Not Having a Good Time

My sweetie is sick. Very Sick. We just found out last week, and it's thrown us for a huge loop. It's kinda taken the shine off things for a while. It takes the joy out of things like blogging, pinning, crafting, planning for the holidays, shopping, reading, cooking, anything but holding him and kissing him. Just thinking about how sick he is is like a kick to the stomach every time. I'm having serious thoughts about closing down the blog, but will leave it hanging for a little while longer. If I actually have the mental and emotional strength to do anything in the way of Crafty Genius, I'll post, but if not, then the postings may be few and far between for a while.

Pray for us.

Bright & Cheerful

I received these potholders

a couple of years ago for Christmas from a really nice person who has never seen the inside of my kitchen. I've used them every day since she gave them to me, but I've never liked them. It was sweet of her to think of me, but I decided that I needed a change. I bought a skein of this yarn

by Red Heart, in the Bikini colorway, which matches my kitchen decor pretty closely. I spend a couple of evenings in front of the TV (watching Criminal Minds), crocheting these.

I don't care if I'm only using them to pull hot dishes out of the microwave, I like them so much better. My eyes gave a huge sigh of relief, even they are screaming bright.

Here is the autumn wreath I mentioned in yesterday's post, all finished.



I wrapped the yarn around the foam tube while I watched Criminal Minds, then cut the yarn flowers during the rest of Criminal Minds and CSI. I hot-glued the flowers together this morning and then assembled the wreath. Probably 2-3 hours, total, most of it in front of the TV. Thank goodness for Criminal Minds, or I might not get as much crafting done. :)

PS-The flower centers are colored brads hot-glued into the flowers. Buttons were, for the most part, too large for the flowers.

Disclaimer

It's not my fault.

I haven't blogged much lately, and it's not my fault. Blame it on my sister. Yeah, that's it. My sister. The one who sent me this facebook post, "Annette, get on Pinterest. Lou and I are very curious to see what you would pin". Well, I did get on Pinterest. I haven't done anything else, since. No dishes, very little cooking, no cleaning. I'm weak. I have no self-control. I've known that about myself for a long time. That's why I have so many collections. I see something (or things) that I want, I have to have them. I can't stop until I do. It's the same with pin boards. I have several. I want to keep adding to them, so I scour the internet and Pinterest boards, finding things that I want to make. (In self defense, I have actually made some of the things I've seen on pin boards.) Today's project posting is a pin project that I found last week. Here's the link to the tutorial. http://violetpaperwings.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween-yarn-wreath.html

I've seen these felt flowers on lots of internet projects, but this is the best tutorial I've found on how to actually make them.

I made this wreath using plumbing foam from Home Depot ($.97 for a 6' length), which I cut in half. One half of the length makes a 12"-ish wreath. I hot glued the ends together, holding them until the glue cooled COMPLETELY. You can't even see the join, once the glue has cooled.



I wrapped the wreath form with this yarn: "Hometown USA" by Lion Brand Yarns. I tried regular yarn, but it wasn't chunky enough for my taste. I wanted chunky yarn, so it would fill in faster, and give a little more bulk to the wreath itself.

Then I cut various sized felt circles from red and cranberry colored felt squares. Probably 3", 4" and 5 or 6" circles. I cut a spiral in each felt circle, then wrapped the spiral, starting on the outer edge. Really, it's best to follow the tutorial in the link above.

When I finished wrapping felt flowers, I cut some leaves from sage felt, hot-glued them on the wreath form, hot-glued the flowers over the leaves, and then hot glued bead picks into the flower centers.

I think the wreath needs a big red bow, but I don't have the correct ribbon in my stash, so I'll get either a ribbon or a bow and then tie it onto the wreath.

The whole wreath cost less than $5.00, and I have plans to make one using autumn colored felt squares with buttons for the flower centers.

