Life Lately

• My novel is on hold, to be revised later, because...
• I had postpartum depression and I'm writing a memoir about it.
• I have been wanting to blog about my experience with PPD for some time and finally have the courage to do it! I will post more about it here, including some excerpts from my book.
• I'm also getting involved in raising awareness about PPD.  It is an extremely common but misunderstood illness. I was very ashamed of myself for having it. I want my daughter to live in a different world - a world where no mother ever feels a drop of shame for PPD.
• I recently joined a brand new gym near my house and it is absolutely glorious. I am finally getting back into exercise and have so much energy, which is spilling into all areas of my life.
• I finished Divergent last night and started Insurgent before bed. For the first time since Pippa was born, I am reading past my bedtime.
• I started a massive crochet project this afternoon. Feeling a bit crazy. 
• In related news, I'm still reading the dictionary. I'm about halfway through the Explanatory Notes. I want to jump into the definitions, but I might as well do this right. Sometimes I have to reread the same paragraph three or four time to understand it, but it's still very interesting to me.

Yarn!

I love yarn! Usually I just knit with it, but I've been branching out lately in my crafty yarn endeavors.

I made this wreath during the Super Bowl:

First, I wrapped dark pink yarn around a styrofoam wreath from Michael's. The wreath obviously needed a little bird, so I sewed one from felt using a pattern in Little Birds. Well, I sort of followed the pattern - I accidentally collapsed two of the steps together, and I made the wings and feet a little differently, and then I gave the little guy some yarn hair on top, but hey, it worked. (Nathan says the bird looks like a pig-devil hybrid, which I can see, but whatever, I love my fat little bird.) Once I had lashed the bird to the pink wreath, I added some extra bands of color with light pink and green yarn. This started as a Valentine's wreath, but since I'm primarily using pink and green in Baby Girl's nursery, I think this might actually be a Nursery Wreath. We shall see.

I also learned how to make pom poms:

 

My first batch of pink pom poms look like something you'd find in a tide pool. But I strung them together into a garland and now this doorway has some Valentine's loving. They make me happy (and Nathan instinctively ducks every time he passes through this door, even though he's not quite tall enough to get hit!)

Now I'm making pom poms with a very thick wool yarn:

These guys are much more plump and festive. I'm 99% certain that once I've made enough, they will become a garland for Baby Girl's nursery. I used this tutorial on the Minted blog to learn how to make pom poms. This tutorial on DesignSponge inspired me to use multiple colors in the same pom pom. 

The pom pom making process is very soothing and relaxing. Some people meditate. I make pom poms.

My DIY Merit Badges Tote Bag

Although my Girl Scout days ended decades ago, I still love the idea of earning and displaying merit badges.  So I made myself a merit badges tote bag: 

I was going to be lazy and just sew badges on to the front side of the bag, but I went overboard when I ordered the badges.  So now both sides of my tote declare my commitment to nerdiness:

I tried to only use badges that I have legitimately "earned" at some point in my lifetime.  The etiquette badge is questionable since I still struggle with utensils at restaurants, but I did attend cotillion lessons for two years. 

I don't think I've ever attended a "Pizza Party," but I have eaten a lot of pizza and can make a damn good pizza from scratch.  Besides, every merit badges tote bag needs some pizza!

My claim to the laser tag badge is tenuous at best.  I played laser tag once, for about 30 seconds, at Universal Studios in the 80s.  Also, I knew a kid named Michael who had his own laser tag gear, with all the equipment.  But Michael was a little prick and just taunted me with the fact that he had laser tag gear and I did not.  Is is possible to earn a badge by coveting someone else's toys?

I chose the hay ride badge for two reasons: (1) I recall at least one hay ride from my early years (I just remember the hay was scratchy and uncomfortable); and (2) it's tough to tell in the photo, but there's a pumpkin on top of the hay.  Since my blog is The Cranky Pumpkin, obviously I needed at least one pumpkin on my tote.



I bought my badges from here and will use them again if I want more patches.  In fact, I already want more badges!  They have a new gardening badge THAT I MUST OWN.  (What else can I make with merit badges??)

I agonized over the tote bag and spent weeks looking everywhere for the perfect one.  I wanted a bag with exterior pockets and handles large enough to go over my arm (I hate bags with short dinky straps).  I went with this bag but it's currently unavailable on Amazon.  Shit.  Why didn't I buy more bags when I had the chance?

Then I just hand sewed the badges on with needle and embroidery thread. I have a huge stash of DMC embroidery thread from a cross-stitching phase, so I was usually able to match the thread to the badge.  But I wanted the bag to look homemade and a little tragic, so I did not worry about matching thread colors or making pretty stitches.

I stabbed myself with my needle about 82 times while making this bag.  The 82nd stabbing hurt just as much as the first.  I tried using a thimble, but thimbles are for wimps.  

My tote bag has exterior pockets, and the bottom two rows of badges are sewed on to the pockets.  I accidentally sewed the pockets shut about eleven or twelve times, because I was paying too much attention to the television. 

If anyone asks me about the tote bag, I could just tell them that I really like merit badges.  But maybe I'll invent a club, like The Society of Recreational Education.  That sounds much more legitimate and impressive than "I really like merit badges." 

My Perpetual Journal

Last year, I made a "perpetual journal."  Every day of the year has its own index card.  For the first year, it's basically a regular journal.  (Except instead of an attractive notebook, you have an unwieldy stack of notecards).  But after the first year, it's M-A-G-I-C.  At the end of the day, you don't just write your journal entry - you also read the entries for prior years.  It's fun to see how similar and dissimilar the entries can be. 

