Craft(supply)aholic

I have a problem. I buy craft materials. Lots of them.

I have grand plans. I have good intentions. I have pins of inspiration. I start the project. I work on the project.

And then I don't finish the project.

SERIOUSLY. I have a problem. So. Many. Partially. Finished. Projects.

Just to illustrate my problem I thought it would be a great use of my "Five on Friday" for Oh Hey Friday post to illustrate five of my many many incomplete projects I have floating around.


1) Tassel Garland

image via 

Inspiration: Cupcakes and Cashmere 
Year Project Started: 2013
Supplies bought: Fancy cord. Glue sticks, tissue paper in many many colors
Status: I made a total of three tassels, burned my fingers multiple times on the glue gun and have since used the tissue paper for gift wrap
Want to try it yourself?: Instructions here

2) Deer Paint By Number 

Inspiration: Hey Natalie Jean

Year Project Started: 2014

Supplies Bought: Paint by number kit from Amazon

Status: I've painted approximately a leg of that front deer, but the kit is complicated and makes you mix you own paint to get different shade variations. I clearly need to get an easier kit.

Want to try it yourself?: Save yourself some paint, get an easier kit

3) Orchid Cross Stitch

Inspiration: My grandma. She taught me how to cross stitch and I used to do little tiny projects

Year Project Started: 2007

Supplies Bought: Cross stitch product 

Status: Slowlllllly making progress and not giving up!
Want to try it yourself?: It is therapeutic. Great activity to do when watching TV, I say take it on. You can also self teach yourself this pretty easily.

4) Modern Friendship Bracelets

image via

Inspiration: Pinterest
Year Project Started: Does buying the supplies count?
Supplies bought: Embroidery thread, beads
Status: Haven't even attempted one.
Want to try it yourself?: Sure, and can I buy one when you complete one?

5) Glass Etched Plates 

image via

Inspiration: Martha Stewart
Year Project Started: Again, bought supplies, never started
Supplies Bought: Glass Plates, Etching Cream, brushes
Status: I had very good intentions of making my Idaho friends plates with their initial on them with homemade cookies for Christmas. Didn't happen.
Want to try it yourself: I think the only thing that concerned me was having a place where the etching cream wouldn't ruin any fixtures or things like that

Office Inspiration

Awhile back I mentioned how I was a bit stuck when it came to decorating my "office". It has been a slow progression to come up with something that is "speaking" to me from a color standpoint, but I recently purchased this lamp and shade from Target, and it finally made some things come together in my head. Keeping teals in mind, but not straying from my love of a neutral grey, I am looking at the following bits on inspiration to see what I can come up with.

Posted with Blogsy

Yogi Tea Wisdom

Magazine and Inspiration Organization

Like many of us "crafty" and "inspired" people, I have a lot of papers I keep around for "when I have time to make that cake" or "when I throw a 1 year old birthday party". Recently I have been organization, sorting, throwing out and trying to make sense of all of the "inspiration" I want to keep. I was able to throw away two huge piles of magazines after I took the time to tear out all the articles and snip its of inspiration I wanted out of each.

Now the problem is...I have a stack of torn out magazine pages! What does one do with that! Amen for Pintrest.

Ideas for binders, accordion files, sketch books that you treat like a scrap book, and for the overzealous magazine hoarder... plastic bins for each subject matter.

I not being a huge magazine reader, but being a loyal MS Living and Real Simple reader (oh and let's be real...I buy the occasional wedding magazine), have accumulated my fair share of pages and clips of inspiration. I don't need a major organization system, but something better than stashing them in a file box that I open once every 6 months.

I like the idea of a single binder. Organized with tabs for each subject matter area.

Source: make-life-lovely.blogspot.com via Katie Howard Clemens on Pinterest

I like the clean look of the tabs in this one. My goal is to keep my magazine hoarding contained to one binder. When it gets too full-time to purge.

I also want to take it one step further.

Source: paper-source.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

I want to buy one of these and jazz it up al la PaperSource style with some fancy paper and maybe a ribbon embellishment!

 

Source: paper-source.com via Andrea on Pinterest

I mean look at that! So beautiful! Perhaps the prettier, the more likely I am to stay organized and use the system!

Also on my list to consolidate, reduce and organize.... my personal files, my keepsakes box, and physical photos that I have from the days before the iPhone.

