next on the list: the office

Usually I am in bed by now, because by this point in the day, my mind shuts down and I drift off to sleep. And I'm old. Today, however, I had a raging headache, fell asleep for 3 hours, then thought it would be a brilliant idea to have two caffeinated cups of tea at 7PM. Biiiiiiiiiiiiig mistake.

It is now after midnight and my mind has transformed into a friggin' craft circus.
WHAT PROJECT SHOULD I DO NEXT? It keeps saying. Painting? Sculpture? Quilting? Glass? Dental crap? Nah... I think I'm into redecorating my office space.

OK. When I say redecorate, I'm not talking about getting rid of my treasured shit in favor of new fancy shit that I won't use purely for the vanity of it. I love my space and my shit. But lately the dark orange paint is getting on my nerves. The room has always been dark orange, I never 100% liked it, but I worked around it. Now it just seems heavy as hell.

Like when you go to a restaurant, your eyes are bigger than your stomach and you get everything covered in Alfredo sauce, type of heavy. After awhile you stop and think, oh man... I can't take any more of this f***ing sauce.

My gosh, take a look at all this shit. There's a damn pig under my desk.

So here is what I'm thinking. Lose the dark orange. I think I'm going to do a faux-brick white-washed wall on the only exterior wall, which also has a window... goodbye forever to the stupid brown blinds, because I f***ing hate blinds. The desk is going to change a little. It's going to have some areas fixed because a bunny nibbled the bottom. Also, all of the cubby-areas that were painted orange will go white, or a sunny yellow color. The sliding stained glass panels... I might do another set in shards of light colors that I have collected over the years.

One wall will hopefully be just floor to ceiling art. I don't want to loose all the colors I have in here... just lighten the walls to make it feel bigger. Some furniture will have to be rearranged... things will get cleaned out, reorganized or donated. I'm not sure on the closet space yet. I made a shelving unit in there and everything behind it is that damn dark orange. Maybe I should just not cut corners, take it down, repaint and assemble again.

The ties will be hung and color coordinated. LIKE YOU HAD ANY DOUBT ABOUT THAT.

Not sure where I should start, to be honest. Maybe with just repairs of the desk first, and go from there. I think this will be a pretty cheap but very dramatic change for the better!

in my spare time, I made a f***ing quilt.

I have NO IDEA how I did not post ANYTHING about this over the past couple of months. I literally started this quilt... almost a year ago I think? AND NO. NOT ONE POST.

Not a look I bought fabric! post.
Not a I washed, pressed and cut all these squares! post.

some sample colors that I wove together for your viewing pleasure.

Not a look how many squares I made or look now the squares are sewed into blocks! post.

NOPE! NOTHING! So I'll have to summarize my misadventures in my 2nd, yes 2nd! quilt.

Back last May, after I took my board exams, passed! and was waiting (im)patiently for my license to practice, I decided to go to Jo-Ann's because damnit, I had a coupon. I bought 20 fat-quarters of fabric, a couple yards of white fabric with tiny little birdies on it, and an Omnigrid 8.5" square template. I didn't know what type of quilt I was going to make, but damnit, I was going to make another quilt.

Seriously, nothing against my first quilt, but it's not exactly big enough for our bed. I'm afraid one night we're going to rip it in half because we always seem to be yanking it to cover our feets.  Here's where it gets confusing. 

Each fat quarter gave me 4, 8.5" squares of colorful fabric.I now have 80 colorful squares. I then cut another 80 squares from the white fabric. Every colorful square was sewed to a white square, then cut down into 8 triangles. You can see below how I drew, on each white square: Diagonally with a 1/4" allowance, then in half. This made a total of 640 squares. Unfortunately, I needed to sew an additional 10 squares from scrap fabric, but I found this out early, allowing me to incorporate them seamlessly into my quilt!  SEAMLESSLY. GET IT?

Every triangle was then pressed open into a square. Then came the hard part: Trying to decide how I was going to assemble all of the now 650 squares. So I'll leave you with some pictures... the first set is just showing how I actually assembled the blocks, and the last photo is of all the colorful blocks! There were so many patterns to choose from, but that'll have to wait for yet another post...

meh, by the numbers.

