crafty

Dreaming of Decorating their Bedrooms

Last week I stopped at Target to pick up 2 items and made the mistake of not going right to the grocery section for said items. You can already see where this is heading, right? First I hit up the clothing section – picked out 2 cute tops that got put back later – then the workout clothing section – a girl needs new yoga pants – then the sock department then as I was heading to the storage container section, I walked into pink and blue heaven. I mean, the children’s room section. Seriously, there’s some cute stuff out there. Sure, I admit that I wanted most of it for myself, but that’s why we decorate kid’s rooms right? Yes, I’m going to allow my child(ren) to decorate their rooms, but don’t think I won’t have some personal mom touches in there.

Holy crap. I’m going to be a mom.

Yep, tears springing into my eyes.

Anyhow, cute stuff. See? OK, so I hit up Pinterest too.

 

My favorite idea!

I’m super peeved bc the Pinterest link-love doesn’t work so these had to be manually linked. If anyone has figured out how to get this to work with WordPress, please let me know!

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A Perfect Life

Having just spent the last 2 days at Wordcamp Miami, my passion is running super high for working for myself. Not to mention kicking butt. In my perfect life, RS Creative Solutions will run smoothly and earn us enough money for Steve to do law school and me to not have to work in corporate America.

In reality, I don’t have any consistent clients and don’t get paid for the bulk of the work I do… mostly bc I don’t ever bill for it. From now on, I need to set boundaries, create job scope/ specs, get down payments, have contracts signed all before I ever do a drop of design work.

I’ve been doing this long enough (15 years) that I can’t keep calling myself an amateur. I mean really, that doesn’t help with my design-esteem. Yeah, that’s like self-esteem but for my design work.

I found two somewhat mentors willing to help me with my business and was told that I really need to get to more events in the industry. I was also told our URL was too long. So I bought a shorter one: RS Creates

Now to implement my perfect life.

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Accountability.

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Last night, I made a one-year plan. I sorta wrote it in the dark so the mega huge Sharpie helped me be able to read it.

Why am I posting it here on this blog that I’ve virtually ignored for months? Accountability. I’m putting it out there into the universe. I want to accomplish all these things.

Some are obvious (lose weight, join a gym, pay off cards) but some aren’t so much.

– Publish 3 more patterns – 2 days ago, i published a pattern on Ravelry for a Cabled Owls Hat I made. The hat was super easy, everyone raved about it, requests have been made for different colors, so I write up the pattern and published it. Within 12 hours, I had 4 sales. Needless to say, I was stoked!

– Push RSCS! – did you know that I’m a web and graphic designer? Of course you do! No really, do you? Steve and I own RS Creative Solutions and it is my goal to push it as hard as I can so that we turn a profit. I even have business cards and car magnets. Woo!

– Dump crappy friends – OK, this one is kinda obvious too. We all have those friends (or family members) that are more dead weight then beneficial. When someone drags you down, cut the rope and let the anchor sink.

– Cultivate awesome friends – you know, those ones you meet and have tons in common with and can laugh and giggle for hours? Or those that have been with you through thick and thin for practically your whole life but you have no time for. Yeah those. They need to be cherished and brought more front and center.

– Teach a knitting class – I was in Joann’s Fabric yesterday and picked up their class schedule. I have wanted to learn to quilt for some time and figured this would be a good starting point. Apparently unless I wanted to take several hours off in the middle of the work day, I’m never learning through them. All their classes save a few are before 5pm. I am going to take some of my more awesome pieces and convince them to let me teach kids, teens and adults.

– Get a better paying job with a non-assistant title – I won’t tell you how much I make (it would probably depress you), but I need to make more. A lot more. After all, I have been working since I was 12, in the “real” work arena for 15 years (holy smokes!) and have an MBA. A freakin MBA. And it’s sitting dormant and not working for me at all. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my boss. I really have lucked out having a boss that appreciates me and tries to help as much as she can. And not just bc she got Steve and I tickets to see Bon Jovi!!! But being someone’s assistant is getting me no where. Sure, the experience is phenomenal as I do want to work in development and fundraising, but…. I need a change.

– Research FL and OH adoption classes – there’s a lot more to this one than meets the eye. We want kids. We likely will never have biological kids, but that is OK as there are thousands of children out there without families in foster care. Since we have no idea where we will be living when the stars align, I’m researching both states and downloading both states home study applications. We aren’t getting any younger. We want a family. If I don’t get off my butt and do the work, this will be something else that passes me by in life.

