Craft Room Furniture! This is Finally Happening!

Hello! It's been a while since I've blogged. I'm afraid to look at how long. If you were reading my blog before, I'm sure you thought it was dead. I meant to keep blogging. I never meant to stop. But, I got very busy trying to be Utah's sole source of actresses between the ages if 17-35. I think I was in every community production In Utah County in the last year. If I wasn't, I saw it or knew someone in it. I got sucked into the vortex of community theater and almost the only crafting I did was sewing my costumes for productions. 

Recently, I was Ms. TeaVee in Willy Wonka. Using a mash up of vintage patterns, I made this dress: 

Anyway, I'm getting distracted. What I really came to post about is this disaster: 

Yep, my craft room. Sad, isn't it? And, this is after cleaning up for a while (a long, long while--and paying one of my kids $10 to help me). A huge part of it is that I have no workspace, so stuff ends up everywhere when I'm working. (Also, I have too much stuff, but I'm pretending that isn't a problem.)

Well, my friends, that is about to change! I recently came into a very cool couch and about $100. I want the couch to fit in this room so people can hang out with me while I craft, and the $100 is perfect for building a huge desk.

Last Saturday, David and I went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore looking for kitchen cabinets to use to make this desk. We got a big fat zero, and they were more expensive than I was hoping. I could have cobbled something together, but it would have eaten my entire budget and nothing would have matched. Nothing would have matched! It was not working for me. So, on the way home I got the bright idea to look on KSL (basically the Craig's List of Utah--no idea why everyone posts there, but we do).

And there it was. Some guy remodeled four matching kitchens and was selling off the cabinets for $10 a piece. And he was home when we called! And didn't sound too eccentric! We were wrong about that last part, but that's okay. 

So, we go to this guy's house (which is upgraded in every possible way--the doorbell chime lasted longer than Beethoven's Symphony No. 9); he makes us remove our shoes to walk across the hardwood floors. Then we ride his elevator (yes, elevator) down to the walkout basement four car garage where he has the kitchen cabinets. We pick out six of them, and pay the guy. We was a perfectly nice normal guy. I'm not sure why he had an elevator, but I'll go with it. Our daughter was with us, and she thought it was cool. 

So, here they are, my new cabinets. 

The dude who sold them to us told us there was nothing wrong with them; that they were just outdated. Dude might have an elevator, but he was wrong about that. They are stinky--like old apartment smell--and greasy and damaged in spots. The hinges have plastic pieces that were breaking apart. There is some nasty gunky on one of the shelves that I am not even going to attempt to clean off. That thing is just getting replaced.

However, they are perfect for what I want them to do. More on that soon. Very, very soon. 

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Dealing with Those Pesky Sewing Patterns: Organizing Solution

This is Part 4 of my How I Organized My Entire House for $0.00 (Really!) series.
Part 1 (Intro) is here.
Part 2 (Simple Rules to Create Organization that Sustains Itself Plus Master Bath Organization) is here.
Part 3 (Inexpensive Organizing) is here.

Did you think I abandoned my organizing project? Oh no, I have not. I have only stared into the abyss that is my craft room, and it is not a short thing. It is a long, multi-part thing.

I started with my sewing patterns, which is what this post is about. I recently started crafting for a great company again, you know, on a professional basis, and that means lots of time in the craft room. And that place is scary. We don't have a garage, so storage is a rare and precious commodity at our house. Stuff that has no where to go ends up in the craft room. If a kid comes to me to ask where something goes, it's usually phrased this way, "Where does this go? The craft room?"

David has started calling it "the junk drawer." I know another crafter who calls hers "the room of requirement."

I have slowly started to change this. It was a major milestone when I could reach the closet--which by the way, is right next to the door.

I've also started changing my habits. I don't craft the same way I used to. I put things away as I go. It's a novel concept, I know, and more about how I made it easier to do later, but it does make my brain more clear. I spend a lot less time looking for the scissors (or other craft tool) that are somewhere on my table and clean-up afterward is so much easier.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the patterns.

I picked up a huge box of retro patterns at a garage sale a few Saturdays ago, and nearly doubled my pattern collection in one go. I desperately needed a way to look at what I had and also find what I had.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Inexpensive Organizing

This is Part 3 of my How I Organized My Entire House for $0.00 (Really!) series.
Part 1 (Intro) is here.
Part 2 (Simple Rules to Create Organization that Sustains Itself Plus Master Bath Organization) is here.

