It's Time for a Plan...

I've had a couple of down days from crafting and it's been kind of nice to just regroup. But...it's time to get back to work and get this blog back on track. In order to help me do that, I've decided that I need to get a little more organized and come up with a 2014 plan for EPJ.  New year, new EPJ!

First up...it's time for a new logo!

I needed something simpler and brighter. It seems to have more pep.

And now for other changes.

Last year, I didn't post nearly as much as I really wanted to. I let all the other little things that happen in day to day life get overwhelming and then spent a lot of time spinning in circles. My biggest obstacle to getting things up on the blog was often my photos. Typically one of two things happened with craft photos. A lot of the time I had photos of projects taken, but I had so many different things on the camera waiting to be uploaded to the computer and edited that I never got any of them ready to go. Other times, I'd get so caught up in the projects themselves that I forgot to take pictures along the way. When it came to recipes, I'd often be cooking after the sun went down, resulting in no natural light and photos that looked less appealing than I wanted them to. So...new plan.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be editing all of the project photos I have stored and will start placing them into the blog as drafts. This will get them off of the camera and out of editing as well as help me figure out which projects need new photos and which crafts were made without photo documentation. For my food posts, I'll be focusing on making recipes for the blog on weekend days. This way I can start earlier in the day and take advantage of the light when it's available.

In 2014, I'll be pushing myself to get back into crafting...especially scrapbooking, which has fallen by the wayside over the last year. I'll be playing catch up so my scrapbook pages won't always be super current, but the memories will be getting put together - which is what counts.

I'm going to start out by aiming for 3 posts per week, including one Summary Sunday post each week (I've missed those). During the week, I'll be mixing it up a little. So what should you expect?

Books :  2014 Book of the Year is already underway! I have set a goal of 64 books for the year. I'll be posting reviews of books rating 4 or 5 stars and will occasionally give updates on where I am in the BOTY process. Darian will also be sharing occasional posts with reviews of his 4 and 5 star rated books. I'll be taking part in a couple of read-a-thons to keep myself working towards my BOTY reading goal.

Crafts : I have a bunch of projects to share from the past couple of years and I have some others in the planning stages that I'll be working on as the months go by. My Pinterest boards are bursting with things I want to try. I'll be sharing at least two finished crafts each month. I'll also be working on getting finished projects together to finally post things up on my Etsy shop. I've been stalling long enough. It's time to get some finished product out there.

Food : After a short hiatus, I'm getting back on the meal planning wagon. I'm going to be redesigning my meal planning process as well as sharing some great recipes, including both new and old favorites. I'm going to be working on our family cookbook throughout the year and hope to have some progress to show as the year continues.

Scrapbooking : I've kind of let scrapbooking fall by the wayside over the last year and I've decided that it's time for a revival of sorts. I'll be reorganizing my scrapbook room and then getting back to it, so I should have some finished pages to show for it. I'll be sharing both traditional scrapbook pages and completed pages for Project Life.


I've enjoyed doing some theme posting in the past, so I've decided to implement a focus for each month. Alongside the topics listed above, I'll be focusing on one item during each month and will have at least one post each week spotlighting that particular theme. Here's what's coming up...


January : Well...the month's not over yet! January has been a lot about regrouping for me and it's about new plans and resolutions for a lot of others, so the remainder of January will be focusing on organization. Among the things in store, I'll be getting my blog planner ready, updating my meal plan, reorganizing the scrapbook room, making plans for my family recipe book, and drawing up the plans for the redecoration of my sewing/craft room. Organizing and planning is bound to run over into February, but I'll get a big jump start before month's end.

February : February is the month of love. My parents will be celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary and Collin and I will be celebrating our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. I'll be sharing some of my favorite memories of my parents and my family, our engagement and wedding photos, our love story - including the story of our wedding day, and some of the DIY crafts I completed for our wedding.

March : March is all things spring. It will be time for spring break and spring cleaning. I'll be undertaking the sewing/craft room reorganization and tackle some other house projects to share. I'll also be doing some spring themed crafts to help balance out our holiday decor stash and keep it all from being just Halloween and Christmas.

