Craft-o-rama

I opened an Etsy shop in February and realized I had poor timing. As in, no time to work on items to put in the shop. My initial plan was to make a lot of small items. My rationale was that smaller projects would take less time so I could put more items up more frequently. umm...that's not really working for me. I recognize that cranking out tons of small stuff will soon make me feel like a machine. I am now focusing on designing large pieces for Etsy, which is much more fun. These projects also take a long time. Somehow knowing I can't whip it up in an afternoon takes the pressure off.

My favorite big project is a knitted handbag in a tweed rib stitch. Its sweet.

So what happened to the smaller projects? This is the super fun part...Mark is helping me put together a craft blog. Yeah! Its in the planning phase at the moment, which is a nice way to fill small gaps of time during the day without too much commitment. When I have the opportunity to set aside time every day, the blog will be the space where I put up my small projects. So far I have a series of themes planned for each month of the year where I will feature histories, how-to's, how-not-to's (eg, my various blunders), and hopefully some inspiration. I'm also considering putting up a new knit stitch pattern each month, though I'm not sure how popular this would be. I'm a collector of stitch patterns so someone like me would love it. ;)

These are the monthly themes I have planned so far. They are in no particular order at the moment.


1. Decoupage (this might be my first month because I love my photo album to recipe books...you'll see)
2. Paper mache (likely to be my least successful series...a true craft experiment for me, but I want to make Isaiah a pinata at some point..hahaa )
3. Paper folding (endless possibilities)
4. Paper making (probably better if this is before paper folding month)
5. Magazine reed creations (I'm already rolling endless numbers of reeds after Isaiah goes to bed)
6. Candle making (my first attempt already taught me a few lessons)
7. Scrap yarn projects (probably another month that will appear sooner rather than later since I already have a number of ideas for this)
8. Scrap fabric projects
9. Knitting
10. Crocheting
11. Re-purposed crafts(think coffee cans and bottle caps)
12. Featured crafters (this is in hopes that I actually have a small following so that I can feature my favorite crafty friends and their shops, websites, and projects).

Who needs to go back to an office job when I have all of this to look forward to? ;)