Random Snapshots

wishing I had time for...

...photo editing:  I have many photos to share that have accumulated over the past 3 months.  Editing takes time.  Time that I do not have right now!  So for now I'll share my daily mugshot of the day taken on my iPhone. (Disregard the fact that my makeup looks so dark in relation to my neck.  I think that's an optical illusion -- I hope!?  In addition, I should really learn to love lipstick - geez, you learn a lot by taking selfies all the time.)

You can view more of these here if you're so inclined -- Daily Mugshow.

...learning to sew:  I should have learned to sew before I moved away from a family full of seamstresses!  But, now I'm left to learn on my own.  With You Tube and the amount of instructional books out there I think I should be able to learn some stuff!  I would like to make a few skirts for summer and I hear that is pretty easy.  Advancing to dresses would really be the thing I'm most interested in.  I love a dress that fits well!  I can sew the basic stuff -- pillowcases, napkins, simple bags and I even made curtains.  I need to bone up on the basic rules and terminology more.  I've heard great reviews on these three books -- any other recommendations?

...learning to stitch: I've done embroidery here and there.  (I think I can say that about almost every craft out there!  Thanks Mom for allowing me to grow up in a crafty home!) Mostly when I was younger and I never really advanced beyond the basic stitches.  It's coming back into style though as a modern craft much like knitting and sewing.  More variety of patterns are available too.  When I have some time to set aside I'm going to start with this kit.  Click the picture to take you to the kit's link.  Sublime Stiching has some VERY cool patterns that I can't wait to try!!

Other things I'd like to have more time for right now -- finishing up some knitting UFOs (I have enough to last for a while!), knitting socks and sweaters, cleaning my house (haha!), running, Pilates and reading.  Not too much to ask, right!?

7 weeks and 3 days until I'm done with school.  Not that I'm counting.  :)

That means that there are only 6 weeks and 4 days until Sock Summit 2009 -- more on that later.  

Happy Friday!

cards for heroes

While blog-hopping on Friday I came across an organization called Cards For Heroes.  They collect blank, hand-made greeting cards to send to our troops so that they can write on the cards and send them home to their families.  They also collect cards of encouragement for our troops.  

Since it's Memorial Day weekend they organized a mass blog-hop which included many people in the paper arts community.  I had not heard about this organization prior to seeing this blog-hop, but am glad to know about it now.  I only wish I had found it sooner. 

I took a couple of hours yesterday morning to make some cards to send.  Here are a few of them: 

This mission is very near and dear to my heart.  When my husband was deployed in 2003 I wrote to him 3 times per day, every day for 7 months.  Along with letters I sent a lot of cards and am pretty sure I kept Hallmark in business because I couldn't keep up with making all the cards myself!  I know to some this sounds excessive, but for me it wasn't.  I just wrote about my day, memories of us, what we'd do when he returned and general words of encouragement and appreciation.  To this day my husband thanks me for this.  He would get piles of letters and cards by the time the mail actually hit him. 

Because I knew there were a lot of people over there that would not get many, if any, cards or letters from home I decided to write to them as well.  I can't stand to think of people being left out or feeling down, especially in situations like war deployment.  On 3 or 4 occasions I made cards for every single guy in his unit.  They were all handmade and I tried to write a personal note to each of them.  When the unit returned all of the guys thanked me sincerely.  My husband told me that a few of the guys were really touched and expressed their gratitude to hime while over there.  It's a feeling I will never forget.

My next bunch of cards will be encouragement and gratitude for their service.  If you have some handmade cards laying around or an hour to make some I encourage you to do so.  It doesn't take long and I used all scraps to make mine.  I can promise you, from firsthand experience, the time and effort will be appreciated.  Please visit the website and familiarize yourself with the rules first as well. 

friday favorites.

Last night Adam and I stopped at Target on the way home from work to get some wrapping paper for our Christmas gifts.  I love picking out wrapping paper -- Target has the prettiest designs and I always have to take a few minutes to decide.  It's our tradition that we pick out our own papers and wrap each other's gifts in only that paper.  I also bought some pretty ribbon because I like to really do it up even though I know it will get torn apart!  I am one of those people that enjoys wrapping gifts!

I got to the gift tag section and decided we didn't really *need* tags since we weren't wrapping for others.  Since I'm weird I knew I'd miss putting a tag on there so I decided to scour the internet for free printable tags.  I have plenty of cardstock at home and I was sure I could find something cute.

Here are my favorites from my search.  Click on the links in the title to access the tags.

Martha Stewart Tags: These are my favorites of the bunch. 

Christmas Tags from Piece of Work: Second favorite!.

 

Holiday Gift Tags from Paperseed: Love these too. 

 

Polka Dot Elves:  These are just too cute! 

