Happy Halloween!!

I hope your holiday is filled with candy and joy. And ghosts. I have the day off, but no plans. I've got sugar cookie dough chilling in the fridge and plans to score some half-off halloween goodies tomorrow at Target.

If you're feeling spooky, check out this silly halloween quiz from Kate Beaton, the witty, history-buff-tastic genius behind Hark, a vagrant. It's a hilarious comic that's mostly about famous figures from history.

Happy haunting!

Christmas crafts!

In a moment of delirious wishful thinking this morning I pulled out some old sweaters. It's still too warm to wear them, and I realized most of my sweaters have seen better days anyways. I cut up an old green one for upcycling! I made a super cute little tree ornament with some old buttons and a scrap of ribbon.

Coffee because I needed a fourth picture :)

I really wasn't up for taking "proper" pictures of it- lighting in my apartment really sucks. So unless I go visit my mom's lovely, light, super-windowed house it's kind of a pain in the butt to take a good picture of anything, especially since my photo skills are currently... under development. I snapped a few so-so pictures and pulled up Pixlr's Instagram-esque editor, Pixlr-o-matic. So much fun! I have a dumbphone, so I've never played with all the fun filters and effects Instagram and other similar apps have, and I just never got around to finding a computer-based alternative. Pixlr also offers pretty powerful photo editing tools online, for free! You can also download Pixlr-o-matic for your desktop! (I promise I wasn't payed to say any of that.)

Is it too early to prepare for Christmas? Whenever I see holiday merch in retail stores in September I get a little disgusted. I hate hearing holiday music before December 1st. But every Christmas I have all these awesome ideas and projects and I never get them all done. Every year I start earlier in hopes of accomplishing my crazy goals. Do any of you do the same thing? How early is too early?

Button crafts: wine charms

Wine charms!

I'm not really a wine drinker. I'd much prefer a good local beer. But I know plenty of wine drinkers, and I do live in a locale with several wineries. Also a good excuse to make something cute with all these buttons I've got! (Especially since I, uh, bought more last weekend.)

This was my first attempt... I think they came out pretty well! I gave them to my mother and she loved them.

I've got more sets in the works. Hello, Christmas gifts!! Look at you being made almost three months in advance.


A note on making wine charms:

With most projects I try, I usually do a little Pinterest research if I'm not straight up following a specific tutorial. But not with these! I just found the right sized coil of memory wire at a craft store, bought it on a whim, and used pliers, jump rings, and buttons/beads I had on hand to put them together. Afterwards, I did search on Pinterest and found that I don't finish off my charm rings like most other crafters seem to do, with a sort of loop-and-hook. Instead, I made a closed-off loop at each end, like so:

I found this method easy- just pull the end of the wire around with needle-nose pliers to make sort of a c-shape, and pinch shut with regular pliers. The charm goes on to the stem of a glass easily and stays on no problem!

You can purchase wire rings specifically for making wine charms on Etsy and probably most craft supply shops.

Happy crafting!

Caturday craft!

This Caturday I'm posting a plug for one of my bestest friends, Jessie and her awesome Etsy, Ciaobeatrice! She makes super cute animal pillows and her kitten (pillow) is adorable.

Jess is one of the sweetest, awesomest, talented ladies I know. She lives in LA- too far from here! She just put a new Hobbes softy in her shop, too!

Crafts tomorrow. I'm excited!

Egads! I missed a day.

I didn't have anything planned anyways, and I really am trying to have meaningful content as often as possible. But it's not always possible!

Today's another stub of a post. I have a long long shift today- first day for Perks of Being a Wallflower! And we're having a game night tonight. I have Saturday off, though, so hopefully I will sleep well tonight and have a nice productive day tomorrow!

Rough start, good day.

Today has not totally gone as planned. I didn't sleep well, so I got a slow start, but I've had spurts of productivity. I went through some old stuff at my mom's and set aside a whole box of stuff to find a new home for, and Mom and I had a good talk.

I haven't done much on my list yet, but there is still time left in the day. Time to do laundry, time to do dishes, time to craft. As soon as my coffee kicks in.

Getting organized

Because I'm not.

I've never really been organized, and I'm constantly caught in a vicious cycle: I'm naturally a little scatterbrained, so I'm prone to disorganization. But my unorganized life makes my scatterbrained-ness worse, which in turn makes it harder for me to get organized. It doesn't help that Wes and I have crazy customer service schedules, either.

But I know I need to change.

Last month I got a month-to-month organizer and a tear-off pad weekly organizer whose pages fit just perfectly in the month-to-month.

And I haven't really used them! I think I will use NaBloWriMo as a tool to get organized... to keep myself accountable for goals that I set.

• I will plan ahead for blog posts, so I rarely wake up thinking, "Ok, what the heck will I write about this morning?" 
• I will take note of what nights Wes and I are off together, so I can plan ahead to have a healthy meal that we can cook together.
• I will plan what days I do laundry, and record what days I wash the sheets and the shower curtain.
• I will also plan one day a week to clean the bathroom and the kitchen floor, and vacuum the carpet.
• I will spend 20 minutes every day on decluttering. 

Whew! I think this is a good start. Not all of my ultimate goals are on here- I don't have anything about organizing my craft desk, or setting a schedule for organizing our wedding, but I think those will follow. One thing at a time!

October + NaBloWriMo + a work in progress!

Hooray, October is here! That means Indian summer is in full swing out here... it's supposed to hit 103 degrees today- yikes! That ALSO means that NaBloWriMo is here. The official prompt is to give yourself an introduction, and I don't have a functioning "about me" page yet, so here are some factoids about me:

• I am a huge D&D playing, Stargate/Star Trek/Star Wars loving, always-reading kind of nerd. 
• I am engaged to the sweetest, handsomest, silliest, nerdiest boy I have ever met.
• I love love love upcycling. Most of my craft projects somehow involve taking old stuff and making it into new stuff... like these cards I made with an old book.
• I have a degree in international relations but I haven't found a "real" job yet, so for now I'm a manager at a small movie theater that serves beer, wine, and real food. And popcorn, too.
• I. LOVE. CATS. I celebrate them every Saturday with my Caturday series. (Don't worry, I don't celebrate Caturday in the "traditional" internet fashion of lolcats.) I wish wish wish I could have a kitty, but our apartment is too small and we'd have to pay pet rent. 
• I prefer to buy things second hand. Good for my wallet, good for the earth, good for what ever non-profit runs the thrift shop!
• I live in the East Bay in CA and I love it!

Seven is enough, right? 

I also want to share one of my current works-in-progress, since I spent all my time crafting last week and poppyrocket suffered a little as a result.

I'm working on a super chunky baubley sort of bracelet with lots of buttons! It's so much fun. I can't wait to finish it... but I'm out of findings so I've got to go shopping today! I had wanted to go over the weekend but there was absolutely no time and not working on it is killing me.

Hope your October 1st is more fall-ish than mine!!