My Sentiments Exactly

Hey everyone! Just a quick post to let you know there are shenanigans happening this weekend with my sister so look for some new stuff to be posted next week! It's always nice when she can spend some time with me, and we can craft together...I just wish I didn't have to do homework while she is here too. (finish this semester and one more class...finish this semester and one more class...my mantra right now!)

So you all should know by now that being a poor graduate student means that I don't always have the craft budget that I would like. With that in mind I always enter any contests that companies put on in an effort to get some free swag! This has been a lot of fun in the past, I've won prizes from Penny Black Stamps and My Sentiments Exactly! Just to remind you here are some of the cards I have made with free swag from MSE before...

Well MSE is doing it again, they're asking us to post a blog about their new Facebook page for a chance to win some new stuff. So you know I'm in on that! So go check out their Facebook page and become a fan, because I you know that I am! You should also check out their website at www.sentiments.com. A personal favorite product are the Rubz, they are designed to have a phrase for the outside, and inside of the card. They're now even making them into stamps!!

So now you have my shameless plug of the day in hopes of getting some free swag, and some old cards to hold you over until the weekend is over and I can show you what my sister and I have done. Look for new posts soon! =)

Scrapbooking, Quilting, Sewing, and Photography

Ask and you shall make the time! I finally made time to do some more crafting which means that I have been doing a bit of everything. I'll start first with scrapbooking/photography.

So I have been asked by family to make a scrapbook of a recent family event since I took a lot of pictures during it. I agreed to do it, but then realized when I got home that I have to complete at least one of the two other albums that I'm working on. I'm getting a little backed up! Anyways, I worked on a personal page for myself though since I needed to just get the creative juices flowing again. Since I have so many pictures of her (and take more and more everyday!!) I decided to make a page about Luna! (Ok I might be bordering on crazy cat lady! If I get there feel free to reel me in!)


After I finished the page I began to get creative in other aspects as well, enter more quilting! Although I am still working on the same quilt, it is getting closer. I'm working on piecing everything together and will soon be attempting the actual quilting...that should be interesting! For now though just piecing it is enough work!


During the Super Bowl I began working on a baby sling. This is a project my sister asked me to attempt after I received my sewing machine at Christmas. A friend of hers is having a baby, when Jen saw the pattern when she went shopping with me she thought it would be a pretty awesome baby gift. I figured I'd give it a try. Amazingly it only took about a day to make, and turned out rather well. Although this one isn't the gift sling (figured I'd test run it first), I think it doesn't look half bad!


This is a picture of one with a baby in it so you get the idea of what it is. Sorry I don't have many babies lying around for me to use as models. =)


All right, that's all I have to share for now, now my mom and I are off to see a performance of Fiddler on the Roof! Should be a fun night! =)

What happened?!?!

All right, I hate the fact that every time I feel like I am getting ahead in things, for some reason a few days later I feel like I have fallen so far behind that I'm barely staying above water! I don't mind what put me behind this time, but I sure feel like I've been playing catch-up ever since. I really enjoy traveling home to visit friends and family, but I never seem to get anything done when I am there and then I come home to three times the work that needs to get done! It's time for me to stay put for a while!

So because of this I have done very little to stay up to date with my crafting, and keeping the Etsy site current. My goal for February is to find my balance again! Although I haven't gotten very far with the quilt I've been working on, I am finally piecing it together, a very little bit at a time, and it is actually beginning to look like a quilt!! Yay, lol! Here's a photo update:

No new cards, scrapbook pages, or pictures to post. This disappoints me since we all know how much I enjoy all of those activities. The fact is that I am quickly approaching graduation and that means finding a "real" job, moving, and beginning to pay back the thousands *eek!* of dollars that I borrowed to get this degree I am horrified I won't find a job in! Although this is all the more reason to do the things that I enjoy and take my mind off of things, I always have been a little backwards.

Enough worrying about my future for today, I won't be graduating if I don't get caught up with my homework which is really what I should be doing right now rather than writing this. Just think only 7 more weeks till spring break...ugh!!!

(Sorry this kind of turned into a rant more than an update on my creative side. I promise I will try to do better at not doing this, but I just have a lot on my mind right now.)

Also please let me know what you think of the new design of the blog, it's a work in progress! =)

Happy New Year

I know, I know, I promised to post more after finals were over, and here it is a new year and I haven't posted anything for over a month. Well what do you want from me, I am a procrastinator, lol. I do have a good excuse though for having not posted, after finals I was traveling and just returned a few days ago. Long enough to do laundry, buy books for this semester, and turn around and leave again. Go figure. In any case believe it or not I have gotten a bit of crafting done, how you may ask since my paper crafting supplies take up a good portion of my apartment? Well I received this for Christmas:

Which means I've been working on these:

As a matter of fact I almost have an entire quilt done! I also made a bag which is exciting! So be looking for new quilted items soon! Hopefully in a few weeks when I have been at home for longer than a week I will get back to card making, scrapbooking, and painting. Right now though I need a vacation from my vacation!