Along with my crazy work schedule (two separate practices, sort-of adjunct faculty at one college and various temp jobs within a 20 mile radius) I've been attempting to get back a little to my arts and crafts roots. Whenever I have moments to spare, I've been making wine bags and tie purses. And kind of experimenting with headbands, but that's a whole 'nother story. In a couple of short months, I've amassed quite the collection: 62 wine bags and 7 tie purses. But while working on all these bags, I literally had no goals in mind. I was like "I'll upload them all to Etsy and see what happens!" Well....

Nothing happened. Which I was expecting... I guess. It's nice to have no expectations, and then when those non-expectations are shattered when someone buys something, you're super happy. But I guess I was expecting that too, and I was disappointed when no one purchased anything. Therefore crushing my expectations. Does that make sense?

So I started to embark on looking for craft fairs! Nothing is better than some solid one-on-one connections! The first one I participated in was more of a flea market than a craft fair. To be honest, most people were there looking for deals, not handmade items. But remarkably, I sold two wine bags! Then again, three people also asked me where the ties were that I was selling (which I don't sell individual ties). Then, on two separate occasions, people called my stuff decent.  Fucking decent. What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Here's my interpretation of decent.

I was supposed to participate in another fair today. It was cancelled because of the rain, and I can't make the rain date (poo). But, since that one was cancelled, it gave me the opportunity to sign up for the TRENTON PUNK ROCK FLEA MARKET! The spaces sold out in like, less than 10 minutes, so I'm jazzed that I am going to be participating!

I'm trying to go in with no expectations, but you can already guess that that's going to the shitter pretty fast. So during now and then, I'd love to be able to really really work on my table display. Maybe go to the Salvation Army and get an old fashioned coat rack to hang up some of my purses! You know, make that shit look professional! Cause honestly, if I don't sell much, EVERYONE IS GETTING SOMETHING MADE OF TIES FOR CHRISTMAS AGAIN.

welcome to here.

My front porch was looking a little sad recently. The three small Christmas trees bushes I planted back in December were LONG DEAD.  Like, if anyone had a match close to that porch, we'd have burned the house down. I had a pair of skis zip tied to the railing, and the light bulb in the front light fixture blew out. And I had a Christmas wreath still up. A Christmas wreath.

It was time for a change. I'm pinching pennies a little recently. I ended up quitting my job, and now I'm working part time at various places. While I absolutely LOVE IT, I still have to be wary of my spending. Especially since I just blew a ton of the money I didn't have on a family vacation. Which brings me to my latest craft to spruce shit up: DIY spring wreath making.

For my cheap supplies, I visited the local Dollar Tree. Seriously folks, if you need wreath supplies, don't go to JoAnn or Michael's, or even AC Moore. (I love those stores though, don't be mad at me craft stores, I'm only trying to create things cheaply.) I found a bird and some fake flowers, all for the staggering price of $2.16. (Philly tax, ya'll.) At home, I had a bunch of yarn left over from my Poofball Flowers and some Scrabble letters from who the f*%$ knows where. I found some foam in the basement. Plus I had wine. All of these things are magical. Here's what choo doo.

Step 1: Cut a wreath out of foam.
Step 2: Wrap the foam in yarn. This takes a while, so pour the wine and put Portlandia on Netflix. When you run out of that color, just keep going with another one because who cares?
Step 3: Adorn your wreath with cheap flowers, a bird, and Scrabble letters.
Step 4: Hang your wreath and marvel at the awesomeness it is.

back at it!

Ch-ch-check it out, my Etsy site is back up and running! Some life changing events have been going on, and I'm not one to complain! My work life is re-arranging, and I've been happier than ever. I'm able to focus on so many positive things in life, and I thought I'd bring back my little shop. I took pictures and uploaded new photographs today, and I have ten new wine bags in the works. Back in the day, I began cutting ties for another five new purses, so I'm hoping to get them finished, too. I'll also be adding in a section for custom orders, like tie pillows, and my necktie Christmas tree skirts. I'm hoping to post more blog updates, too... especially since I created an entire quilt top without even posting an update... I know, how dare me! Cheers to all, more posts to come!