Smaller is Better

Last month I decided to give diamond painting another go with the sunflower kit that came with my Goodwill thread lot. I wasn't thrilled about working with all that yellow in my face, but I thought since I'd only tried the craft once I should take another chance on it. This particular kit retails for over $15.00 new, too.

It took about four days to complete the sunflower with the plastic diamonds, and I did work pretty slowly due to my stiff fingers. Since there weren't as many colors to deal with as was the case with the dragon I made the first time, it seemed a little easier. I also had a smaller area to cover than my first project. The only true annoyance this time was trying to keep the rolled canvas flat; I had to tape it down while I was working on it.

Some of the beads have an irridescent coating that adds extra sparkle, which I thought was pretty. The yellow of the sunflower was mostly a cheddar shade that I don't mind so much.

I found this shadow-box type frame on sale at JoAnn (nothing exactly fit the sunflower) and glued the piece into it before I used a coat of Mod Podge to seal the surface. All in all it was a much better experience than my first attempt. I'm still not tempted to buy any of these kits, but I did enjoy the process more this time.

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Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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