Notebook

I'm posting today because if I don't write something in a hurry, my sister, Jen, is going to revoke my rights to the title of this blog. :)

Last year for Christmas, Santa brought me this little binding machine. It's a Zutter and I had big plans for this little thing. I really like it, but I realized that I can only use so many blank books.
















Um, yes. All blank.
















I finally thought of a real use for a hand-made book. I made this the other day.





















I cut the covers from the cardboard out of the back of a picture frame, covered the front with paper that I love (Splendor by BoBunny) and cut cream cardstock to the size of 5"x8" index cards. I've bound both the cream cardstock and the index cards inside the book. That way I can use it both horizontally and vertically.
















I'm going to put this with my scriptures, and when I come across a scripture reference that really speaks to me, I'm going to copy it out and also the thoughts and inspirations I get from it. I'm also going to copy favorite quotes that inspire me. If I had any, ANY talents whatsoever in the sketching/doodling department, I'd do that, too, but I don't. I don't want to make this an art book, anyway. It's really going to just be a book of inspirations. I wrote this first page during church this morning. Also, during Sunday School, I found a lot more I want to use. I really loved the lesson and the plethora of inspirations in it.

HOME

I know I've mentioned on several occasions the little "Cut It Out" shop in town. I've purchased several word sets there, always, until now, for a special holiday or season. This last time I wanted to get something a little more permanent, so I ordered these. Sorry I don't have work-in-progress pictures, but the process is always the same-stain, pick out paper, trace, cut & trim, and embellish. In the past I've used big, cutesy buttons and trims, because seasonal items are meant to be that way. Since this is going to be on permanent display, though, I wanted nicer embellishments. I scoured the craft stores and departments and this is what I came up with for this set of HOME.

Paper is Samantha Walker for Creative Imaginations, which I purchased a couple of years ago, and the embellies are BoBunny, BGM Mercantile, Ribbon Trends, Silk Vision, Sierra Pacific, Cousin and various other things I found in my craft room.

Update

Greetings, October! Yes, I know we're halfway through the month, but that's ok. I was off the grid last week. I had carpets cleaned last week, carpets in the living room, little family room (soon to be Scott's room again), my scrapbook room and the hallway. That meant taking everything off the floor and putting it somewhere else--everything but the piano, sofa and love seat. EVERYTHING else went, out of 4 rooms. So my scrapbook room/office/playroom was also dismantled, and my computer was on the shelf, waiting for carpets to dry. After spending 4 days with the dining room full of stuff from the other parts of the house, and eating standing up at the bar, I realized that the SB room was not the biggest or most important priority. So I've spent this morning putting things back together. The living room is done, Scott's room is completely empty (we even took the computer out of there, because it is my firm belief that computers do not need to be in anyone's bedroom), and my SB room is 98% back together.

We are shuffling a bit, because after talking with Scott last week, we invited him to move back home, and he's thinking seriously that moving back would be the best thing. It'll enable him to find a job here, (hopefully) and start saving some money. Consequently, we'll be putting a bed and a dresser in there, which means we've moved the entertainment center back downstairs, into the cold family room. We're thinking this will all be a temporary situation, until Scott goes on his mission next year. Then we can reclaim his room and make it our little family room/computer room again.

The following pictures are in response to the blog entry I wrote, http://craftygenius.blogspot.com/2011/06/getting-busy.html about the ways I wanted to clean and reorganize my scrapbook room.

This is my cleaned-up sewing area, which wasn't ever really bad, unless I was in the middle of a sewing project.

This is a close-up of the cute hutch above my sewing table, showing off part of my monogram collection.

My computer table and the overhead shelves, which I love. I love that I can store supplies, as well as display pictures and more of my monogram collection.

The computer desk and overhead shelves switched places with this the wall of cube storage, which I also love. This, as well as the buckets and jars in the next photo, stores all of my scrapbook paper, embellishments, tools and everything which I need to papercraft in any way. The shelf above also holds more precious photos, and more monograms.

The buckets and jars hold my ribbons, silk flowers and large buttons.