As a ps...who ever thought this girl would be one to post about organization and how to get her messes under control? I guess we all grow up right?

These Are Some of My Favorite Things

It is Thursday people. THURSDAY. Did I mention I love 4 day weeks. Even more...I love 4 day weeks back-to-back.

Unconventional stuffed animals that seems perfect for an urban living space.

A pet lion that is really a poodle? I want!

A made-up boyfriend that cracks me up. Or the new state of dating and courtship.

Figuring out your boss and their personality.  

Being able to see something that has been something we can only feel. Pretty awesome.

Comfort For Your Head and Heart

I have been on a bit of a book bender these days. It started when I was home for Christmas and I actually had down time where I didn't feel the need to drown myself in trash TV. I recently just finished all the books I had gotten around Christmas and I was in need of something new and preferably for the ipad since I was recently on a plane for 12ish hours making a round-trip visit to the Best Coast for some skiing.

As much as I love my ipad and reading on it...I get nostalgic and sometimes miss the feeling of a book. More than the book....I miss bookstores.

When I first moved to DC and Alex and I were tres poor, we used to spend our Saturdays camped out in a Barnes & Noble reading books for essentially free (we did purchase coffee to offset our shameful reading of books we never bought). While it was pretty stressful to not even be able to afford a book, I loved those Saturdays. I loved having no where else to be, and I loved feeling comfort in reading.

So to find my next book I wandered into a small bookstore in Spokane and did my usual assessment of the book covers to see if anything caught my eye. A few books caught my eye, but one really stood out as I looked over the stacks of new books.

I picked it up. Flipped through the cover and first pages thinking "could be a cute read", put it down and moved on. I later went back to snap a photo to remind myself I should look into it. 

A few days later I read some reviews on amazon and quickly got the hint that this was a MUST read book. I purchased it minutes before boarding my flight home and I read the entire way back.

I am hooked. Cheryl's words of advice are calm, rational, compassionate, heart-felt, re-relatable, heartwarming, eye-opening and a million other things that just fill you with goodness. I turn page after page and I realize how brutally spot on she is, and how so many of her responses, while not directly applicable to the deep questions of my life, have nuggets of truth that really hit home. I have laughed, I have cried, I have cringed, I have re-read certain letters just to soak in all of the beauty they contain. Simply put--it is a beautifully written compilation of advice letters that you will find comfort and inpiration in. So what I am saying is...go buy this. Read it. Love it. 

Couple this with a cup of my current favorite tea (since I can't afford this ), Yogi Egyptian Licorice, and I am set for a snuggly evening of feel-goodness.

Does anyone else get sad when a really good book ends? I try to have my next read lined up so I don't focus too much on the end of a good book. Any of you have some reading recommendations to help me through what will undoubtedly be a very sad finishing of this book?

Cake Art

It has been awhile since there has been any wedding inspiration around these parts. That baking binge I was on for awhile required my attention to be focused on recipes and different kinds of cheese (but more on that later). A slow afternoon allowed me to stumble across a NY Magazine article showing cakes that were inspired by art. Considering some cakes can end up being a monstrosity of fondant, pipping and embellishments, these were refreshing, and would add a touch of personality to the big day.

( via NYMag)

Another cake that really caught my eye lately had nothing to do with weddings, but the flavor and frosting looked amazing.Not to mention the mini marzipan animals were too cute. It was featured in an issued of Martha Stewart Living (oh Martha, be still my heart) a few months ago, and every time I flip through the article I think how I need to try to make the basic cake recipe but also how I need a lot of money, a swanky place to hold a one year olds birthday, and a one year old!

(All images from the Martha Stewart Living October 2012 Issue)

Anyone else dying to have those little animals on a cake. So cute. I love.

 

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Till DC Do We Part.

At the start of August I reached my 2 years in DC. eep! Who would have ever thought I would have survived (and we can say kinda-sorta-thrived if we are being generous) for two years here! I have done a ton in my time here in DC and honestly if you would have asked me two years ago if I thought I would be sitting in my own lovely bed, with just my things surrounding me, thinking about my job I have been at since I moved here, I would have laughed at you. Very very hard. And probably cried at the thought. There have been a lot of times in the last two years that I have been scared out of my mind. Times where I didn't know what was going to come next. Times where I had to make some choices. Times where I didn't have choices. Times where I loved being here. And times when I still just don't.


