Monday, December 5, 2011

The Gap.

Sometimes I think "Man, I am on a roll! Go me!"

I like to pat myself on the back a lot. Mostly because I know I need the encouragement to keep myself going.

I browse through so many blogs, posts, pictures, tutorials and products relating to paper crafting and sometimes I get depressed. I get jealous of other's fabulous talent. I think how great it would be to spend x amount of time a day to crafting. I envy all the products I can't afford and I wonder how anyone can afford all that stuff. Like the Cricut machine?? And all the cartridges that go with them? The Silhouette? How does everyone keep up on the latest trends when everything costs so dang much? $5 for 10 yards of twine?

Are you kidding me? 

I just browsed through a blog where this woman had a crafting room the size of my entire house and had it chock-full of supplies in an enormously ridiculous Scrap-n-Cube. When I got to the picture of her Quickuts dies, I had to stop. Drawers upon drawers are filled with the dies. And then I drool daily over the "organization porn" on the Crafty Storage blog. How anyone can afford all that product, let alone that fancy storage, is beyond me.

I'm cynical. Shocking. I'm known for wearing my heart on my sleeve. I'm also known for ranting and not writing fluidly. Try to stay with me as I change subjects.

I played the piano for ten years during my childhood and my mother made me practice every day for an hour. My mother said I was talented but that I needed to learn to work through my mistakes instead of starting the whole piece over every single time I made a mistake. I never grew out of or corrected that habit.

You know, I don't think anyone really expresses frustration on any of these crafting blogs. I never read an entry where someone goes
"dude, this project was a pain in my rear. I messed up five times on this flower embellishment *here* before it finally turned out right." 
I am constantly frustrated when it comes to this hobby. Specifically, I get frustrated when I have too many ideas that don't pan out or I don't have any ideas at all. I can't tell you how much I spend on the actual outcome of a project because I spend so many wasted hours on the failures that lead up to the finished product. I mean, hours are spent just trying techniques and ideas every day, and 99% of them just end up in the trash. Yes, I'm learning, but it would be nice to know I'm not alone in my frustration!

But then I think about things like Einstein ("you never fail until you stop trying"), Thomas Edison (he had over 10,000 prototypes before he invented the light bulb), and even Norm Larsen, the inventor of WD-40 (WD stands for Water Displacement-40th attempt. Thirty-nine failures before he got to the finished product).

I read motivational quotes, phrases and posters. Like this from Ira Glass.

Source

and I have hope.

Then I step into that craft room. And sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's a beautiful thing and I'm able to get a creative release. I sing along to my iPod and dance in circles. But other times I sit and stare. I stare for what seems like hours, just trying to come up with something that I like or that someone else would like, or that someone wouldn't look at and say to themselves "you call that art?"

So let me be the first to say that I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated that I'm not awesome like the hundreds that get published in magazines. I'm frustrated that I don't win challenges. I'm frustrated that I can't even please myself half the time.

I guess I just need to work through that gap. I need to create when I want to create and feel inspired, not make a card because I feel like I need to be awesome like so-and-so.

/end rant

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Grinch.

Christmastime is here. Well, it's been here and I'm done with my shopping. I was thinking of doing something a little extra for my coworkers, but something cheap and easy since, well... I'm cheap! 

I was doing my daily Pinterest browsing when I saw this:

Source

How stinkin' cute!? The website has a free printable and template to make these cute and easy gifts/stocking stuffers. I just need to stop by Office Max to print them off and hopefully they're as easy to assemble as it looks!

Do you have any good ideas for quick and simple stocking stuffers?

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Flowers.

Again, not much commentary. I'm still exhausted emotionally and physically drained from trying to catch up at work.

A few weeks ago I found a tutorial for tissue paper and tulle flowers and I think my first two attempts turned out pretty good! 

This is what the flowers are supposed to look like:


And this was my attempt with the tulle and tissue paper I had:




They were pretty easy to make, just time consuming.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Exhaust.

I don't have much to say today. It's been one hell of a long weekend, and I mean that literally. Grandpa Zip died Wednesday morning of a massive heart attack and I've spent every day since then with the family and baking, cooking dinners, cleaning and making cards. Yesterday was the funeral. It's so depressing seeing Grandma in so much pain she can't eat or hardly stand.

Adam's birthday was Saturday and I still made goodies and everyone still came over. I took a few pictures of those and I'll be posting those someday. I took a few quick snapshots of the cards I made for the family and I'll post them soon.

Today I have two miscellaneous projects.

I'm making a mini album that holds my bucket list. This one has been a real challenge - I can't even complete the cover!



This card was whipped up in 2 minutes flat for our good friend that moved a few hours away that we probably won't see again. We miss you, Decker!


I'm exhausted and entirely drained. I need a vacation...  like for my birthday on the 8th or when I go to Utah on the 18th!

Friday, November 25, 2011

Nailed It.

I'm starting to hate these awesome recipes I'm finding online. Some people are just too good at making what they bake look good. 

Here's a prime example:


lol. I crack up every time I see it.

That's become Erin and I's baking adventures the past few months. 

Take a look at what happened with the Oreo Eyeball Cookie Pops we attempted for the Halloween party:




NAILED IT.



I consider myself to be a pretty good cook/baker. I may not be the best at making it pretty, but it will be darn tasty. 

