She’s Crafty

And she’s just your type.

I’ve written before about my general dislike of any arts and crafts-esque project. The idea of scrapbooking gives me the willies, glitter is very strictly banned from our household and the idea of stepping inside Michael’s is enough to give me hives. Even as a child I shuddered anytime a teacher pulled out popsicle sticks, fuzzy puff balls and some Elmers. Oh sure, we bought a glue gun and constructed some of our own wedding décor, but that was really more of a necessary cost-cutting measure than it was a “fun project.” It’s just not my thing. I don’t enjoy homespun things – I just don’t. And I certainly don’t like crafting them myself.

But lately … I don’t know … something has possessed me. Perhaps I’m ill. A strange virus infestation maybe? Well, whatever it is, it’s compelled me to tackle a few home improvement projects that some would classify (myself included) as “crafts.” *Shudder*

It all started because GAR went to Austin a few months ago and brought me back an “Austin City Limits” t-shirt that is completely awesome but is, also, completely suffocatingly (yes spell check, I know it’s not a word, lighten up) tight on me. He tried to see if he could exchange it for a larger size to no avail. But I had an idea to frame it for our music themed home office, along with another concert t-shirt that’s too big on me (if only they could be combined into one perfect t-shirt!), and a simple Google search gave me several options for how best to do this. No biggie, right? I mean, framing something isn’t really a craft project. But ... I didn’t love the color of the frames I had so I decided to spray paint them ... which is really just "painting" ... which is totally NOT crafting. Nonetheless, the whole thing did feel a little like arts and crafts hour in Kingergarten. But I am pleased with the results, so that's fine ... just fine. (Although I do have a major problem actually hanging the items I frame - hence the leaning on the floor shot. Get used to this ... you might see a few similar type shots moving forward as well.)

But, okay, while I was Googling this little t-shirt framing project I might have also seen an idea for how to turn old t-shirts into pillows (no sewing required! Which is good, because home ec was a bad, bad time for me in 7th grade) and thought “Oh, I have another really cool concert t-shirt that I’ll never wear again and wouldn’t this be a nice thing to help cushion my office chair?” (I’m still working on this one though – photos to come.) And then, well, it just kind of spiraled out of control from there.

I was unhappy with the wall full of framed postcards I had in my bedroom. The idea had seemed good in my imagination but it never really looked as good in person as I would have hoped. So I Googled ideas for other ways to display my retro travel postcards in one frame and came up with an idea for a craft project that would look way more kick ass than my current display. And so I did it. All it took was an empty frame, some string and tape. Easy! (Plus I invested in a very manly staple gun - score! - to hold the strings in place. And some day I'll even hang this bad boy too.)

I also revised my fireplace mantle artwork using framed fabric, which meant I had to go a place even MORE evil than Michaels – Joann’s. (Though I can deny ever doing this one since I took it down for the holiday season and put up garland instead.) And then I created two additional pieces of artwork for our office. I took some of our many, many concert tickets and created this (yes, I do know how to use a hammer and nail - get off my back).

And then I Instagramed (yes spell check. I know, I know) photos from these concerts (and a few more we've attended) and created a modern montage of them in Photoshop (before everyone started hating Instagram and saying they're selling our souls, etc., etc.) All I need now is to frame it (and, yes, hang it. Picky, picky)!

Pretty much I’ll never need any more décor for my office again. Or anywhere for that matter because I also created this for our bedroom.

It’s “artwork” created out of a bunch of little paint swatches I had collected at my "favorite" (okay, maybe not "favorite" but most frequently visited) store – Home Depot. But I totally love how it looks like legit art. And the best part? This one is supposed to sit on my dresser and lean against the wall - ha ha! I did that on purpose!

Yeah, okay. I may have a crafting problem. Granted it’s mostly just framing stuff with a little bit of design work thrown in. It’s not like I’ve taken up knitting or anything. But it’s definitely out of my realm of comfort. For the love of Pete I even joined Pintrest – PINTREST! I have clearly been possessed. But I’ll be damned if ever put anything I created up on that site. I am too selfish for Pintrest. Because, while I’m more than willing to look at your ideas and maybe snag a few of them for my own projects, I sure as heck don’t want anyone stealing my ideas. They’re mine. MINE I tells ya. Mwahhahhahhah (evil laugh) … even if I did share them here with you today (because I’m nothing if not a complete and total braggart).

To ease my mental state of affairs I took a breath, stepped away from the bedazzler, and decided to do a cosmetic enhancement that was just a little less "girly" (and I didn't even get hands-on with this one, I made GAR do it while I instructed him on how to do it correctly - natch) – hiding our television and electronic wires behind our new entertainment stand. This was no easy task given that our new stand has a completely open back to it. But I was just crafty enough (errrr ... I meant, intelligent enough) to figure out a way around that (basically it involved massive amount of electrical tape to hold everything into place. Viola!

