I'm looking for clear glass stones - like these - but ones that I can (a) find in/ship to Canada and (b) are a resonable price. We have one craft store in our city and they don't carry them, or at least they don't carry the ones that don't have foil backs or glitter.
Any suggestions? Drop me a line in the comments. Danke :)
Crap shoot
As part of my 'how do I make enough money to keep us out of the poor house' research, I've come up with some pretty out there ideas to, well, make money once I quit my job in December. I will be working part-time somewhere to help - and to get out of the house and see adults for a few hours here and there - so it's not like I'm putting all of my perverbial financial eggs in one basket or anything.
I feel like I have to explain that - the part-time job - to everyone when they ask what I'm doing come the end of my materinty leave. In reality, it's none of their damn business, but I can see why some of my friends are concerned. For the last 8 or 9 years, I've always had at least 2 jobs at a time. I seemed to thrive on working all the time. I never made much above minimum wage, but I liked being busy.
Anyway, so my ideas to bring in the dough. I'm a creative person, but not in a drawing/painting way. I can draw stick people and even then, they're pretty pathetic. I can, however, build things and sew and cross-stitch and do crafts, for lack of a better term. So I'll probably try to focus on things like that to bring in some extra cash.
I've also discovered, or re-discovered, that I'm a half-decent photographer. True, evidence of this on this particular blog may not support that statement, but I have an affinity for nature, especially fauna, photography. Such as this:
This particular shot was taken earlier this week, around noon, in my backyard. We have a few birdfeeders for the vast variety of birds we have throughout the year, including a sunflower seed feeder. We didn't notice until a couple of weeks ago that there were some strange flowers popping up on the lawn and the patio. I thought they were weeds or something that may have blown into the yard, but no. They were sunflowers. It's too bad it was so late in the season by the time they started sprouting or we may have had a semi-decent sunflower seed harvest for the feeders over the winter.
To get the shot, I held my Nikon Coolpix P80 under the flower and shot at roughly a 120ยบ angle. I should mention, too, that the flower was only 4 or 5 inches tall, too. I used the Close-up setting, the one setting I've found to be the best for this type of photography. For my next major camera, I'd love to have one with a manual lens, but that's a long way off; right now, this is the perfect camera for me and what I use it for (mainly the close to 10,000 photos of my daughter... thank god for digital).
I've got lots of photos along the same lines. I was on a kick this summer of shooting up from under plants, trying to catch the sunlight through petals and leaves to get interesting illuminations. Some worked, some did not. Trial and error and all that, I guess. I've always loved taking pictures, something I inherited from my dad, but this is probably the first time in years that I've actually thought about what I'm taking pictures of.
And now that I've got a decent collection of random shots of fauna from this summer, I'm going to make a calendar. I plan on making it the Christmas gift to most of my family and friends and maybe, just maybe, finding somewhere to perhaps sell it, should it turn out. I will never, ever profess to be the 'best' at anything, but I think this idea may be a profitable one. If I ever get around to it.
I feel like I have to explain that - the part-time job - to everyone when they ask what I'm doing come the end of my materinty leave. In reality, it's none of their damn business, but I can see why some of my friends are concerned. For the last 8 or 9 years, I've always had at least 2 jobs at a time. I seemed to thrive on working all the time. I never made much above minimum wage, but I liked being busy.
Anyway, so my ideas to bring in the dough. I'm a creative person, but not in a drawing/painting way. I can draw stick people and even then, they're pretty pathetic. I can, however, build things and sew and cross-stitch and do crafts, for lack of a better term. So I'll probably try to focus on things like that to bring in some extra cash.
I've also discovered, or re-discovered, that I'm a half-decent photographer. True, evidence of this on this particular blog may not support that statement, but I have an affinity for nature, especially fauna, photography. Such as this:
This particular shot was taken earlier this week, around noon, in my backyard. We have a few birdfeeders for the vast variety of birds we have throughout the year, including a sunflower seed feeder. We didn't notice until a couple of weeks ago that there were some strange flowers popping up on the lawn and the patio. I thought they were weeds or something that may have blown into the yard, but no. They were sunflowers. It's too bad it was so late in the season by the time they started sprouting or we may have had a semi-decent sunflower seed harvest for the feeders over the winter.To get the shot, I held my Nikon Coolpix P80 under the flower and shot at roughly a 120ยบ angle. I should mention, too, that the flower was only 4 or 5 inches tall, too. I used the Close-up setting, the one setting I've found to be the best for this type of photography. For my next major camera, I'd love to have one with a manual lens, but that's a long way off; right now, this is the perfect camera for me and what I use it for (mainly the close to 10,000 photos of my daughter... thank god for digital).
