Paperback Correspondance: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I love love love writing letters and kind of hoard stationary. I also love making cards, and as I mentioned in my last post, I made some with an old copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

I first read The Wizard of Oz in fourth grade for a board game making project. I vividly remember staying up late the night before with my mom pouring green sugar over swirls of Elmer's all over my board because we didn't have any glitter. To my delight I learned there were several other Oz books and I read them all. I didn't see the movie until I was in high school (though I watched Return to Oz all the time on TV as a kid).

It is absolutely one of my favorite books and I had so much fun making these cards.

I made one for each of Dorothy's faithful companions- the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Cowardly Lion.

I also made one with an illustration of the Munchkins, too. I plan on making more this week!

I'm really pleased with how they turned out. I don't know if I'll be able to bear actually sending one of these away!

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 bracelet!

Hooray for trying new things!! Today I made some jump rings. I have a huge stash of buttons and have been thinking about button jewelry for ages.

I acquired the wire and pliers when they were left at the library (along with a TON of seed beads after a one-time class last summer. My mom's coworker, Sandy, called the instructor, who said the library could keep them. Maybe she thought she was doing something nice, but the library staff really had no use for them, and no place to put them. Sandy knew I would love the stuff, so she gave it all to me!

I'd never wire wrapped before, but I had so many ideas. I watched videos. I pinned tutorials. And did nothing.

Until today!

Working with wire is, as I had predicted, challenging. After five buttons I needed a break. Well, also I was starving. I was on my way to the fridge when the urge to start this project hit me.

I've definitely caught the jewelry-making bug! I had so much fun, in spite of sore finger tips and a minor flesh wound. I'm going to the craft store tomorrow to scope out what's available! And to get a better pair of wire cutters.