Muzzling the Know-it-All

Today is the day! Got out of bed, made a slow carb breakfast and mopped the kitchen floor. I'm convinced that productivity is all about getting some momentum going and keeping it going. After two months of eating anything and everything I wanted, it was nice to get back to something healthy that will fuel my body the right way.

In my last blog post I mentioned that I was going to sign up for an online class and I did, and I love it. After some deliberation, I chose the Draw Your Awesome Life workshop by Joanne Sharpe. It's fifteen lessons for $38 and her style and mine are very similar so it seemed a good fit. I went to Asel and spent $20 and I was ready to roll! I've done three pages so far and even though I'm not in love with any of them, I like something about each and more importantly I learned something from each lesson. 

I have a condition I call closet perfectionism. I have pretty low expectations about my housekeeping and my appearance but there are certain areas that I zoom in on and at times I can get so critical that I no longer enjoy something that should be fun. One of the symptoms of closet perfectionism is the delusion that I am supposed to be good at things without trying, learning, or practicing. To that end, the ugly little know-it-all in my brain can sometimes get her red pen out and scribble all over things I've made. In this class we do pencil drawings that we then cover with permanent ink and then add a watercolor layer. For one of my drawings, I used a pen that said it was permanent, but when I added the watercolor, it ran a little an muddied the colors. The results weren't bad. You could almost look at it and think it was intended but the know-it-all knows it wasn't and she's been trying to get me to tear that page out and start over. I'm leaving it in my notebook because it is a lesson, and because the only way to shut up the know-it-all is to stop playing by her rules. The joy is in the process not the product. 

If you happen to have a case of closet perfectionism, here are my suggestions on how to muzzle the know-it-all in your head:

1. Remind yourself that you are playing. Singing, painting, writing--creative pursuits of any kind, are supposed to be fun. 

2. Practice isn't supposed to be perfect. Practice is a process to improvement. Progress not perfection is the goal.

3. Buy affordable supplies to learn with. One of the ways my know-it-all beats me up is to criticize how much money I have spent compared to the product I create. When I buy a leather bound journal and an expensive fountain pen (hypothetically of course) I expect myself to write a journal worthy of those materials. The first time I misspell something or have to cross out a word, the know-it-all assures me that it is ruined. When I switched to gel pens and composition notebooks, I found I was more likely to use the notebooks and not worry if there was a phone number or a shopping list in the midst of my creative writing exercises. 

4. Don't start tearing out pages. If you want to try again, try again on another page. Document the process. When the know-it-all convinces me that I have to hide my mistakes I am playing right into her hand. Mistakes are part of life. 

5. Set process related goals. I will draw something every day. I will write 7 pages a week. I will learn a new song every two weeks. If I set a goal based on the product, everything that falls short feels like a failure. If I set goals based on process, the product will improve on its own. 

6. Fight the know-it-all by exposing the lies to the light. One of the best practices I've established is to let something sit for awhile before analyzing it. A little time and distance will remove some of the emotional attachment and allow me to look at, listen to or read things in a more productive manner. We should look at our work with a critical eye provided the motive is to improve but there is a difference between an honest critique and bullying. Part of the process is to learn the difference.

I'm off to get stuff done! Peace, love and creativity!

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

Let's just say you've stopped at a garage sale in Fort Worth just to kill a minute or two and although you didn't find anything at the garage sale, when you look across the street you see a pile of boxes. Do you get in your car and drive away or go see what's in the boxes? Well of course you check the boxes.

Imagine that in that pile of boxes you find a whole bunch of groovy sewing patterns--do you leave them for the trash man or do you pick them up? You pick them up!

So what is a crafty girl to do with these patterns?

You might make a tissue paper flower!

You could print some retro clip art on them and then decoupage it to a canvas!

You might create a shabby chic wreath.

Or you might make a funky lamp shade!

As I always say, "free is my favorite price!" I hope you find some treasures among the trash today! Peace, love and upcycling!