I thought for Adam's birthday I would try to make a delicious-looking recipe that I found on Pinterest. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Filled Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting.


Delicious, amirite?

Erin is in town (SURPRISE!) and she helped me make them this evening.


NAILED IT.


See what I mean? I don't understand how this stupid recipe is supposed to make only 24 cupcakes. I know I shouldn't have trusted it and gone with my gut. They taste delicious but they are a hot, hot mess.

Erin and I decided that we are going to open up a bakery and we're going to call it "NAILED IT"



Good thing we made these a day ahead so we can have a 2nd try tomorrow!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Golden.

This Saturday is Adam's golden birthday. I guess it's a big thing with our generation, my mom didn't even know what it is. She thought it was like a golden anniversary (which is 50 years). It's actually when the person turns the same age as the day they were born. Adam was born on November 26th and he's turning 26. My birthday is December 8th so my golden birthday was when I was 8. Yeah, I totally missed the boat on that one.

He decided he wanted to have a small party with his friends like our normal parties. I'm not going all out like I did for our Halloween party because Erin isn't going to be here to help me and I have a job now so I don't have all day to make decorations. All Adam said he wanted was to have everything gold. Everything. The cups, the plates, the presents, the cake. Cool. Except for one problem: I have no gold. I don't really like the color, to be perfectly honest! In fact we inherited two gold lamps from Adam's mom and I recently spray painted them a black metallic color. (hmm, I haven't posted about that yet have I?)

Luckily Pinterest came to the rescue once again. Take a look at the things I have planned:

Originally he wanted the cream filled cupcakes I made Jerrod, but once I found these babies I convinced him to let me make him these!


Cookie dough filled cupcakes with buttercream frosting. My mouth is literally watering right now. To keep with the gold theme of the party, I will be painting/dying the icing to be gold with either Wilton Gold Pearl Dust or spraying Wilton Gold Color Mist to look something like this:


Shiny! I may do a test run this Thursday to see if it actually turns out like this.

And remember these delicious treats?


Adam also specifically requested these. Instead of having them be mummy rods, I'll be dipping the pretzels in white chocolate then drizzling Wilton Gold Sparkle Gel over the chocolate.


This treasure box idea is so cute! I already have a treasure box I purchased for our wedding to hold my emergency kit. I've already purchased Hershey Nuggets, Hershey Kisses, Rolos and Lindt Truffles (the ones with the gold wrapping).

I also found this simple and cute idea:


I'll be dipping the marshmallows in white chocolate and sprinkling them with Wilton Edible Gold Stars Glitter.


To host the treats I'm spray painting two old plates and a candlestick holder gold to create my own dessert stand.


As for the decorations I'm going simple. Balloons. Maybe a strand or two like this.


And a doorway or two like this.

I'm going so far as to make the gifts wrapped in all gold. Some ideas I'm wanting to try:


I have gold confetti I was going to put on the dessert table, I think I'll use some on the gifts too!


Big letters are easy to do.


Cake foils are easy and cute.

I'll be sure to post pictures of everything after Saturday :)

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Celebrate.

 Hello, hello! Wonderful Thanksgiving week and then it's Christmastime! Who doesn't love Christmas? Gifts, decorating and lights, first snowfalls, hot chocolate by the fireplace, Christmas carols, cards from everyone you've ever known...

Only I don't send cards to everyone I know. Mostly because I'm newly married and there's nothing new going on in our lives, but also because I'm lazy and I hate wasting money on a stamp when email is free. It's great when I can physically give the card out, like I'll be doing this year!


I created this card for the Moxie Fab World's Championing Award Medallions Challenge in mind. I've probably made 30 medallions for this challenge so I will be submitting more cards soon!

I started off white a small white medallion and cut shapes in the folds to resemble a snowflake.


Then misted it with Tattered Angels Chalk Glimmer Mists: Mint Chocolate Chip and Charcoal.

Since it gets dark now at 4:00, there isn't much time to get the dim light of the sun... therefore not very good photos! Meh... who am I kidding? Even if I was able to get tons of sun the photos still wouldn't turn out as awesome as everyone else's. :)


You can kind of see the shimmery sparkles on the snowflake medallion in this shot, thanks to flash.


That's it! Thanks for stopping by and checking out my ghetto-fab photogs. <3

Friday, November 11, 2011

Journey.

I'm making a mini album for our New York trip. Here's a sneak peek!


The cover!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Smash.

I've recently found smash books. I love them. They are genius! I made one to hold a bunch of random stuff I haven't had the heart to throw away.


Like my Tim Holtz postcard and signature? What else would I do with it?



Cards from dear, dear friends with sentiments that make me tear up.



A lot of times when I want to craft I just want to try a technique out. I use tags a lot in my experiments


Another experiment.




Erin sent me some epic comics once.



Birthday cards from my mother. Treasured.


A lot of the pages I put in there because they're awesome looking. So awesome I've avoided using the papers in any other projects because they weren't "special" enough. Please tell me I'm not the only one that does this!




I also made a bunch of extra things that I can write stories/journaling for future additions.


I keep playing with this book when I go in there to work on something else specific. I get distracted so easily!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Mini.

I am creating a mini album for our New York trip this summer. I'm using grungeboard and I am having a ton of fun. Here are a few pages I altered:




embossed!
This is a piece of grungeboard I'll be adding to one of the pages:


I'll have finished pictures SOON, hopefully!