I've got lots of photos along the same lines. I was on a kick this summer of shooting up from under plants, trying to catch the sunlight through petals and leaves to get interesting illuminations. Some worked, some did not. Trial and error and all that, I guess. I've always loved taking pictures, something I inherited from my dad, but this is probably the first time in years that I've actually thought about what I'm taking pictures of.
And now that I've got a decent collection of random shots of fauna from this summer, I'm going to make a calendar. I plan on making it the Christmas gift to most of my family and friends and maybe, just maybe, finding somewhere to perhaps sell it, should it turn out. I will never, ever profess to be the 'best' at anything, but I think this idea may be a profitable one. If I ever get around to it.
One of these days... I swear
I haven't actually designed anything for over a year now. And suddenly, with less than 3 months until I go back to work, I'm finding myself wanting to design. I've been coming up with ideas for different things - finger puppets, desktop wallpaper, pillows, jewelry boxes - but haven't really done anything about it.
Yes, procrastination rears it's ugly head... again.
But this it's more than procrastination. It's trepidation and a realistic lack of time. I'm mom to a very active 8.5-month old, and while I don't work, I have very little time to myself to do anything besides housework.
The trepidation comes from the knowledge - and I admit this freely to anyone who asks - that I have no formal training whatsoever in design. I was working towards a Bachelor's degree in History (with minors in Political Science and Geography) when I quit 7 years ago. Not exactly an education that screams 'creativity'. Heck, it was barely an education to begin with - I only stayed in university so I could keep working at the student newspaper where I learned to write properly (take that, grade 9 English!), take decent photos and the basics of graphic design.
So, yes, I have experience designing, but no formal education, which has been my downfall when it comes to getting a decent job. But I have experience, which counts for something.
As an aside, I tend to over-rationalize some things, like this whole design thing. I know I can do it, but will I let myself? And what list of excuses will I use this time to prevent myself from doing so?
But back to the point I'm attempting to make (and if you've stuck it out this far, yay!) - there's a craving to start designing again somewhere in my head. The only thing I can realistically see holding me up (outside of the usual suspects of procrastination and trepidation) is the logistically problem of actually designing something. I looooove working with vectors and I've tried using some of the free programs out there and nope, can't do it. My only other choice is to go back to my 2002-ish iBook and use Illustrator. That'd be the one for the first edition of CS. I don't have the money to splash out on CS4 right now (or perhaps ever) and I'm technologically inept when it comes to getting it the **other** way.
And there's the fact that my laptop smells, too. That stinks. Ha. Ha.
I have a design for a desktop wallpaper that's been bouncing around for a couple of days, working it's way into something that I could theoretically do, if I have the right tools. And it looks like I've got the right tools... I just need a push (and time) to actually do it.
Yes, procrastination rears it's ugly head... again.
But this it's more than procrastination. It's trepidation and a realistic lack of time. I'm mom to a very active 8.5-month old, and while I don't work, I have very little time to myself to do anything besides housework.
The trepidation comes from the knowledge - and I admit this freely to anyone who asks - that I have no formal training whatsoever in design. I was working towards a Bachelor's degree in History (with minors in Political Science and Geography) when I quit 7 years ago. Not exactly an education that screams 'creativity'. Heck, it was barely an education to begin with - I only stayed in university so I could keep working at the student newspaper where I learned to write properly (take that, grade 9 English!), take decent photos and the basics of graphic design.
So, yes, I have experience designing, but no formal education, which has been my downfall when it comes to getting a decent job. But I have experience, which counts for something.
As an aside, I tend to over-rationalize some things, like this whole design thing. I know I can do it, but will I let myself? And what list of excuses will I use this time to prevent myself from doing so?
But back to the point I'm attempting to make (and if you've stuck it out this far, yay!) - there's a craving to start designing again somewhere in my head. The only thing I can realistically see holding me up (outside of the usual suspects of procrastination and trepidation) is the logistically problem of actually designing something. I looooove working with vectors and I've tried using some of the free programs out there and nope, can't do it. My only other choice is to go back to my 2002-ish iBook and use Illustrator. That'd be the one for the first edition of CS. I don't have the money to splash out on CS4 right now (or perhaps ever) and I'm technologically inept when it comes to getting it the **other** way.
And there's the fact that my laptop smells, too. That stinks. Ha. Ha.
I have a design for a desktop wallpaper that's been bouncing around for a couple of days, working it's way into something that I could theoretically do, if I have the right tools. And it looks like I've got the right tools... I just need a push (and time) to actually do it.
A Stitch In Time
I had all these intentions on putting my daughter down to nap, grabbing breakfast and a coffee and sitting down to do something productive that doesn't involve housework or my daughter.