April : April is the A-to-Z Challenge. It's "26 posts on 26 days of April, with Sundays off for good behavior". I'll still be posting Summary Sundays during the month, but the rest of the days will be posts themed by sequential letters of the alphabet. It could get a little crazy.

May : May is the first of two book months. Bout-of-Books 10 Read-a-Thon runs from May 12th to May 18th. I'll be doing some serious reading, posting some book reviews, undertaking reading challenges, and seeing if I can keep up with my 2014 BOTY goals. I'll do my best to get Darian involved since he seemed to have a good time with it last year.

June : June is my Pinterest challenge month. I'll be picking projects from my Pinterest boards and actually accomplishing them! Recipes made for the blog and books read for reviews will come from things I've pinned.

July : In July, it's time for vacation! We'll be talking all things travel. I'll be sharing some favorite family vacation memories and showing you how I organize my vacation memorabilia, as well as posting some complete vacation scrapbooking from over the years.

August : August is reading month number 2! The month will be filled with book reviews and updates on my 2014 BOTY goals. Bout-of-Books 11 Read-a-Thon runs from August 18th to August 24th. It's back to reading for a solid week with daily updates and challenges.

September : September is all about scrapbooking. It's time to hit the books...scrapbooks, that is. I'll be sharing how I organize my supplies and photos, what products I like best, where I like to shop for my scrap stash, and of course showing off some scrapbook pages (including Project Life). I'll be working a lot on mini-albums during the year and hope to have a couple to share.

October : If you've been around the blog long enough, you know that October is our favorite month of the year around here. I'll be posting our Halloween Pumpkin Project plans, sharing pumpkin carving progress and debuting the final results on Halloween night.

November : It's time for NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month. I'll be working on writing something every day and showcasing a few tidbits here and there on the blog. I'll also be starting the 2014 Christmas Present Project Countdown and checking off those presents as I finish.

December : I'll be crafting up a storm in preparation for Christmas, but there will still be blogging! It will be time for some year end wrap up posts, including how things went for my goals this year and how the bracket is looking for the 2014 Book of the Year. I'll be sharing some ideas for the following year as well as keeping up with the Christmas Present Project Countdown.


Well...that should be enough to keep me busy! I may be adding a few challenges to the schedule here and there to keep things interesting, but it's good to have some goals set out. I'm looking to a fun and productive 2014 here at Erratic Project Junkie. I hope you'll join me!

Guest Post: Lost and Found Puzzles

** Today's post is a guest post from my awesome sister-in-law Victoria. She runs an Etsy shop over at Lost and Found Puzzles. We were lucky enough to have her make us a puzzle for the guest book at our wedding. She makes some really amazing puzzles so I've asked her to hang out here for the day to show them off.

Victoria (my brother in the background). How cute is she? Photo by Ampersand Studios

(Be sure to go check out her website and her Facebook page after you read how she makes these cool projects.) Thanks Vic! Take it away...**

My fabulous sister-in-law offered me a guest spot on her blog…so exciting!!! I hope that I can keep you as entertained/engaged as she does (I know I have my work cut out for me).  Here we go…

I've always loved puzzles, but it wasn't until 2011 that I started viewing them as a story of life. My best friend Holley's Dad, Mark Clapp, passed away after a year-long battle with cancer. At his celebration of life, a speech was given regarding puzzles and it got me thinking. Below is a post that I wrote on Mark's Caring Bridge page.

"I've thought a lot today about what to write. I thought back to the memorial service and that speech that was given regarding puzzles.  It made me think of all of the people in my life who make up my puzzle. When putting a puzzle together you think of your key pieces...I always find my corners first. Holley came into my life as one of my corners very early on. I have you to thank for creating one of my edges. You were a constant in my youth and will be thought of everyday in my future. Not only did you provide me with my multiple pieces of my puzzle growing up, but in your passing you brought me another corner. I will thank you every day for bringing Tyler into my life. You really do have a way of always being there and pulling the puzzle together. I know it's not complete yet, but I am a better person knowing that you helped by filling so many of the pieces. I love you."

