Such a busy time of the year! No matter how prepared and organized I am, it still seems to be rather frenetic. Not sure why; I don't have near the people to buy gifts for anymore. Hardly anything to ship out. I do send lots of cards but I don't have the time to hand make them and the list of 'homemade cardworthy' people has grown to epic proportions. I used to do 15-20, but with everyone on FB now I run the risk of hurting feelings if I send to one person who publicly thanks me and other people feel slighted that I didn't deem them homemade cardworthy when they see it. So my solution has been, unfortunately, to not do it anymore.
But I've still made the time to do some crafts in between decorating, dealing with a sick dog last week, errands that never seem to end and preparing for my other craft show at the Sandwich Legion.
I have been wanting to try floss wrapped bangle bracelets with jump rings and charms. Rather than using a solid colour, I broke out the variegated floss. I ended up replacing the seahorse with a 3rd turtle and sending it to a cousin's daughter, who has 3 turtles.
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As usual, the project took way more time than I'd expected. Wrapping alone took over 2 hours, close to 3. And then I remembered how much I really hate working with jumprings.
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I'd like to keep the purple one but sadly bangles have always been way too big for my hands/wrists and they slide off easily. The red and black one was done with 2 skeins of floss in those colours and wow what a pain it was to wrap!
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I realized I never did post the pics of the 2 jar snowglobes that I was able to get to seal and not leak. This one got a little cloudy because the paint has probably washed off a bit. It's hard to tell but it's a snowman with a big hat and holding a pole with a hanging lantern.
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I really like this one with the white tree and lamppost.
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Then during my decorating spree, I unearthed some balls that I forgot I had. I got those plain jewel tone balls many years ago at Costco and then the following year they came out with the same balls, with gold glitter designs and I started to use them instead. I also got those smaller glittery balls a couple years ago for a potential project that I don't even remember now. So I spent some time tying more fishing line to them to make another ball chandelier.
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Came out really pretty but to the detriment of my neck and upper back.
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This coming Wednesday night I'll be stepping WAY out of my comfort zone, craft/art wise. Stay tuned.....
I don't 'make' my cards the way I think you mean, but I do print my own. It does get impossible, I end up with between 60 and 70 cards. That's not bad but it's the postage that costs so much. This year stamps for overseas cost $2.50 and I have at least 24 of those.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I have overseas and stuff going to Canada although not as many as you do and yes, postage is insane. I had just bought a roll of stamps and after sending 90 cards, I had 10 stamps left. So that's $100 worth of postage stamps in less than a month. Plus the handmade cards always cost at least 2 stamps-worth. I have tried to cut some people off the list but then I feel guilty, esp. if they send me a card.
DeleteI hope your doggie is doing better, JoJo. It sucks when the pups are sick. I still handwrite cards but no longer feel the need to get one to every single person in my address book. I need to get some cards in the mail this week - I'm running behind.
ReplyDeleteYes he seems to be much better. Last week all I did was clean up poop and pee from both of them. Sagan was sick....Pepper is old and unable to hold it very long (which means my getting up 2-3 times a night to let her out).
DeleteI love the ball chandelier. Cool!
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's really pretty.....I'm almost thinking about leaving it up year round.
DeleteAh yes, I have severely cut back my homemade cards too. This year I even toyed with the idea of not sending out ANY.... but I did manage to finally finish about 20 and mailed them out earlier this week - sadly many of my aunts and uncles I used to send to are no longer with us, so it's just close family and a few friends at work who are "card worthy" anymore. LOVE the ornament chandy!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah the cards are very time consuming....I think I can do about 4 per hour...and having 50 or more people who are card worthy, well, that's math I just can't do. And time I don't have unless I were to seriously start them in the spring. But like I said, postage is crazy as it is....I can't really afford it.
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