I guess spending a good chunk of time hunting down album covers for iTunes is productive, in a sense. I mean, it's not like I ever use the full-scale iTunes player - I always use the mini player or the FoxyTunes extension on my brower, so my desperate obsession with having all my albums have covers is a little redundant.
I'm still working on some 'projects', mostly for my daughter. There's only one that has gone from the stuck-in-my-head phase, an animal mobile that will eventually hang over her change table. Maddy's fascinated with animals of all shapes and sizes, especially jungle/zoo animals. That probably comes from the overabundance of quilts in her room with that particular theme, but it's much easier (and cheaper) to go along with that kind of theme than some of the other ones available.
I didn't want to buy a mobile for her because a) I can make one and b) I'm cheap. I'm pretty sure the total cost for this mobile, with it's dozen or so animals will cost me in the range of $12, most of that on felt. I went to this site and downloaded some of the pages to use as templates to make the animals. The biggest challenge for me, the inept crafter, was figuring out how to keep the template on the felt while I cut it. I solved that problem the only way I could - with staples. Looking back, pins would have been an acceptable solution, but I don't have pins for some odd reason.
I do, however, have skeins and skeins of embroidery floss, which I've discovered is infinitely easier to use than yarn when sewing these animals up. They're only 4 or 5 inches high, some less than an inch wide, so the thinner the thread, the better. I'm not an expert sewer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know how to do a simple whip stitch along the side to at least attach the two pieces of felt together, keeping the stuffing inside, and make it somewhat attractive, perhaps even useful.
So I've got a dozen or so random zoo/jungle animals- lion, tiger, elephant, gorilla, giraffe (Maddy's favourite animal EVER) - to go on this mobile. All cut out, ready to be sewn and stuffed. Because I'm a mom to an 8-month old who's started to move very, very quickly around the living room, I have no time to do the animals during the day. The two 1.5-2 hour blocks I have during the day are times I need to run errands, do housework, have breakfast, shower, etc. so I can feel somewhat normal and productive as a human being. I don't sit on the couch while Maddy plays in her gated area in the living room, or anything. Well, not always. If she's content playing with her toys by herself, I let her be. If she's constantly trying to climb into my lap, I try to grab a book to look at or find a show for her to watch (yes, I let her watch TV. She's going to be the worst. child. ever. because of it. Whatever.). We spend quality time together. And because of that, I can't work on her mobile - little bits of felt and thread and scissors and paper within her reach? Yeah, no.
So I've managed to finish a seal, dolphin, monkey, rhino, tiger and gorilla in just over a week. It's not quite the speed at which I'd hoped I would be going, but at least it's something. I'm still being dogged by procrastination and moderate fear over doing anything else, but maybe once this is done (I plan on attaching the finished animals to a circle-shaped metal coat hanger with yarn), I'll be well on the way to creating a lot more. I'm trying to imagine how I could not only make money doing this (that goes back to my whole 'I sure as hell don't plan on working 2 full-time jobs so I can put my daughter in day care' plan come December), but also how satisfying this would be for me to do as a half-assed job. I really, really, really don't want to be spending the rest of my working life bouncing from job to job, hoping that whatever one I land at is it and that I'll finally be happy. I don't want to go back to full-time, out-of-the-house work until my daughter is in school, and that's 5 years away. There's still a semi-plan to go to school next fall for culinary arts; that idea may be pushed right off the back burner if I can't figure out a way to go to school but not work at the same time (also falls in with the 2-jobs-to-pay-for-day-care' thing). I need to make a decision soon... I go back to work for 2 weeks in less than 3 months. I'm not going to be there beyond my required 2 weeks, but I still need to pay bills.
But back to the point. I'm making a kick-ass mobile for my daughter. I may even try making a felt book for her next (one that I'll attempt to write) so she doesn't chew the hell out of her other books before she gets to actually enjoy them. I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself in my creative plans, but if I don't have something sort of lined up for the next project, I know I'll just fall back into that procrastination/fear trap that seems to be just one step away.
I guess spending a good chunk of time hunting down album covers for iTunes is productive, in a sense. I mean, it's not like I ever use the full-scale iTunes player - I always use the mini player or the FoxyTunes extension on my brower, so my desperate obsession with having all my albums have covers is a little redundant.
I'm still working on some 'projects', mostly for my daughter. There's only one that has gone from the stuck-in-my-head phase, an animal mobile that will eventually hang over her change table. Maddy's fascinated with animals of all shapes and sizes, especially jungle/zoo animals. That probably comes from the overabundance of quilts in her room with that particular theme, but it's much easier (and cheaper) to go along with that kind of theme than some of the other ones available.
