Blast From the Past

I came across this picture today. It was a "self portrait" project I had to do in my first year of college in a "digital image manipulation" graphic design class. We had to scan images that we thought represented us. So...this was me in the fall of 2000.

Portrait beginnings

Okay, I am doing portraits of my nieces for their mother (my sister in law) for Christmas. I know she might get to sneak a peek if I post a picture, but the finished product will be a far cry from what I have so far. This is from about 30-45 minutes of painting...

It took discipline to make myself work on this tonight...I got lost in the black hole of playing Sim City 4 since re-discovering the disc while cleaning.

Fabric-Covered Cork Board & Beginning Painting

I love long weekends! I have so much time to actually get crafts done! I did this on a whim while cleaning/reorganizing my desk. I had these two old cork boards that both looked terrible, so I found this fabric I had laying around and covered them. The frames don't match, but I don't care. I would have left the frames off, but the fabric I had just barely covered the front of the board and there wasn't enough of it to be able to stretch around and staple to the back.

I also transfrerred the outlines of the portraits of my nieces I'm supposed to be painting for my sister-in-law for Christmas.

Scrapbooking & Digital Print Hint

I somehow got 20 free digital prints from Creative Memories last week, which when they arrived this week, sent me into a scrapbooking phase today.

It's surprising how many pages I can get done (not counting titles and journaling) when I get into a good scrapbooking phase. The pictures on the large pages are from when I had my hair appointment for my hairdresser and I to figure out what to do with my hair for my wedding. The smaller album is my "Anniversary Album", and the pictures are from our first anniversary. We went to Virginia to a Rennisance Festival, and then to Cleaveland where we went to the zoo and got to pet stingrays.

I also figured out a trick for getting more pictures for your money. I go into a picture editing program and place two pictures in a file and save those two pictures as one image. Then when you get your digital pics printed...voila`!...two pictures for the price of one. This also works well for scrapbookers if you want your pics smaller than the standard 6x4, but don't want to mess wth ordering a bunch of wallet sizes. Plus, not a whole lot of waste with cropping. This is what I did with the stingray pictures seen above.

Pretty sweet huh?

Purple Knit Purse

I knit this purse a couple weeks ago with one of my knitting looms (which I think I prefer to knitting needles)...and I just forgot to post it.

Doubts

I keep having my doubts on whether I'll actually be able to do this craft blog thing every day. Maybe I would in the summer when I'm not working, but I'm thinking about when I "officially" start in January, and am getting overwhelmed. Maybe I should start slow and re do this so it's a Craft a Week instead?

I have a fear of failure.

Living in the Living Room

Well, after months of working on it, our living room is coming together...and we actually want to LIVE in the living room. We're still working out some of the kinks (likethe air conditioner seen in the picture being put away for the winter) But it's very cozy. My husband and I want to spend every free minute of our time in there now! And I'm going to be proud to show it off to my family when we host Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year.

So...should home improvement projects count as a "craft"? Well, at the least, the stenciling on the wall is pretty artsy/crafty. I'm going to count it.

Sockeye the Halloween Sailor Monster!

Here's a sock monster just in time for Halloween! I made him a little hat too. I think it makes him look like a sailor...allong with his Popeye-esque huge fists/forearms.
"I'm Sockeye the sailor monster...
I'm Sockeye the sailor monster...
I'm strong as a barn, 'cuz I eats me yarn...
I'm Sockeye the sailor monster!"

Coming soon in 2008...the Craft-A-Day project!

I had a thought as I was surfing the various craft blogs I find online as a result of checking out the Craft: blog...

Instead of always looking at everyone else’s crafts and thinking that I should do my own, I should take a cue from the Skull-A-Day blog, and create a blog to dedicate myself to actually making at least one craft a day…whether it be a monster (like those I've made in the picture shown), a painting, a drawing, or some other crafty thing…even if it’s just a knitted/crochet dishcloth or a flower barrette. I think I will even make a scrapbook page or home improvement projects count...just some sort of artistic creativity or productivity.

My goal is to consistently make at least one craft and post a picture on this blog every day for a year.

This blog will "officially" start on January 1st 2008 as a New Year’s Resolution. (Although I may give a few "bonus" posts before then).