WIPWednesday: New year, new phone, new project!

Happy New Years, everyone! Hope all of you had a very merry holiday season.

2014 is going to be a pretty kick-ass year. I can feel it in my bones. My 2013 was... well, it wasn't all bad, but it's definitely a book I am happy to close. I'm looking forward to the blank canvass of 2014 that I can see stretching out ahead of me.

The biggest change so far: I have finally joined the twenty-first century and got an iPhone. Yay! So far I'm enjoying it thoroughly. It's a pretty far cry from the thirty-dollar texting phone I was on before.

I'm also FINALLY using my sewing machine. It was a Christmas gift three years ago- sheesh! I kind of figured out the basics a while ago, but I haven't really used it. As a Christmas gift this year my mom got me sewing classes at the local quilting store.  YAY!

I'm making an Amy Butler bag and I'm SO excited. I love the prints I found for this project.

 I haven't actually done any sewing but I've gotten all my cutting done. Of course Groucho had to see what was up...

Happy Wednesday everyone!

WIPWednesday: Christmas + Books

Between Thanksgiving, my birthday on the 2nd, and a crazy busy week at work I haven't had much time for crafting, but I made time yesterday. I found some reindeer at the local craft store for fifty-nine cents a pop. So of course I grabbed a bunch.

I didn't finish this guy because I had to clean up and get ready for work- boo. So far so good though, yeah? I used pages from Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. I also plan on some sheet music reindeer, too. I should have a whole mess of these little guys soon!

WIPWednesday: Vintage Ribbon projects.

I have a ton of really awesome vintage ribbon. A couple years ago an old neighbor gave it to us; she was a secretary in a ribbon factory in the '60s and she'd hung on to it all this time.

Isn't it so awesome?? The problem I've got is that I'm kind of terrified to use it. It's so special and unique and so I end up hoarding it. I've used it in cardmaking once or twice, but never ever to wrap a gift! I'm trying to find projects that use it in ways where it won't be thrown away.

My first idea? Clear glass bulbs.

I'm not entirely happy with the result. To be honest, I'm kind of tired of the glass-ornament-filled-with-stuff look. And it was a pain trying to force the ribbon through the small opening at the top of the ornament.

Ideas? I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you would do with ribbon like this!

WIPWednesday: Scarf

Whew! It's been like a week or something since I blogged. Last week I was getting ready for a garage sale, mostly, and sorting through stuff in the garage. (I made seventy bucks, but I still have so much crap that didn't sell!)

Yesterday on my day off I went to Jo-Ann's for some glue. The one in town just moved to a giant new location and I wound up in the yarn aisle- oops. Don't need any yarn. Bought some anyways.

I figured I need a new scarf anyways though, right? I got some beautiful Besnat roving, and popped in a DVD a coworker had loaned me (Crazy Stupid Love). I poked around Pinterest for some ideas but kind of came up with my own pattern.

It's going quickly with the bulky yarn. I could finish it today if I didn't have to go to work. I haven't crocheted anything in something like eight months, and I didn't realize how much I missed it.

WIPWednesday: sidetracked

Not much crafting this week. I'm trying to clean out my closet and read some of the books I've got laying around. I've got a big stack that I want to read but probably aren't keepers, so by reading, I'm also cleaning and decluttering! My logic is sound, right??

I did work on this WIP for about five minutes before I got distracted. Ok, maybe ten minutes.

I traced out the letters using an old drafting pencil- light lines, and a long, sturdy lead to get into the tight corners of those letters! Once I glue them down I'll have to do some trimming with a razor, but they turned out pretty well!

I started looking for my mod podge and instead I found... some tiny toys.

I got totally sidetracked taking pictures of them and never found my glue. 

So now I still haven't finished this damn project (that really should have taken, like, a day) and my desk is littered with PVC figurines and micromachines.

I suppose it could be worse.

WIPWednesday: My craft stash, my life.

Alas, I have made no progress on last week's WIPWednesday project. I did sit down to work on it on Monday, because I found the perfect copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz- falling apart, beautifully yellowed, and with illustrations. I couldn't believe my luck. Buuuuuut as per usual I got sidetracked and started another project. I made some greeting cards with illustrations (similar to this one and these others) and they turned out really well! Hopefully I'll have them up later this week.

This week's WIP, though, is my stash of craft supplies.

I'm a packrat, through and through. I got it from my dad. So of course, my crafty stash of buttons, beads, scraps of paper, bits of fabric and ribbon, and other odds and ends is too big. Not to mention I'm organizationally challenged.

I hastily moved back to my mom's after a painful but definitely for-the-best breakup mid-July and so much of my crap is still in the garage, totally unorganized. When I packed up all my craft stuff at the old apartment I had probably seven different ongoing projects on my desk, and we literally just threw everything into these little plastic boxes we had handy.

I hadn't touched them until today, when I got the organizing bug. Part of the difficulty is that I don't have a space in the house to put everything yet. Maybe eventually in the extra bedroom, but Mom will take some convincing...

It felt really good to work on all this stuff today. I went from a dozen little boxes of totally unorganized odds and ends to four designated boxes. Slowly but surely I'll sort through all this crap, figure out what's worth keeping, and where the heck I'm going to put it.

WIPWednesday: bookshelf decoration

Several months ago I found this little thing at a thrift shop- very pink, very cutesy, probably intended for a little girl's room. Something about it caught my fancy and I hid it away. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it, but I'd spent a buck on it, so it just gathered dust...

I pulled it out this week to finally let it go. Instead I decided to paint it and decoupage book pages over the front of the letters. Because books are friends!

The pink shows through a little on the letters, but that'll be covered up. I was all ready to finish this project but I didn't have the right book. I'd like to use an old favorite- Wizard of Oz, maybe. I'll check out the little used book shop at the library and see what I can find!

Haven't done much work on last week's WIP. Maybe next week!

Work-in-progress Wednesday

I think I'll start trying to post a work-in-progress or two every Wednesday. I haven't had a great track record with this sort of regular weekly stuff (or, you know, blogging period), but I'll give it a shot. WIPWednesday is nothing new, and hopefully doing it myself will both encourage me to finish projects and connect with other WIPWednesday-ers.

Yesterday I started working on something for my mother- a special book-plate to mark a shelf at the library that holds her personal recommendations for patrons.

She found the image with the ship and text, but wanted something more. She loved the card I made last week with book pages and asked if I would help her with something similar. Of course I was happy to!

We'll probably glue the image down over what I've done and trim it into a border for the image. One reason this is a WIP is that I'm out of glue and couldn't get out to the store for more.

I'll be sure to finish the finished project!