Swordfish

And so the crafting begins, and let me just say... I'm super excited.  I feel like the things I'm making will be SOOO cute and really enjoyed.  I'm not going to go into full detail just because my bloggeroo is connected to my Ravelry account, and I don't want any spoils to be, well, spoiled!  But, I'm making something that at first thought was dumb but now am feeling like it's really useful, considering I have one myself now!  The only thing I'm worried about is that it's either going to be double knit or fair isle knitted, and that's a bit thick and is too short to fit perfectly, so I"m wondering if it's too much, but maybe it's not.  I've got nearly a month to decide, and I'm putting a ton of other hand-made items in the box, so I'm not too worried if I keep this one for myself.  I'll be sure to post a picture of it here once it's been received! 

The other handmade items will all be from polymer clay, two of which are jewelry, and the other is a really neat refrigerator magnet set.  I have the perfect little box to put the jewelry pieces in, and I'm really excited about doing them.  I'm going to go to the craft store sometime this week I hope and pick out some fun things to add to it, and pick out just the right findings.  I'm going to wait on doing the clay stuff though for two reasons.  One, I want to really feel settled in my designs and take a lot of time tweaking them into something I want to be proud to give away, and two, I just ordered a clay rolling machine on a whim and this will be the perfect excuse to use it!!  It's kind of also one of the reasons I'm ok with procrastinating on putting my craft table back together and taking down the Christmas tree!  I'll get to it eventually, I just don't want to accept that it's over yet, haha. 

I'm really focusing on getting this apartment clean, too.  I'm tired of having everything coated in dust, but that's inevitable given the drafty little upstairs apartment we live in, but I can keep things cleaner so the dust won't hide so easily.  Being a crafter (aka hoarder) I tend to collect a lot of things, and that most certainly leads to collecting junk I really don't need.  I'm going to make it a project to go through all the beads, clay materials, fabric, yarn, crafts without homes, things I will never use for crafting but decided to keep anyway, and things I've made but don't like.  I can take those things apart and maybe use parts of it somewhere else, instead of sitting there going to waste.  I want to keep my bedroom cleaner and with little storage, that is difficult, but not impossible.  I have a closet I can store things in if I clean out what's in there.  It will be my project for the next few weeks.  I'm in the design phase of my next big project, so I'll have plenty of time where I'm not actually doing things and I should get things like that done. 

Anyway, just wanted to do a quick update for myself to keep track of what things I'm doing to make my life better and worth living.  So far, I'm not doing terribly, but I could be doing better.  Things to think about for next week!