• Blog - Crafts - Creativity

    T Tuesday: December Daily in progress edition

    December 10, 2018 - By 

    Crazy!! We are 10 days into December already.  It’s been harder than I thought to keep up with journal writing each day.  I have been collecting things to add to my journal and keeping my thoughts organized though so when time allows I’m able to get it down on paper. 

    Here are just the first few pages.

    The craft sale at school was kind of a bust last week. There were meetings scheduled most days in that space both before and after school…prime shopping times. I spent more than I made. Such as this little mouse ornament.

    Isn’t he cute!?! When I saw him I knew I had to get him.

    And of course this mug!!!!

    You had me with pink. Then add the glitter and brown words. This is technically the second mug I have bought from her, then first one was a coaches gift for Mini-me volleyball banquet. My friend and co-worker does such a nice job with these custom mugs.

    On Friday last week I started to get another tickle in my throat. Yep…sick once again. This time I got it bad! I had to call in sick today. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to work tomorrow. I have no voice…barely a squeak at times. I still feel pretty cruddy.

    I think I got a little cocky thinking that I’d gotten this far into the year with just a mild sniffle here and there. I know better than to tempt fate like that again.

    While I sat huddled under my blanket in my favorite rocking recliner, I knit this cowl for my girl with the yarn I shared two weeks ago.

    I love the chunky yarn…such great texture.

    I’m about to go make another cup of tea and do a bit more snuggling under my quilt.

    T stands for Tuesday
    What are you doing today?
  • Blog - Creativity

    T Tuesday: tea and coffee edition

    November 12, 2018 - By 

    Hello and welcome to another edition of T Stands for Tuesday.

    Over the past week or so I’ve been pulling together papers from my stash to begin the process of creating my December Daily journal.

    I also dug out a set of book covers I’d been saving for just the right project. I wish that I hadn’t discarded the spine…although it may have been in bad shape. Oh well…I’ll find a way to make it work for me.

    Originally I was thinking that I’d use crisp bright colors for my journal, however I discovered that the vast majority of my papers were one sided prints. This is fine in some ways but left A LOT of blank white pages. Yes, I know…journal…but I like having color and pattern to break things up a bit. Besides…plain white pages are intimidating.

    I decided while cleaning the coffee pot (because I can’t seem to do just one thing at a time lately) that it would be a good time to do a bit of tea dyeing of some paper. I really wanted to tone down that white and give a more cohesive look to the journal.

    After soaking the papers in the tea solution I baked them in the oven. Yep…Mr. G came in from the garage…asked me what I was doing. “I’m baking paper.” He shook his head and told me that he was going to pretend he didn’t hear me. I chuckled to myself thinking about the fact that I’d be ironing them too.

    I wasn’t happy with the level of aging from just the tea staining. I added some instant coffee to the mix which definitely did the trick. My papers where a lovely shade of brown…perfectly aged.

    Would you like to know the most important thing I learned through this process? Caffeine absorbs through the skin. I spent about an hour with my hands in and out of the tea/coffee water. I didn’t think a thing about it until I realized about 100 pages into the book I was reading in bed that I wasn’t a bit tired.

    Not….one….tiny….bit.

    Typically I can get through about 10 pages before my eyes start to slam shut and I read the same paragraph over and over. Nope not Saturday night. I read the entire book. Seriously…the whole dang book. Finally I got up and took some Benadryl to make me sleepy…even though I knew I’d have the dreaded brain fog the next morning.

    So let this be a public service announcement to all of you…wear water proof gloves of some sort!!

    Sticking with my caffeine induced post…Mr. G bought me some coffee beer. 

    It was pretty good. Just one though. Definitely not one I could drink more than one in an evening…or even in a week. That 4 pack will last a while.

    T stands for Tuesday
    What are you doing today??
  • Blog - Creativity

    T Tuesday: full ♡ edition

    October 29, 2018 - By 

    This past weekend was one that filled my heart. J came home on Wednesday night for the first time in 2.5 months. It was really great to have him at home again. He left again Sunday afternoon but Thanksgiving really isn’t that far away. 

    Then Mini-me and I shared a little treat together before heading off to the mall. We were both in search of shoes. While we were there I asked her if she wanted to go to Barnes & Noble to see if her magazine was on the shelf.

    It sure was! Her look of glee was priceless! She had already gotten her complementary copy but seeing it on the shelf makes it even more real. Here she is taking a photo to send to her friends. It’s so funny that the girl pictured along with Mini-me’s words happens to look A LOT like her from behind. Crazy coincidence since the publishers didn’t know what she looked like. 

    The magazine was featured as one of the Trending magazines on the newsstand. How cool is that!?! I’m so proud of her.

    I’m still plugging away at my new journal. I decided to gut the rest of these books since they really aren’t good for anything but fodder for other projects. 

    After removing the text block I go through and remove any images for future use. It seems the older the copy, the more images I like. 

    This book was just too pretty for me to gut yet. The cover makes me think of mid-century bark cloth. So pretty.

    I’m thinking about putting together a December Daily journal. Over the last few years I’ve noticed some posts and social media chatter about them but figured it wasn’t my thing. Now I’m thinking about giving it a whirl. Now that I’ve figured out the multi-picture prints on one print..(I’ll have to do a tutorial)…I think that I might be able to keep up with both words and photos throughout the season.

    Have you ever played along with December Daily?

    T stands for Tuesday