When Tyler proposed and the wedding planning began, I knew that I wanted a puzzle as the guest book. I wanted to see the names/notes of all of the people in our lives and how they come together to make our puzzle.

So…how do I make them?  Well, last summer Tyler and I headed to the German Village garage sale. Amongst our amazing finds were a pair of Danish Modern side tables, an unbelievable vintage desk, a filing cabinet that is screaming for a makeover and we really lucked out when Tyler spotted a scroll saw that has got to be at least 50 years old!  I decided to give it the ol’ scholarly try and see if I could actually pull a DIY and make our own wedding puzzle guest book.  We took a trip to Lowes to buy a piece of birch plywood. This store was quickly becoming a second home as we were in the midst of remodeling our newly purchased house.  …I know, I know, a wedding and house purchase/remodel at the same time… What was I thinking?!?!  I’m still not so sure.  Anyway, I sketched out the puzzle on an 18”x24” sheet so that it would amount to 120 pieces with each piece large enough for guests to sign.  We tried to include more organic shapes than typical puzzle pieces…anyone that knows us, knows that we are anything but typical! J Then it came time to cut…YIKES!  I was terrified that I was going to ruin our guestbook.  I made some test cuts on some scrap wood first, then held my breath and started on the real thing.  To my pleasant surprise, it came rather natural and I felt pretty good relatively quickly at making the quirky little cuts we’d outlined.

This is the scroll saw we found at the garage sale with some of my first cuts.

 I tried to keep the puzzle assembled and numbered as I made cuts.

_{Assembled and ready for the wedding (please ignore the countertops…I did tell you we were in the middle of a remodel, right???)}

After cutting, I sand each piece to remove any rough edges.  This takes a lot of time and patience… A LOT!  I found that you also need to be a fan of sawdust because it gets everywhere!  I decided to paint and number the back of the puzzle so that it was easier to distinguish the front from back (some guests still signed on the wrong side, but I just transferred their message to the front).

The puzzle turned out better than I had hoped and I love reading through all of the pieces/messages from our friends and family!  I’m torn between framing it and hanging it in our home or possibly creating the tradition of putting it together on every anniversary.

Puzzle on display at wedding.

Signed puzzle pieces collected in a box we set up.

The almighty completed puzzle.

After our wedding, my lovely, talented and beautiful sister-in-law, Lynde, was preparing herself for wedded bliss!  I offered to make her a puzzle guest book and to my delight…she took me up on it!  Check it out J

(Credit to my amazingly creative husband who came up with the idea of having Idaho as the center piece)

                                                  

Since those two puzzles, I decided to set up an Etsy page to see if I could sell any of my creations (https://www.etsy.com/shop/lostandfoundpuzzles).  The response has been fabulous!  I received my first order right around the time I started taking classes at the Idea Foundry here in Columbus.  I’ve taken woodshop and laser cutting classes which have been great in contributing to the creativity in these puzzles!  I run to the Foundry whenever I need to cut down an oversized piece of wood (their table saw has a larger bed than the one we have at home) or when I want to play with their laser etching/cutting machine.  I’ve had eight sales so far and received some really amazing feedback!  It’s so great to hear the stories of others and what each puzzle means to them.  I’ve made plain puzzles as Christmas gifts for puzzle fanatics, keepsake puzzles for families that have experienced recent losses, name art puzzles for the little ones in your life, wedding guestbooks and much, much more.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this!  If you’re interested in having a custom puzzle made, let me know J 

Puzzle made as a gift for our wedding photographers(Ampersand Studios). 

Left to right: prior to staining, stained and pop of color on edges, finished with etched in “studios” to complete their company name.

Wedding guest book - The groom provided the artwork and I etched it onto the puzzle!  Like his artwork?  Find more of it at: http://about.me/joshua.lee.maynard

Name art for the little ones (Christmas presents for my nieces and nephew)

Back to Crafting!

