neonfoxtongue

Waffling

I shared a recipe for waffles with an old friend last week and as it was a recipe I had from my father-in-law, I didn't have the name of the book or author.  I got that information over the weekend though so this evening I sent my friend short note to fill her in.  While typing, it suddenly occurred to me that 'waffle' is the perfect way to describe me these days. And I don't mean that I've got a grid-like look to me or am covered in maple syrup (and let's not give The Leopard any ideas please).  I just feel like I'm waffling on a lot of aspects of my life right now, particularly this blog.

I'm having such a hard time making decisions on pretty much every creative project I've started or have been thinking of for the past several weeks and months.  I'm having difficulty figuring out the focus of this blog, probably because I'm having trouble moving forward on those creative projects.  I even have a fairly long list of Etsy 'favourites' that I've been thinking about buying for ages, but I keep changing my mind about whether I really want/need them or want to give them as gifts.  Imagine - not being able to make decisions about shopping!

It's not that I'm lacking inspiration; it's more that I'm lacking direction.  And probably a bit of confidence.  But they say the first step to improving is to admit you have a problem, so I'm hoping that by acknowledging the waffling, I'll be able to shake it and move forward.  I'm going to set a couple of easy creative goals for the coming week and make them my priority.  Hopefully I'll have something positive to share next week. That way, Tara, who never seems to lack direction or confidence in her cooking, can keep the waffles*.

* NB: This post isn't about the waffle recipe I have, but they sure do look and sound amazing, don't they?

Renewing my pledge

While I do love to plan, I'm not the sort to be thinking of Christmas in August.  I will admit to occasionally brainstorming gifts ideas for the past couple of months, but only in the loosest of thoughts on public transport and before I fall asleep.  But now that it's November, the planning can begin in earnest!  I'm hoping to make several gifts this year, but I know I will be buying some as well.  That's why I decided to renew my pledge to buy handmade.  I made the pledge a year or two ago, but never publicized it.  Well here it is for the whole world to see!  I might even put a fancy button on my blog. :)

My goal for this pledge is to give handmade gifts as much as possible.  The only exception that The Leopard and I will likely be making will be with his family, who have decided to only give books and music (CDs, records, etc.) for Christmas.  I think we can work with that though, seeing as books and music are definitely creative endeavors and sometimes even linked to the handmade, indie & DIY movements.

So now is the time for lists and supply shopping. And for a planner like me, it really is the most wonderful time of the year!

Thankful

(Recycled Grocery Bag Envelopes by Freshly Skweezed)

Those of you not living in the Dominion of Canada probably don't know that I and my fellow Canucks have been celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend.  What can I say, we like to do things early.  And the second Monday of October is usually a great time to enjoy Autumn in all its glory.  Apart from the snow in Winnipeg, of course.

So in honour of this long weekend and historical harvest holiday, I want to acknowledge the things for which I am thankful.

Firstly, my husband, The Leopard, with whom I am building a wonderful and adventurous life.  I love the partnership we have and although I've never really been into sports, I truly believe we are the best team the in world.

Secondly, my parents, whose have always been so supportive of me, and who have taught me the importance of humility, humour and self-reliance.

Next, my extended family and my friends, who are all awesome in their own special ways and who have helped shaped me as a person.

I'm also thankful for my health and I'm determined to take it less for granted than I have been and get back to exercising more regularly.  Finally, I'm thankful to have a job that I find interesting and rewarding, and to have the means to set career, creative and life goals, knowing that with some effort I'll be able to meet them.

That's a lot for which to be thankful. And it feels good to write it all down and share it. Thanks Internets.

hiatus

Um...hi.  So I haven't blogged in a month.  And no, it wasn't on purpose.  It just sort of happened. Life got in the way of documenting it. Sorry about that. I promise to do better in October.  (I can't believe it's already October!)

I do have some crafty project planned in the coming days, so I'll definitely have some subject-matter to blog about.  But for now, here's a pic of one of things that has been keeping me away from blogging:

Meet Cyber - our new adorable monster!  :)

More soon - I promise!

