Weekly Craft Project: Round Up Part Two

At the beginning of the year, I shared that one of my goals was to do something crafty once a week whether it's a whole project or part of a project. I thought it would be fun (and easy blog post to write, to be totally honest with everyone) to share some of the projects I have completed during this, roughly, four and half months of the year. During vacation this year and at the Stamp and Scrapbook Expo, I was able to try a few new to me crafts, which was something else I wanted to do this year. My next "craft bucket list" item is to make a card using a Create-a-Card die I got from HSN a couple of months ago.

In no particular order because the pictures weren't dated when I saved them:

2018 Craft Projects from April 20-August 16:

Added vinyl to a Project Life Binder Album. This was the first time
I decorated an album myself. I usually have them
embossed.

A t-shirt I made to wear at a Disney themed crop.

I hadn't made any die cuts in awhile, and had forgotten
 how much I enjoyed making them.

Cards from a Queen and Co kit. I still have all the cards.
Having a hard time mailing them. I might keep them.

My projects from classes and make and takes from the
Stamp and Scrapbook Expo in Chantilly, VA. One of my
favorite weekends of the year. First time I used vinyl
to create a sign.

During our vacation, I took some craft classes at the
Massanutten Resort in Virginia. The soap and jewelry
classes were new crafts for me.

Weekly Craft Project: Round Up Part One

At the beginning of the year, I shared that one of my goals for this year was to do something crafty once a week whether it's a whole project or part of a project (like the merboy tail). I thought it would be fun (and easy blog post to write, to be totally honest with everyone) to share some of the projects I have completed during this, roughly, four and half months of the year.

In no particular order because I forgot to date my pictures when I saved them:

2018 Craft Projects from January 1-April 19:

Merboy tail: This crochet project was one of my time consuming projects. I got a little off the pattern but it still turned out great and the recipient loved it. I had made one before and used brighter colors but the 4 year old receiving this one had asked for "boy" aka darker blues than the light blue and green color yarn I used for sister's mermaid tale.













Being a scrapbooker, I have completed some layouts over the last few months. I've made about thirty and will show off some of my favorites:

The last project I completed was on Sunday and it was a tablecloth and towels for the buffet that we use as a bar. Next on my list is to complete a craft project using items I bought...oh about a year or so ago...and if I don't by July then into the sell box they go. I told myself this was a for doing, and if I'm not going to use an item it's time to let it go.

Resolute About Resolutions

I didn’t exactly make New Year’s resolutions this year except that I am resolved to make this year better than the last one.

That means I intend to be even more focused on getting things done efficiently. So far, I’ve improved somewhat in that department, but there’s lots more I can do this year to get even better.

I want to stay more focused on family, too. Last year was a difficult one because of the loss of my brother. I’ve always loved my family but I intend to make that even clearer this year, if I can. But don’t worry, if any remote family members happen to be reading this. I’ll want to be in touch more, but without being pushy about it--or at least not pushier than I have been!

Other than the efficiency angle, I didn’t have to make resolutions about my writing. I do it, even on days I consider taking off. I always edit, or at least plot, and once I note anything on the computer more stuff just starts to spill out. That’s a good thing. I don’t need to make any resolutions about meeting deadlines or putting together new proposals, since that just sort of happens.

I don’t have to make resolutions about my dogs, either. They remind me about what they want and when they want it. And then they do it again. And again. Who trained whom? I’ll let you guess.

How about you--did you make any resolutions for 2012? How are you progressing in achieving them, a whole four days into the new year?

New Year's Thoughts

I have decided that the next mystery I write will be “Threadbare.” For one thing, I love the title. For another, I had been going to write “And Then You Dye,” but once I started looking at the amount of research I am going to have to do for that one, I was overwhelmed. It was like finding what I thought was the corner of a handkerchief and discovering I had taken hold of a king-size bed sheet -- the subject is enormous. I am going to continue to research the subject of dyeing, but I think it will pretty much take up a year of research just to sound as if I know what I’m writing about.

“Threadbare” is about time of death and holographic wills, and I already know a little something about them -- and anyway, there is not as much to discover in the other little details that will make up this mystery (at least, I hope not).

The New Year is almost upon us, and some of us are making New Year’s Resolutions. Not me, not this year. I’m just going to try to continue doing the good things I did in 2009, maybe a little harder, and not continue doing the bad things. Any time I get more specific with resolutions, I generally get in trouble. This time I’ll be general and see if it brings specific results. Anyone out there thinking along the same lines? Or are you making a list?

Tomorrow evening we are holding our annual New Year’s Eve penny-ante poker party. I can’t remember how many years we’ve been doing it, but it’s a lot. I remember one year we got invited to a party and canceled our poker game -- but ended up playing poker in a bedroom with some other party-goers when someone found a deck of cards! Some traditions are just too powerful to ignore.

The Spanish have a wonderful toast, and I offer it to all of you: Health, wealth, love, and time to enjoy them!

A Resolution You Can Live With

Poor Santa, he just finished his "to do" list and keeled over! I know exactly how he feels! That's why I have a suggestion...

Instead of a long list of “New Year’s Resolutions” designed to make you feel tired, irresponsible, and inept, why not focus on one attribute you’d like to achieve over the coming year? (Okay, over-achievers, TWO attributes? There, are you happy?) Cull down your expectations and marshal all your energies toward one bird in the hand instead of chasing a flock of starlings that’ll wing their way skyward and out of your reach.

