Craft Projects

I haven't had much time to craft the last month or two, and I really miss it. I love getting in the zone and letting my creativity flow. It helps me manage stress and uplifts my spirits. It keeps my hands occupied and my brain focused on positive things, and I like the challenge of seeing a cool craft and figuring out how to do it on my own.

Sometimes it's like an obsession for me. I'll be mulling over a project for a while in my head, and then finally just have a compulsion to complete it. And until the job is done, I find that I can't focus on anything else. I think one reason I haven't crafted much in the last month or two is because some of my desire for creativity has been satiated through my blog. Writing is also a creative process for me, and I am anchored by that some days. Besides, we've had visitors in and out of the house for a while now and I haven't been able to make a crafting mess!

Yesterday, I had a big burst of energy and got some projects done. Nothing major, and not too time consuming. I did all these projects during naptime, or when my wonderful neighbors let me sit on their couch while Jackson and Katie played at their house. Here's what I did.

[Spoiler alert for Kerry. Stop reading if you still want to be surprised!] First, I made two shirts for some of Katie's friends' birthday parties. It's kind of my "signature" gift (to borrow a line from Steel Magnolias), and I make them for almost every party Katie is invited to now. The shirt has the child's age on it, and also some sort of design they might like. I put the child's name or initials on the sleeve cuff, and then sign my initials on the bottom of the shirt. Here are the two I made yesterday. The snake one is for Katie's friend who is turning six. I'm nervous that it doesn't look like a snake, nor like the number six.

I also made a new book for Katie. When we were at the City Museum last week, I saw a homemade book made out of a fabric sample book. So I went to Leftovers and got a fabric sample book too. (Sidebar: Leftovers is an awesome store in town full of what looks like junk, but it has great raw material for crafting. I can get empty yogurt containers or egg cartons or Pringles cans, or things like fabric and ribbon and carpet remnants. Every time I go, my list of crafts to make almost doubles!) I asked Katie what sort of photo scrapbook she'd like to make with the fabric sample book, and she decided to make a scrapbook about her trip to Six Flags. She picked the photos she wanted to use, and I printed them at Wal-Mart. Then all I did was staple the photos to the fabric inside the book and put a label on the front. The cool thing is the staples can be removed down the road, and I can re-use the book for another subject. I also like that the book has a handle for hanging, and it has a pocket in the back where I put a copy of the Six Flags map for Katie to refer back to.

I also made another book yesterday! This one is for Jackson. I ordered these blank board books from Oriental Trading Company, and was trying to decide what to make with them. I decided to stop pondering and just make it. I took photos of Jackson with some of his favorite things (although I forgot to add rocks as a fave thing!), and cropped them on the computer and placed the name of the item over the photo and printed them out in Word. It was very easy. Once printed, I cut them out and just glued them into the book. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Now I'm just wondering if I should cover the pages to protect them, or if that will be too bulky and cause the book to be unable to close. Hmmm...

I had one last creative spurt recently, although it wasn't yesterday. I made Jackson's First Words book. This was the easiest of all! Again, I just took photos of the items that he's saying, and printed them. The easy part is I just slipped them into a mini photo album, and now the pages are all protected. The big key to this is remembering to write somewhere on each page the age at which Jackson said that word, so it'll become a keepsake for me one day.

Now that I've got my creativity flowing, the problem is stopping it because of time constraints! There are so many other ideas running through my brain, and I can't wait to get to them. I want to make some hooded towels, a towel cape, drink umbrellas, tablecloth pillows, blank peek-a-boo board books... a long list is forming in my head! Stay posted and maybe I'll show them when I get around to it!