Craftoholic.

I'm fairly crafty.  I made my daughter's awesome Halloween costume.

A lot of people told me how cute he looked.  I decided that it wasn't the right time to lecture about gender stereotypes.  Also, she did look adorable.

I've made numerous taggie toys, home decorations, and I rock at cross-stitching.  But for every project I complete, there is at least three that I get very excited about, buy the materials, then don't finish.

I thought this blog entry would serve as a combination of confession/reminder/guilting myself into completing these.  Here are my list of the crafts waiting for me to get off my butt and make.

1)  Fishing set. 

my materials

I got the idea from this blog, found on Pinterest.  (Can we pause for a moment and talk about how awesome Pinterest is?  Yes, it is amazing.  I'm in love.)
Time I have been meaning to make this:  about a week.



2) Apron from a scarf.

Pretty scarf, no?  I found it at the thrift store.  I've been wanting to make an apron (I make a huge mess when when I bake) and I thought it would be fun to use it for that.
Time I have been meaning to make this:  about three months


3) Felt Food.

As you can see, I made one little piece of felt food.  It turned out adorable--but I'm very slow at hand sewing.  I bought enough felt to make at least 15 more pieces of food for Mo-mo's play kitchen.
Time I have been meaning to make this:  about four months


4) A baby quilt.

This is one of those crafts that I started with the best of intentions.  My aunt makes beautiful quilts and often donates them to the hospital for babies in the ICU.  I thought it would be a wonderful project...and I only did about 1/2 of it.  Again, the hand sewing thing slowed me down.
Time I have been meaning to make this:  about a year

5) The Lorax Toybox.

It needs hinges.  And paint.  And more paint.  And even more paint.  I started this without realizing that I would have to prime it, paint the background several times, paint the trim several times (it's going to be bright purple), paint the scenes, paint the black lines in the little scenes, then polyurethane it.  I got about halfway done with painting it outside before it started raining, and I just never returned to it. I am embarrassed to admit that I use it to keep unfinished craft projects in. 
Time I have been meaning to make this:  about a year and a half

6) A knitted...something.

This is a....scarf, potholder, square.  Take your pick.  I learned how to knit then never actually made anything.  I'm kind of scared to finish it because I don't know how to cast off.  Or on again, if I want to make something else.
Time I have been meaning to make this:  about a year and a half

7) Purse made from a book.

Inspiration from this blog

 my materials

I have the materials.  I even gutted out a poor book specifically bought for that purpose (The Last Days of Pompeii).  (oh, and I saved the pages--I figure there has to be something I can do with them.  I have major guilt about ripping up a book.)  I just haven't made the darn thing yet. 

Time I have been meaning to make this:  about two years

8) Hair ribbons for Mo-mo.

When Mo-mo was about six months old, I bought some adorable ribbon with the intention of making cutesy bows for her.  I quickly realized that she would only keep barrettes in her hair for about 30 seconds. 

Time I have been meaning to make this:  over two years

8) The perfect Easter basket.

Apparently, finding an Easter basket for Mo-mo that I like (for a reasonable price) was too difficult.  So I bought one that I kind of like and was going to paint it and re-line it with new fabric.

Time I have been meaning to make this:  over two years 

9) Portraits of my animals.

 

I made the one of Odin and it hangs in our kitchen.  Still need to paint Athena and Fat Mar-mar.

Time I have been meaning to make this:  over two years

10) A corset.  Crap, this is embarassing.

 Pleather?  What was I thinking?

I cannot tell you for the life of me why I wanted to sew a corset.  I know it was for a costume of some kind--pirate wench, maybe?.  I've never sewn anything from a pattern before--and a corset with eyelets and boning and everything is tricky.  Plus I bought a ton of ridiculous faux leather and brocade, neither of which are particularly easy to work with.  I'm going to chalk this one up to being young and dumb and find something else to do with the material.

Time I have been meaning to make this:  over four years.  Well, I probably actually wanted to make it for a week.  Then I realized how difficult it was.

The coolest costume. Ever.

This is by far one of the coolest things I have ever made.

Mo-mo is going to be a train engineer for Halloween--complete with a little red wagon made to look like a train.

