6. Write a love letter to my husband and mail it to him
I wrote a love letter to my husband back in June (it was another one of my june projects) and gave it to him as a Father’s Day Card. I didn’t mail it to him but I stuck it on his computer in his office when he wasn’t looking.
I used the same card for my catalyst for creative therapy:
and here’s the back
the letter inside was two pages typed. Yep, I typed it. I’ve learned over the years that I can express myself more deeply and more eloquently when I type.
I’m afraid the contents are too personal to share but suffice it to say I love and adore my husband and I am very thankful he is in my life.
I thought a lot about what I wanted to make for this project. I would love to have made something to wear but my sewing talent really doesn’t extend that far. Then I wanted to make a tablecloth but I promised myself I wasn’t going to buy more fabric and I just don’t have enough large pieces to make a tablecloth, and it’s a huge project. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I have no patience so I needed a quick-ish project.
I found this bag and really wanted to do it but it looked complicated and I wasn’t sure I had enough of the fabric I wanted to use. I definitely didn’t have enough interlining and interfacing.
But now I was very interested in making a bag. I have this large camera bag but it’s huge. And I have this tiny bag that I carry my cash and cards in but it doesn’t hold my book reader. So I needed something in between that just held my small purse and my book and my keys. So I searched and searched and when I stumbled upon this tutorial I was in heaven!
Being impatient as I am, I did the whole thing in just a few hours and made SEVERAL mistakes. But I still love the way it turned out.
In case you do plan to make this bag, i will note that the measurements aren’t fully accurate! the distance on top on either side of the handle should be equal and I should have figured that out but I didn’t until I’d already cut everything. So I had to cut off the handles and sew them back on in the middle. And let me tell you they do not meet on top properly. One is considerably wider than the other. I could have fixed that but it’s a reminder that it’s ok for things not to be perfect.
There’s a pocket inside which is also totally crooked.
I love this black polka dot fabric and was saving it for a project. Now I get to use it and see it everyday.
Nathaniel likes my bag, too.
And it fits all my stuff perfectly. It even fits the huge camera if I want to carry it with me.
One day I might aim to do something more sophisticated or even make this one over so it’s not so imperfect, but for now I am loving it.
Here’s one I didn’t think I would tackle until December but here we are:
38. Make a wreath
I wanted to make an indoor wreath since I already have one on my house door that I love. I searched and searched for a long time and finally settled on this one that I love love loved.
Mine’s a bit different cause I stuck to mostly cone shapes. Not sure why, it spoke to me the most:
I did it mostly as I watched TV, just tore, folded and glued without too much thought.
here’s a bit of a closeup.
I love looking at it on my wall. It makes me happy which I guess means project accomplished.
This was one of the June layouts I did. It is for the Creative Imaginations sketch challenge for June. I turned the sketch sideways and used paper instead of extra photos.
Since Jake and I have almost been together 16 years, I thought it was a great topic to celebrate the man who makes me happy every single moment of every single day.
Since I bought a new camera, I had to do this one again:
13. Create my own camera strap
This time I just did my own little solution. I didn’t do the triangular edges and since the fabric I used is thin, I put a layer of batting underneath it. It’s nice and cushy now.
Welcome to the Blog Hop! The hop starts today, Friday July 2nd through Sunday July 4th. Each blog will be showcasing a different project inspired by summer and all of its glory! Hop through each blog to check out the instructions for creating each project, then choose a project to recreate. Post your project in the AMM gallery and in this thread. You will have until Friday July 9th at midnight to post your project to be eligible to win an Echo Park Collection pack! More than one project created earns you another chance in the random drawing. Please be sure that projects are created especially for this contest. Good luck!
Since David is starting Kindergarten in the fall, I decided we would spend this summer at home together. I didn’t sign him up for summer school or for any specific activities. To make sure we wouldn’t get bored, I made a layout with a list of activities we can do. I used photos of each of the activities and also listed them. This way, if we want spontaneous ideas, we can close our eyes and point at one and do that one.
Here are a few details:
I wanted to show you how I did the photos for this layout so I took a little movie in Photoshop. I am pretty sure you can do the same thing in Photoshop Elements.
When I originally made my list for June, I knew it was super-ambitious and I didn’t really think I would get all of it done. Throughout the month, I did change some things around but I’d say 85-90% of the final list is the same as the initial one. Here’s a small collage of some of the projects I completed in June. Many of them are not here and some are sneaks since they are not coming up until later but it’s still fun to see the variety.
And here’s a summary of what I did:
Scrapbooking:
30 total projects and the breakdown is:
12 Layouts
2 cards
2 projects for different assignments
12 creative therapy pages
Weekly Gratitude album cover
Finishing and putting together Nathaniel’s album
Sewing/handstitching:
10 total projects:
Book cover
Sew something for me (coming soon)
Art for Caleb
Art for Yona
Cross-stitch hearts
Counting bean bags
Fabric ball
Keychain
Camera Strap
Fabric basket
Knitting/crochet:
9 total projects:
Monster chunks
Doily
butterfly
heart
booties (or booty really)
fingerless gloves
crochet necklace 1
crochet necklace 2
Scalloped crocheted border on a card
Other:
Cheryl’s invitation
Start and Complete upcoming 6-week BPS workshop
Create a wreath
Paint a portrait
Create 13 Weekly Gratitude pieces
Make a flower ring
Write a love letter to my husband
Create a zentangle
Schedule a slew of posts for my blog
As of this writing, here are the “scheduled for June” items I didn’t complete:
Creative Therapy 126 – didn’t know what to do at first, now I have an idea but haven’t completed yet.
Write a Letter to Someone I admire – honestly, couldn’t think of someone, will likely do this one in July
Create digital downloads for June, July, August – I decided to take a break on downloads for a while
No so bad considering all the extra layouts and projects I did that weren’t on my list.
All in all, I’d say June was very productive. So far both May and June have been awesome, let’s see what I can do in July.
I first heard about Zentangles from Karen Walrond’s blog and then I searched for them on YouTube and found a bunch of videos. I’ll have to admit that while it looked really easy, I knew it wasn’t. Last year, when I did my 52 questions and techniques project doodling was one of the few techniques I didn’t even bother to tackle. I can’t doodle to save my life. Trust me, I can’t.
But I liked this so much, I did two of them.
So while it’s very flawed, I am pretty proud of my zentangle and I plan to tackle a bunch more in July.
I wanted to make this bag ever since I first saw it.
I don’t know why I never realized how small it is, but it’s tiny. It’s just a cute, little bag. I am in love with these polka-dot fabrics so of course I used those again:
It now stores my fabric scraps. Love love love this little bag.
I wrote about Nathaniel’s album a long time ago, here. And now that he’s well past year one, I figured it was time to tackle this one:
53. Finish Nathaniel’s Baby album
The overall process I used for the album is this:
1. Some preliminary pages about expecting him and the test, etc.
2. Some pages about the day he’s born, his umbilical cord, etc.
3. At the beginning of every month, marking that month
4. From then on for every week, 6 photos and 1 layout to show photos for every day of that week.
5. At the end of every month, a page of notes about that month in his life (this needs more work for my book since i didn’t keep up with it well)
that’s it. So I planned to have photos for every day of his life and at least 52 layouts about his first year.
I ended up with 66 layouts since I did a bunch more as I felt like it. It got broken into 2 albums and honestly, It probably should be 3.
Here’s a look at one of the pages.
And here’s a small collage of all the layouts I did about the first year of his life. Most of them I’ve already posted. Some are coming up.
One more baby album down. I think I might go buy some more of the American Crafts Binder albums and break this one down to three albums.
