{true life – i’m a craft hoarder}

today i am guest posting in michelle‘s thankfulness series over at the momma bird! i invite (& encourage) you to head over and read just exactly what i am thankful for… and while your at it you can catch up on the whole series!

one of the positive aspects of having a blog is that i get to show all my invisible interwebs friends anything and everything i want to about myself, my life and my house. there is also the advantage of not showing you the messy part of life that sometimes i wish i could keep hidden.

some of these things include, but are definitely not limited to…

the fact that i only wash my hair twice a week.
{it’s incredibly dry and if i washed it more than that it would fall out. for realz}

the fact that my floors are typically covered in a fine film of dog hair and sand from my backyard.
{the fact that i have a life prevents me from wanting to/being able to sweep & mop as often as i should}

the fact that i don’t clean the toilets. i make the hubs do that.
{look. i’m not the one peeing all over the seat, okay?}

the fact that i am absolutely scared of the dark and refuse to watch even the previews for any movie that might be remotely startling.
{the last scary movie i watched was the ring.}

the fact that not once, in my entire life, have i ever mowed a yard.
{nor do i ever plan to either.}

and finally. the fact that i have become sort of a craft hoarder. i never really realized it until a few weeks ago, when i was talking to my friend rhiann about having a girls crafting weekend. she kept rattling off projects and ideas. i kept saying “oh, i have the stuff for that! yep i have some of those and we could make such-n-such work. i’ve been saving some of those up for a while! (<-- this particular thing being empty toilet paper rolls. WHY?)" when i realized that.. umm i have quite a bit of crafting paraphernalia stuffed in random corners around my house. today it is time to come clean. because the first step is admitting i have a problem. and then getting rid of the stuff. (hence the up and coming girls craft weekend.) so let's go craft-exploring through my house and see what we can find, shall we?

first of all we have my cedar chest. it is a gorgeous cedar chest, handmade by my husband’s grampie. all the girls in the family have one, and i am the last one to receive one. it is very special. it is also incredibly useful.

at first glance it doesn’t appear to be guilty of much. it is great for storing sheets and extra shower curtains.

peel back the top layers though and revealed is where my projects go to die. first of all we have a really cute red & teal fabric that i will (one day) make into a curtain for my kitchen window. the yellow fabric is a table cloth that i cut up to make this pillow cover. i intend on making more pillow covers with it. eventually. for now it lives in the cedar chest.

the blue paisley print fabric is a beautiful scarf that i had envisioned as another pillow cover. but it didn’t work out. it was a horrendous fail and now i am just holding on to it for… sentimental reasons? i don’t know. its just so pretty. the wadded up paper is leftover from the paper maiche M i made for my friend’s baby.

these are curtains and panels from my ikea shopping trip in september. yes some are still in the package. i don’t know where to put them yet. so sue me.

also peeking from underneath those is a styrofoam wreath form. my original intention was to make a rolled flower wreath (like this one) but i quickly realized that i lack both the time and patience to do so. so into the project grave it went.

here we have an entire smattering of things.
1.burlap left over from this chair and this project
2. sheet music from a garage sale
3. another wreath form
4. advent candles (prepare to see those in my upcoming advent bible study series!)
5. cute fabric from ikea

all buried six feet under.

moving along from the cedar chest… i bought these shutters at a church garage sale to make something with. that “something” has gone from a jewelry holder to wall art to… sitting beside the guest bed and collecting dust.

lovely brass candlesticks that i bought to make a cupcake stand for my sister-in-law’s baby shower. now they are waiting to be de-uglified in the laundry room.

and now for the pièce de résistance. i have an entire closet in my living room dedicated to the fine art of crafting. about a year before my mom passed, she and i went to ikea and bought this system to put in the closet of my old bedroom to organize her scrapbooking and crafting supplies. when she passed dad and i cleaned out that closet (i have pictures of this but that is another post for another time) and i brought it all home with me. i pretty much have a never ending supply of crafty materials.

craft paint. stickers. paintbrushes. wooden plaques to paint. twine. greeting cards. blank cards & envelopes.

a drawer full of hundreds of stamps.

rolls and rolls of ribbon. green ribbon from my wedding. baseball ribbon from a baby shower invitation i made two years ago. paw print ribbon from doggy snacky bags for the pups in sadie’s obedience class.

this is only about half of what is in that closet. it is so overwhelming to look at that stuff and try to figure what to do with it, not to mention not become engulfed in the feeling that mom never got around to it. how much longer would i have? yeah, so moving on from that.

this is my tiny painting basket that usually sits on my dining room table for signs. i finally had to break down and clean it off and wipe my table down. so for now it is concealed in my kitchen workstation.

the ugly truth. dust. name written in dust. dust where the name is written.

please tell me i’m not alone.