This is the "BEFORE" shot (messy!):

And here is the "AFTER" (with GAR watching some crazy show about auctions - yawn). As you can see, we did a decent job of hiding the cords behind the shelves and then stuffing all plugs into that basket, which holds a power strip:

                                          

Okay, it’s all good. That last one was toooootttallllyy a macho, not too girly girl, type project. Perhaps I wasn’t a victim of body snatching. I am still “me” after all. Now I just need to find onnnneeee more frame for this uber cute Nirvana painting that GAR got me for Christmas. I'm sure I can find just a little more room on my wall for it ...

                                            

Eating Arachnids

You know how they say you eat some insane number of spiders each year in your sleep? Eight is the number I generally hear (*shudder*). How these disgusting creatures end up in one’s mouth, being chewed up, swallowed and digested, is generally not something I care to spend much time thinking about in my daily life. But, honestly, at this point I think that I’d be at least a little bit okay with the idea (provided I can still go on living in ignorant bliss that it ever occurred) if it means that the Hanks are finally extinguished from my abode for good.

If you don’t remember the “original” Hank, he was a giant, furry, nearly tarantula-esque type spider I found (like I find all evil things that take up residence in our home) one day while GAR was away … well over a year and a half ago. And then I lost him. Then found him again dead, weeks later (after many fearful, don’t touch anything before inspecting it for giant spiders first, moments), squished in the sliding door track. And then I found two of his buddies dead in our unused spare, spare bedroom – proving that he was not a one-time-only freak-of-nature occurrence. And, despite learning that they are actually not poisonous, I got an exterminator … who kindly also pointed out that we had black widows (and their eggs) living around the perimeter of our house (and, as we learned later, also living in our garage) ... and those bad boys are poisonous.

Here’s a photo of a Hank (a.k.a. Wolf Spider) just so you know the source of my nightmares more intimately (no, this is not a photo that we took. We are sane people who do not pick up and hold very scary spiders no matter how seemingly harmless their venom is known to be. However, I would like the man to come live with us since, clearly, he is much less frightened of Hanks than we are).


So, yeah, although I think it would be nearly impossible to chow down on one of those bad boys in my sleep without being aware of it, I would, perhaps, be willing to bite the bullet if I meant I never, ever, EVER had to see one again. But, come on, that would HAVE to count as my sleeping spider eating quotient for the next couple of years at least.

But there’s been no need for all that. We have been living blissfully free of Hank and his offspring for some time now. Oh sure, GAR found this crazy giant spider in the pool and when he tried to fish it out it formed a bubble around its entire body (what the???) and “paddled” away from him. And then another time he found some other spiders on the pool deck whose bodies appeared to be made of spiky, weaponized armor. But there weren’t any IN OUR HOUSE (unless I had accidentally eaten them, of course) and so it was fine … until GAR found a Hank in our master bathroom a few days back. And, yes, he killed him, but how can I ever rest easy again? HOW?

Of course it doesn’t help matters that I’ve been home sick these past few days … which means I’ve spent some significant time alone in the house – which always seems to be prime time for terrifying creatures to make their appearance known to me. So, of course, I wake up this morning in a foggy, congested haze and head into said master bathroom where what to my sleep-caked eyes does appear is some large and possibly eight-legged creature making its way through my in-ground rock garden (I suspect this is why most people do not have rock gardens in the middle of their bathroom floor but, you know, they’re just not as lucky as I am I guess). Of course, I couldn’t be sure what I was seeing since I didn’t have my contacts in, but it was SOMETHING HUGE. But, naturally, by the time I located my glasses it could no longer be found. We even tossed around the rocks a bit in an effort to startle it out of hiding with no success. I crouched on the cold tile for 20 minutes afterwards just staring into the rocks, looking for it (while GAR stumbled back to bed), but it never reappeared. I know from past experience that when you dig down past all the rocks all that you find is dirt, not cement foundation, so it could be lurking somewhere on the earthy bottom of the “garden” (though, despite what my friend Katie believes, no creatures can actually burrow into – or out of - the bathroom through that dirt … this isn’t The Shawshank Redemption and the critter would have quite a long path to dig to freedom), but that means it’s still here … whatever it is … somewhere.

GAR believes it was just my delusion. With my sight impaired, my head in a weird NyQuil coma and visions of Hanks scampering in my head, he believes I dreamt the whole thing. But he is wrong. So very wrong.  I know it.

And so it’s decided – from now until the end of the month I am going to devote myself to finally finishing the New Year’s resolution I made on Dec. 31 (2010 … okay, yeah, I am a little late, I know) and get every nook and cranny of this house organized. I need to ensure that there are no little cubbyholes of clutter where critters could be lurking unnoticed. I will smoke Hank out of his hole. I MUST.