But for better or worse. I am here. And somehow doing okay at taking care of myself. I do have to say I would not be here for sure if it wasn't for both my worlds of friends in DC and Seattle/Idaho who have kept me laughing and looking forward.


In a few weeks I will also hit my one year in my current apartment. Most of you know the situation with the apartment and that ideally I would like my own place sometime in the near future. But it is a wonderful, adorable apartment, and I can say for being the first apartment that I have picked to live in entirely on my own...it has worked out well.

I also am just about to cross my two year mark at world. Yea that's right! Who's wearin' big girl pants now!

(Ok well maybe they are like dress-up big girl pants...but still)


All of these "anniversaries" correspond with some pretty personal "anniversaries". And I promised myself that while this is a public forum and I am letting anyone read this. I would not shy away from at least recognizing some of these personal and emotional things, just to preserve them along with all my other memories over the past couple of years. So to put it out there for myself: this all coordinates with the ending of a long-term relationship that spurred both of these other "anniversaries". Again, if you asked me what my life would look like two years ago, where I am living now, what I am doing, well it would not have been anywhere close to what I thought. I say that recognizing that some of the best things have come to me in the last two years, even if not planned or anticipated. And also some pretty tough things have happened. But it is all about the journey, right?

But for the grand finale!!!!




The last and final, really really reallyreallyreallyreally BIG anniversary is.............


The Blog turned 2 on 8/30!!!! Happy Belated Birthday TFWDC!! Hopefully this is some blogging motivation to make the time to really start documenting again. But to all my readers, family and friends....Thanks for keeping me wanting to blog for two years! I love the written record of my life here and I love sharing it with you all!

                                                           image courtesy of: http://whipup.net/tag/card/

This card is a must-make for me! I love a good pennant/bunting and the miniature on a card. Dar-ling. Ps...someones BIRTHDAY is coming up!!!! 2 word to guess: Peanut and Love.

Anyways.

Future Husband Inspiration

I am on a new blog kick, where I am just trying to find more and more and more and more to read. Through a newish blog I have started following: I *heart* you, I found A Cup of Jo and while I was devouring her posts I came across this look for my future husband (whoever that straping gentleman may be):

image courtesy of: Style Me Pretty

I have never really given much thought to that aspect in my wedding dreams. Probably because when I see the groom in my wedding dreams it is just a big blurry spot (kind of like when I take my contacts out and can't find my glasses). But I do have to say I really like this grey suit and the tie is to die for! I like the light grey more than I think I would a dark charcol.

And I have to say I am really digging this cube of a cake. Not sure how this would work for cutting and serving, but I love the contemporary design of this:

Photo Courtesy of: Style Me Pretty

In other news my old lady neck/back is better, but I am still in some pain and am trying to lay low. Hopefully tomorrow I will be 100% and feel like normal!

I also bought and have recived my wonderbar...so far...so wonderful. I will write a full review once we have had some time to get to know each other.

Expansion

I am always looking for new blogs to read. I great blog that I just yearn for postings from just makes my day.

Blogging is so personal and I love reading about other people's lives. Some of my favorite things about reading blogs are:

1) Getting new ideas and inspiration for cooking, decorating, clothes, gifts, crafts, my own blog postings, etc.

2) I love reading about people's families and what they are doing with them. I love hearing about people's family tradition, especially since the older I am getting the more I realize that you can't recreate the way you were raised and spent holidays and such, you do get the opportunity to invent your own traditions and special moments that you get to carry forward. I love "borrowing" people's traditions and incorporating them into my life.

3) I have always wanted to have a creative naming device for the people I talk about in my blog: Like using the letter of their first name to identify them ( C=Carly, W= Wyatt, etc) or using inside nicknames (Cliclean:Carly, Riot: Wyatt, CBear: Nicole) but I love seeing how other people talk about the people in their lives.

My latest blog fixation: Inchmark

You will love it! I can't stop reading it! Her kids are cute, everything in her life is cute and preppy and darling. She is so creative it makes me wish I never needed sleep so I could be as creative with every aspect of life as she is. Anyways, let me know if you have any blogs you think I should read. I am in particular need of some off-the-beaten-path-where-to-eat-and-do-cool-things-in-DC blogs.