Start by playing it forward. This time NEXT year, how would you like to be different? What would you want to change about yourself or your life?

Or consider, what has driven you to the brink of hair-pulling aggravation this year? What has bothered you? What has kept you from your goals? What has hounded you and made your life more complicated and less enjoyable?

Or think of how you’d like to improve. Pinpoint an area that’s a “someday I’ll” (read: “Someday Isle”) for you. What would that be? What do you keep meaning to change? When you stand in the grocery check-out lane, what article on the magazine covers always draws your attention?

Now, distill that change, that goal into a word. What would that word be?

Hit the “pause” button. Is that really the right word? Does it resonate? Don’t choose a politically correct word. Or a current hot button. Choose a word that can serve as due North for you and you alone.

Write that word on an index card or piece of stiff paper. Put it somewhere you can see it on a daily basis. Or, go through magazines and tear out photos that seem to support your special word. Glue them onto a sheet of paper. Write your special word smack-dab in the center of your collage.

While chaos reigns supreme around us, we can choose move along a straightforward path toward our goal. As long as we keep it simple, we’ve got a fighting chance. I just know it!

PS Thanks, Camille, for posting this while I’m in New York City!

Winding Up

Would you believe I’m still not feeling well? (As in having occasional attacks where I seem to be trying to cough my lungs up.) I finally went to the doctor and she said bronchitis and gave me prescriptions for an antibiotic and some cough syrup with codeine in it. Ahhhhh, codeine! But it makes me sleep, and that's why this post is getting up later than usual. Plus, I'm not going to water aerobics until this runs its course.

I am on the final scene of Thai Die. If the climatic scene reads like a fever dream, that’s because I wrote it while under the influence of several cold medications. Actually, it may have improved the writing. I was once in the presence of a bad man wielding a handgun, and perceptions alter when danger is that proximate. Images sharpen, but it’s in a kind of tunnel vision. Time slows down but it’s hard to make a decision: run or stay? Talk or scream or sit silent? I conclude that these decisions should be made ahead of time. I have been much intrigued by the new instructions for what to do when accosted by a man with a gun: run! Most people are terrible shots at distances greater than a few yards, especially when the target is moving; and by the time he reacts to your running, you’re farther away than that. And chances are, even if he shoots and hits you, it won’t be fatal. Whereas if you go with him, you almost certainly will end up dead. Same with carjacking. Keep your doors locked and if someone comes up and shows you a gun, drive off. He very likely won’t shoot – he’s after the car, not out to kill someone – and, if you do go along, he’ll make you empty your bank accounts for him. But remember, your doors have to be locked for this to work.

Tomorrow we close on the sale of our old townhouse. It took nearly six months to sell, an indication of the slump in the housing market in the Twin Cities. But sell it did, after we cut the price – twice – and now we can pay off the “bridge loan” we took out when we found ourselves obliged to pay for our new co-op apartment while still the owners of a very nice three-bedroom townhome with a tuck-under garage and functional fireplace. I like our new place very much, but it’s smaller than the old place. Which is good as far as house keeping goes – I can mop the smaller bathroom floor in half a minute. And it’s all on one level, for which my knees are very grateful. But when I set out my Fontanini Christmas pieces, I discovered that I have too many of them for the new place. I’m not sure what that means, whether I’ll set out some one year and others another. Or if I’ll have to sell some of them. We’ll see. Right now they’re all back in the cabinet allotted to them, so the problem doesn’t have to be addressed until December.

There’s one resolution I should have made for the New Year but didn’t – but there’s no reason I can’t make it now, is there? To become more organized. For me, that means getting rid of stuff. My office is already silting up, and I’ve decided I really don’t like that. It didn’t use to bother me, but now it does. I get impatient with the clutter, especially when I look at my spouse’s vast, clean space. So I resolve to do something about it.

Life will be better when that’s accomplished. And, already, life is good.

Happy New Year's resolutions

For 2008, I have come up with some New Year’s resolutions.

I hereby vow that, starting on January first:

I will not launch a diet for five days, followed by three days of rationalization for over-eating, followed by 357 days of diet-memory amnesia.

I will not launch a five-day exercise regimen, followed by three days of rationalization for why I cannot exercise, followed by 357 days of exercise-memory amnesia.

I will not take a five-day battery of vitamins and mineral supplements, followed by three days of forgetting to take most of the pills, followed by 357 days of rationalizing that my vitamin-fortified milk will pick up most of the nutrition-gap.

I will not buy diet and cook books to kick-start my New Year’s resolutions, followed by relegating said books into a kitchen cupboard, followed by banishing them to the cobwebbed corners of the library, followed by dumping them in an end-of-year donation to Goodwill.

I will not buy pants a size too small as “inspiration,” followed by the bleak realization that I am not making progress toward a better fit, followed by 357 days of “disappearing” the offending pants into the depths of my closet, never to be seen again.


Do these resolutions sound too negative? Okay, here are some positive ones:

I will pay attention to hunger signals, and eat only after my stomach growls.

I will move my body each day, enough to feel my blood pumping through my cardiovascular system at a measurable rate.

I will incorporate three servings of high-nutrition vegetables and/or fruit into my daily intake.

I will spend money only on the clothes that make me feel fabulous, whatever size—and I will wear them often. I will wear them too often, in fact.

What about you? Do you have any New Year’s resolutions, negative or positive? Any that you make each January, and then abandon?