Yarn and my day :)

So it was another long day at work today.  I love my job.  However, while I'm super excited to be moving into a larger store in a couple of months, I'm not so thrilled about all of the construction noise!  We're moving right next door but we're not keeping our current space at all.  So today, like the past few days, the construction crew broke out the jackhammers.  For those of you lucky enough to have never listened to a jackhammer for roughly six hours straight, imagine being in a dentist's chair having a tooth drilled for that long.  Only louder, much, much louder.  I could barely hear my guests questions and at one point the floor was literally vibrating.  Needless to say, I was very happy when 2pm rolled around and I was able to clock out!  

After today I needed to work on something relaxing and soothing.  I'm working on a series of neck warmers out of a fantastic yarn called 'Charisma.'  It's a bulky yarn that works up really quickly and looks great.  Tonight's yarn is the same colors that you see in the picture below- shades of blue, rust, tan and brown.  I love it!  And the neck warmers are so comfy.  Yet another thing I can't wait to finish up and post in my shop!

Painted Desert in Arizona

 

Bacon Cheddar Ranch Dip

I had to open at work on Christmas Eve.  One of the ladies I work with decided to bring in some dip for everyone to try.  Bacon cheddar ranch.  I'll give you a second to process that..... Okay, it was fantastic!  I told her that I absolutely had to have the recipe.  I couldn't believe how easy it was!  She wrote it down for me but I was able to remember it all without even looking at it.  And believe me, that can be a challenge sometimes!  So I went to the store today and picked up the ingredients.  It's currently sitting in the fridge, just marinating all those delicious flavors together.  I don't have a photo of it but it looks like a really thick dip.  Here's the recipe for you!

• 16oz-24oz sour cream (really you can use the larger amount, there's so much flavor!)
• 1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch dip mix (it's the dry kind by the salad dressing)
• 1 cup cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup (or more) bacon bits (I used the fake kind since I gave up meat but you can absolutely use real bacon) 

Just mix everything together and let it sit for a little while in the fridge before serving.  That's all there is to it!  Enjoy!

Jackson Pollock

I have to be up for work in a few hours so this entry is just a little quote for you from one of my favorite artists.  :)

"On the floor I am more at ease.  I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting." ~Jackson Pollock

I love his work and have for years.  Every single time I visit his painting "Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)" at the National Gallery of Art, I find something new in it.

Behind already!

So on the 1st I said that I wanted to write on my blog everyday.  Well, I completely forgot about it yesterday until I was all snuggled into bed, desperately hoping that at some point my ice cubes would turn back into toes.  Good news!  By morning I had toes again- probably had something to do with the five blankets and a cat curled up on my feet.  So this is my "make-up" post for yesterday.  I've decided that my punishment when I don't write for a day is going to be to write an extra post the next day.  It's not really punishment if it's fun though, right?

I've got a project in the works for my store that I personally think is AWESOME and AMAZING.  Yes, so great that it requires capital letters.  I found some bottle cap pendant blanks on my travels through Frederick, MD on the way home from that little holiday trip I took.  I've always wanted to make bottle cap necklaces but I've never been able to make them the way that I wanted.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make them so that I could put the fabric on the outer part of the cap since I would have had to attach a pendant blank/bail to the cap.  I tried to punch a small hole thorough the lip of the cap but always bent the cap.  So there I am in Jo-Ann's (yes, I do work at Jo-Ann's but this store was much larger then my store) and a bag of bottle caps catches my eye.  I lean down and low and behold, they have the bail already attached!  I snatched them up and knew that they were going to be my first official project of the new year.  I had to work the next morning at 6am so I didn't so anything that day or the next.  I was off the 30th, but decided that I needed to catch up on some well needed sleep.  So they sat there on my desk, in their bag, teasing me for a couple of days.  On the first I had some fun with fabric, the pendant blanks and a ton of Mod Podge.  The pendants are finally finished and I just need to make up the cords to go with them.  I can't wait to take photos and post them for sale in my shop!  Here's a little sneak peek of the pendants I took while the first layer of Mod Podge was drying.

A new year, a new resolution.

Well readers, welcome to 2013.  I'm particularly excited about the new year because I just love the number 13.  I know, I'm a bit weird but it's all okay. :)  So everybody always says that they have a "New Year's Resolution."  But really how many people actually keep their resolutions?  Last year my goal was to ready 50 new books and watch 50 new movies by the end of the year.  I had no problem with the books, I was reading so much that I lost track of all of the books that I went through!  50 movies on the other hand, that didn't happen.  I have a tendency to watch the same movies over and over again (just ask my husband!), so I might have watched 20 new movies the entire year.  One part of me feels a little bit sad that I didn't watch enough new movies but another part of me is just fine with it.  Like I said, I tend to read more than watch movies.  I also have several television shows that I like to keep up with and that's when I do my crafting!