Materials

• cardboard.  Lots of cardboard
• exacto knife
• sharp scissors
• glue gun
• duct tape
• PVC pipe (I used 1/2 inch)
• PVC pipe cutters
• spray paint- red, black and yellow matte
• empty corn meal can, but almost any can would work

I started out with two large flat pieces of cardboard, both divided in thirds.  I cut out half of the middle portion on each.  I added windows to one piece (see above).  Then I nestled them together like this:

 

I hot-glued and duct-taped the two pieces together.  I even trimmed the windows with duct tape because my exact-o knife skills are not too hot.

Next, I had to figure out a way to get it to mount on the wagon.  That's where the PVC pipe comes in handy.  I cut small X's in the cardboard and fed a PVC pipe through the bottom, so that it would have a way to sit on the wagon.  I reinforced it with duct-tape. 

Cutting PVC pipe is incredibly easy with one of these gizmos.  $10 from Lowe's.  Is it weird that I'm looking forward to using it for future projects?

Next, I reinforced the corners of the window unit with PVC pipe.  Unfortunately, I don't have a very good picture of it.  I simply measured it, cut it, then duct-taped and hot-glued it in place. 

Notice that the roof and front of the train is missing? I used those pieces that I cut out (to make them fit together) and both duct taped and hot glued it all together.

 This is what it looked like before the painting/final touches were put on.  I let Mo-mo give it a spin to make sure it worked.

Then I spray painted it red (two coats letting it dry at least 3 hours between)

I drew and cut out the wheels, spokes, wheel attach-thingies (no idea what they are actually called), a bit larger of a roof, a cattle-guard, and a light for the front.  I then spray painted them along with the corn meal can for a smoke stack (again, two coats), let them dry.  Lastly I hot-glued it all together.

I know it's not going to last forever--I'm not even going to show the finished product to Mo-mo until Halloween.  But I think it will last at least for that evening and she may even get to play with it inside for awhile.

I'll be sure to post photos of her on Halloween!

The List.

Hey, remember when I made a list of 101 things to do in a 1001 days and did them all?

Yeah, me neither.  To be fair, I have another year.  I've completed 30 out of 101.  Hmmm.  Not doing so hot.

Since I've last looked at the list, I've completed:

9. Start a college fund for Mo-mo Totally makes me feel like an adult.

15. Go trick or treating with Mo-mo  Gnomish cuteness.

20. Join a mommy group When I was between jobs, I met an awesome group of SAHM mom's from the neighborhood.

25. Learn to knit  Kind of?  I learned, but mostly forgot. 

47. Spend the night at the Lemp Mansion  Alas, no ghosts.  Just a very uncomfortable creaky bed and an interesting old house.

 

53. See something at the Fox Theatre  Wicked.  Yeah. (Note: Wicked as in the actual musical we saw, not the Bostonian adjective.  But it was pretty wicked.)

57. Do something amazingly special for our 5th wedding anniversary.  See above--we went to the Lemp Mansion

63. Start an herb garden Really?  This was a goal?  Huh.  I planted an herb garden, but I thought it was on a whim.  Oh well.  Still counts.

66. Purchase a matching set of living room furniture  Thanks, Craigslist.

84. Clean out everything from my room at parent's house.  Thanks, random basement flood.  Wait, I think there may be a couple things still in that closet. 

98. Purchase a new car for Batman  He is riding in style with his new Honda.  And by "in style", I mean that his bumper is no longer duct-taped to the car and he has air conditioning.

100. Find a "mommy friend"  Got several of them.  Hooray!  Friends, keep procreating.


I have to fess up--There are two that I did.  Then undid.

80.  Get at least 25 followers to my blog. 
Back when I was blogging regularly and had it under the original title of "The Whole Mommy Thing", this was true.  Then I got impatient and tried to switch platforms and realized that I suck at trying to code things so went back but didn't realize that it got rid of all of my followers.  So yeah. 

101. For every goal I accomplish, put away $10. When it hits Sept 19, 2012 do something fun with that money. 
See, last year when Batman and I had both just graduated from school, we were broke. We're still broke but less broke than we were then.  My parent's took us on an amazing vacation to Cozumel.  I had $200 or so saved up.  We broke the piggy bank and spent it on fun crap in Cozumel instead of waiting.