– Have a dinner party at least 6 times – I hate cleaning. Do I need to elaborate? OK fine. Having dinner parties and friends over requires a clean house and an organized kitchen for my crazy recipe hoarding. This will push me to not only clean regularly, but keep things clean.

– Organize, clean and make office into guest room or craft space – in our “next apartment” I have all these dreams for our clean and new space. Um, we live here now. We just signed through August. Why keep dreaming of a pretty craft space with a day bed/ couch when I can do it now?

What are your plans for the next year?

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Ending 2012 with Some Creativity

This has been a horrible year and I’m so thrilled that it’s almost over. There were way too many deaths, accidents, injuries, hopefully curable diseases/syndromes, and heartbreaks to last a lifetime. Not to mention termites. Never again do I wish to experience this sort of bad luck again. And especially not within a 12 month span. My family has endured so much and we’re still standing. Sort of.

Sorry to start my first entry in many months on a bad note, but it had to be said. There has been some good happen this year. Namely I got a much deserved raise at work, Steve decided to go to law school and took the LSAT (we get the scores in a couple of weeks), and… umm… we have our own place.

Seriously, finding those 3 was like pulling teeth.

Anyhow, tonight I decided to pull my Christmas ornament box out and finish the project that I started last year. Last year I had wrapped all the balls with yarn. I thought there was a color scheme, but it turns out to be blues and greens and other random colors of leftover yarn. Tonight I glued them all down and stuck the ornaments around. I also burned the hell out of my arms and hands in several places. And Lola learned what a hot glue gun was… with her nose.

So without further ado, my adorable wreath!

As far as law school is concerned, we aren’t 100% certain where we will be other then not in Miami. With me supporting us at least his first year, this over the top expensive city just isn’t possible.

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Crafty Christmas from a Jew-Girl

Disclaimer: I was raised Jewish, in a synagogue, became a Bat Mitzvah at 13, was confirmed at 16ish, worked at Jewish summer camps, and taught at the synagogue I grew up in. That said…

I love the Christmas season. I mean LOVE it. No, I don’t mean the December holidays season. I mean the Christmas season. Working at the YMCA and for a landscape company with a thriving Christmas tree decorating business certainly didn’t help this obsession. I love the music, decorations, trees, decorating the trees, decorating the house, cookie exchanges, Secret Santa’s, and the weather. OK, that last one is just the time of year and not Christmas specific. I don’t, however, care about the religious aspect of it. Jewish, remember? While I’m not a practicing Jew-girl and haven’t set foot into a synagogue since my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah several years ago, I’m still not quite ready to give up my Jewish identity. And no, having 7 tattoos doesn’t make a difference in that aspect.

Sure, I married a non-Jewish guy who technically celebrates Christmas, it was never important to him growing up. Pretty much how I feel about Chanukkah. I almost always forget to take my menorah out of my Christmas ornaments box (not kidding) and even when I do, I maybe light 3 days of candles maximum. And, my Christian friends usually have to tell me when Chanukkah is. Pretty bad, huh? By the same token, we have discussed our children’s religious upbringing and haven’t decided exactly how it’ll occur, but it will be open for them to choose. I am fascinated by other religions and cultures, why shouldn’t my children be as well?

Anywho… This wasn’t supposed to be a religious post. Back to the pretties…

If you’re one of my Pinterest buddies, you’ve seen the boards I have for Holiday Decor and Holiday Gift Ideas. There are also a few ideas sprinkled into my Crafty Goodness board that I just haven’t edited and moved yet.

So, I found this super cute tree during one of my many searches and decided to re-create it. I actually am quite pleased with how it turned out.


pretty-ditty.blogspot.com via Becca on Pinterest

And here is mine:

I also found some amazing DIY yarn wreaths and this was my choice to emulate. Lots of styrofoam balls of varying sizes, wrapped in scraps of yarn and stuck together. I bought a wire “wreath” and now just need to figure out the best way to attach my yarn covered styrofoam to it.

Source: etsy.com via Becca on Pinterest

And mine… Any idea on how to attach it? I pinned the yarn even though the directions suggest hot glue. Hot glue and my fingers don’t get along very well… I have 6 large and 12 small styrofoam balls. (I tried so hard to not use the word “balls” bc my 5 year old self is now giggling…) I also have small glass ornaments to use if I need to fill in more space. Ornament box, remember?


