More Stitching (and a very late Valentine)

Since my “one year” post, I actually have been working on some things – just not posting them.  After being on the computer all day at work, sometimes that’s the last thing I want to do when I get home at night.  Sometimes it’s just more fun to sit on the couch and stitch, or dig through supplies, or doodle…  You get the idea.

I made my sweetie LLM a Valentines Day card this year, instead of buying one.  It’s fun to make stuff, and it seems to mean quite a bit more.

He’s a logger – need I say more?    I saw this adorable stump design over at Wild Olive. Isn’t it the cutest???  I love how she puts little faces on everything.  The little faces totally make me smile.

I also saw, somewhere, the play on words “wood” you be mine – and again, being a logger, nothing could be more perfect.  He totally laughed when he saw it. 

I just cut the heart out of some red and gold glittered scrapbooking paper, glued the embroidered stump on the front (painted the edges because the glue came through the fabric and looked terrible).  Then added some little do-dads inside, and wrote my message to my Lovely Logger Man (didn’t post that picture – that’s mine!).  Nothing special, to say – but it was fun to make, and I think it meant something to him. 

A Valentine with a side of Brownies.

One Year Blogiversary…

Wow.  It’s Groundhog day which signifies my one year anniversary of this blog, and of my creative journey.

My goal was to create at least one thing, per week, regardless of medium or quality for one solid year.  I’ve learned a few things over these past 52 weeks.  First is that I create in spurts.  I see that I have 79 posts over 52 weeks.  Each of those posts symbolizes a project worked on, a picture taken, a new skill tried or learned.

I’ve had a couple of “distractions” over the past year with the introduction of Bella, my puppy; and with meeting my Lovely Logger Man.  I’ve moved and done quite a bit of traveling.  All of these are wonderful additions to my life that have left me with less time for myself, but with gobs of happiness.

So one year into my journey I’ve explored these different mediums:

• Collage (artist trading cards, skinnies, bookmarks, etc)
• Altered books
• Altered items (mirrors, boxes, etc)
• Painting
• Drawing
• Embroidery
• Crocheting (still trying to get this right!)
• Sewing
• Baking, gardening and canning
• Photography
• Stamping
• And probably some other random creations I’m forgetting…

I’ve also done a lot of exploring, both in the wilds, and in books and the blogosphere.  Finding new things that excite me, make me smile and allow my heart to sing.

So here’s to a new year.  Another 12 months of creative discovery.  To more projects that make my heart sing!

There are a lot of photographs and bakery items that I didn’t post pictures of, but this is a good smattering of the things I’ve created over the past year (with the exception of the eclair from Paris in Las Vegas last week   ).

Not creative, but pretty!

I’m in Vegas for business…  Never been here before – and honestly, it’s not really my kind of town.  But no matter where I am, I can make the best of it.  So I ventured out while I had a free afternoon today, and checked out some of the strip.  Really wanted to check out Paris because I’m a closet Francophile.  So I wandered in.  Didn’t gamble because that’s not really my style, but I people watched, ate an eclair with some coffee and saw what there was to see.

Then I found a foofy mall of sorts with stores like Prada, Louis Vitton and Roberto Cavalli.  Ohhhhh my, Roberto Cavalli – I’m so coveting this gorgeous top… but alas, I can’t afford $1400 for a blouse.  So sad…

Isn’t it gorgeous!?!?!?

And check out this amazing restaurant that was in the foofy mall:

Then I wandered around the shops at the Planet Hollywood…  Bought a pretty scarf at Bennetton (I could afford that!), then went hog wild in Sephora.  Got all kinds of pretty stuff there – Rosebud Balm, eyeliner, new blush and powder… Bliss body butter in vanilla and bergamot.  It felt indulgent in a budget friendly way. 

Now I’m scarfing down on the tastiest Chinese food ever.  Totally fresh ingredients…  I don’t get much super good Chinese food in western Montana.  So I’m happy. 

Enjoy your weekend!

Random Pretties…

Anita Pallenberg

Vivienne Westwood

Treehouse

I’m absolutely terrible, because honestly I don’t know where any of these pictures came from.  They were simply saved on my computer as random inspiration.

Sleepy puppy  (she’s mine, so I know where this picture came from!!!)

So… what’s next?

Did you ever have so many ideas about things you want to make, that you just don’t know what to work on next?  Yeah.  I’m sure you go through that too.  I really need to work on my friend’s scarf.  I know I said that a few days ago.  It’s still sitting there, pinned, on the table in my crafting room.

I tore out my crochet stitches and started again – it seems to be staying a little straighter.  I think I wasn’t picking up my last stitch on the row, which accounted for the incredible shrinking rows…

Gosh – I really want to work on something.  But I just don’t know what.  Maybe I’ll make some tea chocolate milk ( ) and contemplate it for a while…

It’s gone again…

For me, it’s always a sad day when the Christmas tree comes down.  I just finished packing up the last bits and taking the boxes out to the barn.

Farewell fair tree.  I’ll see you again in late November.

Incredible shrinking rows…

I’m not quite sure what I’m doing wrong here – but my rows are getting steadily shorter.  Okay.  Well, I guess this is part of the learning curve, right?  It’s not like I have any instruction aside from a 4 minute YouTube video.  I’m just trying to make a simple scarf.  Mainly because I can just keep going back and forth on rows and getting that “feeling” down.  I keep trying to make sure that I’m catching the last stitch on the previous row, but my rows keep getting shorter.  Hmmm.  Does anyone have any suggestion?  (well, other than actually getting some instruction!!!)

I think my stitches look okay – it’s just the incredible shrinking rows that have me perplexed.  Hmmmm….