Why not save some money this year and print your own tags?  

I have also been getting some wrapping ideas from Martha Stewart's website.  Here is a link to the section I've been browsing -- Gift and Wrapping Ideas.  

If you have any more printable tag links or gift and wrapping ideas I'd love to see them.  Post a link in the comments.

Happy Friday!

affordable Christmas decorations

I've been noticing a lot of inexpensive Christmas decorations on the 'net lately and I thought I would share three of my favorites here.  I especially like the ones that reuse items and don't involve any purchases. 

Recycled Christmas Tree by Lilly: I love this little tree and the endless decorating opportunities.  I think I'll make a few up with the Christmas catalogs I've been getting in the mail. 

 

Christmas Card Tree:  Martha used inexpensive store-bought branches, but I've seen many variations with braches from your yard.  Either would be good.   I haven't gotten any Christmas cards yet, but I think I can expect a few.  Maybe I'll make this up to display them with.  Last night at knitting we decided you could also display tiny knit mittens, socks, or sweater ornaments. 

 

Glitter candles:  It's no secret that I love glitter and shimmer.  Aren't these gorgeous?  I've done this with pumpkins before -- as a project with my Grandma.  I would suggest that you buy the most super fine glitter you can find.  It will adhere much better.  

  

My little trees are up and I'm hoping to decorate them tonight.  I also want to decorate my floating shelves above the couch and the cutout above my fireplace.  Maybe I'll have time to make up some of these decorations this weekend. 

A good weekend

This was the first weekend in a long time that I was not totally overloaded with homework.  I decided to take full advantage of it.  Here's my good-weekend-wrap-up.

Friday night :: Adam and I went to Fry's and snagged the last Mario Kart for Wii.  After having a nice dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant we came home and played for a a couple hours.  I had a couple of margaritas at dinner which made the night even more fun and hilarious.  The game is way harder than it looks, but really fun at the same time. 

Saturday :: Adam worked most of the day so I just hung around the house doing things that I never get to do.  Reading, catching up on my DVR, watching hours of decorating/home shows, napping and knitting.  After he came home we decided to grab some dinner and do a little shopping.  We ended up at Aaron Brothers and I came home with a bunch of new painting supplies.  I hadn't painted in a really long time.  Probably since I moved here.  As much as I've missed it I just really haven't had time.

So armed with canvases and fresh acrylic paint I went to town after we got home.  I dug out my brushes, turned on some music and just painted.  It was really amazing and relaxing and felt great.

I've always loved the painting "body kiss" and decided to do my own interpretation.  I love the colors - I mixed them all from basic, primaries. 

Sunday ::  This morning I finally decorated the floating shelves above our couch.  Adam put them up for me last year and up until today they have just been holding random stuff.  I've had an idea in my head, but never gotten around to gathering the supplies to make it work.  After watching hours of decorating shows yesterday afternoon I went in a totally different direction.  I gathered stuff from around the house and pulled something together.

Here's the wide view with the couch:

And here's a detail shot.  The giraffe is a watercolor that I did about 4 years ago.  It's one of my favorite pieces.  

This afternoon we had some friends over for a Wii party.  It was so much fun and I can't wait to do it again.  The Wii is definitely worth it just for this type of fun with friends.

The boxing was the best. Their faces just kill me.

I made Adam take this - haha!!

We couldn't stop cracking up.

I hope your weekend was just as great as mine! 

FO - Elfine's Socks

• Elfine's socks by Anna Bell   
• Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Color 4-ply / 4-fädig
• US 1 2.25mm KP Circular (I did these magic loop)
• Ravelry link
• No modifications or issues with the pattern - it was pretty easy to follow

I made these for my Mother-In-Law for Mother's Day.  This is the first pair of socks that I've knit as a gift and I was nervous about the fit since I was guessing.  She got the package last week though and reported back that they fit - she was wearing them that night! 

I love the striping in this yarn and the colors are so vivid.  I would have liked the pattern to pop out a little bit more, but I think they look better on the foot than on the sock blockers. 

I finished blocking my Mom's Mother's Day socks last night and will be mailing them off this week.  I'll post photos after she receives them because I want them to be a surprise.  They took me longer than expected because I got hung up with the pattern a bit.  They happen to be my first Cat Bordhi socks so they are extra-special-custom-fit for my Mama!  I hope they fit.  :) 

I had a few extra minutes the other night after running some errands and decided to make some jewelry.  I found some pretty beads at Joann's and couldn't pass them up.

The photos aren't great, but you can get an idea.  I made stitch markers out of the blue beads - the beads are really light and perfect for markers I think.  I also whipped up a couple of pair of earrings - the left pair is like a smoky grey color and the right is silver.