Living Room Redo

Yesterday I got a wild hair and decided I wanted to redecorate. I stayed in a guest house in Smithville, Tx last weekend and it was decorated up fifty flavors of cute and I came home with an itch. There was only one problem--I have no dinero for decorating. So here's what I did: I shopped my house for bits and pieces that I could put together to give the living room a new feel without spending any money and after several hours of moving and dusting, shifting and arranging, I wound up with a new room filled with my own stuff. I made a couple of new things to hang on the wall (there is a picture of a bicycle and a wreath made of old sewing patterns that I whipped up yesterday) but for the most part all I did was rearrange and voila! I got a room that makes me smile. As an added bonus, I made Big Daddy say, "Holy cow!"

I hope you are preparing your nest for cooler days and snugglier nights. Peace, love and Modpodge!

Compose Yourself!

I've been feeling very creative lately. Yesterday I went to play bingo and while I didn't win. I did walk out with a handful of colorful cards. I don't know why but it just kills me to throw them away and since Big Daddy wasn't there to give me the "are you hoarding bingo cards now?" look, I brought my losers home. (I did linger over someone else's cards that they left on the table but I decided that would be overkill.)

While Papa Grande napped in his recliner, I sequestered myself in the craft room and made bingo composition notebooks. I have a love affair with composition notebooks that spans back twenty years. When I first got sober I had way too much time on my hands and way too many thoughts in my head so I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I wrote creative stuff and journal stuff and I also played this free writing game with friends that was a lot more fun than it sounds. There was a little place called Boxies at Preston and Beltline and I used to go there and order a banana nut muffin and a vanilla latte. I sat at the table outside and I wrote until I couldn't see the page anymore. I filled dozens of composition notebooks and while I thought I was writing in preparation for the great American novel, I now believe I was learning to enjoy my own company. I found composition notebooks for .50 during back to school so I bought half a dozen.

I've been doing a lot of web searching about doodling, visual journals, art notebooks and creative lettering. I am drawn to these forms and have been for a long time but lately the art books seem muddled to me. I enjoy the layering process a lot, but the product sometimes seems bogged down. I love the idea of doodling, but have found that doodles tend to be floral, and while I like that a lot, I've been noodling about using a less girly motif. I'm searching for something, a light switch of sorts, and it's very exciting.

Chalk it Up to Pinterest

I wish I could take credit for this idea. I really do. It seems like an idea I'd come up with and I'm a little astounded that I didn't. Anyway here's the scoop. Back when we started Yes, Chef! Catering, we went to a restaurant supply auction and we bought a couple of odd lots of stuff. One of the lots we won was a mixed lot of crock pots, a "flotilla" as Big Daddy would say. I think there was maybe one good crock pot and several more homely ones, and from time to time we have used them all but we definitely use the best looking ones the most. So I'm perusing Pinterest yesterday and what did I see but the most brilliant idea ever! Spray paint the crock pots! Spray paint the crock pots (drum roll please) with  chalkboard paint!!! Oh yes boys and girls, this had to happen.

When choosing a craft I usually have three factors to consider:

1. Does it cost less than $10 to begin? (Now many of my crafts spiral way beyond the $10 mark, but in order to get sucked in, I prefer that the craft seems affordable at the onset.)

2. Can it be done start to finish in less than one hour? (I have done things that take longer but I usually screw them up because I can't wait to let paint dry.)

3. Will Big Daddy think I'm crazy when he sees what I've done? (I don't know why this is such a motivator for me, but it is.)

So here's a picture of two of the three pots I painted. I'm rather fond of the harvest gold one. It's especially groovy.

I just taped up the parts I didn't want to get paint on. Took off the nobs and sprayed away. Then I let them dry and POOF! Chalkboard crock pots. The reason I think this is so cool is that you can label them with the food that's inside or with your name (or any other cute message you like). I am just tickled. I think they are super fun and I think they'll be great for catering. You'd be surprised how many times people ask you what something is. I guess folks are afraid I disguise lima beans to look like queso.

Have a wild and crazy Thursday!

