SnapShots & WhatNots

USA push-pin map DIY(ish)

I’ve been searching for something  just righto hang in the large empty space above the bed for a couple of weeks now – and despite some interesting suggestions from Kathy (a 5 ft Buddha painting…which, in fairness, was pretty cool), I just couldn’t find something that felt right so it’s been blank for ages now.

Then on Friday evening we were visiting friends and spotted their beautiful personalized map of the world and figured that a map would be perfect….except have you seen how expensive those things can be? Plus I knew I wanted to stick pins in it and there’s no way I was going to stick pins in a map that cost over $100.

I definitely wanted a much cheaper option. I figured if we end up loving it we can always upgrade it later. So while randomly browsing in target yesterday we found posters on sale. Unfortunately there we no world maps left but they did have a 22x34” USA map for $5.99. Next up was how to hang it – I thought about framing it and leaving the glass out, or getting cork or foam board backing for it. Then I spotted a framed cork board that was 23x35” for $10…..perfect. We also grabbed to packs of push pins – neutral wood colored and a mix of black, white and grey for about $5 a pot.

The neutral push pins we used to show places we have travelled to together – as you can see we’ve covered a fair bit of the south east on our travels over the last two years. The white pins are places that Kathy has been to but I haven’t….like the Grand Canyon, black pins are places I’ve been but she hasn’t… like California, and lastly the grey pins are places we’ve both been but not at the same time….like Boston and Las Vegas.

I’m really happy with how it turned out, and especially happy with it only costing about $25….now to plan more trips so I can add more pins!

Overcoming one of my biggest flaws

We all have flaws, some bigger than others, some that can hold us back and then there are others that we aren’t even aware we have. One of the biggest flaws that I’ve come to realised that I have is that I over-think things.

Over-thinking things isn’t always a flaw and I know that. My job as a scientist is to over-think everything so it definitely comes in handy there. Where it stops being so handy is when I think about the different ways something could/should be done so much that I post-pone doing it for a really long time.

There have been plenty of times when I’ve let my over-thinking ruin things for me. I would over-think simple things like going for nights out and end up talking myself out of them.

Recently, I’ve been letting over-thinking things stifle me creatively so much so that I haven’t really been creating anything. For example, I’ve been planning to re-design my blog for about 6 months now. I know that there are designs that you can buy but the thing is I actually really like learning how to use Photoshop, html and CSS. Except that I’ve been thinking so much about all the things I need to learn how to do before I can design something that I never came up with a design to learn with…..putting the cart before the horse (and then watching it do nothing for months!).

I’ve also talked about knitting a sweater but have hesitated so much about committing to a choice of yarn – the same can be said for the king size quilt I want to make and the choice of pattern/fabric I should get. This list goes on….

In the past few years I’ve made several huge life decisions without over-thinking them. I took a job in a state I knew next to nothing about and moved my life half-way across the world – I rented a house and bought big items of furniture – I even bought a puppy 3 days after deciding that it would be a good idea to have dog again. I don’t regret a single one of those decisions and I know that if I had spent ages over-thinking these things it would have totally changed what my life looks like today.

Realising that I should just jump in two feet first is the first step to ending my creative over-thinking block because at the end of the day for me creative risks should be easy to take – I don’t have a business to run or products to sell – so if I make something I don’t like the only person who cares is me. Fear of wasting money on things that I won’t like is stopping me from creating things that I might love.

So from now on I’m jumping in – starting with the huge canvas I’ve had since before Christmas. I bought it to paint something to hang over my bed and then stalled when it came to wait to paint on it. Last night I opened the canvas and took out my favourite colour (purple) and just painted. So far it doesn’t look like much but it looks like more than a blank canvas. The key is to just start…..

JUST START

 

The cost of creative hobbies

I’ve been wanting to attempt knitting a sweater as my next project, I found a pattern I liked and began what is arguably the most fun or most stressful part of any project…deciding on the materials. Now usually I knit blankets which are easily the most forgiving items to knit in terms of size and amount of yarn needed – if the pattern says the blanket will be 40 inches wide when it’s completed but mine ends up being 38 or 42 inches it really doesn’t matter much except that I'll end up using a little more or a little less yarn than the pattern calls for.

Therefore rather than relying on the pattern to choose my yarn I allow my wallet to choose for me. My choice of yarn is usually carried out in the aisle of JoAnns or Micheals where I try to buy yarn that’s either on sale or that I have a 40% off coupon for. This is my usual method for picking all of my craft supplies - fabric, notions, paint canvases....everything.

This method got so much trickier though when I thought about buying yarn for the sweater. Unlike blankets. clothes have to actually fit to be useful and the last thing I want to do is knit an entire sweater only for it not to fit. Actually getting the sweater to fit means being more careful with the yarn I choose and the best place to start is with the pattern right! So I started looking at the yarns suggested by the pattern and my eyes nearly popped out of my head!

The yarn was almost $17 for 100g – I normally pay $3 for 400g! Granted this yarn is of a higher quality, it’s wool and alpaca rather than the 100% acrylic yarn I normally buy so I’m guessing it would be crazy soft and create a beautiful sweater but the pattern calls for 400g of yarn which is a whopping $68. At first I thought "no way that’s far too expensive" considering I would only get one sweater out of it but as the weeks have gone past I’ve started wondering……is it actually that crazy?

Crafting, in many forms including knitting, sewing and painting are my main hobbies at the moment. Some of the projects I work on takes weeks like sewing a quilt or knitting a blanket and others are really quick like painting mini canvases. Even though I love making all these things and I love that this is the way I choose to fill my free time, I still can't help but thinking that the money I spent on craft supplies is a very frivolous type of expenditure. Trust me I don’t need another knitted blanket so it’s not like I can justify the cost that way.

