Making on Mondays, A Little Late: My First Craft Project!

It is time.

Enough living in shame. Enough denial. It's time I admit something.

I have...a sickness. Perhaps affliction is a better word. And I thought I was the only one who had it. I thought I was all alone.

And then, by sheer happenstance, I discovered that others have this problem, too. These women were brave enough to admit it, and they gave me the courage to bring it out into the light. No more hiding. No more silence.

I...I have Craft ADD.

Char, over at Crap I've Made, came out of the craft closet about this sickness. Being all new to this crafty shit and all, I didn't realize that I would become so swamped, so quickly, by so many great exciting creative ideas. And not just about crafts, but art and writing, too. What's worse, I'm a Gemini, and so even if I were not predisposed to being fickle and inattentive, years of people saying "Oh! You fickle Geminis!" certainly rendered me thus. So for the past six weeks, my attention, time, and bank account have been pulled into about 35 different crafty creative directions. I felt frustrated and overwhelmed as much as I felt charged and excited. I thought, "Geez, how am I ever going to get any one project done? I'm an EPIC FAIL before I ever got started."

But Char acknowledges it--the inability to finish a project, the multiple projects she has going at once, and of course, the overwhelming compulsion to swing by the local craft store.

Thank god I'm not alone.

But I am going to make a concerted effort to nip this affliction in the bud. Which is why I present to you, Dear Reader, my first project, The Gimpy Crafter's Goal Board:




























(And my messy craft desk)

The idea is simple. The current creative projects are written down and clipped to the board. Evert time I finish a project, a space will become available. I will reach into my stash of ideas that I've written down, blindly grab an idea, and add it to the board. Every time I find a creative idea (or come up with one) that I want to try, I will write it down on a piece of paper and throw it into the stash. Until I pull it out, I will not allow myself to think about it again. I will only focus on the ones that are on the board.

This little project was essentially a small spin-off from the Menu Planning board project that I found on the All Things Beautiful blog. I basically zoomed out to the Dollar Store, picked up a whole bunch of their cheap corkboards, took some Modge Podge, acrylic paint, ribbon, scrapbook paper, decorative punches, and a couple of pretty stickers and went to town.

I used jewel tones (teal, purple, fuschia) because I absolutely love them and I don't care if they are a hideous combination because it's my durned goal board, kthxbye!















So, that's my first project! It got the creative juices flowing, and hopefully will help me curb my...compulsion...too!

Satisfied on Saturday: Happiness Is...

On this Saturday evening, happiness is composed of several things:

1. Not once, during this entire day, did I have to set out in the wicked desert heat.

2. (So far) Making good on my promise to use the exercise bike every day

3. Cleaning and organizing the craft studio














(Sadly, these pictures were taken AFTER I organized the Crap--er, Craft Studio)





















(The base of operations, kinda. That sounds much better than "where I d-ck around on the computer.")
















(My sister, Thing One, will recognize some of the books in the bookcase. Lordy knows she helped me pack up enough of them throughout the years. Sadly, they've only spawned and multiplied since she last saw them.)

And the fourth and final definition of happiness on a Saturday night is...

4.) A lovely, strong gin gimlet in one of my martini glasses after I am done organizing the Craft Studio
















(Maybe I should have made it PRIOR to the organization project!)


Tomorrow we're escaping the desert heat and caravaning down to the beaches of San Diego. There, despite my girly-girl ways, you will find me boogie-boarding in the surprisingly chilly 70-degree waters. And then...a big ol' International Film Fest is going to take up all of the time and energy of Himself this week, so this is his last period of fun and relaxation before all the movie industry divas and diva-wannabes descend upon the desert.

Makes my line of work seem downright stress-free in comparison! Maybe I'll be more wife than poo this week and cook some dinner and bring it to his work.

Happy Saturday!

Random Thoughts on Thursday: What's in A Name?

There are many many blessings in my life, of this I am aware. But few are as fabulous, as envied, as rare as that coveted real estate phenomenon known as...

The Bonus Room.

Here at Eden (which is what I have decided to call this home), we actually have a Bonus Room. It opens up into the living area (thus making it delightfully central), and it separates the guest wing from the master bedroom. It's a den, really--instead of a closet, there's a little nook with shelves in it. It's not HUGE by any stretch, but it's certainly large enough to accommodate a variety of objects.

At first, we called it the office. Or, more specifically, "The room we never go iIN to." And sometimes "The Clutter Room." Then I got into scrapbooking, and all of my recently-acquired supplies were piled into the room, with no organization. I began to call it the Scrap Room.

Himself began to call it the Crap Room.

In short order, however, I fell down the rabbit hole of crafts that scrapbooking had opened up. More supplies began to trickle into the condo. I began to daydream about painting terra cotta, making beautiful necklaces, generating mixed-media collages, conducting research into my novel, planning meals for the week ahead, assembling a dollhouse...And then, "(s)craproom" was no longer really the right word for it.

After taking the whole room through a major cleaning (not a purge; I'm not that enlightened), the room has been broken down into areas: the desk and shelves where the bills are paid and the homemaking/crafting books and supplies are stored; the "work area" where projects, laptop, and more supplies are stored; the "library" consisting of two 6 foot bookshelves crammed with more books, the kitty's litter box, and then, tucked away in a corner, my "spirituality area." There's a lot going on in this room!

At present, I try to refer to it as "The Craft Room." But every now and then, I feel compelled to call it "the studio." Something--perhaps that nasty Fear Voice that still screams loud and true after all these years, or else that still, small voice of cold, literal logic--tells me that that's pretentious and misleading. After all, studios are for artists, and no artist am I. Sure, I dream big, but at present, all I have are two scrapbook page spreads, one 70% finished fanfic epic, and one heck of a lot of big dreams. This does not an artist make, nor does it make a "studio."

Or does it?