A Real Cu-Tea of a Gift!

I made this wreath in the wee hours of the morning and I think it's just adorable!

Supplies:

12" cardboard cake round (or a piece of cardboard that you cut into a circle)
Scrapbook paper
24 clothes pins
24 tea bags of assorted flavors (I bought a 4 box gift set from Sams Club and I have enough left to make at least one more wreath)
Ribbon
1 soda can tab
Scissors, white glue and a glue gun with glue sticks

INSTRUCTIONS:
The hardest part of this whole project is cutting the cardboard into the wreath shape. I'm guessing an exacto knife with a sharp blade would have made this a LOT easier but of course I only thought of that after the fact. Once you have a card board donut, then you're going to cover it in scrap book paper. Cut the circle to size and then with the center, cut a circle smaller than the hole in your wreath shape and cut a bunch of little tabs that you can fold over and glue to the back of your wreath shape. Now you're going to cut long thin strips from coordinating scrapbook paper to glue on to one side of the clothes pins. Use white glue to attach paper strips to clothes pins. Use the hot glue gun to stick the clothes pins to the wreath making sure that the "mouth" of the pin is pointing to the outside of the wreath. (Leave a gap in the pins for your bow.) Use hot glue to attach the can tab to the edge of your wreath. This will be the hanger so that your wreath can be hung on the kitchen wall. Use ribbon to tie a bow around your wreath. Put a tea bag in each clothes pin (there will be some over lapping, not to worry!) Voila!

Christmas is Coming (the goose is getting fat!)

We have another melt down free holiday under our belts! Thanksgiving only had a hitch or two and I must say that the we are getting much better at working on the fly. Dad and Mary Ann (Steve's parents) weren't able to make it and they were greatly missed. I  McGyvered up some desserts without having to go to the store and no one left hungry.

I had my nieces over for a slumber party on Friday night and we got our decoration on. The first project we did were the beautiful glitter bulbs shown above. This was the easiest project ever. Some how I inherited a couple of strings of outdoor lights and we don't put up outdoor lights. Several of the bulbs were broken and corroded so this was something destined for the trash until I saw this little project on Pinterest! We unscrewed the bulbs, painted them with modpodge and glittered our hearts out! They turned out super cute and are in a glass jar adorning my mantle. The upside to a glitter project with three not so neat girls (and an aunt who's a straight up disaster waiting to happen!) is that not only did we make beautiful crafts but we also made a sparkly rug, a sparkly chair, a sparkly sink, sparkly soap...it's like a troupe of fairies came to party at the Love Shack! Honestly, I'm a crafter so things like this really don't bother me, but if you're messphobic, you might want to do any glitter projects outside (someone else's house).

We also painted these lovelies using vinyl stickers I made with my Cricut. The girls painted over the stickers. Believe it or not, I did not tell them how to paint their canvases (which is rare for me!) and I think they turned out super. I told them that we had to wait until the paint was completely dry before removing the stickers, but I lied. I peeled them off as soon as they left to go wash their hands. I've never been known for my patience. As a matter of fact, I hung them on the wall before they were dried so there are a few drippy dots that are all my fault. While my mom would save these forever, I will probably recover the canvases with burlap after Christmas and use them for a new project.

I also wanted to tell you about my photos. If you like the vintage look and feel of these pictures, and if you have an iphone or ipad (they've got to have it for android too, I'd think...), you must get the Hipstamatic app. I don't pay for apps, but I had to have this one and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! (And seriously, it was $1.99 so it's not going to break the bank.) You can mix and match films, flashes and lenses for various effects OR you can just shake the "camera" and it will choose a random combination for you! It comes with plenty of lenses and film to keep you playing for a long time, but there are little in app add ons (.99) that give you even more stuff to play with. Oh, and you can upload from the camera app directly to facebook or twitter! 

More Crafty Fun!

                       

 These are my crazy cute necktie wristlets. They are the perfect little bags to carry a cell phone, ID and keys. I'm making these for Christmas, so if you want one, let me know! $20 for my choice of tie, $18 if you supply the tie. They are also great for ipods, cameras and other small electronics.