Justify the cost. That’s the key statement there. Why is it that I feel the need to justify the cost of my hobbies to myself?  I tried to think about the costs associated with other hobbies – almost every single one I could think of had some pretty substantial costs associated with it; playing music has the cost of the instrument and the cost of lessons, playing sports has the equipment cost and the cost of races/lessons/games/gym fees…..I could go on. It’s very easy to accept that these hobbies incur expenses in order to pursue them and I highly doubt any runner thinks of the cost of their running shoes as “frivolous”. So maybe it’s time I stop thinking that way about my own hobbies. It doesn't seem that unreasonable to suggest that most people spent in the region of $50 a month on their hobbies....if I went to a dance class that was $15 a week it would cost me $60. Is there any reason at all that I shouldn't feel free to spent the same amount on supplies for my creative hobbies?

So I’m basically letting myself off the hook, I’m going to encourage myself to step outside of my comfort zone and to really embrace my hobbies. Commit to them and encourage myself to spend more money on the things I really enjoy doing rather than constantly questioning if I think it’s worth it. Of course it’s worth it.

I can't help but wonder though if I'm just a cheapskate? Am I the only person that balks at the idea of spending nearly $70 on yarn? What about that second quilt....that will run to the hundreds of dollars...crazy or not?

[Since this is almost a WIP post - I'm linking up with Tami's Amis  Frontier Dreams and Small Things]

Decorating with DIY pictures and paintings

I was trying to decide the best place to hang the 3 new prints I recently purchases (I’ll share them next week once they’re in frames and hung) when I realised that somehow over the last year I’ve managed to accumulate a pretty substantial number of DIY painting and pictures. Apparently I was more productive last year than I thought and quite a few of them were never blogged.

The painting above is one that has hung in the living room for over a year now - I painted it randomly in about  2 hours one afternoon after seeing a really cool photo of ink droplets (and I can't for the life of me remember where the photo was from). I wanted to try something similar but using paint and canvas. It was so easy to do, I just free handed circles in different sizes and then allowed the colours to drift over the canvas. Love this painting but I need to find a new place to hang it as it doesn't fit in living room anymore. 

I painted this little flower years ago and it hung in my childhood bedroom in Ireland. It was small enough that I packed it into my suitcase and brought it with me when I first moved to South Carolina. I'm pretty sure I was copying a painting/drawing I'd seen in a book but it was years ago so I don't remember where the original inspiration came from. 

These little babies are only 2.5x2.5 inches so they were a perfect little first project to try after I moved here. they hang on the little bit of wall between the kitchen and the bathroom and bring a bright splash of colour onto the boring yellow/beigey walls. They were made with acrylic paint and painter's tape on canvas.

The gallery wall that I made for the bedroom actually consists of all but one piece of DIY artwork. Can you guess which one was the professionally designed one? Yep, it's the Dublin sign - that was purchased from etsy but the rest were made by me, including the stencilled white and gold painting, the fake canvas photos that I made by glueing printed photos onto canvas, the trio of black, gold and glitter paintings that were so much fun to make. The quote in the frame is a song lyric (as Gaeilge) from one of my favourite bands - there's more details in this gallery wall post.

This DIY abstract painting was created using painters tape over a very loud and brash painted canvas. I wasn't in love with the original painting and although I think the painters tape helped it a lot, I prefer a lot of the things I've made since then over this...so I'm not sure if this one is going to make it back on the wall anytime soon (it was ousted to hang a photo collage instead).

Ah the purple polar bear, again this is one I made as a teenager and brought with me because I love purple and polar bears and I just knew I could find a great place for it in the new house. No regrets at all. I still think this is one of the best paintings/drawings I've ever done, although I have to note that the design was copied from a book years ago (can't remember which) and it was done with chalk pastels so it isn't even technically a painting but who cares I love it!

Ok I've shown you my DIY bits and bobs that seem to be covering a huge number of surfaces in my house - now share yours! I'd love to see what you've got hung on your walls, any you've made yourself or is homemade not your thing? Do tell!

Huge cable knit blanket....finished

Without a doubt this blanket is my favourite knit to date. Without a doubt! It’s taken forever too. Seriously though, I started this blanket back in December. It even travelled with my up to Washington DC, and New York over Christmas and I knit it in the car on the road-trip up and sitting on the couch digesting Christmas dinner. It grew like a monster and I ran out of yarn long before it was finished leading to my dilemma as to whether or not I should buy more to make it bigger.

Well I think it’s safe to say I bought more yarn, although I did have to wait over 3 weeks for it to go on sale and then arrive during which time I missed blanket knitting so much that I knocked out a very quick baby blanket while waiting. What can I say evening Netflix time is just not the same without a pair of knitting needles in my hands!

Buying more yarn and making it bigger was definitely the way to go. It is huge now. Big enough to cover me completely on the couch and it makes a massive runner on the end of a queen size bed. It is also the softest and cosiest blanket I’ve made to date and I think it’s because of the 25% wool content of the yarn and it makes the $35 (approx.) I spent on the yarn more than worth it.

It’s currently in the closet awaiting my return to SC since this blanket is one that I made solely for me (selfish huh!), because the first blanket became a couch protector for Boomer to lie on and the Irish knit blanket was acquired by Kathy. This one is just for me and I’m going to treasure it!

[I shared the details for the pattern I used, the alteration I made to it and the yarn in this older progress post if you’re interested in making it]

Linking up with Nicole at Frontier Dreams and with Ginny at Small Things and Tami's Amis