Some things I've learned for organizing on the cheap:

1. Organizing is about your life, not about how much money you spend (obvious, but it took me a little while to learn. I love pretty, fresh school supplies, um, I think I've mentioned my love of pretty containers, I love pretty interior design--all that generally costs money--even though I try to manage to spend as little money as possible). I used to want it to be pretty and perfect or not at all. It doesn't work that way. It can be pretty later. Right now, it just needs to be organized. In fact, it's better to see if what you come up with works, then buy whatever pretty things to put it in. That way you're not investing a money in a system that won't work for you in the long run anyway.
2. Don't get caught up trying to create the perfect system. Very related to #1. Trying to make the perfect system generally has the effect of making me want to spend $. No system is perfect, but there are systems that work. Like I've said before, if you see a problem, think about how to fix it. Sometimes it's as easy as providing a trash can in the right spot, grouping the right things together, or moving something so that you have easier access. And sometimes it's just accepting that you have to change your habits (hard!).
3. Get rid of stuff. Less to organize! I recently made a goal to get rid of 100 things. This is something I plan to do regularly. Along with that, don't buy new things. I recently read that if you are contemplating buying a (non-perishable) item, put it on a list and wait a designated period of time: two weeks, a month, whatever. If at the end of that time, you still want/need it, buy it.* I find delayed gratification so hard, but it does help a lot with clutter.
4. Use "trash" to organize.** Food comes in great containers. If all you have are oatmeal containers, cardboard boxes from cereal boxes, fruit snacks, peanut butter jars, strawberry baskets, mayonnaise jars, peanut containers, empty spice jars, even boxes of soda, then use those. There are lots of ways to dress them up, if you want.*** Baby wipe containers are also quite amazing--ask friends if you don't buy wipes yourself. I've seen great things done with paper towel rolls--and toilet paper rolls, but that grosses some people out.
5. Use what you have already.**** You've probably bought baskets or plastic containers already. As you organize, you'll find you get rid of things (see #3) or find new systems. A lot of shifting will occur and you can reuse those old containers.
6. To help with costs, go second-hand. Thrift stores and garage sales can be great for finding containers (the flower vase in the picture came from a garage sale). Canning jars are often easy to find and make pretty good storage containers; also, muffin tins. Sites like Craig's list can be great sources for free cardboard boxes people are looking to ditch after they move. This can work great for some things (the free section even has furniture if you are looking for bigger storage solutions--it doesn't have to be pretty--think basement or garage and hide it--and even if it's ugly for a while, if it's free, you won't feel like you wasted money by buying a cheap temporary option). Even cups or bowls you don't use much can make great storage containers.
7. Hit up your friends. Trade around. Find an organizing buddy and see if you might have things they can you use and vice versa. When I told my friend Natalie about my project, she said she might have some things I could use--funnily enough, I just realized she gave me those jars that appear in the picture above! 
8. Another cheap source is the dollar store or bargain stores (although I think this can add up quickly if you're not careful and sometimes you don't get much for your money. Caution.)
9. Make your own storage.***** There are great tutorials out there for sewing your own fabric boxes, and if you use fabric you already have on hand, it doesn't have to be too much out of pocket. Or use the $4 bed sheets from Walmart for the fabric to get a more uniform look. I've even seen sturdy baskets woven out of paper.
10. Make your own cleaning supplies. This isn't really about organization, but it will save you tons of money, and when things are clean, you want to keep them organized. There are a few products that I really love that I still buy, but for tons of things, I make my own. There are dozen of recipes out there, and I will probably do a post on my favorites at some point.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Hulk Birthday Party Invite

My oldest son is turning ten this week and he wants an Incredible Hulk birthday party. I'm not planning anything too elaborate, but I did make this birthday party invite last night (after my show: An Ideal Husband at the Echo Theatre--I'm Lady Basildon, a small but very, very fun part).

Here's to awesome super heroes and fun graphic design and birthday parties and theater and staying up way too late!

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Medicine and Cleaning Cabinet Organization

This is Part 3 of my How I Organized My Entire House for $0.00 (Really!) series.
Part 1 (Intro) is here.
Part 2 (Simple Rules to Create Organization that Sustains Itself Plus Master Bath Organization) is here.

