Frankinstorm and My Craft Addiction

For those of you who live under a rock (or in the Midwest, outside of the US, or the south)  Hurricane Sandy and her little friends who she is converging with are are going to hammer the daylights out of the Mid Atlantic. It's already raining here with some blowing breezes so I am safe and sound and warm in the house, looking at fabrics and anticipating the arrival of the sewing machine I am getting for my birthday.  In the meantime, I am fantasizing about all the amazing thins I am going to make with this sewing machine.

Like maybe THIS cell phone/computer travel carrying Case.  

(Image Source:  http://mccallpattern.mccall.com/  No copyright infringement intended)

I would probably choose a laminated cotton like THIS Amy Butler pattern.  So cute, no?

(Image Source:  http://www.fabric.com/  Amy Butler licensed pattern.  No copyright infringement intended)

While I'm at it, how about a matching purse like THIS one.  Ignore the horrible fabric in the picture.  I my Amy Butler fabric.  I can just picture it with pink piping.  

(Image Source:  http://mccallpattern.mccall.com/  No copyright infringement intended)

My Ultimate Project, however, is that I eventually want to make myself a new rennaisance faire dress.  A truly fantastic one.  Complete with resplendent fabrics and a steel boned bodice. 

In the mean time, before I start buying up all those patterns and fabrics, I have two quilting projects.  One is an actual quilt and one of them is a set of Christmas placemats and a table runner that will be up on Sugar Bee Crafts as part of the guest posting extravaganza.  My date is December 7th.  I have a pretty pile of fabrics that I just spent far too much money on.  Coming up:  a tutorial on making decorative snowballs.  

Ana White, You are my hero

In case you were wondering, I am one of twenty somethings who flew the nest and then immediately moved home post-college. There were a number of reasons for this, the biggest one being that my mother is ill.

That and the free rent.

There are certain other advantages to living at home, however. One of them is that in my Dad has a workshop in the garage and a large quantity of tools that I can borrow. So in preparation for soon moving out, I want to build stuff. So several weeks ago I stumbled across ana-white.com. And have since been in love. So let me share a few plans I am lusting over.

1. Laundry Basket Dresser

(Image source:  http://ana-white.com/)

It looks pretty straight forward and will help contain the huge piles of laundry that I produce. No seriously. I hate folding laundry so I just won't do it.

2. Rectangles Day Bed

(Image Source:  http://ana-white.com/)

I love this. I think it looks so cool, though what I would really love to do is use the idea to make a head/foot board...

3. Planter Box Trellis

(Image Source:  http://ana-white.com/)

I am envisioning two of them flanking a nice bench on a patio.

4. Squared2 Chair

(Image Source: http://ana-white.com/)

I am envisioning these in white with a nice teal seat cushion. So cute!

5. Salsa Console

(Image Source:  http://ana-white.com/)

Lord only knows where I would wind up putting this but I can just picture it with an antiqued white finish.

So hopefully I will actually build some of this stuff. Ana White has so many awesome plans. You should totally check out her blog.

P.S. I'm not being paid to say any of this. If someone were, the money would immediately go into purchasing lumber...

Under Construction?

Honing my mad graphics skills to work on a new blog design for my revamped blog.  This started out as a travel adventure blog when I went to England and now...  well, we'll see.  :)  Crafts, sewing, cooking, decor, and my crazy life.  Maybe some photoshop for babies tutorials?  

So an introduction for anyone who actually decides to read this:  

I am Caitlin, a not quite 23 year old substitute teacher with a degree in music, a crazy life, a degree in music, and a love for Jesus.  I'm not your typical mommy-type craft blogger, but don't be too scared.  I am pretty tame, unless the fact that I spend my weekends watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch, occasionally visiting the hunky-hunky boyfriend at college, and trying to convince myself that no, I don't need to go to Hobby Lobby AGAIN.  

Welcome to this little corner of my life.  :)

The Innocent Devil

The problem with Satan is that he uses people as a force of destruction, people who have no idea that they are being used.  They are fighting their own battles and may not even notice that in swinging their sword around, they struck a blow to someone nearby.

