Life is Hard

Hey All ~



One of my personal strengths is great mental health. When things are good I'm happy, when they aren't I can be appropriately unhappy for a reasonable amount of time. I consider myself lucky beyond measure for this. I'm also very much in support of the concept that it is okay to wallow, for a set amount of time and then dust yourself off a get back to living. It helps you not bottle up the ouchies and then explode in a glum grenade and need serious help pulling it all back together.

So, I'm wallowing. My doctors appointment last night was a real downer and now I'm looking down the barrel of stuff I really don't feel like dealing with. So today I'll mope. In fact, I've reserved through Sunday if need be. Then I'll dust myself off, remember it's nothing personal - life is hard, deal with it - and get back to my perky self.

Until then, have a great weekend.

Underwire

Underwire

You find on occasion
near trash cans at bus stops
and on checkered floors in restrooms:
stray metal crescents that have escaped
the confines of a brassiere.

How fares the breast now unsupported?
Will it dribble down the torso
like fat sweet drips on an ice cream cone?

Or will the mesmerizing orb
girded by years of upward thrusting
fulfill it's elastic destiny
and cling with gravity defying delight
to the upper third of the chest?

And how do these bands spring to freedom?
One day with an anarchists cry
do they hack through seams
with a mighty push and pop
break loose. Jabbing a pit
in retaliation for years spent toiling
in sweaty servitude?

Or is it something less exotic?
Too much laundering.
The slow demise of a workhorse.
Are these flat silver slivers merely
evidence of a woman's strength expended?

So... a lot of you ladies know me as a crafter, but before that my main hobby has always been writing. I've finished several novels, wrote a glut of bad poems and my articles have graced the pages of Family Fun magazine and several international homeschool publications. Why am I bringing this up? Because I really don't write as much as I used to. When I ran rateyourwriting.com there was always writing, editing and reviewing to do. Spare moments were filled with words. But writing is a hard thing to do in snips and bits. I need time - full hours even - to get back into the swing of it. Crafts can be made while talking my kids through their lessons, gabbing on the phone - glue dries while dishes are being done. It's a whole different set of requirements. I'm a creative person and as long as my need for expression is met, I don't really care if it's through writing, scrapbooking or stool making.

Still, it would be nice to get back to being a person so inspired by the everyday that I have to write about it.

Front Room Table

We all really like having some of our games in the front room where we play them. Since we've been wanting to chop our hideous, thirty-dollar garage sale brown coffee table into pieces, I thought altering it and having some fun wasn't too big a risk.

I spray painted the frame black and then decoupaged dice fabric to the top, center panel. I'm still covering it with coat after coat of varnish but snapped this pic so I could share:



Here is a close-up of the distressed top:


I'm itching to get back to small precise crafts like card making - hopefully soon :-)

Simple Boy Card

My boys are slowly training me on what works on cards for boys and what doesn't. Apparently the darling "monstahs" out there are too baby-ish and adding ribbon and buttons is universally girly. The most scathing rebuke I've ever received on a boy card was, " this doesn't look like you made it for him, you made it for you." Ouch!

So when making a coupon for Trenton's birthday for a driving themed present I tried something new. I went very, very simple with cool metal mesh and only one embellishment. I let the hand-drawn steering wheel do the heavy-lifting for design and then just left it plain. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy. I wanted to stitch down the mesh, add some details - embellish!

But this card got a whole chorus of "cool" and "wow" and "I really like that" - which is the point. After all, I made the card for him, not for me.

Oldest Trick In The Book

Summer is a season where kids can vacillate between too busy and bored. This can be tough on us moms. I bet everyone knows this trick already but I thought I'd post it as a reminder.

Move the toys. Cycle through them, mix things up. When things stay in one place too long our eye can skip over them as old news - I know mine sure can when it comes to paper and kits. So move things around. Think of how inspired you are when you re-organize your craft space and then give your kids that same feeling.

We have a buffet in our front room that has a few plants on top of it. I moved the plants to the great room and replaced them with this:


Am I going to win any interior decorating awards? No. have my kids given me several hours of peace save for the squeals of delight at rediscovering old favorites? Yes.

And it didn't cost a cent. In this economy, enjoying what you have is the best way to make it through.

He's Thirteen!

Good heaven! I have a teenager. Fortunately, I think he's planning on reading his way through the rough bits. We'll see about that.
Not to be a walking cliche, but I'm really too young to have a teenager.


We spent his birthday at the waterpark. My littler guys:


Here is another LO I did for Scrapbook Sussies. I got to employ one of my favorite techniques of cutting around the edge of a large pattern and tucking my photos underneath. It really helps the pics not sit on top of the page looking out of place or plunked down. I think integration is the toughest part when working with a large design.


This page was originally conceived as half of an "angel or devil" two-page spread. You can see the pics from the other half here.

The Barstool From Another Planet

I've been reading a lot of books by Kathy Cano-Murillo aka: Crafty Chica the last few weeks and it has inspired me to make our house a little more us and a little less builder/spec house.

Starting with our barstools seemed like as good a place as any as a barstool is a small project that injects a shot of color into the room.

Here's the first one I have finished:


Top:


I sealed the whole stool with glitter varnish but am having a bear of a time getting it to show in the pictures. Here's glimpse:



Amy of Gauche Alchemy awesomeness, wrote a very sweet blog post about my last project. You can see it here. Thanks, Amy.