Sticker Pattern

Sometimes I’ll keep items that I think I’ll be able to reuse later. I have a few of these tall containers that I use for extra storage, and I decided to dress one up a little bit with some fun polka dots.

The Summer that Wouldn’t Come

A week ago summer officially began, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way to me. I know that when many people think about Oregon, they think rain. And I’m not going to lie—it rains quite a bit here, a steady stream of drizzles, sprinkles, showers, downpours and mists that comes down on a regular basis throughout the year. Yet summer is a different story. Generally when summer hits, it’s sunny, dry and warm. [Pause.] However that hasn’t really been the case so far this “summer”.

Last night I could hear rain falling on the roof and this morning it’s gray and cool; the high today is suppose to be 72 degrees (which I guess is fairly average for us), but it won’t feel like summer with an overcast sky. Apparently I’ll have to wait until July for the weather to get better. It will be nice to finally have consistently blue skies and to feel the warmth of the sun beaming down on me.

[Pause.] While I have complained about the drab summer, a part of me is secretly glad for the cloudy skies because I feel more productive when the weather is poor. When it’s sunny and beautiful outside, then I have more of that “I’m a kid trapped in school” mentality (when the teacher is talking and I only half listen because I’m staring out the window). Good weather is distracting.

And hot weather is miserable. Usually the weather is consistently warm in the summer, verging on hot. But there are always a few days when we hit near or past 100 degrees—and that’s when I lose all motivation to do anything; all I can do is sprawl out on the couch and watch TV with a fan blowing on me full blast (as I am someone without air conditioning). So while I’m looking forward to some sunny weather, a part of me is dreading when summer kicks into high gear and I’m dying from the heat (although that feels pretty far away right now…).

DIY: Button Rubber Band

I love beautiful buttons. I admit that I’ll buy buttons for no other reason than they’re pretty and I want them (even if I don’t have a use for them). However, I didn’t want them to be just trophy buttons (that are pretty yet purposeless), so I decided on a quick and easy project for them: button rubber bands.

Use button rubber bands as hair accessories or as decoration for packaging.

Happy Unbirthday Card – Rectangular

I got my happy unbirthday card printed and I’m pretty satisfied by the way it turned out. Some of you may recall that I had created a square happy unbirthday card some months ago, but I had to change the format of the card because of the printing size options available. And I think the changes turned out for the better (since there’s more white space and the weight of the text is at the bottom of the card now).

While the card can be used as-is as a little note, I thought it would be nice to show a few extra ways the card could be used. So here are some tag and card options:

Not Too Embarrassed to be Seen With You in Public…

Over the weekend I sewed a skirt with a waistband (instead of using twill tape at the waist to add stability). What makes this skirt different than the other skirts I’ve sewn? I think I’ll actually wear this one out in public.

DIY: Button Magnets

I bought a bag of cheap plastic black and white buttons and thought I could make button magnets with them. Of course if you like your button as-is then all you have to do is glue the button to the magnet; I wasn’t excited about my nondescript buttons so I wanted to dress them up a little bit with color.

Be a Realistic Packrat

I have too much stuff. I’ve become overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have because I have a tendency to want to keep everything (just in case I might need it again later). I try to be organized, and I have multiple bins with drawers to keep my supplies, yet somehow, it still doesn’t fully work.

The worst thing is buying something and then misplacing it in the mess of it all. While I was forming my clothespin magnet idea in my head, I became frustrated because I had bought magnet materials a long time ago and couldn’t remember what I had done with them (because I'd put them in a "safe" place). I tried to find them, but it was like finding a needle in a haystack—so I had to give up.

It irritated me that I had to buy a magnet strip again, and not because it was particularly expensive, but because it was just wasteful. So I need to be better about organizing my stuff, and get rid of the stuff that I don’t use (that the packrat in me thinks I’ll use again someday but the realist in me knows that I won’t). It’s just such a slow never-ending process. [Sigh.]

Goldilocks says, “It’s just right.” [Pause.] Probably.

When I started my blog in January, I posted Monday thru Friday for a month—and that burned me out. So I decided to try posting once a week on Thursdays, and I thought I’d see how that would go. It went okay—except it felt long between posts.

[Sigh.] I’m feeling a bit like Goldilocks; trying the porridge that’s too hot, the porridge that’s too cold and finally having the porridge that’s just right. I’m trying to find the posting schedule that’s just right for me.

Thus, I’ve decided to switch things up again. I’ll continue to post on Thursdays but I’ll leave the option to post on random days as well. A little bit of structure and a little bit of flexibility—I think that will probably work best for me (but once again, we’ll see).

DIY: Straw Band

This project just popped into my head, although I’m not quite sure why I was thinking about straws to begin with. (Perhaps it was just stream of consciousness?) But I thought straws would be a material that many people would likely have in their home and would be easy to use in this project.

Depending on the length of the finished band, it could be used as a larger decorative rubber band to hold items together, a napkin ring or a bracelet. If you have nice long beads, you could certainly use that instead of straws for a more mature look.

Japanese Ceramics

I don’t think I have a knack for making ceramics. I’ve taken art classes where I tried pottery but things just didn’t click; I wasn’t really into the process (and that’s a pretty essential part of doing any sort of craft). I think I have a difficult time with creative activities that involve time requirements. I like to be able to walk away from a project at any time if I’m not feeling it, and then come back to it once I’m more motivated to work—and that’s too difficult to do in pottery (with clay drying out, the messiness factor and the cleanup process).

DIY: Gift Card Luggage Tag

Whenever I’m waiting for my luggage at an airport carousel, it’s like I’m in a sea of blackness. Black bags everywhere. I’m always squinting to see if my black bag is coming around the bend. Maybe if I used something personalized like a luggage tag, I would be able to pick out my bag more easily.