My crocheting which I normally do a lot of this time of year is sitting in a bag in my living room. My new kitten Luna seems to enjoy crocheting as well, she just does it differently than I do, pulling all the yarn all over my apartment! I think it is safer for both of us (her physically, and me mentally) to put it away for a little while. I need to sell what I have anyways, so be sure to check out the Etsy site!

I hope everyone had a safe holiday season, and I can't wait to get back on schedule and get some more crafting done soon! =)

I'm still here...

I know, it's been a while since I posted...sorry. I have been slammed with school (final weeks of the semester...pray for me!!!!), a cold, Thanksgiving, and a new kitten. Between all of this I have barely found time to sleep, yet alone craft. Although my mother did teach me how to sew over Thanksgiving since I am picking up a new hobby, quilting. Mom bought me a little kit with fabric pieces already cut and you just had to sew them all together. This is what I ended up with:



I'm not going to show you what the back looks like, let's just say I learned some lessons on keeping your seems flat. I have caught the bug now, and I'm asking for a sewing machine for Christmas. Hopefully though this won't turn into another craft that I do for a little while and then give up on.

Anywho, I also have rescued the cutest kitten I named Luna. She's about 5 months old which means that I basically have a child. She demands a lot of attention. For instance, did anyone else not know that cats teethed?! It's true between 5-7 months of age kittens get their adult teeth. So that means the kitten teeth have to go! I freaked out when I found Luna in my kitchen playing with one of the teeth that she had lost! The vet laughed at me when I called in a panic. She then told me that unlike children, cats teeth will grow in behind the kitten teeth until they fall out. All I heard was that she will have two rows of teeth for a while, which means her bites are going to hurt for a while!! In any case she is a purr monster who loves to snuggle when she isn't being a crazy kitten, and she stole my heart from minute one!



Needless to say she has also become the most recent subject of ALL of my photography lately. It's all right since she doesn't seem to mind.

I hope to get some crafts done soon, but I think it will be another two or three weeks before that happens since that is when my papers are due for classes. After this though only one more semester till I graduate!!!!! On a final note, it looks like I won't be doing the craft fair like I thought I was going to. There was some miss communication and I ended up not having a table, so please go to my etsy site and buy some cards, and afghans. In the next few weeks I'm going to try and have all of that updated with new stuff, and add to what is already there. There's a link in the sidebar to get to my page on etsy. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE support my work, I don't have any other form of income right now so your support will be a HUGE help with living expenses and helping me get on my feet when I graduate.

Thanks guys and hopefully it won't be as long to my next post. =)

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

I am trying to get myself in ANY form of holiday spirit. I'm having a hard time this year being excited about any holiday with all the work that I have been doing recently...school, family, school, personal life, school, housework, and have I mentioned school yet?!?!? Needless to say I am MORE than ready for Thanksgiving break! In an effort to get myself in more of a spirit for any holiday I have been crafting and cooking like mad! For instance today I made pumpkin cream pie's...I do not even have the words to describe how wonderful these are!

Seriously though...just look at them!!! I have no idea how fattening they are, how bad for me they are, or how I'm going to prevent myself from eating the whole plate in one sitting! My friend Elizabeth wrote about how much she wanted to make these on her blog, but living in England they apparently don't have canned pumpkin so she couldn't. I generously offered to send her pumpkin (before I knew how much that costs!!! Yikes!) if she sent me the recipe, and I am so glad we made that deal!!!! Elizabeth you rock!!!!

All right on to other things that won't make my mouth water! I have also been working on more holiday cards! A few people have told me that they will purchase whatever I have leftover from the craft fair...well here is what I have to say to that, Why Wait? I have my Etsy site back up again and there is a link in the sidebar that will take you directly to my store. Granted I have posted just a few of the many cards I've made, but please feel free to purchase them. I will have plenty of cards in time for the craft fair so you are taking nothing away from me. Also if you see a card that I've posted on my blog, but isn't on Etsy let me know and I'll be more than happy to sell it to you. Now on to the recently made cards!



All right that's all I can manage right now. I just submitted a fellowship proposal for school, and getting it written has put me a little behind in other course work, so I better get back on it. Keep your eyes peeled for more cards soon. =)

Cardmania!!!!!

Okay...I've been busy! Last week I began to work on more holiday cards since I know that these are going to be the things that most likely sell the best at the craft fair on December 4. Over the weekend I got the flu (leave it to me to get the flu even after I had gotten a flu shot!) and because I had been sick and didn't have the time to study over the weekend I missed class on Monday. Needless to say I have had a bit of time recently that I normally would have because of a random weirdness of events, so I made cards. =) I decided to try something different and make a slide show of all the cards that I have made since there are so many of them! Naturally this is not near enough since I'm hoping to sell a lot, and I'll still need some to send to people this year!!! Yikes!!! Needless to say, Christmas is getting closer and closer for me and I don't feel near ready enough!

So I didn't put these in the slideshow since it's a postcard and I thought that might be a little confusing. =)

And I've even made a few Halloween cards to send to friends this year near and far away!

Normally this is the point in my post where I say that I'll post more things soon...well as much as I would love to say that I will be, I think I might need a bit of a break. I promise that there will be more, but it might be a week or two before I post anything, lol. =)