Rainy Day Project

Well it didn't start out as a "project" sort of day, it was more of a rainy day - cleaning & organizing day, my kitchen being the perfect target. When right there in the middle of my raid I came across old packets of abandoned Crystal Light. My first thought being, how did this utter poison make it into my house? My second thought being *DYE PROJECT*!!!
I ransacked, and put back together my kitchen just in time to turn around and make it my laboratory where it looked like a Tupperware party collided with a VW bus full of hippies. It was worth it though, I swear I'm the last to jump on the dye your own yarn / thread wagon, and there were loads of different recipes and techniques that I wanted to try. So I put them to the test on sectioned out crochet thread that I haven't done anything with since a college project about a thousand years ago.

I think just having candy colored threads at my reach on whimsical spools would surely be inspiration enough for future projects relating to the materials or not! As you can see I had a few misses, but I think I've got some hits in there as well. I have no idea what I'll be doing with them now, but even if they're just used to tie up packages, or staking helpless flowers at least it'll be a little more exciting than using plain white. I think for now, though, I need to start making some of Thanks to these from this delicious blog post!

I can't wait to find out what kind of uses I have for this thread now. And I really can't wait to get started on a set of those spools for myself!

xoxo

Long, Cold Winter ...

Or a very happy Valentine's day. Either way, my family's expecting the arrival of FOUR autumn babies this year! Well, three now, my cousin has started the baby-ball a rollin' already with the newest addition of her family joining the clan just this last week! We've got another cousin anxiously waiting for her baby to come, and I've got two on the way of making me "Auntie" yet again.

Love is in the air, or global warming gave us a blistering cold winter coaxing us to stay indoors and snuggle up, or Hallmark put out some really good cards this February, or whatever you want to blame it on, it's raining babies in my part of the world this fall, and it's got me elbow deep in projects. One of which has been a long standing agreement with two of my sisters over a shared childhood bookcase. No matter who has it last, it goes to the first one of us to have a baby. This little bookcase that could, has been passed around more times than a bong at a Grateful Dead concert, and somehow has come to call my place home for the last couple of years. So in keeping up with my end of the bargain, it will be given back to the expectant sister, but not before it gets a minor face lift. While us girls have come to love it for it's brown-ish goodness, I think in the spirit of giving it not only back to a sister, but to a new owner to make his own memories with it, it should be spiffy and ready to take on its responsibility of being co-creator of new memories.

Lessons from Mother Nature

I was admiring my tiny urban jungle of sorts the other day, caught up in the thought of a flower's life purpose: to be beautiful. Of course this raises a couple of arguments ... true, some are edible, and they give honey bees something to do, certainly. They're still beautiful while they do their "jobs," and even blossoms found on the most robust bushes, or spidery vines appear to be suspended in a moment of effortless grace. What if we decide to make that our life's purpose, above all else, and before everything that ends up consuming our time, and becoming our lives we each make a conscious effort to live it beautifully, and commit to seeing each task through to completion with the grace of our decorative little pals? Unlike flowers we have a choice about how we do it, but why would we, and why do we do it any other way? Why are we afraid of being beautiful?

Why is it we seem to shun grace, or pass it, and a calm attitude off as if showing any of this to the world makes us in a way less driven, and lacking tenacity? How does running ourselves ragged, and living in perpetual stress, and chaos make us seem like more conscientious, and dependable workers? I think it's a hoax, we've tricked (albeit, cleverly) ourselves into believing a frantic system of living means we're really taking care of some serious business. I think I'll be taking a lesson from the gals on my patio. We all need reminders sometimes - this was definitely mine.

xoxo