Bowls!

It's been awhile since my last post, but never fear! It's not because of a lack of crafting. I keep intending to write a post in the evenings after work, but I'm telling you - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia combined with chicken strips and "potato medley" from Trader Joe's has started to get a little addicting. One of these days I'm going to start cooking again...just not right now.

At any rate, I tried my hand last weekend at knitting and felting three bowls in the hopes of needle-felting some sort of design on them. The large one and the small one were off a pattern, but the middle one I sort of just freestyled because I had a feeling the large one would be way too big. It seemed like it would be more of a canister, which I wasn't really going for:


I like the little brown one the best and, post-felting, I knitted another one even smaller. Sorry, though, no pictures yet as I haven't gotten a chance to pose it. :-)

Monday and Tuesday nights were essentially devoted to needle-felting on top of the bowls. I figured these would sort of be test projects anyway, so I just went for anything that came to mind. For the purple bowl, I attempted two birds on one side and a sort of Orla Kiely-ish leaf design on the other. On the whole, I love the leaf and will definitely have to try that again. The birds are a little strange though...they didn't entirely turn out like I had envisioned.



It looked alright when it was just the bigger bird, but my OCD made me obsess about it being a little crooked so I tried adding the little guy for balance. I think if I just did one larger bird it would look better...might have to try that on another side.

For the blue middle-sized bowl, I thought it would be really cool to needle-felt "NOTIONS" on the side of the bowl to indicated it would be, in fact, for holding notions. However, I don't know if I made the letters too big, or if I spaced them out too much, but the result is less than pleasing. Every time I look at it I think it says "LOTION" because you can't see the whole word and, really, what other popular word has "OTION" in it.

The jury is still out on this one. I really want to like it since I spent so much time trying to get those GD letters on there, but I sort of don't. I think if I could get the whole word on one side of the bowl it would be another story.

I still haven't put anything on the little brown guy. I'm considering polka dots...that could be interesting, right? Maybe in a couple different colors? Or, alternately, I might try a different bird. I really really want to bird idea to work out.

In other news, Adam has decided to get into a Lego kick. I had essentially forgotten about Legos, but after going into the Bellevue store yesterday I had a TON of memories come back. Like, some of the sets Tommy and I used to have are still for sale! He ended up buying an X-Wing set which was freaking sweet and we are heading back in about an hour. I am seriously considering getting a new phone as I essentially can't text anymore. I think I'm going to go for the Blackberry Storm because I really want a touch screen and I can't have the iPhone (switching away from Verizon is just ridiculous). Maybe in another two years when this contract expires Verizon will have something sweeter. But I mean Blackberry just opened an App store so maybe I can get some sweet stuff? I know the phone comes with a Flickr application, so get ready for me to start my own life Flickr Pool. It's going to be out the cuts.

Hey Computer!

This week has been great so far for getting things done! I am so quickly distracted by the TV or bed, or attempting to "read" on the couch, but so far I have managed to avoid all those things! (slight lie...I did was last week's 30 Rock last night and last week's Office tonight and OMG to both)

Crafting hasn't been too productive, though tonight I did knit a quick bowl to felt (it essentially looks like a hat at this point). I might try to get that felted this weekend so I can try my hand at needle felting onto it. Big news for yesterday though was REGISTERING! Though it isn't nearly complete, it did set up a registry on both Crate and Barrel's website and cb2.com (love it!). I'm not even bothing to do Macy's since they have too much stuff I want to look at in person and their website is a bit of a mess. Favorite item added to the registry you ask? See for yourself: http://www.cb2.com/family.aspx?c=830&f=5180&viewall=1. It's necessary, right? My deck would definitely not be complete without it.

On another side note, Adam has finally broken down and purchased the starter books for Dungeons and Dragons. Shocking, but true. It would be much more of a nerd event except Tommy played all throughout high school so I have already been exposed to it. Bonus for me though - I made him get me our next book club book with the order.

I feel like this post isn't complete without a picture. I'll throw Colin in here for everyone...hey Colin...

Paper Boxes

I feel like I'm already getting a little carried away with this blog thing, but for some reason it is REALLY EXCITING to share my little projects (even though, at this very moment, I don't think I have any readers!).

So I'm sitting at my Work Desk, thumbing through Martha Stewart's craft book, and I am just dying to try something. However as I don't quite have Martha's craft arsenal at my fingertips, I DO have a nice packet of paper (thanks wedding planning!) Alas, a paper box was born! Now, just pretend that sheet of paper is decopauged and not purchased off the rack at Michael's and we're in business! Martha, of course, had instructions for 7 sizes of box bottoms and their corresponding lids but being equipped with only the sheet of paper and a ruler I've had since I was about 8, I decided just to make one box bottom (conveniently!) the size of the paper:

If you can see in the book there on the table at all, you can see Martha's whole stack. As soon as I can get my hands on one of those little grid cutter thingies, and perhaps a rotary knife thing, I too can have my lid size of 9 7/8" x 9 7/8"!

Ta-Da! This project makes me very happy, even though it took approximately 5 minutes to both learn and create. Though, I have to admit for the first try I used a piece of copy paper that I ripped into a square, and tried to measure the folds with the above-pictured iPod Shuffle. When I realized it was doable, I ripped apart the room for the ruler and busted out the fancy paper. I see a trip to the Michael's in Southcenter in this weekend's future...

First Entry!

Craft blog and...go!

I've been throwing the idea of starting a craft blog for the last couple of months. I want to be able to post not only things I have completed, but ideas I'm working on and inspiration. So far the extent of my crafting has been decorating my second bedroom with random cute accessories, but soon it will be a haven of creativity! With yesterday's addition of an official Work Table (thank you Ikea Vika Artur being 50%) I have no more excuses to work on the kitchen table and slowly meander over to the TV, or start playing Animal Crossing (shaking fist at Tom Nook). Maybe it is best that Tommy doesn't get that game...I don't think I could resist the urge to send him empty cans I fish out of the river or that crappy office chair I dug out of the recycling bin.

On a craft related note, I have (almost) finished my first needle felting project - a rose corsage. I bought all the supplies about a week ago and I love it! Who knew that taking some random wool and poking it with a barbed needle could turn into such art!



Also, please note I say almost completed here because I want it to eventually be a pin, so I need to go out to JoAnn's soon and buy a little clip to felt onto the back. Right now it just kind of sits on my desk and reminds me of all the possibilities...

I think my next project is going to involve both wet (washing machine) felting and needle felting. I want to knit a set of coasters, felt them, and then needle felt something onto them. Getting back into wet felting is really making me wish I had a washing machine in my apartment after all...though the old one in Magnolia was really a piece of crap. I predict myself in a month's time going to get a roll of quarters just to felt next door. The alternative is using my parent's condo in Ballard which, really, wouldn't be bad either. It will be interesting to needle felt something freehand, though, as sadly the rose corsage was made by felting inside of an easy-to-use mold. Edward and Murphy still like it though...

OK one last thing (I was going to leave you with that artful picture of Edward and Murphy on my wine-rack-turned-yarn-holder, BUT I forgot to rave about how my new potential favorite book was couriered to me today at the office THREE DAYS EARLY (thank you Amazon!). Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts is just waiting for me to sign off and sit down at the above-referenced Official Work Desk and thumb through it with a cup of tea and my dog. And...GO!