Self-Indulgence

After a particularly long week at school, I thought I would enjoy some self-indulgence tonight. I arrived home to find *gasp!* my order from Keepsake's had arrived! I am so excited to begin working on those projects (I ordered 2 purse patterns for myself. . . which one to make??? plus a book full of patterns for little kiddie fun). It was all I could do to not rush upstairs and dig into my stash to find fabric to begin. I MUST finish the two projects that have been sitting in my living room for weeks now before beginning anything new. sigh. I keep them in my living room so that I will think to work on them when I have a few snippets of time. I took out my mindless reading book (currently Pride and Prejudice. I skipped reading it in high school), but when I sat down to read, the computer caught my eye and I thought I would devote an hour to catching up on craft blogs. What fun! I can't wait until May is over and I have time to work on my ever growing list of projects. For now, those purses will sit in waiting as I scrape together snippets of time for crafting.

Of course, my self-indulgence resulted in Zack crunching an entire bag of popcorn on my living room floor by driving his trains over them. Now it's time to go back to being a mom and vacuum up kernels.

Framing, Reframing, and Still Not Happy

I have a problem. A few years ago I stained all of my picture frames that hung on the same wall to match. I only had 8x10's so I used mats and I loved the way it looked. This year, I printed off an 11x14 of one of my favorites, hoping the size variation would be more pleasing to the eye.
This picture definitely needs a different frame. I've never loved this frame to begin with and I HATE the glass that's in it (I know, I know, just get a new piece of glass. It just is never the thing that's on my mind at the right time), but it was what I had. I've bought 2 other frames, trying to get one I will be happier with. This is the newest of the 2 frames. I didn't even bother hanging it up for 5 minutes when all was said and done. It looked terrible with the other frames. It is more bronze-y than the picture shows. I took this picture and its mat from the above frame, put it in this frame, and I like it much better on the wall it's on-- away from the "matching" frames.
This is the first frame I bought. It is a deep mahogany stain. I love it. The trouble is, it looks more black when it's hanging on the wall than I want. Especially on the wall with the "matching" frames. So, I took the mat from the bronze-y frame, put it in this frame with this picture, and I LOVE the results!
Now the only trouble is, what on earth will I do to make myself happy about the picture I was trying to frame in the first place?

Bobble Head No More

This is a fast, easy project. I've been thinking I should buy a toddler/baby neck pillow for Zack for years. Everytime we go on long drives (or sometimes not so long drives) and Zack falls asleep, his head wobbles back and forth, or he ends up with it in some crazy position that does not look comfortable at all. I found a tutorial for this on Make it & Love it. I'm pretty sure that's my new favorite blog. I want to make everything on it.

Anyways, start to finish this only took me about 30 minutes. She (Make it & Love it girl) doesn't give you precise measurements, so I'm not 100% happy with mine. Some of the gaps between Zack's neck & the pillow are larger than I want, and the pillow itself I wish was a bit larger. I may end up making a new one. I let him choose the fabric from my stash, and he had to have the "letter stars." They were a bit big for the neck pillow, but it made him happy. He LOVES the pillow. We'll be going to Bluffdale on Martin Luther King Day, so we will see if it functions as desired. If it does, I'll keep it. If not, I will make a new one now that I have some idea about sizing. In the meantime, I've completed this project, which allows me to look at my inspiration sites. : ) I've also finished tying one quilt-- no pictures now because I have a few more to go to finish off the entire project it is for.

Standing Still

I have been so excited about crafting the last while but I have this nagging thought that I have no time. I decide to settle on browsing the blogs and one link leads to another, which leads to another, and yet another and so on. Finally I look up and realize I've whiled away at least an hour (YIKES! My previous internet time was 15 minutes or less, unless I was doing grades) dreaming about projects and finding more and more that I would like to do. How much could I have accomplished in that hour+?! To make matters worse, poor Rich came home for dinner to find a very distracted wife sitting at the computer and no dinner to be had. I will finish at least one project before I hop on again. Grit my teeth, grin, and bear it!

Possible Project??

On the way home from work I was tempted to drop in at Village Dry Goods in Brigham City for a new pattern. Just what this new pattern was to be, I had no idea. I just knew that it's been years since I was in that store and I am a pattern junky.

I was running on zero sleep (I believe I actually got 2 hours last night) and after spending 8 hours with 150 teenagers who were crazy with holiday hype, I was ready to give in and have a few me minutes before getting home. The zero sleep factor came into play, as well as the fact that I have oodles of untouched projects at home, and I settled for dropping in at McDonalds for a large $1 Mr. Pibb before heading through the canyon.

To satisfy my craft craving, I indulged myself by looking through the various sites on craftgossip and came across this project in the knitting section. It happens to be crochet-- which I prefer, or at least am more comfortable doing right now, being fairly new to the knitting scene. I agree with the craft gossiper-- I love the pattern but would have no occassion to wear something like this. Should I get around to making this project (a selfish one, so it probably won't get done. Me projects tend to never get finished, if they are ever begun), I plan to modify the pattern so that it is a cardigan rather than a duster. Wouldn't that be pretty? We'll see if it comes to fruition. The best parts? 1) I happen to have this yarn already (in a light blue) from a project that was planned and never happened years ago, and 2) the pattern is free! Here is the link should any of you be interested in trying it for yourself.

http://www.caron.com/projects/ss/ss_duster.html

Check me out! I figured out how to make a link. Check that one off my list! Wasn't hard and didn't have to wait for summer after all.

I do have some projects nearing completion. I was hoping to finish at least one to post before I had to return to work, but it didn't quite come to pass. Hopefully before January is over I will have the two on the front burner finished and up for you to see.