Gnome Hat & Tawashis

I was recently part of the Givers & Needers swap round 10 on craftster.

I sent supplies to two lovely folks who both handcrafted me thank you gifts.

I also received supplies from two very generous women, and I made thank you gifts for them. For the amazing rlynn, I crocheted her young daughter a gnome hat, inspired by the amazing April Draven, and some Tawashis.

Here are a coupld shots of her daughter wearing the hat - how cute!

Oh, Hai!

After a huge amount of BS, I am back in the world of internetland.

To be honest, I feel like a total piece of crap about a lot of happenings since my last post. I flaked on a Craftster swap (the onesie one) and received negative feedback. First, I was sending late, but then I never sent. I have the projects sitting in my craft space, completed, but now I don't know if it's just too late. That's really not like me. Health issues intervened with sending on time...

My "wonderful" boyfriend is no long my boyfriend, and not so wonderful either. I left him on what I hoped could have been amicable terms, but he decided to take my money as well as personal belongings, ditch on paying his portion of the rent while he was still there....yeah...

DS & I have since moved into a smaller, more affordable place. It's just us, and it is WONDERFUL!

With moving, comes the challenges of re-organizing. There is also a lot less storage room here. On the up side, my room is all my own, and I have been able to set up a fully-functional crafting area. I still have a couple things left to do, but all is organized, labelled, and easy to find.

Here's some in-progress pics:

A large 2-man desk, plus sewing table at far end. Dolly standing proud, but with no bra. Shelves up on wall & full.

Those desk drawers are full of patterns, paper crafts, DS's craft supplies. All organized for easy access.

Stacks and boxes of yarn, fabric, partially completed projects, & miscellaneous sewing supplies that have yet to be sorted.

A large ziplock bag of embroidery floss was given to me ages ago. It's all sorted out and ready to be carded and put in it's own container (finally)

On the bottom shelf: miscellaneous knick-knacks & craft supplies.

On the second shelf up: adhesives, carving tools, paints, more miscellaneous craft supplies.

On the third shelf up:buttons, beads, embroidery floss, beading wire, velcro, zippers, badanas, and more miscellaneous sewing supplies. All are organized into separate containers and labelled for easy finding.

On the top shelf: my Wuzzles, Rainbow Brite, ribbons, bindings, laces & trims with ribbon tulle on top.

Scissors & ruler on wall hooks.

A pile of completed hats that do not have homes. I'm considering making papier mache heads for them and mounting them on the wall. It would also supply me with a place to store some of my costume wigs.

What do you think?

Strike one off the to do list

Well, the hanging planter pattern was quite easy to follow, and worked up very quickly.

She did a fantastic job on writing it up, and it works quite well.

I altered the hanging part; I made a loop instead of tying the three strings at the top. I thought it might be more secure...

I will get better pictures eventually, but for now, here are the cel phone pics that I took quickly once I got my poor angel wing into the hanger:

To do list

There is always room to be more crafty. And to put those crafts to use.

I personally enjoy giving my handmade creations as gifts, but I also really like making useful items for around my home.

I keep meaning to buy a plant hanger for my angel wing (see second plant), but have not gotten around to it in over a year. Instead, I am going to crochet one from this pattern that was shared on Craftster by user swtater123.

As well, I have a box under my kitchen sink that holds all of my plastic bags from various purchases awaiting reuse. It is large and takes up a lot of room. So it's time to do something about that as well. I keep meaning to sew up a good old fashioned plastic bag holder like Mom used to make, but my sewing machine is on the fritz. I found this pattern online, so will crochet up one of these as well.

I also have a lamp that I outgrew. It still works well, but the shade is less than savory, so I built a new one from string and Mod Podge (before and after pics)...

Sadly, that one melted from the heat of the light bulb, and I have not made a new one since. I saw these awesome tealight covers somewhere in my browsing of internets, and was inspired. I am going to make a lampshade similar to this one.

Add to this list many other "to do's" and those that do not craft will understand why those of us that do are always busy!