It occurred to me that this should be my next project when I was sick on last Monday. Super sick. I slept almost the entire day on Sunday (I was awake for like five hours the entire day) and on Monday it felt like my bones are trying to escape from my body. Fun times. Except, I couldn't find the thermometer. Are you surprised, looking at this photo?


Before:

 After:

Yeah, I wasn't either. The shelf on the top is our medicines and the bottom has some cleaning supplies and the sunscreen/hand sanitizer/light bulb type stuff. The medicine is actually kind of organized, but it ended up tossed all in there, and some of it was out because that is is the stuff we use the most.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Simple Rules to Create Organization that Sustains Itself Plus Master Bath Organization

This is Part 2 of my How I Organized My Entire House for $0.00 (Really!) series. Part 1 (Intro) is here.

I want to start off this series by giving myself a set of rules (more like guidelines) to follow. It's easy to get carried away and easy to lose sight of your goals, so this will help keep me on-track.

1. Think about how you live your life. It doesn't make sense to have a system that doesn't work with how you live. Have the things you use together grouped together, not always like with like*. You usually use tape and scissors and wrapping paper together. Have them together. You usually use toothpaste and toothbrushes together (if I'm making any weird assumptions here, feel free to educate me! :) )--make it so you only open one drawer or one cabinet to get them. Think efficiency.
2. Have the things you use the most in easiest reach. The stuff you use less can be harder to get to. Make things easier on yourself.
3. Along with number 2, have the things where you use them, or put them where you are more likely to use them.** Don't get too caught up in where things are "supposed" to go. Put them where they work for you.
4. Make things easy to put away. If they aren't (and you are like me), they won't get put away.
5. Make it simple. Don't go overboard labeling stuff. Don't make a tiny compartment for everything. Have a place for everything, but there's no need to make it more complicated than it needs to be. If you want. Simple systems are the most self-perpetuating.***
6. Reevaluate. Organize, then go back a week later and see if it's working. If not, tweak. Just because you organized it one way doesn't mean it has to stay that way. And it's easier to rework it when it's still somewhat organized than when it's completely disorganized because the system didn't work with the way you live.
7. Get rid of stuff you don't use. I've heard if you haven't used it in the last year, get rid of it. But, I think that's unrealistic. I have things I haven't used in the last year that I want to keep and it would tick me off to replace. But, there is a lot of good in honestly evaluating if you are going to use it. Are you holding onto something because of guilt? Because of what it represents?**** When getting rid of stuff, the biggest thing is to be honest with yourself.
8. Educate your family on your new system, but don't overwhelm them. Make it fun. Get their input if it affects them (I've found it works a lot better if ideas come from everyone, instead of my trying to impose a top down approach).
9. It doesn't have to be perfect. It won't be perfect. What you organize now will probably have to be organized again at some point. Hopefully a long, long time from now. But, your life will change. Your needs will change. Don't get caught up in perfectionism or get overwhelmed. One little piece at a time.

*For example, put a pair of scissors in the places where you need them the most--not all the scissors in the same spot. Then the scissors will be where you need them, they won't travel all around the house, end up in tossed random drawers and never make it back to the scissor drawer and then you can't find a pair when you need them. For example, I have a pair of scissors in my bedside table, so does David, a pair in the kitchen for opening food packages, a pair in the office, a pair in the wrapping paper box, a pair in the kids' art box, and then the specialty scissors where they go--do not touch my sewing scissors please

**I have a topical acne medication I need to use every day, but not within 30 minutes before or after showering. When it was in the bathroom, I didn't use it regularly. But, put it by my laptop, and suddenly I remembered to use it twice a day like I am supposed to.

***It's my experience that I will put something box in a drawer, but not necessarily a certain spot in that box in drawer. For example, if I have a box for often-used medicines: works great! If I have a certain spot for Tylenol in the box, it doesn't get put there every time by everyone and I get frustrated. It doesn't work across everything (forks have a certain spot, dang it!), but it's a generally good rule of thumb.

