Winter Days

The last couple of days have been very cold. Frigid temps and blustery winds make bundling up to go outside a necessity!

We keep a big "tub" of winter items. With four kids, it's hard to keep track of hats, gloves and scarves. Someone is always losing one or the other so when we run across items, they get tossed into the tub, where hopefully they'll meet back up with their mate eventually.

I was helping my kids dig through the tote this morning to find enough warm clothes to block the chill of the wind.
It was so nice to dig through the tote and see a variety of pieces I've crocheted/knitted myself and things given to us by family, who also handmade the items, lying in the tote. It gives me a definite sense of accomplishment and joy to see that I'm creating things that are useful and will keep my family warm. This brings me back to one of my "goals" for this year.

Create things that have a purpose and are useful.

I love handmade things!! 

I believe that every person should create something. Something that is beautiful to them. It doesn't have to please others, and it doesn't have to be practical or useful, as long as you are creating, you are making something beautiful. Even if it just turns out to be a beautiful mess :)

 I have tried many many crafts. A variety of all sorts. And I find one of my greatest joys is in creating items that have a purpose. So that is going to be one of the things I continue to work on this year. We will see if I can manage to stay on track for my goal or if I veer off into creating things simply because they make me happy. Socks are a big goal of mine. I do have patterns for both crocheted and knitted socks, along with a sock loom. We'll see if I can master any of them to create warm and toasty socks!

Where do your creating goals take you? What are some of your favorite things to create?

What is Normal Anyway?

The holidays are over and the New Year has passed. That means life gets back to normal. But what is normal anyway?

In my life, normal has a very WIDE variety of meanings with each days definition of normal being some variation of the day before, all building together to be a jumble and compilation of "normal days" that make up my life.
It's hard to explain without sounding crazy, which I believe all my days have a touch of crazy mixed in there too.

The last few days have been slowly passing and have produced a lot of tears. Not so abnormal as one might think. At least not for me.

See, I struggle with anxiety and depression. I was first diagnosed when I was 14. This diagnosis also included ADD. For most of my life, I have been able to fight (and some days I had to fight a lot harder than others) to stay on top of my "issues". A little over a year ago, I took a major nosedive. Nothing made sense. Having been going to therapy for over a year now and working on how to look at things differently, I think I see how things all get built up in my mind and I still work on it continually. But some days, life gets the best of me and I spend the day sleeping, crying and really just a shell, just trying to get through the day. I can sometimes "feel" these days coming and head them off at the pass. Other days, I'm taken by surprise and have no idea why I can't function. But listening to yourself, learning about yourself, through reflection and journaling, helps a lot.

I've been absent from my blog just days after starting it and this is my explanation. It might not make sense, if you've never experienced any of what I've described. And even if you've experienced, it might be different for you. We're all different, in many different ways and that's one thing I like about learning about other people.

Besides, maybe I needed to tie it all in with creativity, which is what this blog is really supposed to be about. Some days my weakest days are my strongest creative days. Haven't there been many a famous person that suffered from depression or addictions that was an amazing writer or artist? I can't compare myself to the likes of them but I can feel a connection to them.

And connecting to someone is sometimes what saves us from ourselves.

...until my next "normal" post....

...A Tattered Sparrow...

Creative Days

A lot of days in my house are creative days. If I'm not crafting on something, I'm creating with recipes and foods in my kitchen. I enjoy trying new things, cooking included. Although my family is probably less enthusiastic about the cooking experimentation than I am!

Today's crafting has been a reminder of many things for me.

1. You never know what you could use for creating at the time that you find it.
2. Procrastination gets you no where, except for maybe lying down with a stress headache
3. Finished is better than perfect (this has been a theme in my life here lately).

Every Christmas, we have a few times where our family celebrations and traditions remain fairly steady but a few get together's don't have regularly planned dates and varies every year on when we can all manage to get together (I remember one year, I believe it was close to spring break by the time we got together!!) So being unsure of the date of the get together, I procrastinated on shopping and creating. Okay, so I didn't JUST procrastinate because of the unverified date...I procrastinate because that's what I do. All the time. And it's really, really, annoying. I'm sure it's more annoying to others than it actually is me but it causes me a lot of stress. (One of the many reasons for my new binder I talked about here.)