Friday I'm in Love: My Etsy "Treasury"

As I mentioned last week, I visit Etsy fairly regularly.  I particularly enjoy looking at the Treasuries that others have put together.  I started thinking about creating my own; I even came up with a theme and picked some favourite handmade and vintage pieces for it.  But I quickly realised that I have neither the time, nor the patience (mostly the patience) to wait for a free spot in the Treasuries list. As I write this, there are 620 Treasuries and spaces only open up when it drops to below 333. So I figured I'd just post my Treasury in my blog.  I know it'll get a lot less traffic, but it'll also be up much longer than 48 hours. 

So here it is. I call it "I'm starting a garden..." (Catchy, isn't it?)

Vintage Garden Tools ($35)              Bamboo Windchimes ($40)          Three Tiered Planter ($75)

Cool Vintage Finds                          Strawberry Dove                          O'Conner Pottery

Blackberry Lily Photo Print ($20)       Garden Expert (German) T-shirt* ($14)     Ceramic Birdhouse ($48)

Prairie Garden Studio                       isotope                                                  My mother's garden

Gardener's Soap ($5)                    Modern Vine Trellis ($90)              Concrete Bowls ($15)

southernvtsoap                             Andrew's Reclaimed                    benjrs

Slate Plant Markers ($5 for 3)        The Green Man ($35)                     Wooden Seed Trays ($30 for 4)

J Burlette                                     Custom Metal Art                         Andrew's Reclaimed

Hope you enjoyed this 'Treasury'.  Maybe one day I'll have the patience to actually put up a real one. :)

Have a great weekend - especially if it's a long one in your part of the world!

*Translation is actually "Your Garden & Landscaping Expert" (My German classes have paid off!)

(All prices in US dollars)

(Friday Love font is Little Lord Fontleroy)

nft made: Anniversary card

Oh wow - Wednesday already! Well, no sense in looking back; only forward.  I haven't posted stuff that I've made in a while, so it's time to get back into doing that.  My Mom asked me to make a card for my parents' best friends' 30th wedding anniversary.  I wanted to capture both the sentiment of celebrating 30 years of marriage along with even more years of friendship.

I used Chiyogami paper I got at The Paper Place's last big sale and did the lettering with two styles of rub-ons.  I kept the lay-out simple to showcase the paper.

 

I really like using Chiyogami and other fine papers.  I think I'm going to make an effort to work with them more often.

Friday I'm in Love: Great Design from Supermarket

Like most people who like to buy crafts, handmade items and independent design, my go-to site for online shopping is Etsy.  As far as I know, it was the first of its kind - a website where people who wanted to sell what they made could open their own little online storefront easily and very affordably.  And it really is a great place to discover incredible handmade goods and great indie design.  But whenever something is successful, it's going to be imitated.  Similar sites have popped up in recent years, each offering sellers and buyers different benefits.  I think that's good because it gives people more choice. 

I've made some efforts in the past to feature items from some of these site on my blog, particularly for the Friday I'm in Love posts, but beause I'm on Etsy so often and so many other bloggers I follow also post about items on Etsy, I know that I'm linking to that site a lot. So this Friday, I thought I'd post some of the items that have recently caught my eye on another site.  Supermarket, as far as I can tell, is an Etsy-type (Etsy-esque?) site dedicated to indie designers (okay, some may not exactly be indie, but you're certainly not going to find Umbra or Cath Kidson here).  The visual design of the site it great - very simple and functional; the perfect canvas for the great design items it showcases. Take a look:

Cuckoo Clock True Orange ($28) from Decoylab

Indian Summer limited edition print ($18 - unframed) from 12fifteen

 

Circle Pop-Out Pendant ($20) from Melissa Borrell

Band Logo T-Shirt ($10) from BeBack/Soon (check out the entire Counterfeit Outfit collection)

 

believe IN yourself print ($14.95) from Right Brain Terrain

I hope you enjoyed this little tast of what Supermarket has to offer. Now go find some great design that YOU love! 

Have a great weekend!

Re-evaluation and Rainbows

Oops - looks like I didn't blog on Monday again.  Yikes.  I don't really have any excuses either, except maybe a fun trip to the CNE and a surprisingly productive trip to Ikea (during "your kid is starting university so buy him stuff" month, no less) to get a desk for the shiny new computer we got last week.  The computer I am now using to write this post!  Yay!  The Leopard and I have been sharing his laptop for over a year now, which has been okay, but it'll be really nice to have one with all my own settings and set-up and I'm pretty sure The Leopard feels the same way.