****Sometimes that's ok--you may pry my great-grandma's quilts out of my bloody fingers--but sometimes it means you need to let go of that to get rid of it. I kept some kitchen gadgets for a long time, because if I had kitchen gadgets, then surely it meant that someday I was going to be fabulous and motivated to cook all the time, right? And, it would make life easy, and I would transform into super chef-type "good mom" person. I was invested in seeing myself as "person with cool kitchen gadgets" and invested in thinking that a good mom cooks every night. Once I let go of that--good moms don't have to cook every night--then I could get rid of the clutter that wasn't helping my life. Or my cooking.

Do you all have any other tips? I'd love to hear what has and hasn't worked for you! 

(Also, I need to take my own advice! I am just horrible at putting things away and not always good at setting up things that work for me, but that's the point--right? To take time to set this stuff up; to stop and think about it.)

Now, onto the bathroom!

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

How I Organized My Entire House for Zero Dollars (Really!)

Maybe it's the kids going back to school, maybe it's just because I've reached my breaking point, or maybe it's because of no good reason, but the disorganization in my house has got to grow up and leave already. I am tired of it. I'm tired of not being able to find things. I'm tired of sighing when I see certain areas of my house. I'm just fed up.

When I've tried to organize my house before, it's gone like this (this may sound familiar to you--perhaps you have felt similarly?): I am motivated. I see beautiful pictures of organized spaces on Pinterest! Oooooo, so pretty. Wow, I want my house to look like that! I need containers! I need all the pretty containers! Must buy containers now! I need all the things! Wait, I have no money for containers! Sad face. I organize some things halfheartedly, maybe buy a few little pretty containers (I actually have about five times as many jars now, see picture above), but my money seems to have other priorities (new water heaters, piano lessons, um, thrift stores), and I think, sheesh, if I just had pretty containers, it would stay all pretty and organized and birds would sing outside my windows all day long and my children would never complain about doing their chores or putting away their toys and I would be soooo motivated to keep it nice. While it might be true that pretty spaces and pretty containers might keep me slightly more motivated, the problem is me.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I spent it at rehearsals for Spanish Fork Community Theater's production of My Fair Lady. And then I performed in 8 shows of My Fair Lady. My part wasn't anything too big: a member of the ensemble, but David was cast as Colonel Pickering.

One of the funnest things about being in the ensemble was that I had nearly as many costume changes as anyone else. Five. While the theater provided three, it ended up that I offered to make two of mine: my dress for Ascot (possibly one of the most famous scenes for costumes ever) and my Embassy Waltz dress. For both of them, I didn't use a pattern. Edwardian style is stunning.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

"The Voice of the Rain" Print Download

New to digital scrapbooking? Never downloaded a digital kit before? What in the world are .rar files anyway? Get your answers here: How to Unzip Files So You Can Digi Scrap.

This past week, I needed some new art for my living room. I whipped up this print, using Illustrator and Photoshop. I've never done anything quite like this before, so it was especially fun. I've done a lot work in both programs, but nothing quite so much like an illustration.

The poem making the rain is a beautiful one by Walt Whitman called "The Voice of the Rain" from Leaves of Grass. Bonus points for it being out of copyright. (Obviously, I wouldn't be offering it as a download if it wasn't.)

Right now it's 11x14", but could easily be cropped to a different aspect ratio. I hope you enjoy this print--I'd love to know if you end up using it for anything.

(Click to Download)

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Momma and Baby Knit Monsters

I was just about to start writing this post, and as some reconnaissance, I casually asked my daughter if she had a name for her knit monster toys. She told me no, and that she "didn't necessary like them that much." Ahhh, the fickleness of four year olds. And here I was, all prepared to rave about how much she loved these monsters. 

Direct quote after asking her about her monsters, "I'm getting super mad at you for not letting me [eat] anything." I'm sure I seem like the most horrible mother ever, making her wait 10 minutes to eat until dinner is ready. So, her dislike might have been influenced by her rumbling tummy and my horrible mommy meanness.

I love these monsters. If she doesn't like them anymore, I will start sleeping with them at night. I went to five different fabric stores looking for real wool felt to make their mouths. I carefully selected the yarn. I agonized over what type of eyes to use. I even had to use double pointed needles! Heck, I may even change out the yellow in my gray and yellow bedroom to pink and green to match, I'm so darn fond of these little monsters.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

In which I beg and enter a contest.

I recently read this post on a (feminist) blog I often read, which basically says women don't like to brag for fear they will seem attention-grabbing or not self-effacing enough.