This is my much nicer and better organized craft storage closet. (See the cute, polka-dot apron peeking out from behind the door?) In the pre-organized post, these drawers showed the mess of everything inside them, and I lamented the visual clutter. I printed the drawer contents onto sheets of yellow cardstock and stuck them into the fronts of these drawers,

these little bin drawers, 



and these drawer stackers. Now I know what's inside the drawers without having to SEE what's inside.

 

This is my scrapbook work table. It faces the wall of cube storage, with everything in easy reach. The windows have an eastern exposure, so I get the morning sun, which brightens my day.

another shot of the scrapbook work table, and the boxes holding photos, cards and card blanks.

Here's a close-up of the labeled drawer stacks in the craft closet. This is so much nicer! 

This is the cute monogram my cute sister Tamara made for my birthday, and the sign I made to display it. This hangs on the door to the scrapbook room, which is always open (unless I'm wrapping Christmas or birthday presents). I know I already blogged this, but now it is in context.

Because Scott is going to need his room and his closet, I put the family computer in my SB room, where the white bookshelf was, right next to the door. Taking the white bookshelf away necessitated transfering a few things to my overhead shelves. Most of the other things went right back to their assigned spots.

This is a close-up of my magnet board, which hangs next to the door, above the family computer desk. More pictures of people I love, more monograms. In the picture of the computer, I haven't put the things back onto the magnet board.

This has been lots of work, but also lots of fun. This room makes me so happy, I spend hours in it every day, blogging, paying bills, playing games, crafting, scrapbooking, listening to music, planning menus & shopping lists. It's my little world, and I love it. I love that it's clean and organized.

Happy Birthday and other Random stuff

I wanted to post  yesterday, in commemoration of my son's and my sister's birthday, but I've been having a love/hate relationship with our internet the last week, and yesterday was definitely hate. I won't get into details, but suffice it to say that our internet seems to be possessed of body snatchers, and isn't as wonderfully consistent as it should be.

So, Happy Birthday yesterday to my wonderful son, Scott,

and my dear sister, Jennifer. Scott is 19 years old, and living (sometimes) happily away from home. Jen is ageless. and beautiful. Happy Birthday, I love you both! (The day Scott was born, I called Jen and told her that her birthday gift that year was a nephew. She was thrilled--they love sharing a birthday, and usually check in with each other to exchange birthday greetings.)

Tad returned to work EARLY Tuesday morning. Actually, returned isn't really the correct term. He has been in training for the last three months, and yesterday he arrived at the real jobsite for the first time. There will be a day or two of inprocessing and orientation, commentary drives and shop work, while he waits to find out which crew he'll be assigned to, and how the rotation works. This is, finally, real life.

We had a delightful time while Tad was home for the last week. We bought a new set of living room furniture, which I blogged a couple of days back, a new set of tires for the truck, set up the new computer, picked up an order of fresh peaches which took a week to ripen, ate dinner out a couple of times, replaced the starter in the truck, shopped for cold weather clothing for Tad, canned and froze the aforementioned  peaches, (12 pints of canned peaches, 14 bags of frozen peaches and 8 jars of freezer jam)

and hung out at a couple of craft stores in town. He was in town long enough to attend church twice, and we had 2 real date nights. It's the longest he's been home since he started training, so we got to spend lots of time together. It was hard to let  him go yesterday (Early wake times notwithstanding). Now that he's at the real job with the real shift rotation, we can start planning home times and away times.

As is typical when he returns to work, I spent yesterday catching up on little chores around the house, and did a little crafting. I sewed 2 aprons yesterday,

(autumn/Thanksgiving and Halloween--The red dotted one is one I made a couple of weeks ago, I think I mentioned it, but didn't have a picture--it's my crafty apron) and organized my seasonal decor, since this month is the time I start pulling things out to decorate. There is still more to do, but I have nothing but time.

My sister, Tamara, made this cute, little decorated "A" for my birthday last month, and I knew I wanted to display it, so I made this little scrapbook door sign.