I have been haunted for six years by the ghost of a man who had no idea what he did to me.  He was a trusted teacher who never realized that his careless flinging of words cut slashes in my heart.  He was fighting his own demons, ones slashing at his throat, trying to defeat him.  And he became my demon.

He has been the voice in my head saying "you can't do this" in the softest whisper that is somehow so deafening that shouts of reassurance are deadened by the soft hiss of a whisper.  "Do something else."

The sharpest insults are hidden inside compliments, disguised as advice, and said only once but are permanently engraved in my mind.  So deeply engraved that the weathering of so many storms has only softened but not erased the words.  I hope I forget.

The hardest part is to not take up the knife myself, to cut the weather, faded words into the rock afresh, to remind myself that they are lies.  Some days it takes the hand of someone else to pry the carving knife from my fingers and some days someone will hand me the knife, not knowing what I will be tempted to do with it, the temptation to be my own demon and destroy myself bit by bit, carving words again with a knife.

I need the hands of others, and more importantly, the hands of God, to pull me away and let the words wear away with time.  I cannot do it alone.  I have let his face fade into memory, lost in six years of life's trials and triumphs.

Until that face is in front of me again and it's just like I am 16 and want to please my voice teacher again.  He is nothing but complimentary but I hardly believe him because suddenly, I know.

I know the words I've cut back into the stone were said by a man who never knew what he was saying, who never knew what he was doing and was so caught up in his own battle, he thought it was okay.  He was weak, as I am, easily made a demon through distraction, innocent and not innocent all at once, like a child tricked into uttering swear words.

So I will allow him to be proud of me because he has no idea the pain I've endured.  I realize now the words he said have no power in themselves, only in the power I give them.  And I will not be my own demon

The more things change, the more they stay the--well, actually they just change. A lot.

So my last post (some 2 months ago...) with semi-veiled references to a boy I flirt with?  Said boy is my boyfriend now.  Worst timing eve considering it happened two weeks before I graduated from college but whatever.  Life is weird.

Oh that's right... I also graduated from college.  If there actually is someone reading this (which I mostly doubt), I have spent the last four years at Eastern University, a small Christian liberal arts college in suburban Philadelphia, studying music performance.  I also did a brief sojourn in Oxford, UK, and the original purpose of this blog was to document my time there and all that led up to that time.

I also hacked off my hair recently into what is basically a long bob that is a deep auburn.  I did it two days prior to graduation so the overpriced graduation photos show it, plus the ones my parents took.

So with all of these changes (some minor, some significant), the strangest for me is that I am now living at home with my parents and older brother.  Since I've worked summers with Sodexo, I haven't lived at home for more than four weeks at a time in more than two years.  Trying to find a job for the summer, and planning on substitute teaching come fall while applying for my long list of graduate schools.  I just need to find something part time for the summer so I can, you know, put gas in my car and do stuff like that (*cough*creditcard*cough*).  I don't want full time for this summer because there is an unexpectedly large amount of things I need to do before I can apply to graduate school.  More than I was initially thinking.

In other news, in another money making scheme, I am thinking of opening an etsy shop and peddling my crafty wares, giving myself an excuse to create (*cough*buyasewingmachine*cough*).  If I'm going to sell it, it means I can try absolutely everything I find on pinterest, right?

right?

RIGHT?!?!?!?!

1 is the least safe number

There is a certain safety in knowing that if anyone actually reads what I write, no one says anything. That's okay. I'll write to the air.

There are things that I dare not confess here, lest there is someone actually reading, actually waiting to know the things I hide. There is someone who makes me feel very safe. We flirt. A lot. This is dangerous. Oh so very dangerous...

No one reads this anyway, so why not?

At home for spring break and i have procrastinated on a lot of things. Today, I remembered a trick that I saw on Pinterest for removing yellow pit stains from clothes. The original post can be found here:

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2011/11/goodbye-to-yellow-armpit-stains.html

The basic premise is this:

1 part dawn dish soap

2 parts hydrogen peroxide

mix, pour on stain, scrub it in, and then allow to sit for an hour or so.

I decided to try it on two of my worst stained items of clothing: my cream camisole, and my 'little miss bossy' tee shirt, both of which I've had a long time and have worn frequently, often in the summer months. I failed to take a picture of them before putting the solution on so here you see them with the solution on them: