Refinished cutting board and trying to keep up…

You know, “back in the day” I could get so much more accomplished…I’d run around here and complete this or that task in mere minutes. Now I drag my sorry self around and push myself through the tasks and it seems as if I never get anything accomplished! Maybe that’s why I love crafting so much. You can see your results – you can show other people your results! It’s not like yesterday – I worked in the yard for hours – and it still looks pretty much the same! Here is one craft I did this week -

My mother-in-law and I went to a garage sale this past Saturday and I brought home this cutting board. It was in pretty rough shape but I wanted to see if I could make it better. I think it was around fifty cents or a buck. I got out my hand sander and started sanding. I started with a 60 grit paper and it got all gunked up right away. There was either a funky finish on this board or years of grease build-up. (ewwww!) Then I went to a 100 grit and finished with a 150 grit. I did all of this at the kitchen table because A – we had 40 days and 40 nights of rain and it was still raining & B – the kitchen already needed a good cleaning. I had to wipe down every surface anyways. Then I rubbed on some wood butter and here it is!

and the other side -

If I had been sanding outside I would have sanded longer. Even though the kitchen needed to be cleaned this made a BIG MESS lol! I sanded for a half an hour and called it “good enough”. I can sand longer when it needs to be refinished some other day.

Did you notice that odd assortment of things in the first picture? Well, that is part of a project that is on my kitchen table right now. Almost done. Just waiting for the paint to dry. I’m trying really really hard to tackle each new project I bring into the house RIGHT AWAY. My “someday I’ll fix this up” pile got a little out of control lol.

I also worked on a needle felting project in the evenings this week.

I’m starting a little woodland play-set.

There is still a lot to do but it’s always fun!

And here is the lazy woman’s way to clean a fleece. Let the rain pound some of the vegetable matter out of it! This is a meat sheep fleece and pretty dirty. I cleaned some of it a few months ago and it took around 5 bathtub refills…and the water was still dirty. Bummer. But it felts up really fast and works well for your foundation felting. Sooo…I’m going to experiment a bit. I got the fleece for free from a lady I met at last year’s Bazaar. She is a teacher and invited me to her classroom to teach her students how to wash the wool. They did a great job! Way better than I’ve done lol!

In other news I think I accidentally deleted all my old blog posts pictures. Oops! I just went back to try to link up wood butter and the picture is gone…all the pictures are gone! I had gone into my Google account and Windows Live Writer account checked out some settings…it seemed as if I was opening all  my pictures in Windows Live Writer and they were public! All my pictures…so I freaked out a little and started deleting things. Maybe I should have thought about it a little longer…cause I remember clicking a button that said “this delete option is permanent”. Aaaannnndddd – I’ve been cleaning out the photos in my computer and have been deleting all the craft photos…figuring they were on my blog anyways…so…a huge chunk of my life is deleted. And a huge chunk of this blog is without pictures. sigh. That’s just the way it goes. You’d think I’d be more upset about this…

Happy Crafting!!!

Quilling!

A few months ago Ann from All Things Paper contacted me and asked me if I’d be willing to do a quilling commission – I have to admit…I was scared! But I said yes. The client and I “talked” a bit via email and I sent her some ideas and this is what I came up with!

She wanted the word “love” and she wanted it in purples, pinks, and blues…hydrangea colors. I’d have to say the scariest part of this project was keeping it clean lol! I was terrified I’d touch it with smudged fingers or get a glop of glue in the wrong place…I like how it turned out! She framed it and sent me a picture -

Doesn’t it look pretty in the frame? It tickles me to no end to know a piece of artwork I created is hanging and loved by someone on the other side of the country!

Speaking of artwork – I attended a benefit a couple weeks ago and bid on a painting in a silent auction…and won!

This watercolor was created by an 85 year old woman – who has obviously honed her craft! I am so happy to know you can be 85 and still crafting!!!!

Hmmmm…in other news I finally tried a little digital scrapbooking. I don’t have many “supplies” but I came up with this -

There is a lot to learn…this was a ten minute try and all elements were free. :) I love free! Shoot! I bet I should link to the free elements but honestly…I have no idea whom they belong to…I kinda went nuts on National Scrapbook Day downloading all the freebies out there…I’ll try to do better next time… This is going to be so cool! Someday I’ll have everything scrapbooked and then I can upload/download them to Walmart or whatever and have a book printed out for each kid! They could even have the same pages!!!! I have around a hundred scrapbooked pages in VERY HEAVY and BULKY albums and if a kid even breathes on them wrong I have a fit. The digital versions are replaceable…

Happy Crafting!!!

Some changes are good!

(snip of my Google Reader page – I’m still going to subscribe to those blogs shown :) )

Bye bye Google Reader…you have been much loved…I’ve imported 356 blogs into you to be read by me. I used to panic if Google Reader said I had 50 unread posts…then I got over it and I probably have 5,000 unread posts…dead digital weight as far as I’m concerned. I’ve reading about other RSS readers and decided on The Old Reader. There are lots of options out there and I started signing up somewhere else but they have been inundated with new subscribers and no longer offer free subscriptions. The Old Reader is perfect that way…I can use it for a while and donate if and when I love it. It is set up like the old Google Reader, thus the name lol. There is an option to just import all my original subscriptions and I tried to do that … but then I stopped … and thought this is a perfect opportunity to clean up some of my digital clutter! I decided to only import my very favorite blogs. It has been surprising! I’m only subscribing to about 1 in 10 blogs that I used to subscribe to! It is so much easier to just not subscribe rather than “unsubscribe”. I could never make myself “unsubscribe” because I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. lol. It feels good to be cleaning it up!

I’ve also started to click the “unsubscribe” button on various emails I’ve been getting. Why did I sign up for so many newsletters? Probably to get something free. However, if it is just annoying to continue to get those newsletters then it’s time to unsubscribe. Get rid of more clutter!

You have until July 1st before Google Reader shuts down…perfect time to clean up your feeds!

While we are on the subject of cleaning up and making your life easier I have to tell you that I love this product!!!

I’m always a sucker for cleaning products…but let me tell you a little story. Once, long ago, a neighbor stopped by my house and I was mortified by how messy it was. One of the worst areas was my messy splattered counter. When I saw her looking at it I looked at it and told her the truth - “I wait to wipe down my counter when I do my dishes and the sink is full of hot soapy water.” (Remember, cheapo me doesn’t like to run the water too much…) As soon as those words left my mouth I realized how stupid that sounded!!! Since then I’ve tried different things from Clorox wipes, to homemade Clorox wipes to sprays…this is a better fit! It is compact and cute enough to sit on the counter and I can refill it with whatever I want down the road. I got a second one for the bathroom. They cost about three dollars each and I consider it money well spent. The only thing that would really bug me about these is if the pump stopped pumping. (Hey Windex – if you want to sponsor me I’m up for the task!)

Here’s a not-so-good change…I’ve been getting tons of spam comments and I had to turn on the feature that will make you type in random numbers and letters (to prove you’re not a robot) to leave a comment. Bummer, I hate those too. Otherwise I’ve tried making it as easy as possible but I still get emails and calls saying leaving a comment isn’t working. I don’t know what to tell you…keep trying? Because it is so much fun to read your comments!!!!

In crafting news I’m working on a project for the library and it’s taking a lot longer than I expected. Have to wait for lots of glue and paint to dry…

I did have fun changing out the pillowcases on the couch to these “summerier” ones I made a month ago or so! I used yarn to crochet the edges this time…I like them both ways…yarn or thread…

Happy Crafting!

Rug redo! (Crochet circle rug)

Here is the finished – or almost finished – rug. I’ve been using it at the kitchen sink for a couple of weeks so it has flattened out quite a bit. It is really nice to stand on and holds a ton of dirt! It didn’t start out as a circle though…

It started out like this. I’ve been researching patterns all over the internet trying to find one that made sense to me. The one I referred to for this one said “increase when you think you need to” – what! A newbie like me doesn’t have the know-how to “increase when needed”. I needed a PATTERN…but not too hard cause I can barely read a pattern. Here is a tutorial that made sense to me. So I ripped this all out and started over. The “yarn” is a vintage sheet that I ripped into about 1-1.5” strips. I haven’t decided if it’s finished yet. To keep it from unraveling I put a pin in the last crochet hole and tucked the end under the rug. I’m liking the size but I can make it bigger later on if I want. I goofed up a few times but this is a perfect practice project…cost = next to nothing. I had the sheet in my stash and had the crochet hook in my stash. smile. Gotta keep using up that stash!

In other news I’m now on Instagram. I just haven’t been taking pictures of the kids or our life like I should. Mostly it’s because the camera is never with me…but my phone is! That is what that new little camera icon is at the top right hand side of the screen is. That will take you to me…you may have to set up an Instagram account to view – I don’t know – but that is easy! You’ll mostly see craft projects (of course) but I also want to post some vacation photos next week…we’ll see. My husband recently found a picture of us taken last year in Las Vegas and I gasped…the photo is awful! I can see that getting some Photoshop skills is going on my list ASAP! Another reason I picked Instagram is because I’ve seen many cute photo books made with the photos…you just pick out your favorite photos and upload them to your company of choice and poof – you’ve just ordered a hardcover photo album! I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to scrapbooking with real paper and glue like I used to…it’s so expensive…and the digital options are so reasonable…

Happy Crafting!!!!

What am I working on??

Well, right now I am working on my Asus Transformer Tablet – a lot! I’m organizing my photos. This isn’t a job for the faint-hearted. I’ve already organized around 3,000 photos and there’s a lot more where they came from! I recently retrieved 4 years of photos from my external hard drive and I have to organize those. And now I’m scanning all the photos I had from the pre-digital era onto my computer. Oh my gosh! This is a labor of love! I’m doing it for my children and I’m doing it before it gets any more out of control. I used to scrapbook…and I loved it…but it got away from me and there is NO WAY I could scrapbook everything. NO. WAY. I’d have to have a house just for the scrapbooks! And with my luck it would burn down and all would be lost. This way I can store all this information on a dvd or external hard drive and it takes up very little space. And when my kids are ready I can give them a copy…and if they lose it I can burn them another one. No hard feelings. If they accidently spilled water on a scrapbook I’d be furious and sad. This just makes sense for us.

So, I thought I’d share some great apps I like to use -

Sony Million Moments app – I like this app because I can tag photos, which puts them into an “album” based on the tag. Each photo can have more than one tag. Downside-there are only 8 tags…So if you had 9 kids you’d be out of luck lol.

Album App HD – I like this app because you can create some pretty cool “albums” and add text. It’s still in the beta stage so it’s only going to get better and better. Downside-you can’t resize pictures in the app and you can only make 25 albums.

Jumble File Manager app – I like this app because I can easily organize my files that I have stored on my sd card. Copy, paste and delete. Downside – I’m lazy, I wish I could tap and drag the files instead of tap/copy, tap/paste, tap/delete. Oh well.

Touch ReTouch Free – You can remove unwanted things from pictures! Even a whole person!! Downside – you have to pay to upgrade to the version where you can then add things to the picture with a cloning tool. I will probably do this at some point.

Little Photo – Has lots of great effects…black and white…sepia…lomo…fun stuff!

Well, does your brain hurt yet? Mine does. There are so many wonderful tools out there to make a digital scrapbook that I’m going to invest the time into this project. While writing this post I’ve scanned about 25 pictures into my computer…only about 2,000 to go! Once they are in the computer I’ll save them to a sd card and organize and make scrapbooks on my tablet. Then I will save them again to the sd card and bring them back to my computer to burn a copy. One of those apps saves to a pdf format. I figure this will be the perfect ice-fishing craft. Extremely portable and no little pieces. If only I could keep it all straight in my brain!!!!

Happy Crafting!!!