No Fuss Crafts

Towards the end of last year, I decided to put all the creative energy I had somehow found during 2011, the year of the craft, towards this blog. Somehow I just found myself using this blog to record projects I was working on and to motivate myself to finish projects in a timely fashion. While I've never been that great with deadlines, there was something soothingly pressuring about trying to come up with a few posts a week. I quickly found many of my "Someday I'm going to make..." and "Hey that could be fun..." ideas, as well as my many pins from Pinterest, speeding by. And in doing so, I found myself providing Maddie with a lot more educational and constructive toys.

As I start the new year (yes, I know it's February), I have been coming up with a list of projects and crafts and, of course, blog posts. But before I go too far, I'd just like to say something. While I hope some of you may find my blogs useful, I want you to know that I can't promise they'll be perfect. Or for that matter overly instructional.

I am a crafter of the inexact. You'll probably notice things like ugly stitching, or, um, huge stitches like this:
(I feel like we could actually play a game how many stitches can you find?...)

Blurry pictures, often taken on a bad camera or ... gasp... my iPhone. The old version. (This by the way is Maddie reading to Black Cat who she has recently renamed "Picture" and has also recently decided is a dog.)


Or shortcut solutions like these:
Maybe you see this shortcut right away... or maybe not. When I got these patterns I was really looking for a way to make fruit pieces stick together. The apples had an easy method -- velcro cores. The tomatoes I made myself based on the patterns. They got snaps, but not obvious ones at all -- no! The oranges however actually have huge magnets in them that do not attract to each other. Oops. And some of them have little velcro patches on them too, which aren't really big enough to attach to each other. But don't worry, I have another solution -- and I shall share it for you all soon.

These mistakes were actually found all on the same roll within a range of maybe five pictures. I'm sure you've all seen the shortcuts I take, but hopefully you'll also enjoy the ride. If you get some inspiration or make an improvement on a craft mentioned here, I hope you'll share it with me. Happy crafting! And Happy Reading!