friday miscellany

We had to dig ourselves out earlier this week. Crazy to think I heard so much about a holiday storm a week ago that turned out to be a complete dud while this storm raged on and I was none the wiser. Why do we let the media play with our emotions so? I remember the whole swine flu incident--how they stressed me out. While I would never say there wasn't some cause for concern, they could of told us all the facts, like how people die of the regular flu everyday. Hmm, why do I suddenly not feel any better by that. Ha!

Christmas shopping is still ago. Why was I thinking I could be done the week after Thanksgiving by the latest? It seems each and every time I think I'm close I remember someone else I'm missing.

Creative Wednesdays. Yes, I am still doing them though, this week I actually did a bit from my bed Tuesday instead of Wednesday. At any rate, I can't share my projects because they're gifts, but I will after the holidays. Funny, it's sounds like the gifts are something new and excited. While I assure you that's not the case, I've definitely enjoyed making them and hope they'll be received the same.


Our advent calendar is fully underway here counting down to Christmas. It's one of my kids very favorite traditions. It's the first thing they talk to me about in the morning and I haven't yet figured out if it's because I let them eat candy in the morning or because they're seeing the days peel away one by one til Christmas comes. I for one am happy with all the days leading up. Anticipation is key.

I stated playing racquetball while in St. George last weekend. Sounds like a stretch to say "played", more like I "tried". Adam was quite easy on me so I was please to walk out of there 0-4---never reaching over 3 or 4 points a game. There was even a game he gave me two points for every one point & I still lost. Really fun though. I'm thinking I need to find someone more at my level. Any takers? It actually is more of a workout than you'd realize. I was sore in places I never knew I had muscles.

After using NyQuil the day I was sick to help me sleep & Tess getting a clearer understanding of why i took it she said, "I wish they made stuff like that for kids". Little does she know there are a lot of parents who are wondering the same thing.

We received our first Christmas card in the mail yesterday, thanks Dani it is fabulous, and it's got me thinking, for the first time this season, that I need to do Christmas cards. What? How on earth have I not thought of this before now? I'm usually so on top of our Christmas card and excited to do it. Weird.

creative wednesday week 9

After Squam I got this crazy idea to put a chalk board in my kitchen (there was one in the beach house we stayed in). It's not the first time I've wanted to have a chalk board in my house. There have been countless times I've envisioned Adam and the girl's art gracing the wall, loving messages back and forth, and even daily reminders.




So I got started over the weekend and finished up yesterday. I pulled down the magnet boards, which I hadn't been loving for a while now, filled in the holes, masked off the area, and began to paint. I haven't seen the girls this excited about something in a long time. It's been like Christmas around here as they've anticipated being able to draw on it and make it theirs.

My other creative Wednesday project: yep you guessed it...

Yesterday I put the finishing touches on the gratitude journals. I assembled them all and got them ready for shipping. It really is a ton of work when you look at it step by step, but seeing the finished product makes it all worth it. I love the way they turned out and hope they are received and appreciated throughout 2011.

I am hoping to have some gratitude journals in my etsy shop in a week or two for all those interested. They will be a bit different, soft bound like paperback instead of hardbound. I'll give you the heads up when they go live in my shop. :)

Did you do anything creative this week?

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REMINDER
Oh and don't forget tomorrow is the 12th for all of you participating in 12of12. This month seemed on the longer side so I'm really looking forward to another round. Enjoy!!

creative wednesday (3 weeks)

Never fear I have not given up on my creative Wednesdays it's just been a crazy couple of weeks since I've been gone so I'm here to report what I've been up to for the last 3 weeks.

Week 6
I was in North Carolina, but that doesn't mean I wasn't being creative. The whole week was a creative journey of sorts. Here are a few of the projects I worked on.






