Saturday, March 24, 2007

Busy bee.

It's been a while since my last post, I know, but things have gotten busy and in the way of crafting around here. The building's window project is finally underway, and so some of my craft supplies, along with furniture and whatever else was near the windows in our apartment, have had to go into temporary storage. No worries, they should be back next week- our new windows are supposed to be installed Monday and the movers should be bringing things back Wednesday.

I've also had rehearsals and tests- the usual busyness, and last week was the ARISTA (national honor society) induction ceremony- so that was a late night. I felt a little bit like I was being inducted into a cult- we marched down the isles of a dark auditorium holding lit candles and then said a pledge. Haha, but it was nice. Mary was home on spring break and came to visit that day. She's so cute, she brought me flowers!


Speaking of Mary, we also made Calculus cupcakes together on Thursday afternoon since I came home a bit early (no rehearsal after school). Nothing special compared to many of the delightful blogged cupcakes I see out there, but it was still fun- and they tasted great!


In slightly more crafty news, the Crafty Detective swap has drawn to a close and I believe my partner was very happy with what she received. I know I'm proud of it all as well.


I used some of that fabulous upholstery fabric for the outside of the tote and some cotton from P&S for the lining. I also gave it a hand-carved stamped craftster logo tag and a pocket with pen holders.


The notebooks were my first try at cellulose transferring (I believe that's what it's called), and I love how they turned out. I definitely want to try this technique again, but maybe a less toxic alternative can be found to paint thinner (someone on craftster suggested an orange cleaning solution that I may look into). I also hand stamped each page with one of my own creations.


The happy marshmallows, little felt bowl, and crafty apron were great fun to work on as well. It was nice to do some hand sewing for a change (on the mallows and the bowl).




You can also she the fabulous things I received from my partner/stalkee in the gallery.

My crafting/posting may be somewhat limited once again in the next few weeks as spring break is fast approaching. I am going to visit Mary at Bowdoin from the 30th to the 2nd and then am going to San Francisco with the usual crew from the 6th to the 10th. Hopefully the plain rides will give me some good crafting time, but I'm not sure about knitting needles on planes? Meanwhile, I hear from colleges from now until mid April! Busy, busy bee.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Round and about

I haven't been accomplishing anything lately. Crafts, school work, it's all in senioritis mode. Admittedly it's kind of nice to just go to school and rehearsal and come home and read lots of inspiring craft blogs... but I need to make that inspiration go somewhere. At least I was inspired to do something when my beginning crochet kit came in the mail. It's not much, but check out my first swatch!

I decided mastering crochet chain, single crochet and slip stitch was enough for one weekend.

Today however, I finally picked up my dpns and the random, slightly ugly dk yarn I have a million balls of to start knitting my first socks.

It's not much, but I'm excited. I'm 'taking' Silver's Sock Class and so far so good- I've mastered casting onto and getting started on dpns (I only used dpns once before- for my no-ears kittyville hat, and that was started on circs. It gives me some mindless knitting (at least until I get to the heel) to do during rehearsal for a while... at least until I order the yarn for my first sweater (ambitious again, yes?)

Really I should be working on the crafty detective swap... or that branching out on which I stopped after (unlucky?) 13 pattern repeats and have yet to pick up again. I hope it will be done in time for mother's day... problem is, it just requires too much concentration, that I certainly don't have at the moment.

Well, I do have one thing that is a little more fun:

I sent this pouch (and stamp I used for it) to my partner in the DIY kit swap- along with a lot of other stamp making stuff of course. The pouch has a nice little brown lining from some small thrifted piece of material. It's my first, and so far only, use of that huge barrel of upholstery fabric, and though it's simple I'm really happy with it. It's going to take a lot more of these to use of all that fabric though! Haha, well one of these days I'll be back in full craft mode again, I know it.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Realizing... toast.

Today I stumbled upon this wonderful woman's incredibly beautiful work space and decide that when I 'grow up' I want an amazing space like that. My corners of piles of junk are not creatively conducive and I just wish I had the space time and energy to surround myself with such exquisite things. I craft to make the world beautiful, and I wish that my surroundings could always be neat, tiny, and full of splendor. When I grow up, I want a craft room, or at least a nook, that can be at least 1/10th gorgeous as that and conducive to my creativity. Meanwhile, I'll survive with my piles and messes, because at least I have the space for that, and maybe someday I'll be able to get it a little bit more organized.

In my clutter, last night I pulled a table out to the living room rather than sew on the floor as usual, and whipped my mom up some pot holders for her birthday (I only managed to finish about 13 pattern repeats of the branching out, I suppose she'll get that for mother's day.)


She liked them, and they are certainly an improvement on our old ones, which were really just old and falling apart.

Also, Wednesday I had some sort of mystery stomach flu, and stayed home from school. I wanted to craft, but could hardly muster up the energy, I was feeling this bad. Instead I rented Little Miss Sunshine and the Devil Wears Prada- both inspiring in their own very different ways- and spent most of the day on the couch. I did however, manage to make this little guy, because what's better when you're sick than a little toast?


As I believe was pointed out on Creative Kismet, it is good to feel sick once in a while because it makes you appreciate feeling better. Well I know I appreciated feeling better on Thursday despite my unexciting lunch of crackers and jam to appease any possibility of a lingering upset stomach.

Well, that is all. I did receive a craft package with some nice earrings recently, and had a good evening of babysitting, and dinner and pinkberry with Mike and Laura. However, they did not appreciate how delicious pinkberry is, and their lovely 'kawaii' Japanese decor, as much as Helen and I do, so that may be a venue reserved just for us in the future. Otherwise, I'm a busy girl, so crafting is somewhat limited at the moment, though I do have a swap package to work on, but busy is good, and sometimes, that's just how it should be.