We all know this year has been anything but "normal," although I'm not sure I know exactly what a normal year is. Regardless, I hit a slump around the end of May. I wanted to write, but I couldn't make myself do it. Maybe, if I were a stronger person, I would have forced the issue, sat down at my laptop, and said, "don't move until you've typed at least a 1000 words. But I didn't. Instead, I've been indulging in other creative outlets and thought I'd share some of them with you. After all, an author has to refill her creative juices somehow, and what better way than being creative in other forms? Because my sister's family is living overseas right now, I've been working ahead on birthday and Christmas projects, knowing that if they don't get to come back to the states this fall like planned, I'll still have to mail these in plenty of time for them to arrive for the various celebrations (or at least as close as I can get). That being said, these mermaid dresses are for my niece and daughter, turning seven and six respectively. Both love mermaids and unicorns, so why not embrace the fantasy with a fun play dress? I found the fabric at Hobby Lobby, grabbed a t shirt from Walmart, and embellished with the sea shell beads around the neck, It's basically an upgraded t shirt dress I came up with from various pinterest ideas I put together to make my own. My older nephew has a plush puppy dog toy he takes everywhere with him. My sister mentioned that he was wanting some clothes for puppy to wear and that they had discovered the ones I made for a doll I made my niece back when she was a baby fit perfectly. So, puppy gets a new wardrobe for Christmas. I used fabric I had used in other projects for him as much as I could. The red bus fabric is so puppy can match my nephew's shirt he got for his birthday. And the dinosaurs were leftover from a backpack I made him. We'll just adore the cuteness of the overalls and pretend we don't know they're Alabama print. ;-) For each niece, nephew, and child of mine, I've made a play mat for them to take on trips or to worship services with the thought that it would give them a transportable play area to help them sit quietly. Sometimes it works better than others. For the others, their mats had cityscapes or castles or woodland scenes, but I couldn't find any fabric I liked in my price range for this one, so when I discovered the fun construction scene on etsy, I snatched it up. It's more fun if it's different from everyone else's anyway, right? The outside has pockets to stick a little notebook or toys to use on the mat. I'll probably try to include a few little construction vehicles, too. This will be birthday. I'm going to paint some peg dolls for him for Christmas. And, to motivate me, I allowed myself a few projects just for me, too. My throw pillows had been wearing out and dying, so I knew I wanted to replace them, but wasn't sure I could find what I wanted. Why not use up some fabric scraps from other projects and make my vision come to life instead? The book pillow is made from material leftover from a dress I made myself earlier this spring (and a face mask, too, of course). The tea fabric was some I had been given at one point or another. The sunflower pillow is made from various scraps from here and there. I stitched each petal with some batting inside so that they hold their shape and are nice and soft. It took a while to get it close to being how I wanted, but I'm fairly pleased with the end result.
Do you craft in one way or another? Lately, I've mostly been sewing (although I have a crochet project and a painting project in the works, too). How do you recharge yourself?
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This is a place for me to share thoughts and ideas not just related to writing. Thoughts about what's going on in my life, about an idea I got that I thought shareworthy, or just a funny anecdote.
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