Really there are only a few stones (well, actually, there are still LOTS in the rock garden) left unturned. I organized the laundry room and linen closet last weekend … and I would have gotten farther if I hadn’t stubbed my toe so hard I thought it was broken (which it wasn’t … the only thing broken was my spirit … my spirit). So now all that’s left is the aforementioned spare, spare bedroom – which is where I found the dead Hanks before. And, yes, I’ll admit I’ve saved this room for last because I acknowledge that it’s the most likely to be the source of whatever it is I don’t want to uncover. But I’ve got to face my fears and go in there to finish filling the boxes I’ve stored there with stuff to drop off at the Salvation Army. And today I made that pile just a bit bigger when I tossed an old dish towel I don’t want any more on top … and a giant lizard leapt up and darted away. Of course. Sure. Lizards. Why not? Come and join the party.

But I did make GAR perform a “catch and release” with our new green scaly friend. Still, I can’t help but wonder if I made the right decision. After all, lizards are harmless. And from what I know of them they eat bugs … even big hairy spiders. Perhaps Mr. Lizard really was the lesser of two evils.

Dang it – now I’m going to have to be the one to eat Hank after all.

Tradition. Tradition. TRADITION!

You should be singing the title to this post Fiddler on the Roof style which, I know, is hard to translate into writing but, eh, whatcha gonna do?

Actually, I am not a gal who is so much into tradition. Not that I have anything against traditions, per se, I just think that one should leave herself open to doing whatever feels right in a situation, not simply doing things the way they’ve always been done “just because.” Our wedding was not full of customs that other weddings generally follow, for Thanksgiving we grilled out since I don’t eat meat (no turkey in the household), and next year we’ll probably do something different entirely, and we often celebrate what we call “Christmas” on a day other than Dec. 25, depending on our plans for that year (which always vary).

But, we are traditional when it comes to the holidays in some ways. We do always deck the halls (though I don’t have any balls of holly) – putting up a tree, hanging stockings and (usually, assuming I can convince GAR to do it) stringing up the lights on the front of the house – and we NEVER do it prior to Thanksgiving (that’s sacrilege in our house). We bake cookies, send out holiday cards featuring photos of us and the pups, and wrap presents – every year. And we likely watch a few holiday tv specials too. These are traditions I suppose, though we’re not insistent about how we do them or when … we could let one or two slide without much notice … but mostly they’re just things we do to feel “festive.” However we do have one main tradition in our house, and this tradition can NEVER be broken – our gift giving ritual.

We started this tradition a few years ago when we first bought our house. We wanted to keep our Christmas spending small while still getting each other thoughtful, meaningful tokens of affection. So we made some rules (traditions always have rules, which can sound limiting or oppressive but, somehow, we’ve made our “rules” into such a game that it’s completely fun … and challenging – in a good way).

Rule 1: There is a max spending limit of $100 (including tax and shipping for any items purchased – although GAR will often try to negotiate out of including one or the other of these add-ons in an effort to spend a few extra bucks)
Rule 2: Everything you purchase MUST fit inside the other person’s stocking (at least part of each item anyway, there can be some spillover at the top)

We also sometimes make a Rule 3 to challenge us further. Rule 3 includes specifics for the gift content. For example, this year we must have one gift that the other person can wear, one gift that you made and one gift that is symbolic of something we’ve done together as a couple (you could have three separate gifts to meet these criteria or you could have one or two gifts that serve double/triple duty – i.e. a scarf you knitted out of old vacation t-shirts). But we don’t always have a Rule 3 because, as I said, even our traditions have to be a little bit flexible.

I LOVE our gift giving tradition because we each have to think a lot about what it is that we want to get the other person most. We have to budget our money accordingly, shop wisely, get reeealllly creative about how to accomplish our mission, think strategically, and still manage to surprise and delight the other person with our craftiness and consideration. On numerous occasions I’ve seen GAR taking precise measurements of my stocking, plotting and planning what will fit inside. GAR’s stocking is all misshapen now – stretched out from me cramming as much as humanly possible in there in years past. We get crafty and cunning and downright sneaky about our purchases. And, best of all, we’re not blowing the bank with our perfect little presents. However, we do, frequently, blow each other’s minds with what we’re able to get each other on our tight budgets.

This year’s gifts are already starting to pop up. Every few days I look and there seems to be something new that’s appeared. Here’s where we stand today – Dec. 1. Only 24 more shopping days to go (or, since we’ll actually be celebrating Christmas on Dec. 23 this year, 22 shopping days really)!

I can’t wait to see what this year’s stocking madness brings.

Now if you’ll excuse me, GAR and I are off to do some shipping for another little (fiscally responsible) holiday tradition we have – The Dollar Store Christmas. Each year our friends all get together for a “Secret Santa” style party where the gift you give to your assigned recipient must come from the Dollar Store (or cost no more than $1 + tax, if purchased somewhere other than the Dollar Store). Again, you’d be surprised what you can get for a single buck. I used my $1 copy of Sanjaya’s memoir (from "American Idol" – didn’t you know he has his very own book?) to trap a snake in my house earlier this year, I have a $1 recording of the Michigan State (my alma mater) fight song on CD and, should the need ever arise, I can take a $1 pregnancy test (though I’m not sure I’d trust the results on that one).

So yeah, some traditions really are worth keeping around (as long as they don’t cost me too much moolah that is). Happy holidays!