Gearing up for Giving Thanks

As I've aged, maybe even matured, my favorite holiday has shifted from Christmas to Thanksgiving. An easy case could be made for the fact that Thanksgiving is just easier, but I don't think that's it. I think what has changed is that I have experienced this shift from wanting to get to wanting to share. Honestly that shift has taken a too long and the transformation is by no means complete. What I like most about Thanksgiving is that it's a good time. We invite both sides of our families to our home and we pray, eat, and enjoy each other. It's just that simple.

Here are a few things I'm doing to prepare for out annual Thanksgiving get-together:

• The 20 Day Clean Plan--each day I've identified one "zone" of the house I'll work on de-cluttering and cleaning. This includes closets and shelves behind doors that usually stay closed. If I complete this mission my house will be MUCH more organized before the real holiday slam begins.
• The holiday mantle--I love holidays but I can't see decorating from top to bottom every month so I redo my mantle often. Since my living room and dining area are one in the same it packs a punch and is the first thing you see from the front door. The banner reads, "Give thanks" and the chalkboard says, "Count your blessings."
• I also made a rag wreath for the front door. I should have made it smaller and fuller, but  it's still a cheerful addition to our doorway. 
• I have made a chalkboard for our bathroom and I've written, "I love you because ______________________." Each day I write down one thing that I love about life with Big Daddy. I know it makes him smile and it's a lot of fun to come up with new ways to let him know he's appreciated. 
• I am delegating. This year I have made a conscious decision to quit trying to do everything myself. I have wrestled with feeling like I waited a long long time to be one of the "grown ups" and it's my turn to do a whole holiday all by myself. I have had more than one meltdown about feeling like "my holiday" got hijacked and remembering those little episodes makes me cringe. After catering for a over a year, I've discovered is that it's no great privilege to get to do it all yourself and everyone enjoys the meal more when they get to contribute something. So each of the ladies in my family and Big Daddy, will be doing something to prepare our Thanksgiving meal. 

I hope you are taking more than one day to count your blessings and to let those around you know that they are loved. Love and peace to you all.

My Creative Life and Girl Scout Cookies

One of the challenges of being me is that there are a dozen things I want to do at any given moment and none of them are the things I need to do or have to do. Lately I've been journaling and doing creative writing a lot and when I'm in the zone with that it's so good and I love it so much and I want to do it forever (like the first box of Samoas) and then one day several weeks in for some inexplicable reason I need to paint something (time to open the Thin Mints!) only actually I want to paint everything! so I head to Michaels for $60 in painting supplies and I'm going to paint forever, I am a painter, woo hooooo and then a book comes in the mail and nevermind the six books I have lined up waiting patiently, no I've got to read and read and read and read (mmmmm Tag-alongs!). I've always been like this and it's been the source of a lot of frustration and confusion for me because when my brain tells me this is it, this is your thing and you are going to do this thing forever and you are going to be great at it I believe my brain and I purchase things like I'm going to love it forever and I talk about it like I'm going to love it forever and frankly I know it makes me look like a big flake when someone asks me about the big fat forever thing before last and I have to say, "Yeah, I'm not doing that anymore." It took me years to realize that these things are cyclic and the good news is that I really don't get bored and the things I like to do come back time and time again. It's like having these wonderful wealthy friends that come to visit having just returned from someplace exotic. When they are visiting, we stay up late and play show and tell and I'm so glad they're back and just when we fall into a comfortable routine they're packing their bags to head off to Istambul and the phone rings and it's another friend who's at the airport and wonders if I can pick her up (Trefoils, where have you been!?!).

