Paper Smooches January Challenge

Good News: I’m at a retreat with my friends this weekend.

Bad News: The night I was packing my throat starting hurting and it became clear that I was getting sick. Awesome.

So I know there’s no way I’m powering through this weekend the way I usually do at these things: up at 8 am to bed at 3 am. Boo. BUT, I’m managing to get some things made and a blog post written. And coloring. Coloring helps everything, right?

The Paper Smooches Challenge for January is  4 Colors (+ neutrals).

I used an oldie, but goodie–Cuteasaurus and the colors blue, green, orange, and pink.

A heaping stack of cuteness!

I’m pretty impressed the T-Rex made it all the way up there! He’s a champ!

Another year, another try at #yearofmaking. 8/366

 

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#YearofMaking

When I read about Make Something 365 started by Noah Scanlin, and his 365 Skulls project, I was inspired. I was ready to try it. I couldn’t wait. I had great ideas!

And it lasted about a week.

And that was even with the caveat that it was ok to fail sometimes. But I didn’t like to fail, and skipping days felt like failing even if I had said it wasn’t. So I quit, and I hated that I quit. But that’s what happened.

Fast forward to about a month ago. I found the book Make it Mighty Ugly (which is AMAZING and everyone should read it) and that lead me to #YearOfMaking, which was started by Miriam Felton when she began posting what she was making every day. This resonated with me. There really aren’t any rules. Just make something. Or part of something. Or whatever you decide “making” means to you. I can’t even begin to tell you how freeing this is. And it’s a “year”, not “2015” so I (and you) can start whenever.  In fact, I started 16 days ago. SIXTEEN DAYS!!! Can you believe that?

Here’s a couple of the things I’ve made.

Day 2

Day 12

Days 13 & 14

 

So far so good. It’s been good having an excuse to make something every day, but it’s also been good not to be limited to making a specific thing every day. You’ll be seeing the days tick by at the end of my posts, and every once in a while I’m going to post a couple of things I’ve been making. If you want to see what I’m making each day, follow me on Twitter (@craftingwokids) or Instagram (CraftingWithoutKids). I post pictures there (the 99% of the time I remember to take one & it isn’t a blog post.) I’m also going to be following along with The Daily Marker and her 30 Day Color Challenge which starts tomorrow so you’ll see those too.

16/365 #YearOfMaking

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TCP Color Challenge

I love color challenges to help me put colors together that I wouldn’t think of. These are SO Springy and I need a little of that right now here in WI.

I used the Wish stamp set from The Cat’s Pajamas. I love the little bunny. He’s so fun to paper piece.

I made a fluffy little bunny tail for him with heated Liquid Appliqué. My Stickles gave him a sparkly star to wish upon and Wink of Stella added sparkle to his nose.

15/365 #YearofMaking

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Huh…well…so much for that resolution.

Well…I had a few resolutions regarding crafting and blogging and planning. And, already, most are not panning out.

It’s Jan 12th and
#1 I have not “blogged at least once a week”.
#2 I haven’t posted about my awesome new #10x10in2015 games list.
#3 I have made something every week with scraps. (Not that you’d know that since..well..see #1.)
#4 I also haven’t finished (or worked on) any of the online classes that I have signed up for in the past. In fact, I’ve signed up for more.
#5 I also started following this #31DaystoGetOrganized thing with Peter Walsh and that has gotten me off track a bit. Or rather onto a different track.

So what to do about it? I could say I’ve “started the process” and count that as something. Or I could say “screw it” and just give up now. I could talk about how I really meant to do all these things but just “didn’t have time.” But all of those feel like empty excuses and I did have the time. Just not the inclination or motivation.

What do those of you do who have multiple hobbies that don’t seem to overlap? Do you schedule time for each? I feel like I have too many interests, and keep acquiring more, but don’t want to give any up yet. I can’t decide if scheduling time for everything each week will be freeing or constricting.

Either way…at least this got written right? (Sorry to Emily that there are no pictures)

Baby steps.

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I Think I’ll Steal Like An Artist

A quick post that I had to do…I read a lot of books. There are also a lot that I still want to read so I rarely read anything twice. If I want to read it again, I will often get the audio book to listen to at work. This book is different. I’ll be reading this again and again. There are SO MANY flags in it right now!

Go to www.steallikeanartist.com.

I’ve never called myself an “Artist” so I wasn’t completely sure about this, but no matter if you are an Artist or just like to creatively make things or make things with words, this book is amazing. Really. Go read it and I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Oh! And don’t forget to go to my Giveaway page and comment! I want to send fun things to you! 🙂

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