So here are two of the small gifts I made today. My little sister just got a new handmade bed for Christmas and her bedding is mostly red. She's a lover of horses and ranch life, so I wanted to make a few cute decorative pieces for her room. 

I was able to find everything I needed in my crafting cabinet! The horseshoes were a lucky find on a trip to the dump one Saturday. My husband took a load of stuff and came back with a bucket full of horseshoes! (Hey, one man's junk...) I'm so glad I kept them! I've used a few others around the house but was glad to use them as part of a gift.

My second gift in the making is a basket for my other sister! This is where procrastination really comes into play. I've had this pattern picked out for months and have had the yarn on hand for several weeks. As you can see, I've not gotten very far :/

I got this adorable pattern at Yarnspirations. They have a TON of really cute knitting and crochet patterns to choose from! I will continue working on this for as long as my head will hold out and not explode (I feel a headache coming on as I type).

And last, I had talked in a previous post about finishing projects up. I had to move this cowl out of the way so I could take pics of my other two projects in this post! I had picked up this Malabrigo yarn and wasn't sure what I wanted to make out of it. I decided on a simple cowl (eternity scarf really) and a hat. Almost done with the cowl! I will try to revisit posts with updated photos of projects when I finally get them complete!

Hope everyone enjoyed their Sunday! Tomorrow is the start of a brand new week! Make it a great start :)

 

I FOUND IT!!!

I found it. IT! THE crochet pattern that will be the very first new project I work on in the new year!! Excited to see it?! I'm excited to work on it!

But first things first...one of the many things I have promised myself is that this year, I would finish up a number of incomplete projects before I start new ones. Also, when you find THE perfect pattern for something, you have to find THE perfect materials. So I will have to make a list of the number of skeins needed and start plotting my purchases.

I was flipping through the Winter 2014 issue of Interweave Crochet when I spotted it. I gasped and made such loud excited noises that my husband actually laughed at me! Check it out...


~~(Image Copyrighted by Interweave Crochet 2014)~~

It could prove to be pretty difficult, as I'm not a professional when it comes to hooking (ummm...crocheting) but if I take it slow, I might be able to finish it up by this time next year! (I'm only half joking when I say that).

Get the whole pattern here!! Chromatic Hoodie by Annie Modesitt...isn't it amazing?!?

I guess I'd better get going on finishing up some of my current projects! I have several that are almost done, including this scarf I started just right before Christmas.

I'll have to tally up all my current projects to see how long I have to wait to start the hoodie. Hmmmmm...that could take a while, if I count ALL my projects. Maybe I"ll only count my current unfinished crochet projects, not my quilting, scrapbooking, photography, jewelry, organizational projects (and the list goes on)! That's not cheating, is it? ;)

A Planner In The Making

As the new year quickly approaches, I decided that I wanted to make a family binder/planner. I searched online and found that there are so many beautiful planners out there to create, with many different names; home management binder, organization binder, family planner etc. 

What kind do I want to make and what do I want it to include? 

I knew I wanted my planner to be be several different things. Practical, user friendly and cheap. So I started off by grabbing a cheap binder (.97 cents! About as cheap as you can get!) and some lined notebook paper. I filled the binder with notebook paper and then stared at it. Now what? 

I started searching. What do other binders look like? What do others find useful? I searched and searched and turned green with envy at the amazing organization and beautiful planner pages!! 

So many options! 

So I started making notes on the notebook paper about what I wanted to include in my binder. As I finished each note, I went on a search for free printables and I found so many, I had a hard time choosing! So I picked several from here and there, piecing together my binder with pages that pleased me. 

Some of the sections I included in my binder are: 
~Daily Schedule~~found here.
~To Do Organizer (works in hand with the daily organizer)~~This beautiful organizing set (and the blogging set I'm using) is found here at, West Street Story.
~Contacts (Friends, family and services/billing~~Colorful printables, found here, Unclutteredlifestyle. Check out her other fun printables!!
~Project Planners~~Found at Clean Mama Printables. She also has a ton of adorable items in her Etsy shop! Check them out!!
~Pantry/Freezer Inventory
~Blogging Organizer


It is a work in progress and with this being my first large binder I've created, I'm sure I'll be taking notes and making changes throughout the year so next year's binder will be even better! I'll be adding sections to it as I find the need.

I plan on using this binder along with my composition books I use for inspiration and notes (I will share those in a future post!)

What kind of info do you include in your binder?