* wow, I had a real problem with the fonts and images in this post *

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Gred and Forge Weasley Gloves

I am a knitter. You knew that, right? I am crazy about fibers and knitting and finding new patterns and really want to design my own items one day. I’ll probably start with a shawl/ wrap as it’s pretty easy to design a flat triangle of fabric. Or at least I assume so. Yep, I used the word assume. 😉

Anyhow, I am a member of the Free Pattern Testers group on Ravelry. Ravelry, of course, being my favorite site on the entire internet. OK, maybe not, but you get what I mean.

So a few weeks ago, I signed up for a test knit for some super cute fingerless gloves. Sure, it took me a lot longer than the rest of the testers, but I’m immensely pleased with how they turned out! Of course they’re Gator colors. I used stash yarn that I had sitting in a box from years ago and since there wasn’t enough for both gloves, I alternated the colors. So they’re kinda like the Weasley twins… the same, but different.

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Plug: Adoption Bloggers Interview Project

Hello readers!

As y’all know, my husband and I are planning on adoption 2 children from foster care (a sibling pair to be exact) and I have been researching everything I can find on the subject. During this research, I discovered (and became a part of) the Open Adoption Bloggers (see the orange link in the sidebar?)

If I’m not mistaken, some of my readers have found me from OAB. Welcome!

I just found out about the Adoption Bloggers Interview Project from OAB this afternoon. And it’s brilliant! Basically, it pairs up 2 bloggers to learn about each other and post an interview on their blog. You can bet that I signed up!

Adoption Bloggers Interview Project | BeccaBlogs.com
The Interview Project is open to any blogger…

  1. who writes at least occasionally about adoption,
  2. is interested in meeting a fellow writer with different views and experiences, and
  3. wants to welcome someone into their own online space.

Pop on over there and read all about the Project and sign up. Just be sure to sign up by October 28, 2011 so that you can participate!

** Also, I offered up my services and created the above logo!
** If you know anyone that needs any design work for a blog, website, or a logo, please send them my way!

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Finally… Party Time!

Tomorrow is the day. Finally. We’ve been planning this party/ wedding reception for a little under 3 months. Ya know, had to bask in the glow of our wedding/ Vegas trip for a few weeks. 😉

Tomorrow I get to see all the family I haven’t seen in ages, even the estranged half that, quite frankly, shocked me by saying they were coming. I get to see friends flying and driving in from all over the country to celebrate with us.

Tonight we are celebrating my amazing husband’s [huge milestone] birthday with my Twitter/ FB friends Sarah and Simon. Incidentally, it’s also Simon’s birthday! Had our friends Leung and Nancy been able to make it, we’d have a triple birthday for the 3 guys. Weird, huh?

Yesterday and today were spent shopping for, buying and prepping all the food, cleaning up the yard, rolling the flatware, cleaning up our house, making all the signs, buying the centerpieces, and doing everything else required to have a rather large party at the house. Mom, dad and I hit up BJ’s Warehouse Club yesterday and spent a small fortune on the non-perishable stuff like the plates, flatware, soda, [11 bottles of] wine, chafing dishes, and so much more. Today mom and I went back for the food. Sure, we could’ve done it all in one trip, but it seems slightly less painful to the wallet this way. Hey, I did say slightly!

During all this, I recalculated our budget. I was really surprised to find that in the grand scheme of things, we spent a LOT less money than I thought we’d have spent. And, of course, we spent thousands of dollars less catering everything ourselves than had we used a professional catering company.

We have been extremely fortunate with our super talented friends and family. The main side dishes are being made by my [for all intent’s and purposes] sister-in-law’s grandmother. Desserts are being made by myself, my mom, my brother and my SIL’s sister. All the decorations, signage, favors, I am making, except for the centerpieces themselves. We’re getting plants and I really do have too black a thumb to have grown them. 😉 The tents and chairs were loaned to us by my SIL’s family and my brother’s union hall. And there’s more… That I’ll need to figure out when I write that recap post for submissions.

After everything is said and done, I plan on submitting the party to a few different wedding websites. Not just for the budget, but for the pictures and everything else.

Oh! That’s another thing. We had a photography budget of $1200 initially, but quickly dropped it to $600. We kinda figured we could find a student or something on Craigslist for $5-600. I know I know, that’s risky. As it turns out, my friend Moe has a friend that lives in Key West who just so happens to be an Emmy award winning photographer/ videographer. And they’re giving us the pictures/ video as our gift. Yeah… I’ll let that sink in for a bit. <3

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