AMANDA'S BASKETS: A Tuesday in January

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

A Tuesday in January

PICTURE OF THE DAY:

It snowed most of the day today. When I went out this evening to check the temperature, I saw this tree. The amount of the snow on the branches was unreal. So I went back in and grabbed my camera to take a picture before the snow fell off. Speaking of trees, Herbie was cut down today. Herbie was over 200 years old and was one of the oldest elm trees in New England.

I did work on a couple pages of my journal. The top picture is of the pages on which I placed the pictures cut out of magazines. I added some writing and then painted it with yellow oxide acrylic color. The bottom picture is of two pages on which I wrote a response to a prompt and then covered it with tape. Can't wait to see what is next on this page.... I guess I have learned that you are really never done with a journal page. You can always go back and add more to it. Very interesting! And I am learning to be less controlling in my work.

I also worked on one page of my fabric book. I've pinned several strands of yarn in place and I am in the process of sewing them down. I'm not sure where I am going with this yet, but I have some ideas percolating in my brain.

But a great deal of time was spent with my fabric stash. Last week I was looking for a specific color of fabric and could not find it. It was then that I realized that my method of storage (stacked on a shelf) was probably not the best for my stash. Because I only make small projects, I have very small amounts of fabric. Mostly 1/8th of a yard. That makes individual pieces very hard to find.

So today I began folding the fabric and placing the pieces in a plastic container. The container above has 70 pieces of fabric in it. And although some pieces are further down than others, it is much easier to fan the fabric and see everything.

I do not plan on putting large pieces of fabric in the containers, but anything small will be going in them. I think it will be easier for me to find things.

I also cut out a 6" square of each fabric to add to the traveling craft kit. And while I was working on the stash I caught up with a couple quilt shows: 'Quilting Out Loud' and 'The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims'. Two very different but excellent internet quilting shows.

Thanks for visiting.

CRAFTING IDEAS

I am always looking for a small piece of paper to write down something which will later be disposed of. I decided to use some of the scrap paper of which I have a ton. I mostly use the paper for glueing projects. I decided to cut the paper into a small size. (Six pieces from a piece of copy paper.). But just having them sitting on my desk would get messy without a container. So, using a cardboard box, I cut it down to size and using a hot glue gun I glued the ends together. Using a picture from a magazine cut into pieces and stick craft glue, I glued the pieces to the box inside and out. I also used some decorative tape for the outside edges. And to finish the top corners which were not covered, I used straight pins with colorful tops. Looks nice and works well.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

So in looking over your habits what did you find? Some popular good habits folks have are: Meditation, exercise, journal writing, flossing, reading and walking up early. Some not so great habits included smoking, saying yes, swearing, tolerating folks, not sleeping enough, always complaining and constantly making excuses. Do you have more good habits or more bad habits? Is it time to change? If so, start with the easiest bad habit to change, not the hardest. This will give the best chance of success. Decide on the best way for you to change your habit. Worry too much? Set a time to worry and then stop. You may have to stop yourself several times at the beginning but keep it up and you will worry less. Or, alternatively, write the worry down as well as options to stop the problem. Just figure out which way to stop is best for you.