[Photo by Elizabeth MacCrellish]

What I realized while there is you don't have to be a painter to play around with paint. I finally let go of any ideals and realized that I am what I am and painting is not necessarily my thing and you know what...I am so ok with that. I'm more than ok. I paint because I enjoy it and once I put all my preconceived ideas aside, and just did it, I had more fun with a brush in my hand then I can remember. Hopefully this knew found knowledge will help encourage me to paint more often.

Week 7
Last Wednesday I spent the entire morning on my computer looking through 1000+ images and began to edit and share them with my friends from Squam. I actually couldn't believe how long it took, I really do minimal editing, but sorting through 1000+ images is time consuming no matter the subject.









It was an enjoyable process for me...it always is. One of my favorite things about traveling is looking through all the photos once I return. There has been so much time between taking the pictures and downloading them that I often surprise myself at what I find.
You can go here to see more images.

Week 8
Yesterday I was primarily working on the gratitude journals. I spent most of my morning redesigning the art to fit a different size only to find out I spent my time redesigning it to the wrong size so it has to be redone. Oh well, we live and learn. I'm doing this because I'm in the process of looking for a printing house to help me. I so believe in the power of what thinking about what we're grateful for on a daily basis can do and how it can change us that I want to be able to share these books with as many people as are interested.


So last night in my attempt to get back the time I lost, while my friend Jenica painted, I worked on the skeletons for gratitude journals. I have the guts and skeletons, now I just need to put it all together. I do love seeing them come together.

So what have you done creative in the last three weeks?

xoxo
amy gretchen

gratitude friday (including creative wednesday)

*I'm grateful to have uninterrupted time the last two days to work on the gratitude journals. Thank you Jill, Robyn, and Kathy for splitting your time with my girls.
*I'm grateful that meant I was able to spend the evening with Adam, just the two of us, eating, talking, and laughing. It is never just an ok night out with him around...I'm always entertained.
*I'm grateful the weather has cooled enough for light sweaters and wool socks in the mornings.


*I'm grateful I learned how to sew so I could quickly put together a skirt for Bella's costume. Hopefully it will fit, I made the pattern up on the fly. This and working on the journals is what I did for creative Wednesday this week. Did you do anything creative?
*I'm grateful for books with good messages to keep me company while I work. I've been listening to The Power. It's a little cheesy, the audio anyway, but hopefully it will be what I need to help keep me thinking positively.
*I'm grateful to feel happy today.
*I'm grateful to have friends in my life that fill me up in ways only a friend can.
*I'm grateful my to do list of things to do before leaving town is almost complete.
*I'm grateful to have the opportunity to go out of town and see North Carolina for the first time.
*In light of what a friend of mine is facing, I'm grateful my children are healthy and happy little girls. With everything that can go wrong it seems like such a miracle.

What are you grateful for today?

xox, amy

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?

creative wednesday | week 3

I started my creative day making a duplicate of the earrings I made last week. One for myself and then one to sell (I will add it to etsy when I can take a decent picture), a necklace to match, and another pair of earrings (I don't want to share just yet because I have someone in mind for them). It was about the time I was finishing up the last pair of earrings that it occurred to me, Christmas is just around the corner...I better start fulfilling my orders for the gratitude journals before my work gets mixed up with the holiday craziness.



So I spent the rest of my time double checking my design and printing copy after copy of the book. In fact my printer is still going. Crazy how long just that step takes. It involves coming back to the computer about every 20-30 minutes reloading paper, checking the printing, printing the reverse side, etc. But I am thankful for this one easy step because the real work is ahead of me. I'm not complaining though, I enjoy making them and knowing they are going to be enjoyed by someone for a whole year gives me enough incentive to spend my time making them.

I'm hoping to make some extras for my etsy shop, but that will all depend on my timing. I'll keep you posted when I have some available for purchase.

xo, amy

**Did you do anything creative today?

missed headlines

What a weird week. I can't say that I'm sad to see it end, though I am looking forward to today so much. I'm so glad the comments on the photos from my last post were seen as being happy because that's exactly what it felt like....happy and joyful. And then something happened. Perhaps it was the full moon, I don't know, but my emotions heightened and I had a few rough, what I like to term, crazy days that followed. Oh wretched hormones please pass quickly...