I do and do not have this problem. You don't write a blog about your life and your projects without a certain amount of fondness for navel-gazing. (My navel used to be so cute, by the way, but now it is just so not, after four pregnancies. So wrong. Not sure how long I could stand to gaze at my actual navel before combusting, requiring a ferocious pep talk back into liking my body again.)

Remember this project? (Click on the link for a tutorial.)

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Grace Lace Beret

I knit this Grace Lace Beret to escape the deep, dark abyss I feel into when I graduated from college in December. The name of this abyss is "what in the heck am I going to do with this degree and therefore the rest of my life besides being a wife and mother which is awesome and all but not the whole sum of my existence because I'd really like to do things in addition to being a good wife and mother because most days kids make me want to eat my fingernails and bend my brain into itself except when they are being totally adorable and drawing cute pictures of flamingos (see exhibit A)?" This question is much too large, even for my newly enlarged, degreed brain. So, I quite naturally fell to knitting to ease my mind of such weighty questions. I knit a lot in January. A lot.

 Exhibit A (Courtesy of Aubrey)

I knit it twice. Because I am a contradiction. I hate figuring out gauge. I would rather guess. I know enough about the way I knit and crochet to know that I have a very tight gauge. So, I guess. Educatedly.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

The Bee's Knees Digital Scrapbooking Kit Freebie

New to digital scrapbooking? Never downloaded a digital kit before? What in the world are .rar files anyway? Get your answers here: How to Unzip Files So You Can Digi Scrap.

Apparently, I've gone too long without designing a kit. Shaunte, over at This Too Shall Pass has progressed to harassment in order to get me to design another digital kit. This is good, because I apparently need harassment levels of persuasion in order to get me motivated to do anything after graduating. While harassment isn't supposed to make you feel desirable, I feel privileged to be Shaunte's object of harassment. If she progresses to stalker I will probably never be able to deflate my ego.

(If you don't read Shaunte's blog, you should. She's the type of funny that makes me realize that my attempts at humor are. . .how can I be kind? . . .underdeveloped. Perhaps if I had gone the extra step and had five children like her instead of four, I would have gone that extra bit of insane that would have imbued me with the truly funny stuff--not that I'm commenting on Shaunte. Really. Just on me. But, it's too late now to add any more crazy to our house. I must be content with envying Shaunte's comedic ability and forever wishing I had her finely-honed thrift-store shoe-finding abilities.)

I'm also hoping that this kit will be helpful to another friend who is in charge of an girl's camp this summer. Their theme is centered around bees, hence the theme of this kit. It just so happened to work perfectly with Aubriana's Halloween costume from this past year. Even if you don't have a need for a bee theme, there are plenty of unrelated papers in this kit--I'm quite fond of the clouds and the chevrons.

So, cheers all around for my first digital kit in ages! I enjoyed making it--I forgot how much fun it is to have an excuse to watch endless TV and dink around in Illustrator. I hope you like it!

(Click to download)

Kit contains: 33 pattern papers, 1 set stitches, 1 overlay, 1 sheet honeycomb stickers, tags, 1 mask, 1 torn edge, 2 bee stickers, 2 flower stickers

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Is that a 1? I believe it is.

Remember this?

It now looks like this.

One more week, baby. Then I will be a college grad and a human again. Instead of a subspecies with a laptop type growth on her fingers.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Sunshine Paisley Throw Pillow Tutorial

Ok, here it is. What I've been meaning to write and put up for ages. If I didn't have to keep doing that pesky schoolwork (five more weeks until graduation, five more weeks!), this would have happened a lot sooner.

Once I finished the five embroidered paisley squares (click for pattern), I knew I wanted to make a pillow out of them. I was worried though, because I didn't want it to get too "patchwork quilt." I didn't think that would go with the modern feel of my bedroom.

I wanted to do solid yellows and grays, but the quilt story nearby (Gracie Lou's--sooooo awesome!) didn't have any. This was perplexing. Normally, when I get an idea, there is nothing that can prevent me from doing that idea. I mean, small adjustments, they normally make the project turn out better. Large adjustments like substituting a print for a solid? I will normally not proceed. I think the saleswomen in the shop thought I was being completely unreasonable (although she was very perplexedly kind about it). Like, I had gone into a restaurant and said, "But, these green beans aren't green enough, I wanted more of a Christmas green, not so much an olive green. And I wanted them cut 1/4" longer. Do you have different green beans in the back?" (I did not ask for super-secret back-room fabric, FYI).

