exhibit a:

Posted in Craft, Fiber fun, Handmade, Make, Make Stuff, Sew this by

…or how do I get myself into these predicaments ?

 

exhibit a 8x5

 

See these?? These are the piles that have taken up residence on my work table…no, now these piles have nothing to do with my 4 boxes and 2 bins of fabric that are already in residence in the studio (that were supposed to be cleverly sewn/stashed/gifted down to two bins by *sigh* the end of last year) no, these piles are the result of my children conning me into pj pants, my girlfriend finding a steal on fabric pieces and a “can’t resist” sale at the fabric store…

exhibit A:  a stack of too fabulous and super duper cheap to resist fabric pieces from our last foray into Zimman’s Fabrics… next to last on the pile is 3/4 yard of beautiful blue print cotton which is slated to be a cushion for the comb-back windsor chair in the front hall…

evidence:  super-cute snowman fabric for red-bench pillow, orange cotton fleece on clearance for pants for gwen, two pieces of cotton knit on sale to experiment and make tops for myself

exhibit B:  Lily’s stack of fabrics from last week’s raid on Jo-Ann fabrics.  Her pj pants are halfway up her legs so it’s definitely time for new cozy ones…but somehow “pick 2 pieces of flannel” turned into 3 pieces of flannel and one piece of fleece.

look here:  Gwen’s stack of fabrics, same particulars as exhibit B above.

Obviously, this week…it’s a sewing week… otherwise I won’t see the top of my table until spring.  (arrow stamps are from Splendid Fiins Evidence Arrow Stamp and Brush set #2)

Go!

What projects are stacked up on your table this week?

back on the digi-bandwagon

Posted in Creative Practice, Digital Scrapbooking, Documenting Life, Life in 2014, Make, Make Stuff, Memory Keeping, Project Gal- Memorykeeping by

Now that my computer has recovered it’s 120Gb of “other”  (crash plan backing up huge log files to my hard drive in addition to backing up on-line…needless to say, deleted crash plan and the files and hellooooo hard drive space!)  I’m finally getting back to some digital scrapbooking!

01-Intro-Page-webMy dear friend Janet is running a free class at Your Stories Go Digital called “This is me Exposed”  It’s a super class with FREE digi-templates and kits to use in the project.  I thought it would be a fun class and Janet’s designs are GORGEOUS!!  See her shop HERE .  The class runs for four weeks (and it’s kind of self-paced so although it’s on week 3, you can jump in now!)  and I’ve finally gotten to making up the title page for my collection.  I’m not sure what form it’s ultimately going to take but it will be fun going through the pages and answering all the questions….just might be getting my family in on the act as well!

What projects are you working on this month? I’m working out the best way to organize all the files and information for classes like this and will be sharing my methodology soon!

Happy Monday everyone!

…120 Gb of “other”

Posted in Around Here, Life in 2014 by

Honeymoon mode has lasted a looooong time for me and my MacBook Pro…. I’ve been so thrilled with my beautiful little machine that has had almost NO problems since I bought her several years ago…unless you count trying to drown her hard drive in digital scrapbooking supplies.

Ah the honeymoon may be over

Disk Useage 01-12-14

 

it’s baaackkkk….  the “other” .   the “other” was the cause of the great hard drive erase and re-build of december 2013…Apple geniuses didn’t know what it was so they fixed the problem by wiping the hard drive and starting over

evidently it didn’t work

wish me luck, tomorrow we go to see the geniuses again.  have spent today backing up and moving files.  fingers crossed friends, fingers crossed

and so we start

Posted in Craft, Crochet, Fiber fun, Make Stuff by

Lily received a crochet kit for Christmas from her Grandpa to make these super cute stuffed animals….except neither one of us knows how to crochet (!)  I knit but never crocheted.

photo 1and so we start….the two of us together on the sofa, my 1970’s era Reader’s Digest “Complete Guide to Needlework” and You Tube videos by our sides…I grabbed some scrap yarn and crochet hooks and we dig in.

photo 2We worked for an hour and honestly, I think we did pretty well considering neither of us had ever done this!  Next it is off to the craft store tomorrow for some yarn and hooks that go together,  my hooks are a little small for the yarns that I had making it difficult to pull the yarn through.  Lily liked it and was working away !  I found it much harder to control the yarn and hold everything than knitting but I’m sure that will come with practice.

crochet-1To make a start…that is sometimes the most important part of the entire project.