I was busy which was one of the reasons why I didn't blog and was staying off the internet, but my state of mind led me to believe it was the best thing for everyone. So here are a few of this weeks highlights I think I would have posted about had I had my wits about me:

01. saturday morning


This is what I woke up to last Saturday morning. The four of them singing along to some song on the internet. They were so content in the moment being together I just took a picture and left them to their business and headed back to bed to read. Not a bad start to the day. Today Jill is waking up to my girls and I hope she is given the same amount of peace, though I have a feeling there has already been a lot of asking for food.

02. game night


And I can't talk about the girls having a sleepover without mentioning the reason it came about in the first place. After what seemed like all summer long we are back...game nights have resumed. I didn't realize how much I missed our nights together, laughing, bantering back and forth, winning or loosing in my case until we started up again. Plus it's fun to see how excited the girls are when they know their going to hang out with cousins.

03. smell of rain


It rained this week. A most delicious rain. Megan had a friend over at the time and they went outside to play in it. As I heard their giggles and ran to get my camera I heard Meg say to her friend, "I love the smell of rain it's so...fresh."

04. create wednesday | week 2


My friend Amy called me Thursday and the first thing out of her mouth was, "what did you do for creative wednesday?" It took me a moment to compose myself thinking, oh man did i do something... I was happy to report that I did, in fact, use my time being creative. I made another pair of earrings for my giveaway, I made 1 earring from 2 different earring sets (couldn't decide which one I liked better), I made raspberry freezer jam, and re-covered two long over do chairs. I still have two to go, but I ran out of staples. It's good to know that someone is keeping me accountable for my time, thanks Amy. Did you do something creative this week?

Have a great Saturday!
xo, amy

penciled in with pen

You know when you don't do something a lot and you get out of the habit and your yearning to do it wanes? I have been feeling like that creatively. I think about creating all the time, learning new things, using my hands, getting deep into a project, but for whatever reason am finding other things to do with my free time and not giving myself over to the creative need inside me. I can't really explain my hesitation, but suffice to say, it feels like years since I've gotten my hands dirty and I'm putting my foot down...i miss it.

Ok, so it hasn't been years, but it feels like a really long time since creating has had a regular occurrence in my life. It's time to change that...and I'm being realistic. I've taken a good look at myself and realize I'm a "schedule" person. I like to believe I'm a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of gal, there are times I spontaneously decide to do something completely random, but for the most part I stick to a schedule. So now that I understand that about myself I have decided I need to pick a day dedicated to creating, cement it in my daily schedule so it doesn't get over looked by other non-essential activities.

After 4 weeks of school we are pretty set in our routine and Wednesday seems to be my one day of the week I don't have anything permanent where I can devote a good portion of time creating. I've penciled it in with pen and have even set reminders so I can't possibly forget. And so creative Wednesdays begin.

I'm so giddy about this my wheels are turning with all the things I want to do and try. The cool thing is I'm already on track and can count this week as week 1. Wednesday I did something creative...imagine that. Remember how I mentioned I wanted to make jewelry, well, I follow through. I went to my friend Amy's, used her knowledge, and made these earrings.


It's not what I had planned to do, but I loved them so much I decided to make another pair and give them away. I figured having a giveaway is the best way I know to celebrating this new commitment I have to getting back to doing what it is I love. Plus, I would love for what I create to have more of a purpose...so giveaway it is.

So you know what to do. If you would like to have a chance to win the earrings just comment. I'll announce the winner Saturday evening.


Have a fabulous weekend. We are heading to game night for the first time in months and no one is more excited then my girls...or maybe their counsin Whitney.

Enjoy!
xxox, amy