This week is Spring Break and I've been looking at crafty blogs for two day straight. I've found some amazing stuff I'd like to try my hand at. I've still got the mantle decorated for Valentines Day and it needs to be redone. I'm going to try my hand at a spinich stuffed pork loin tonight. I've got a new writing book that has my brain working on story ideas all the time and our garage is a complete disaster. The closet is over run and every piece of clothing in there needs to defend it's worth because Captain Pack Rat here is getting frustrated with trying to find something to wear to church. I bought a sewing machine at Christmas that I'd really like to learn to use better and the Book of the Month club just sent me an email telling me my book is on its way. The list just goes on and on and on and somewhere in this big casserole of things I love and things I love to do is a career.

Speaking of careers, you should check out this color test that tells you various careers that would be a good fit. Big Daddy and I both had creative as our strong suit but his second strength was in organization and mine was in persuasion. It's weirdly accurate and it only takes a minute to do. Hey, now that I think about it, perhaps I could persuade Big Daddy to organize our closet!

So I'm going to challenge myself to do one creative thing each day of Spring Break and I'll post it on the blog and posting the blog doesn't count as my one creative thing. Hopefull I will use this time to live a little more mindfully and a little more gratefully. My dad used to have a quote on his desk from Benjamin Franklin. It read, "Do not waste time, it is the essense of life." Amen!

Here are some of the ideas I fell in love with:
butterfly art
fake cupcakes
tea wreath
omg cute flipflops
collage on canvas

Eat, Play & Love

Tonight I'm making three-cheese broccoli soup from my new favorite cookbook, MAKE IT FAST, COOK IT SLOW. The only problem with it is that I could smell the broccoli cooking from the garage so our house smells a little like dirty socks. Good thing I've got my LA-TEE-DA! I've just been raving about how easy this crockpot cooking is although there are several dishes that I will alter a little when I make them again. Stephanie warns that every crockpot is a little different and you have to get to know how yours works. I also tend to try to make smaller versions of the recipes since I'm cooking for two (and we have a tendency to eat for six if we're not careful) and I'm sure that makes a difference in cooking times. I'm looking forward to the soup. I got a couple of round bread loaves on clearance at Kroger today so I'm going to try to make bread bowls (does anyone else see a giant mess in my future?) to make it look a bit more like dinner. That being said, you should really try out some of the recipes on the blog or buy the cookbook. It really is a super easy way to make a dinner that tastes like it took more effort than it does!

I meant to get into my craft room and start working on my mantle today. I am a crafty girl and I change out the display on my mantle every six weeks or so in celebration of various holidays and seasons. I have three 12X12" frames that I put scrapbook pages or scrappy type decorations in. I change out the nick-nacks and I hang a banner beneath the mantle. The only problem is that I didn't get my New Years stuff made in time and I think I'm a little early for Valentines Day, so I'm thinking maybe just a Warm Winter Wishes kinda thing...I'll post a pic when I decide. Since I didn't get to make any crafty stuff today, I'll share my new favorite videos--I just love these, they completely crack me up. These are definately my homies. Word.

Big Daddy was smoov trippin when I was checking these out Saturday morning. I pulled a little knitta pleeeease on him and he be all up in my bead box, yo. ;) If this made you laugh, go here and watch the third video on the page, I'm sorry but Old Dirty Crafta is just too funny.

Speaking of videos, we're watching THE WIRE on Netflicks and while it took me awhile to get sucked in, I'm totally hooked and really wish I'd gotten the DVD in the mailbox before the mailman came today instead of after. I'm reading OLIVE KITTERIDGE right now (it won the Pulitzer this year) and it's really a good read. It's a series of connected short stories (which is cooincidentally what I always said I'd have to do to trick myself into writing a novel) and the writing is delicious. It's the kind of book that makes me ache to be a serious writer and makes me sad because I'm just not that good. Sigh. Other than that I'm just doing the housewifey thang which I never thought I'd love, and getting ready for my fifty-seventh first day of school. I really must be setting a record for the longest stint in community college without actually completing even an Associates. Time to talk back to the voices in my head: I love to learn and I'm excited to have an opportunity to do things differently. I love to learn and I'm excited to have an opportunity to do things differently. I love to learn and I'm excited to have an opportunity to do things differently...