So that brings me to this year.  It's January 1st and time for some new resolutions.  I'm hoping that I've come up with a couple that I can actually keep up with, but we'll all just have to wait and see.  The first of them is to continue my weight loss journey.  I have a final goal in mind- to get down to about 115lbs.  I started out my journey right after my 29th birthday in Sept. 2011.  My original goal was to make my goal weight by my 30th birthday.  It didn't happen and I know now that was probably unrealistic.  I've had good and bad moments with my weight loss and am currently down 29lbs. from my original weight.  I don't think that's too bad and I'm proud that I've been able to maintain that loss for the most part.  There were moments where I gained weight but I went back down again and that's important.  I love Zumba but haven't been able to go to classes much in the past few months because of my work schedule.  I'm hoping that changes soon.  So I've got roughly 70lbs. to go in my journey.  I also went meat-free back in the middle of November about 2 weeks before Thanksgiving.  I've never been a huge meat-eater but I've always loved bacon and steak.  So giving up meat really wasn't a huge sacrifice for me.  The first few weeks were tough- like waking up and smelling that turkey roasting in the oven.  But I've stayed on track and feel better overall.  So resolution number one is to work on losing weight and maintaining the loss.

My second resolution is to write on this blog once a day.  I've said in a few past posts that I need to write more but I haven't been able to keep up with it.  Something always comes up or I just don't feel like writing.  So the new goal is to write something, anything at all, once a day.  Maybe I'll post about a recipe or a project or maybe if I don't feel like writing, I'll just share a favorite quote or song lyric.  Maybe I'll just share a picture because there is that saying "that a picture is worth a thousand words".  

Last year was an interesting year.  I got the chance to work in a few other stores, which may help propel me further with my job.  I had the awesome, amazing, fantastic opportunity to meet some of my all-time favorite musicians back in October.  (I still can't believe it actually happened!)  My husband started school back in Sept. which will lead to opportunities for him in the future. Even though I haven't sold much of anything yet, I did get a number of items posted in my online store.  I spent a week in June on vacation down in Myrtle Beach, SC- my first real vacation.  I closed out the year with a trip to Delaware to visit my family for Christmas.  Jim and I stopped in D.C. on the way home and went to the National Gallery of Art.  I've missed going there on a regular basis so the trip was great!  And I was able to see a retrospective of Roy Lichtenstein's work- one of my favorite artists.  

So having said all of that, let's all see was 2013 has in store for us!

 

One of these days I'm actually going to be keeping up with this blog.  My life has pretty much been on the road since August- work has sent me to Steubenville, Ohio, Pittsburgh, PA and most recently (and for next week) Sterling, VA.  However on the 21st I'll be back home and back to crafting!  I'm really looking forward to it as it's been hard to work in hotel rooms.  

A little side note:  I entered my "Mason Jar Tag" in a contest on Ranger Ink yesterday morning.  My entry was picked at random as a winner!  There were four winners and 160 submissions.  I'm thrilled as this is the first time I've won anything in the crafting world.  Apparently I'll be sent some of the seasonal distress ink colors (which have now been added to the regular lineup of inks).  :)  

Now its time for me to go off and work on a chainmaille jewelery set and a fabric belt for the concert that I'm going to on Monday.  Barring anything going wrong, I'll be doing a meet and greet with Rob Zombie (and hopefully John 5, Piggy D., and Ginger Fish) before the show and an after-show party with Marilyn Manson.  So excited! 

Cute projects but a bit of a let down

Back at the end of June, I applied for the DCWV design team.  I found out yesterday that, unfortunately, I wasn't picked to be on the team.  However there were 150 applicants and they only picked 12 for the team.  This being the first time that I've ever applied to be on a DT, I'm not too surprised that I wasn't chosen.  

However, since I wasn't chosen, I can now show you the projects that I submitted!  Now I have no idea if I could have done this sooner, but I didn't want to take the chance that I would be breaking some kind of rule.  After all, when you submit to a magazine, 99% of the time you can't have published your project online anywhere. 

I had to submit four projects- a card, a scrapbook page, and two 'off-the-page' projects.  I'm just going to post the pics here now and if I can remember to do it, I'll post some info on how to do them later on.

Mother's Day card

scrapbook page

paper flower topiary

Adorable birdhouse!

I hope you like what I came up with and please let me know what you think!