Massive Update...knittin & scrappin fool

So, last weekend was the much-anticipated F52's weekend, hosted by the lovely Debbie with her amazing kitchen and many comfy rooms. I had offered my house at one point but it might have been crowded (and, getting rid of hubs & kiddoodles for the weekend tricky at best).

I started knitting little gifties for each and every one back in August (dishcloths, with handmade soap from a friend), but my near-Waterloo was The Bag. Seems last year's bag (felted) for Tresha went over so well, the organizer (that would be you, Kelly!) somehow...hmm...managed to end up with me as her Secret Elf this year. I had been wanting to make this record bag from Funky Knits (record = 12", scrapbook crap = 12"...coincidence?!) and here was my chance.

Little did I know I'd be knitting in the handle just one. day. before I was to get together with everyone. And hand it off to my mom with seconds to spare Thursday night so that she could (generously offered to) put in a lining. Since the yarn could not be felted, it needed something to hold it together. Mom even put in pockets! Mom rocks.

Found the perfect batik lining on Thursday, too...after stopping at the knit shop to get the last 4 yards of yarn (!) needed to finish up the handle. Queen of Last-Minute Finishing, that's me!

Here were the knitted goodies I gave to each lady, done in her fave colors. It pays to be my friend ;)

And here are the 4 LOs (6 pages, if you count like my buddies. I like how my scrap buddies count)...PAPER layouts, I might add...that I finished over the weekend.

From May: Vintage Vroom...Ben in the pedal cars at Greenfield Village, while we were waiting for our ride on Thomas.

Shop Class, also from May 2010 - same trip...Tess making tiny brass candlesticks at the Armington & Sims machine shop replica at Greenfield Village...finally using the Graphic 45 papers I've been hoarding ;)

From waaaay back in December, 2009 (!): A visit from our friends and their son, who hooked up on DS with Tess, while Ben pretended with his new "Leapster DS" ;)

And my one double-pager, about the awesome Creative Play program organized by Kelly at her church in Chelsea. I miss Creative Play! And MOPS. But not enough to have any. more. babies. thankyouverymuch.

We were all pretty good Friday night, got to bed by 11:30p (amateur), but I stayed up far too late on Saturday watching Toy Story 3 (until 3a!) , and woke up Sunday feeling under the weather. Even brunch at Gandy Dancer didn't perk me up. A birthday party for one of Ben's preschool buddies at Chuck E. Cheese's that afternoon sure as HELL didn't make me feel any better, so I'm late in posting all the goodness. Had to assist at the co-op yesterday, luckily I was feeling okay enough to go and not sneeze or cough on any little ones. Peace out.

Goals...not resolutions

Found this freebie "10 Plans for 2010" through Digi Free...the free scrapping supply site...although I have bought plenty of kits, papers, and embellishments, I found this freebie to be inspiring. Thanks, Liv!

credits: bg paper from LDD's Magic of Fall collection, playing card from The Vintage Workshop (freebie, but LOTS of fun stuff over there for collage!), embellishments courtesy of a freebie kit "Teal by Coco," from Coco & Co.

I had a vivid dream last night of not being able to get back to my scrapbooking weekend all day Saturday, thanks to family obligations. It was really frustrating, because I've been struggling with giving myself time away for this upcoming weekend. Now we have a winter weather advisory from noon today - 7a tomorrow; I just hope the snow plows and salt trucks get out there overnight and there is school tomorrow or my dream/nightmare might just come true! That would be a bummer, because Michelle was at my scrapper's weekend, and I'd really like to hang with her again ;) IRL, of course, she will not be there, but I am still looking forward to some uninterrupted scrap/girlfriend time...surprising how much I need it!

My Secret Elf felted tote is in the washer right now...I meant to shrink it yesterday, but didn't have my tapestry needle with me when I finished it up yesterday. I sewed it up this morning and now it is swish, swish, swishing -- and hopefully shrinking up nicely. I have a feeling I will be giving my Elf recipient a semi-damp tote bag tomorrow!

Right now it is roughly 14" x 18" ...it should shrink by 1/3rd in all directions...Edited: took only 2 cycles...not bad, not bad...could've done better on the sewing up of one corner. Felting doesn't cure *every*thing...

Shufflin into the new year

My first day "off," as I jokingly call those days when both kids are in school, and I spent the morning on the phone with Apple support getting iTunes to recognize the selections I'd put on my mom's new shuffle. I have the music she wanted, but no podcasts, not sure what's up with that...I've wasted enough time today and perhaps I'll wait a few days before dealing with it again. Yesterday, partially out of frustration and partially to get something else done, I never turned on my laptop. Shocker! There is an off button.