 

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Black and White Mod Podge Stool Makeover (With Tutorial!)

A few weeks ago, I had a friend coming over to see my house for the first time. I was (frantically) cleaning the morning before she was supposed to come. (Clarice, if you're reading this, that's a total lie. My house is always immaculately clean. I was lounging on the couch eating organic, designer doughnuts and pirouette rolled wafers without making a single crumb and miraculously not taking in calories for hours and hours before your visit. I swear it.)

I was cleaning the bathroom, and I decided that my white stool was never going to look clean on top and that painting it white was the worst decision of my life. Because, clearly, paint weighs out over anything else, including the credit card debt I started accumulating in college. Nope, nope, white paint on this stool--MUCH, MUCH worse.

I bought it for $5 at an antique shop, and it was clearly someone's shop stool. It had drill marks down through the top. But, I liked it. I think it has charm.

The Before:

The After:

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Halloween!

So, I stayed up sewing until 3:30 am on Sunday night. Maxton, really wanted to be Aang, from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I couldn't find any in the stores and for some reason, it didn't occur to me to check online until it was too late. This is cooler, because he's the cartoon Aang, not the live-action movie Aang.

So, of course, I didn't have a pattern, so this is hodge-podged together. The pants I based off a super easy pattern, then I added elastic around the bottom. The cape I sewed in one try, making up my own pattern, and same with the belt.

The collar took me four tries to get right (it's separate from the shirt). I'd never sewn anything like that, and I had to make my own pattern, so that was some serious trial and error. The shirt was a nightmare. The pattern I chose for the shirt was all wrong--the directions did not make any sense (or I was just not getting it, I'm going with the first because it makes me feel better), so I ended up just doing my own thing with it. But, it's done!

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Curtains in my Kitchen!

My sister moved a few weeks ago. I mentioned this in my last post. When she moved, she and her husband ditched a ton of their stuff. Which means, I got a lot of their stuff.

One of the "stuff" I got was the curtains that were in their living room. They just happened to go perfectly in my kitchen.

This is the before shot:

This is what they looked like before I hemmed them. Yeah, way too long:

And the completely finished after:

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Sunshine Paisley Embriodery Pattern

Oooohhhh dear. Pinterest has done me in again. I kept seeing all these beautiful embroidery stitches and projects. Which means, of course, I have been embroidering a lot lately.

I had so much fun trying new stitches. My favorite site is this one, which has the best directions and such beautiful work and I used a bunch of stitches I learned there on my paisley.

I'm very proud to share my very first embroidery pattern. I have a thing for paisley. My sister doesn't get it. I think I may be talking her around with my unrelenting love, but she always compares them to a certain male reproductive cell. If she hadn't just deserted me and moved to St. Louis, she would punch me in the arm for telling you that. I'm sure the comparison has already occurred to you. If it hasn't, my apologies for putting it into your brain. Hopefully my pattern is so awesome that you will now forget about it.

I made five different squares and my recent activities (here and here) may give you a clue as to what I did with them. But, that's coming a different day.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

iPod and Phone Skins--Blemish Free and So Pretty!

When I got my new phone a few months back, I was sort of disappointed in the color options.

I think it came in blue and red, except I could only get blue. That's not exactly the most exciting thing for someone as "high-brow artist" as I am (that's sarcasm right there--if they had a hot pink option, we wouldn't be having this conversation).

So, I got obsessed with making a skin for it. You can find several places online that make custom skins for electronic devices. I had quite the ordeal finding a place that carried the shape of my Gravity Smart. I'm not a picky phone person, so I didn't know my phone is sort of obscure. Or at least, I'm guessing it is, based on the fact that no one bothered offering skins for it.

Anyway, I found a place, and then decided to go for making a skin for my iPod Touch too.

Skins are basically huge stickers that you can peel off eventually. Basically, you use their software to design them (I uploaded some of my digital scrapbook papers for mine) and they print a big sticker for you and you stick it on your phone. It's all the fun of bumper stickers, but without devaluing a car.

I actually haven't put the front on my phone yet, because I keep thinking I'm going to put on a nice clear screen cover, and then put the skin over that, since it just goes around the screen. Hasn't happened yet.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.