It's been a rough month. Like, really rough. This has pretty much been me since March...

Source

I've spent the last month fighting to get out of the lease for my office, finding a new office and taking my dog to the vet. Yep...that's right...more doggy drama for 2013.

We noticed a lump on Piper's leg in March. We watched it for a couple of weeks and then decided to take her in once it didn't seem to be getting any better. The vet took a look and decided to try to aspirate it...no go. So he did a needle biopsy. We got the preliminary results of a sarcoma a few days later. So...we scheduled for an excisional biopsy.

The day before that visit, I let her out in the yard, heard her bark once, and then she came back limping. Best I can figure, she either fell in one of Sadie's holes or slipped off of the rocks in the walking path and hurt herself. When the vet went into do the removal of her lump the next day, he diagnosed her with a torn ACL. Oy. She was back for surgery the following week.

Two weeks, two stapled incisions and nearly two thousand dollars later, Piper is now an indoor dog and a cancer survivor. The lump was indeed a sarcoma, though an early stage with low chance of metastasis. We have to watch her for recurrences.

Crashing out on the bed after ACL surgery. Don't mind the blanket pile in the background. I've been lazy with housework.

The staples came out last week, but she made a quick trip back to the vet today after we noticed a new lump in the area. The vet confirmed that it's just the nylon knot from the suture used to tie her new ACL, so we're breathing easier and we've also been informed that she's healing very well. A good thing to hear. I don't think I could bear losing another dog this year. Piper's my baby.

As for work...I finally got to the point where I was sick of paying through the nose for my lease. So...I hired up my lawyer. I wound up settling with him for a sizable amount of money and we're moving out this week. In the meantime, I've been searching for a new location. I had my time wasted by a colleague with an open space who very nearly had a deal signed with me before he managed to double the price he wanted and then also sprung on me that he wanted me to pay for all of the tenant improvements on his completely unbuilt space. Umm....no.

That sucked up almost three weeks that could have been used concentrating on lining up things for the space that I am currently signing on. VERY frustrating.

In the end, I found a great location for a good price and I'll be pretty happy. The office is a bit further from my house and requires me to wake up earlier, but it will be a great deal in the end. I also managed to get myself an additional job offer in the mix.  More about that on another day...once it's all finalized.

So...ya. Needless to say, I've been burnt out and not really feeling it so much in the crafting department. I'm finally starting to pull it back together though. This weekend I made this...

An apron for 2 year old Marley...it matches the one I made for her Mama.

...and did some lazy scrapbooking. Hey...it's a start.

And now I really am getting going on stuff for the Etsy shop. I'm super excited. Things will begin being posted to the shop this weekend. Yay!!! Progress!

It will be a slow start, but once things start to settle again I WILL be posting more regularly. I'm glad to be getting back to things...it makes life feel a little bit more normal. Thanks for waiting it out with me. Craft on!!

Back in the Saddle Again.

Well...I am wading through the literally thousands of photos I took between November and now. I have a lot of projects to share, but it's taking me some serious photo editing and reorganization. It's amazing how crazy things can get when you use four different cameras. Oops.

So...as a reminder...here are some of the projects I'll be working on showing you this year (in no particular order):

1. Kiddie Kitchenette
2. Sock Monkeys
3. 52 Things I Love About You
4. Patchwork Name Quilts
5. Alphabet Soup Quilt
6. Homemade Vanilla Extract
7. Homemade Sugar Scrub
8. Jean Aprons
9. Monogrammed Plates & Mugs
10. T-Shirt Quilt
11. "Sparkle" Quilt
12. Gameday Dresses
13. Little Girl Tutus
14. Pony Hoodies
15. Pajama Pants
16. Rice Warmers
17. Rag Rug
18. Beer Bottle Glasses

I'm also working on lining up some items for the Etsy shop. I hit a small snag last month so things have been delayed, but once I get one last piece in place I'll be ready to run with it. Thanks to Pinterest and some cute ideas I've gotten from store items and magazines, I have a large list of things I'm going to be making for that. I will be using the new items for tutorials on the blog as well. It will be nice to get back in the swing of crafting again.