While I am waiting for my January Studio Calico kit (and the one add-on I'll probably ever order, given the state of my craft budget as I go into 2010), I played with the December kit I received early last week. I think I joined the right kit club...there is some seriously fun stuff in that kit, and I worked on a 2-page year end wrap-up layout that is still sitting on my scrap desk. It requires that I go through each month in last year's diaries, take notes on the highlights, and stop to edit those before I write them down. I got through March yesterday and hope to work on the next three months today. That's one of my new year's goals...to always have something to work on out on my scrap desk. So far so good.

It was refreshing to see that we did, as a family, have some interesting winter activities last year. Lots of playdates for Tess. An outing to the Hands on Museum for both kids with their dad. A visit to the Bounce Zone. Pom-pom and cheerleading at the basketball games (Ben really enjoyed watching basketball...made the whole experience more fun for me, since he was fascinated and I didn't have to chase after him in our high school's very high bleachers...)

This year, so far, I am trying to write in my diary about halfway through each day (still have to do that today...) and read an entry each day from Simple Abundance...yes, about 15 years behind the trend, but it has a message I need right now, namely, what should I do with the rest of my life? As Ben starts school and plays well on his own, I have more and more time to myself, and I need to find a way to fill it.

I'm not sure we'll do MOPS next year...and I'm Publicity chair (this is my last term). I have no successor picked out (our numbers dropped by half this year, two of my best contenders left the group). Church is begging for Sunday school teachers, I already turned them down once, acted as a sub once, HATED it (more power to teachers...I have no patience for it), now they are asking again and I know I must firmly turn them down (again).

I thought this might be the year I finally make a habit of writing fiction daily, but so far that hasn't materialized. I'm waiting until Ben is in school at least half a day every day. A cop-out, but that's all I have energy for.

The job market is so poor, so bare, who knows what I'll find to do when it's time to go back to work. I will have been out of the biz -- any biz -- for 8 years by then. So I feel I need to start thinking about what I love to do (NOT teaching, sorry) and what I might do that would bring in a paycheck. At least I have the luxury of time, for now. Perhaps that it just an illusion. Something could happen tomorrow that forces me into the job market, and that luxury will be gone. Hopefully Borders is hiring.

Wow, this is not where I expected this entry to go today. I guess I really am shuffling into not only the new year, but the rest of my life. Now I have to keep up my committment of writing halfway through the day, and finishing up that knitted/felted bag I was talking about earlier...I have to gift it on Friday!

New places to scrap...

Headed to the library late this afternoon, after running to Knit A Round to pick up some more yarn for a felting project (more on that later), depositing some checks from Christmas, and stopping for gas. Again. Somehow I have become the family filler-upper. Eeerk. Either that or I have really bad luck choosing which car to take. Just two days ago, I was stuck with the station wagon, and Egor informed me that (a) it had no gas and (b) oh by the way, it was out of windshield fluid. And it was snowing. Double errk.

Anyway, this morning I went through the Top 2000 list first thing, and actually had several choices. I have always wanted to use lyrics from John Mayer's Daughters, though, and took this chance to do so.

credits: Ruby Rhynne designs: freebie Boho kit, full kit no longer available but plenty of other beautiful kits are!

I had most of it done before I headed to the library, but while there I went through Cassie Jones' lesson on distressing fonts from Designer Digitals for the title letters. I'm (almost) sure the library has Wi-Fi (I still giggle when I think of my mom's recent confusion over Wi-Fi and Wii) but I didn't have the patience to figure it out. I had Ben with me, so I had to pay attention. Somewhat.

My first Studio Calico kit (December's) came yesterday, and I have an idea...but no time to do more than print out a collage of photos for it. Pretty soon my January kit will be here, and I'll have even MORE new stuff to work with.

Back to my felting project. I'm working on a bag...based on the clutch(es) I made for Creative Escape...I couldn't find the instructions to save my life, but having made 6 or 7 of them, I decided to wing it and just cast on. Well, given how felting shrinks (by about a third, I hear), I have to add quite a bit of depth to this one to get it to work. So I knit to the end of one of my skeins, only to realize I'd need QUITE a bit more to finish this up.

Now that I have that extra yarn, I'm hoping to finish it and have photos in the next week or so. Well, by January 7th, for sure, because the weekend of the 8th is my first-ever F52s retreat...F for Fridays, 52 for the number of Fridays in a year, that is how many Fridays we scrapbooked when Scrapbook Memories was still opened...I just became a member of this local scrapbooking group, so I wanted to make a gift that would make an impression for the gal whose Secret Elf I am...did you follow that?