Here’s to making more starts this year.

Goals for 2014 …. the lists

Posted in Creative Practice, Documenting Life, Handmade, Life in 2014, Memory Keeping, Project Gal- Memorykeeping, Writing by

Goals for 2014

IMG_3948Oh boy is there a lot of stuff I want to accomplish this year!  Holy Moly Guacamole… But it’s a good thing I love lists, I live by my list that I make for the week, lists for shopping, errands, to-do, books to read…you name it, I have a list for it.   So I thought I’d start the year by making a List of the Lists for 2014 and break it down into manageable parts. I may even post this to a separate section on the blog here so I can keep track and cross things off as I go. We’ll see…the important part for me is to get the process started and add to it as I go along.

IMG_4129General Thoughts

-Start working on ‘life list’ – I resisted this for a very long time for a variety of reasons but I am now coming around to the idea that making a list doesn’t mean it’s the last life list I”ll ever make (far from it if history is any indication) but there is a power in words and in writing things down and I”m seeking to manifest that for the good

-Family Time-We have a good time playing games together and doing projects together, I’d like to do more of that in 2014, even if it’s just a movie night!

-Date night- we’ve never really formally had a standing date night but this year may be the year to start, it’s nice to spend a little time just us, without the kids…it’s a pre-cursor to what it will be like around here in 6 years when the girls are off to (*gasp) college.

IMG_1949Adventures & Travel – I’d like to travel more this year, even if it’s just locally to see things we just have not gotten around to seeing  (soccer, basketball, and social obligations not withstanding!) The girls are at a great age to do things with and are terrific travelers.  Even things as simple as going to the ICA with my girlfriends (or dragging my family there on mother’s day) qualifies as an adventure in my book!

-Getting the gang back together for Homecoming 2014 at Syracuse….I had an awesome time last year and want to go back again with my sisters from the class of 2014. Going to put that in the works as soon as the dates are announced!

-Connecting with some of my like minded kindreds who I’ve become very close with through the “Be Present” retreats.  I visited my friend Kimberly last month and we had a blast…. scheming to get a group of us together this year.

-Family vacation…we don’t take a big vacation every year but would like to maybe do some smaller get-aways this year, we’ll see…I’m sure we will spend some time on the ‘Cape with Charlie’s family this summer which will be fun in the sun!

IMG_2799Homekeeping…

-Being that my chief position these days is “Domestic Goddess” (yes, that is what it says on my tax return), this year I want to keep adding to my routines that work and re-evaluate what doesn’t and simplify as much as possible.  This also includes my position as the “Queen of Finance” and re-evaluating how I handle our day to day finances and make sure we are doing what needs to be done.

-Make a list of projects we are going to tackle (or have tackled) this year and make them happen.  We are fortunate that this house has not required quite as much intensive hands-on work as our previous home but as always, there is always much to do!

IMG_1248Family History

-Continue to work on the family photo archives from all branches of the family, organizing, scanning, printing and getting things annotated and in albums for people to enjoy

IMG_0100Memory keeping…

-Finish the online classes I have started and abandoned OR not even started at all

-Make progress on the girls school albums starting from last year and working backwards, also tucking away things from this year that have already been delegated to go “in the book mama”

-Continue with a fourth year of Project Life documentation…although I suppose we should call it “Project CSLG” around here

-Map out other album projects I’ve been thinking about

-Switch out old post bound albums for new ring binder albums and possibly re-arrange the pages…still thinking about that

IMG_2142Fiber Arts & Sewing

-I want to get back to my roots so to speak and really start some serious sewing, I did a number of projects in 2013 but I want to up my game in 2014

-Play … whatever form that takes

Professional 

-There are a number of different professional options/ideas I’ve been tossing around the last two years and I have to say, dithering about which one is the best path to take has just meant nothing has gotten done, this year I”m going to pick one and pursue it and if it works out, great!  If not, on to the next one.  Onward.

IMG_3014Connection and Personal / Creative Growth (the big journey)

-These have been something I’ve been working on the last few years a little at a time and I’m really excited to see where this takes me in 2014!

The scary thing is that this is just a few off-the-top-of-my-head ideas, the more I type, the more I think of so must. stop. now 😉

OK now…. GO !