend the day at a craft store than at the mall.

5. Your walk in closet has more craft supplies than clothes.

6. Your husband asks you if he still needs to save the empty paper towel rolls and then, eventually does it without asking.

7. You collect things your friends throw away. Recycling!

8. To take #7 further, I posted a list by two friends' kitchen garbage of things they are NOT ALLOWED to throw away, gave them each a plastic tub in which to collect these items, and I pick them up. They think I'm crazy but they always have fun making the crafts with me later!!

9. When you own at least 20 types of glue.

10. You blow the budget on fabric because there was a good sale.

11. Your husband drives 20 miles an hour over the speed limit on trash days, in fear you might find something in other's trash you want to "alter."

12. You hardly ever buy new clothes because it cuts into your crafting money.

I will admit I do all the financial stuff in our household, and my hubby really doesn't have much to do with it, other than telling me if he wants a little extra budgeted for something he wants this month. So I'm the one who sits down with the bills and calculator and makes the budget for the month....on my computer. Which he doesn't use. So he never actually SEES the budget.....I honestly can't tell you what he must think, because he has nooooo idea how much I spend on crafty things! I won't say numbers, but let's just say our monthly "crafting/hobbies" category on the budget usually outweighs the water, gas, electricity, cable, internet, cell phones and medical bills, all rolled into one "bills" category. YIKES! Well, he doesn't have to know. I usually get food on the table no matter what....unless Hobby Lobby has paper and ribbon half-off. What's a good side dish for paper a la king?? Grosgrain ribbon perhaps? LOL