Crafts and Home Projects

According to Russ, I am ALWAYS doing crafts lately, and it's pretty much true. Since I took over the craft classes last month, I am either planning or making crafts almost every night. Last night, I couldn't fall asleep until 3:30am because I was laying in bed planning the craft class for September. I'm a little obsessed. With the amount of work it takes to think of ideas, write/draw them out, plan how to make it "in bulk", design it on the computer (the cricut hooks up to a computer, so it acts more like a silhouette - which gives me endless options), buy supplies, and make the craft, I probably earn about $1 per hour. But it's really fun. Here are pictures of what I've done so far:

March

April (the September project I was planning is going to be like this, but the "AUTUMN" version)

May (finished this last night while Russ was having a guys night)

I didn't plan this one, but this was the craft class project for February

 In addition to the craft nights, a friend of mine has been doing a monthly Wreath Workshop since November. I think I posted a picture of the pretty January one, so here are the ones I've made since then:

February

March

April

I really love that the housing area where we live offers so many free activities. In addition to the craft classes, they have tons of other activities, exercise classes, and a play group during the winter months that I was SO grateful for because it let Sophia and I get out of the house.

In addition to my crafts, I also decided our living room needed a little make-over. I can put up with boring, cluttered bedrooms, but since I spend at least 50% of my waking hours downstairs, I needed a change. We re-arranged the furniture back in January to make it look more open, but then I also wanted to get rid of our 3 foot bookshelves because everything on them got disrupted by tiny toddler hands. I also wanted to have as little clutter as possible because I feel trapped by our small apartment sometimes (especially in the winter). So with $20 and my new friend, Home Depot, I added a little color to our lives...

This is the bookshelf I used to keep my monthly decorations on. It wasn't Sophia-proof so I took everything off of it (except the decorations on top) and use it as a (*ghetto*) shoe rack. Then it bugged me to see our shoes sitting out in the open.

 I went on the search for shelves. I found one at Home Depot and the other at Goodwill and spray painted them yellow (thanks for Sara for the spray-paint tips) and had Russ hang them. It's so nice to put decorations on the wall and free up floor space!

Then I decided to spray paint the picture frames above our dining room table.

decorated for Easter

And then I spray painted our black "LEE" (or "eel" as Kiera read) on the wall...

My spray painting days have only just begun. If it ever gets warm enough to stop
snowing, I might spray paint a few things in Sophia's room too. For the first time all the furniture in our living room is the same color at least - dark brown or black. So I really like I yellow and blue. Maybe the only other thing I need is a yellow area rug for the floor.

Here is my other little decoration corner.