creative wednesday | week 4

This is a bag filled with dreams & recipes for soup & she's deciding right now which she's really hungry for. -storypeople

I read this yesterday and it made me laugh out loud. I guess you could say I was lying in bed trying to make myself get up and be productive when all I really wanted to do was pick up a book and stay cozy for a little while longer.

What to choose?

You'd be happy to know though, I picked my dream. I got up, did my essential morning activities, and headed straight to my studio to keep my creative Wednesday appointment.


I continued working on the gratitude journals I started last week, folding the signatures and punching holes. Now they're ready to be sewn.


I put together cards made from photographs from my Oregon trip.


Then I added the cards and other photographs onto my etsy site...it's been empty for far too long. It's crazy how much time that takes. Visit my site for more.

It was a busy day, but a very successful creative wednesday if I do say so myself.

--Did you do anything creative today?

miscellany

the guts of the books are all done now (printed, folded, punched, sewn, glued) and I'll be spending most of my day working on the outside so I can get these to you next week. I am waiting for a shipment of book board (I ran out) to come in and found out it won't be arriving until the 13th. So even though I'm ahead of schedule, it will most likely be Friday that they make it onto etsy. I will let you know though.


Painted with Hannah, Jenica, and Amy again Thursday night. We worked on our word for the year canvases. Here's a glimpse of what I was working on. Whenever I get together with other woman I realize why we need friends in our life. There's just something about the ease in which a conversion flows with girls and the importance of shared confidences and inevitable laughter that stays with you long after you've gone home.


Because I went painting Thursday night Megan woke up Friday morning wanting to paint with me. I guess there's something way more fun about using mom's paint and mom's brushes. She made a "butterfly flying in the fields" and I just messed around with layering paint on a small 5x7 canvas. For me it was just all about being with her and watching her explore.


Adam's been talking to me about painting our room for the last month or so. I've been against it because he wanted a ginger color and I just don't want to do any type of red (I've done it before and wasn't a big fan). Wednesday he told me he wanted to paint it this gray color that I love. I was excited as we really do need a change, but admit to being apprehensive when I woke up Friday morning and saw all the white patches covering the walls knowing he was getting ready to make good on his promise to paint. He got started on it this morning and I absolutely love it. It's much darker than before, but it's definitely what I had in mind, I don't know why I ever doubted. He's got a couple more Saturdays of painting to go, but so far it's marvelous. I'll definitely post pictures when it's done because we also plan on adding curtains and different lamps. I love how changing just a little can make such a huge difference.

Have a great weekend.

pieces

As of yesterday we are back on a schedule. As much as I loved my luxurious sleep ins during the holiday break, it feels good to get back on track. My organizing/purging mood that started after Christmas is still with me even though you can't tell I touched the basement at all. Sigh. I'm hoping to get to each room by the time February comes around. Today I took 4 bags to the DI. Feels good to give/throw stuff away...doesn't it?


I keep thinking to myself, so much for resolutions. Five days in and I've already eaten a weekly size portion of candy. I thought I had better willpower than that. Apparently I need to take it once step further and just get it out of my house. I admit to being sad about that. I do love candy after lunch. What do you do to satisfy your sweet tooth?


I'm working as quickly as I can to make the gratitude journals so they'll be ready by next week. I spent all day yesterday printing and was only able to complete 4 books (that's just the printing mind you). I figured out it took me 2 hours to print one book so today I've been calling around and think I will be going the professional route. Just doesn't making sense otherwise.


I could definitely use a bit of this clarity today. I took this photo Satruday morning through my studio window and was amazed by the bright blue sky I woke up to. Today it's gray and drab. Although I'm feeling great, the incessant grayness does have a way of sneaking in from time to time. Man, I wish it would snow again to wash it all away.

handmade

I didn't make as many gifts this Christmas as a I did last year, but what I did make I was so excited about. I've been thinking a lot about gratitude the last few weeks. How feeling grateful actually changes your attitude which in turn changes the way you see life. So with that on my mind I decided to make gratitude journals that would help keep you thinking about gratitude all year long.





It was more of an undertaking than I thought, designing it all from scratch, but one of those projects for me that didn't seem like work at all. I created the book layout in Indesign. Here are my initial notes. I had to work out each individual signature (group of pages) before I could begin to lay it out. I told Adam there must be a program out there that does this for you, but didn't have the time or patients or money to go looking for it.



quote from book:

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melody Beattie



You can't really see it so clearly in the picture, but each page has three days and a place to write 3 things your grateful for from that day. It was definitely a labor of love and hope Adam's sisters and mom will enjoy them this coming year.

And because I loved the way they turned out so much and the concept that I decided to make an extra one to sell. I know I'm cutting it close with the new year starting this week, but seeing as they were gifts I couldn't share this information until after Christmas. If your at all interested go here to see it in my etsy shop.

Have a great day!

july giveaway

It felt good to wake up this morning excited to actually make something. I decided to give away another small 4x5.5 inch notebook I sewed together and bound with ribbon.



To win just leave a comment and I'll post the winner Friday.

Have a great day!

march giveaway

Right now I feel like I'm running faster than I have strength. In fact, I'm not quite sure how I'm doing all that I'm doing, but I'm grateful that I am. I'm really glad I have this brief moment before dance to post my giveaway because yesterday I actually had an SPT, but not time to post it. Sigh! I hate when I'm this busy.

So without further ado, this month I'm giving away a small 4x5.5 inch book I sewed together and bound with ribbon. Let's just say it's my ode to spring.



To enter just leave a comment and I'll announce the winner Friday.

Have a great day!

weekly tidbits

It's crazy how a week can go by and not much will happen and then another week will go by and you feel like it was so full you could hardly breath. Well, I sort of feel like my was full, but not with scheduled things I had to do, besides swim lessons, it felt full because of all the stuff I wanted to do.

Saturday I attended Amy's book binding class, which I just loved, and have been dreaming of making books ever since. My minds flooded with ideas. It's funny I got home and showed Adam what I made and he wants me to teach him how. Had I known he could have come to the class with me. Perhaps next time we can do it together.



I woke up one night or I should say early one morning (2am) and made this felt book.



Amy, Hannah, Jenn, and Michelle all have one and I couldn't wait to have a cute little book to hold all my needles. Thanks ladies for the inspiration, and Amy thanks again for a fabulous afternoon.

We went Miniature Golfing as a family on Monday night for Megan's bday.







It's what she really wanted to do, but had to wait because Adam and the girls were camping on her birthday Friday night. The kids raced through the course as I knew they would, the heat was unfortunately still beating down on us at 7pm, but we had a lot of fun or at least I know Megan did.

I've had this hankering to scrapbook again. I always want to, but it seems I never really do find the time. The other night I was up late working on these (one still in the works).


[inspiration came from makingmemories blog in their design album, it didn't specify the artist.]


[8x8 layout - song lyrics]
It's interesting as I was thinking about scrapbooking so was Bella. She was asking me tons of questions the other day about it and wants to start doing it with me. I was actually really excited about the two of us playing together in my studio. Perhaps scrapbooking will be her way into the creative world...it was mine.



Thursday night we went to a bbq with our neighbors. It was a low key night where basically the kids played and we talked for hours. Once it got dark we did a few fireworks with the kids and I brought glow in the dark sticks for everyone to play with (hence the photo) that went over huge. I'm at a really great stage where the kids can easily be entertained and I don't have to watch them 24/7. It's so relaxing.

have a great weekend.