So...starting tomorrow, expect to see more of me. I have photos for two tutorials ready to go and I'll be working on more this evening. That's right. I'm back. Let's do this thing.

Birthday Hat Headband

So my niece, the adorable Miss M, turns 1 tomorrow. How quickly the year has flown by! Considering myself crafty, I decided to make her birthday presents for her this year. It all started with finding this on Pinterest.

It's cute right!? I thought so. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that it was on Etsy. Darn you Etsy!! (I shake my fist.) I need tutorials on this kind of cute stuff. You tease me with the possibility of creating something cute and then I only come to find that I have to figure it out on my own. Bah!

Now, with half of this Etsy stuff I just move it to the bottom of my "projects I want to do" list and move on. But for Miss M I had to have this. So I set out to make my own version. Mine didn't end up looking exactly like this one, but I like it none the less.

If you want to make one like mine, here's what you'll need :

1/2 quarter flat fabric (the pattern you want the cone to be).

1/4 quarter flat fabric (the pattern you want the top and rim to be).

1 headband.

Appropriate thread.

Batting (I used loose batting so I'm not sure exactly how much I used up, but it wasn't that much).

First, I cut out a pattern to make a cone. You'll need the fan shaped cone section as well as a circular portion for the bottom of the cone. Make your circular pattern about 1/2" wider in diameter that the base of your cone will be. This will allow enough room for seams.

Cut out the two separate pieces in your primary fabric. I used a lightweight black and white polka dot. Pin the edges of the circular section to bottom of the cone section and sew circumferentially with the seams on the inside, leaving a 1 inch section open for stuffing. Then sew the edges of the cone section together, with the seam facing inward. Make sure you don't sew the entire cone edge to the circle. Turn the whole thing inside out.  You should have a rough cone shape with a small opening hatch at the bottom.

Stuff your batting in through the open slot. I packed mine pretty tight and then smooshed it around to make sure things were pretty even. At first I had some kind of lumpy sections. It took a little manuvering. Once you have that finished, sew an invisible stitch to close the base. If you don't know how to do that, you can find a short tutorial here. (Thanks Maggie! I stole it from your Pinterest board.)

You're now going to work on the bottom ruffle and top poof for the hat. Take your second fabric and cut out two 1 1/4" x 24" strips. (Depending on your circumference you may not end up using the entire length - that's okay.) Sew the strips with 1/8" side seams to get nice even edges.

Use a gathering stitch to bunch up each strip. I used my sewing machine to do this. It was the first time I'd ever actually done a gathering stitch on my machine so I used a tutorial. (I love the internet).

It was super easy. I will never do it by hand again. It's my new favorite trick.  I did a double gather on each strip and then pulled them fairly tightly.

Use one strip as your bottom ruffle. Pin the ruffle around the base of the cone. You could probably be creative and figure out how to do this on your machine, but I did sew this one on by hand. Oh, and FYI...fail on my part. I used white thread. So now you can see all of my stitches. Dumb.

Take the second strip and start folding it in and wrapping it around itself until you end up with a ball shape. Pin this to the top of the cone and manipulate as desired. I wanted mine to look a little sloppy. If you want a super neat little circle then you could just sew a small pouch and fill it with batting rather than using a gathered strip.

Now sew your cone onto your headband. I sewed this by hand. I wanted mine to lean slightly off to the side, but you could just as easily sew it to the center. I lined the headband up to the center of the cone's width and used one pin to hold it in place. I then stitched the hat directly to the headband with just your basic stitch. I did this pretty tightly and folded the cone to the headband as I went so that there is no slop. And then you're done.

The nice thing about this is that it should fit Miss M for quite a few years so she can wear it at later birthday parties or even just as part of her dress up clothes. Attach a little silk sash to the top and you have a perfect princess hat.

So take that Etsy! I don't need your darned tutorial anyway.