Thoughts on how I'm going to organize my photos and documents, and on what photo editing program I'm going to use (I'm considering Picnik at the moment, but am open to suggestions) have also led me to re-evaluate what I'm doing with this blog. Specifically, my Creative Goals Monday posts, which I feel have really been stagnating lately.  The fact that I've missed two weeks is pretty telling too.  I think the idea of posting weekly creative goals was originally a good one and it did help me meet my more general goals, but the format is getting to be quite repetitive.  And I figure that if I'm getting bored with writing the posts, the people who are reading posts are probably getting bored too.  The other thing I didn't really like about the 'CG Monday' format is that the completed projects I wrote about in my Monday posts often felt like 'by the way' additions; they didn't get the attention I wanted to give to them. So I've decided to change things up a bit.  I'm going to stop posting about weekly goals, and will instead provide semi-regular updates on how I'm doing in meeting my Creative Goals for 2009.  As you can see, I've got lots of work to do on those!  I'm still going to have weekly creative goals, but I'll mostly keep those to myself or make The Leopard hold me to them (he can be as good at nagging as I can).  I still plan on posting on Mondays as much as possible, but the topics will be varied. I have an idea or two for semi-regular features that I might introduce in the future, but for now I'm happy to keep things more organic and have Friday I'm in Love as the only weekly feature.

So that's the plan for now. I'd love to hear what you, my readers, think about this change and/or about anything you like or dislike about this blog.  Please leave comments below or in any other post. Thanks! :)

I feel like I've been going through a lot of change and experiencing a lot of new beginnings lately.  Sometimes it feels a bit tumultuous, like the crazy storm we had last week.  But even storms can bring good things.  For example:

 

So I'm hopeful that things are going to settle down soon.  I wouldn't even mind if it brought a lot of colour with it.

Friday I'm in Love: Knitted Summer Wrap

Another long week.  Progress on our apartment feels really slow and the list of things to-do seems never ending.  I'm trying not to get down about it and I really hope to get more done this weekend, but I have to accept the fact that this is a long process.  A long process that will involve installing a lot of shelving.

To keep my spirits up, I'm seeking inspiration wherever I can find it.  Yesterday, I found it in moocowhandknit's Etsy shop.

 

This Summer Wrap actually makes me want to pick up some knitting needles.  Haven't felt that way in a while.  If I could figure out how to make one of these (it looks pretty easy, even for a beginner - though I have no idea how she got both ends on the ring), I think I'd do it in black. Or maybe yellow. Or teal.  The one great thing about this is that I wouldn't have to do any unpacking or organizing to get started on it.  That probably partially explains why I like it so much! :)

Creative space - ideas and inspiration

So yeah, this week's Creative Goals Monday post just didn't happen.  I don't really have an excuse either, I just couldn't get my act together blog-wise.  I apologise, but I have also decided not to feel guilty about it.  As Karyn aptly tweeted,"sometimes, you just have to not blog".

But I've still got some creative goals for this week, namely making a card and working on setting up my creative space.  I admit that I haven't made much any progress in the latter.  I've been more focused on getting the kitchen and bedroom unpacked and organised. And while there is still a bit of work to do in those rooms, they are much more functional now, so I'm ready to move onto getting my art and craft supplies unpacked and organised.

To that end, I've been looking back at some of the posts I've saved from other blogs, which had tips and photos of creative spaces that I liked.  I got some really great ideas from cheeky magpie in her post about organising supplies, particularly stamps.

Trading card holders - genius!

I also love the hanging cans that Rachel Simonsen uses in her studio.  I hoping to make something similar with upcycled cans or jars.

And lastly, I'm a big fan of the wire crate shelving in this Design*Sponge sneak peak:

 

I'm not sure I'll be able to readily find old wire shelving, but I'm going to file this idea away in case I do.

So now it's time to get started on creating my own space. I'll let you know how it goes and I promise to take a 'before' shot so we can compare it to the end product. That way, they'll be proof that whatever I do will be a marked improvement! :)