For example, my entry for July 23, 2011 is: "We got married!!! And had a WONDERFUL wedding!"  My entry for July 23, 2012 will obviously be a little different (as fun as our wedding was, we're not about to make it an annual tradition). 

I followed this excellent tutorial on Design*Sponge to make my journal.  My journal is not very pretty, but it gets the job done:

Someday I'll get a proper box for my journal; and if I'm feeling super ambitious, I'll make dividers for each month.  But for now, the point is just taking a moment every night to jot down one or two highlights from the day. 

Confession: sometimes, I slack with my perpetual journal.  Four or five days pass and I realize, "Crap!  My journal!"  But I managed to write an entry for every day in 2011.   And I'm so glad I did because I love flipping through the index cards and glancing at random entries.

For example, here's a fun memory that I had completely forgotten from January 4, 2011: "I heard Bob Newhart's piece on XM about baseball, and then played it for Nathan on YouTube."  There's no way I would recall a detail like this on my own.

Poor February 29th!  It's still waiting for an entry.  Don't worry, February 29: 2012 is your date with destiny.  (And then we'll see you again in 2016). 

I love my perpetual journal and if you have ever flirted with the idea of keeping a diary, I highly recommend this method.  You can make it while watching a movie, and then it only takes seconds to scrawl an entry at the end of the day. 

p.s. You can even make the calendar as you go.  Who says you have to stamp all the dates in advance?  And who says you even have to stamp the dates at all?  The perpetual calendar will work just as well if you just handwrite the date yourself.

A Very Tragic Christmas Craft Project

Last week, I had a vision for a craft project called "The Christmas Tree Bouquet."  Let's pretend a Christmas tree fell in love with a bouquet of flowers and they had a child.  That child is The Christmas Tree Bouquet. 

In my imagination, the Christmas Tree Bouquet is a holiday decoration that is festive, whimsical, and rustic.  It looks great on your mantle!  It's an amazing centerpiece!  It's the IT decoration for winter weddings!  And, you only need some sticks, red yarn and a glass vase.

In actuality, the Christmas Tree Bouquet is an adomination:

I wrapped red yarn around some sticks and gathered the sticks into a bouquet.  When I started this project, I had delusions that involved Martha Stewart and the Barefoot Contessa.  (Don't ask.)  But by the time I was done, I felt sorry for the sticks.  And the yarn.

Before I accepted defeat, I decided to put the Christmas Tree Bouquet on my mantle.  I had to at least see how it looked, right?

In the photograph, it actually looks okay.  But in person, it's just a very tragic craft project. You remember the sad little tree that Charlie Brown bought for the Peanuts' pageant?  It was just a tired twig, but Charlie Brown saw its potential.  Well, if Charlie Brown saw my Christmas Tree Bouquet, he would set it on fire.  

But I will not stop crafting!  I love crafting, and I'm not going to let an abomination like the Christmas Tree Bouquet break my spirit.  (Okay, it did break my spirit, but only for about fifteen minutes.  Then I had a piece of fudge, and fudge makes everything better). 

I just hope that I will always be able to admit defeat when the craft project I imagine does not match the finished creation. Or, at a minimum, I hope that I will always have good friends who are willing to say, "Hey Courtney, you know that Christmas Tree Bouquet you made?  It's really freaking ugly.  Throw that %$&@ out."

I Can't Commit to One Craft

I love crafting, but I am not in a committed relationship with one particular craft.  There are certain crafts I go back to again and again – especially knitting and cross-stitch – but I cheat on them regularly.  Can you blame me?  There are so many wonderful craft projects that must be tried!  Paper mache!  Beading!  Sewing! 

Sometimes, this makes me feel like a bit of a fraud.  If you saw my craft closet, you would assume that I operate a day care facility from my home or that I am the mother of five children under the age of ten; but I am just an attorney that loves crafting.

In the beginning of the summer, I knit two scarves for my brother and sister-in-law, who are volunteering with the Peace Corps in South Africa, where it is currently winter and their house (hut?) is always a balmy 40 degrees.  But after I knit those scarves, I turned to warmer weather crafts.  Who wants a big pile of yarn in their lap during a heat wave? 

These are the crafts that I tried this summer:

Although I loved crafting as a child, I never knew how to make a friendship bracelet.   I remember feeling inadequate as a third grader because I could not whip up bracelets for my friends.  Thanks to this tutorial, I have finally conquered this craft (and I’m only about 25 years late to the party).

I made this wreath for the front door.  That counts as a craft, right?  I did spend an unconscionable amount of time at Michaels, agonizing over what flowers would look best on the front door.  Then, I had to weave them into the grapevine wreath.  Damnit, it counts.

Paper mache: Every few years, I try to make something out of paper mache.  And every few years, it’s a disaster.  I am happy to report that my latest effort was … another disaster.  (Unless you think a collapsed pile of smelly newspaper that refuses to dry is a success.  In which case, yes, it was a success). 

Custom Shutterfly photo albums: Okay, I  realize I am stretching the definition of “craft” here.  But making a Shutterly photo album is related to scrapbooking (they are at least second cousins), even if it doesn’t involve scissors and glue.  As Executive Director of the Cranky Pumpkin, I declare that this counts as a craft.