She's crafty

My husband will be the first to tell you that a major pet peeve of mine is craft stores. When I was little, I absolutely loved all of the possibilities of arts and crafts. However, when I reached a certain age, there was a strange threshold I crossed whereby all the "cool" crafts were either (a) too complicated for me, since I had no patience, (b) too dangerous for someone of my age or (c) too expensive for a kid without income. Lastly, my mom really loved to meander slowly through the aisles of craft stores, and I would get bored and want to leave, but I couldn't, and so I'd just get mad and grumpy.

Fast forward to 2009:

I organized a Bake Sale at my office in May to benefit Bake for Hope. We had eight bakers, and we raised more money than any other bake sale in Northern California.







In June, my mom passed down to me the art of canning. We preserved half a tree's worth of apricots (it was days of work!). We even used the same ladle that my maternal grandmother used to use for canning. Seriously domestic, and even a little empowering, knowing that I can preserve some of my own food.



Around the same time, I took a "Sewing Machine Basics" class and then pulled my paternal grandmother's sewing machine out of storage under the stairs. I braved a fabric store and a sewing machine repair shop (the machine needed new needles). I read the machine's manual. I sewed a drawstring bag for Jesse (not pictured). My first "big" project was a set of baby booties and mittens for a new arrival of one of Jesse's co-workers. (The dad loves soccer, and it was a girl.)

Frankly, the rest of the year was a blur. During that time, my mom and I (with lots of help from my husband, my dad, a couple of good contractors and one bad one) disassembled a house, then re-assembled it, using lots of scraping, texturing, painting, shining, sweeping, whining, scrubbing, salvaging, shopping, straining and thinking.

We started with images like this (there used to be a cooktop there). Honestly, this is the cutest one. Most of the others are ugh-ly.




We ended up with images like this (the cooktop can't really be seen, but it was put back right next to the oven, after we re-finished the cabinets and had granite countertops installed). And the house sold quickly.




The only breath of fresh air was in December, and that air was filled with the scent of iced cut-out sugar cookies, marshmallow fudge, lime sugar cookies, etc. Christmas baking at Tina's house was totally awesome, complete with a bottle of wine and a fancy hors d'oeuvres dinner. I would show you a picture, but I can't seem to find one! (Tina - do you still have pics?)

Also in December, Jesse, Tina and I crafted other, inedible Christmas things. We made ornaments out of clay and painted them with liquid gold leaf and liquid silver leaf (not pictured).

Tina and I made little snowmen with red scarves, for tying little bags closed, or attaching to candy canes.










I also tried to follow Martha Stewart's project instructions to decorate clothes pins with wrapping paper, for hanging up Christmas cards. I still need to finish those up this year...







I know that this only catches us up to the end of last year. I'll try to post about this year's activities before the calendar flips to 2011. ;)