I didn't want to buy a mobile for her because a) I can make one and b) I'm cheap. I'm pretty sure the total cost for this mobile, with it's dozen or so animals will cost me in the range of $12, most of that on felt. I went to this site and downloaded some of the pages to use as templates to make the animals. The biggest challenge for me, the inept crafter, was figuring out how to keep the template on the felt while I cut it. I solved that problem the only way I could - with staples. Looking back, pins would have been an acceptable solution, but I don't have pins for some odd reason.
I do, however, have skeins and skeins of embroidery floss, which I've discovered is infinitely easier to use than yarn when sewing these animals up. They're only 4 or 5 inches high, some less than an inch wide, so the thinner the thread, the better. I'm not an expert sewer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know how to do a simple whip stitch along the side to at least attach the two pieces of felt together, keeping the stuffing inside, and make it somewhat attractive, perhaps even useful.So I've got a dozen or so random zoo/jungle animals- lion, tiger, elephant, gorilla, giraffe (Maddy's favourite animal EVER) - to go on this mobile. All cut out, ready to be sewn and stuffed. Because I'm a mom to an 8-month old who's started to move very, very quickly around the living room, I have no time to do the animals during the day. The two 1.5-2 hour blocks I have during the day are times I need to run errands, do housework, have breakfast, shower, etc. so I can feel somewhat normal and productive as a human being. I don't sit on the couch while Maddy plays in her gated area in the living room, or anything. Well, not always. If she's content playing with her toys by herself, I let her be. If she's constantly trying to climb into my lap, I try to grab a book to look at or find a show for her to watch (yes, I let her watch TV. She's going to be the worst. child. ever. because of it. Whatever.). We spend quality time together. And because of that, I can't work on her mobile - little bits of felt and thread and scissors and paper within her reach? Yeah, no.
So I've managed to finish a seal, dolphin, monkey, rhino, tiger and gorilla in just over a week. It's not quite the speed at which I'd hoped I would be going, but at least it's something. I'm still being dogged by procrastination and moderate fear over doing anything else, but maybe once this is done (I plan on attaching the finished animals to a circle-shaped metal coat hanger with yarn), I'll be well on the way to creating a lot more. I'm trying to imagine how I could not only make money doing this (that goes back to my whole 'I sure as hell don't plan on working 2 full-time jobs so I can put my daughter in day care' plan come December), but also how satisfying this would be for me to do as a half-assed job. I really, really, really don't want to be spending the rest of my working life bouncing from job to job, hoping that whatever one I land at is it and that I'll finally be happy. I don't want to go back to full-time, out-of-the-house work until my daughter is in school, and that's 5 years away. There's still a semi-plan to go to school next fall for culinary arts; that idea may be pushed right off the back burner if I can't figure out a way to go to school but not work at the same time (also falls in with the 2-jobs-to-pay-for-day-care' thing). I need to make a decision soon... I go back to work for 2 weeks in less than 3 months. I'm not going to be there beyond my required 2 weeks, but I still need to pay bills.But back to the point. I'm making a kick-ass mobile for my daughter. I may even try making a felt book for her next (one that I'll attempt to write) so she doesn't chew the hell out of her other books before she gets to actually enjoy them. I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself in my creative plans, but if I don't have something sort of lined up for the next project, I know I'll just fall back into that procrastination/fear trap that seems to be just one step away.
Bitten
I don't know if it's the fact that I'm scheduled to go back to work in 3 months (almost to the day) or if I'm finding my life somewhat back to normal (thank you, Dr. Ferber), but there's been a niggling little voice in the back of my head for the last week or so, trying to encourage me to do some designing.
I have yet to actually do any.
For two reasons:
As tomorrow is my birthday (woo! 33! yay.), I'm going to take some initiative and set aside at least half an hour a day to work on some kind of designing, be it fiddling around with colour combos or figuring out how to use the new design programs I've got or even just checking out other design sites. I need to do something before my mind turns to mush and I end up smothering my child with overbearingness when she's 7.
I have yet to actually do any.
For two reasons:
- I don't have any decent design programs on my iMac. I've tried the free ones but I find them awkward and slightly clumsy. I do have an early, practically stone age version of Adobe CS on my iBook, but that requires me to actually use my iBook (I have one of the stinky ones). It's slow and old and in a small house with an 8-month old, hooking up yet another cord just isn't smart.
- This part is two-fold, and has been mentioned before: I'm a procrastinator and I'm terrified of what other people will think of my work. The former is just a part of my personality that I haven't been able to solve in 33 years and likely never will; the latter is almost inconceivable as I've been producing work publicly for 13+ years now and never had a problem before. Now, though, because it's for a personal reason, worries about judgement and criticism (and not the constructive kind) are keeping me from sitting down and spending an hour even fooling around with what limited resources I have.
As tomorrow is my birthday (woo! 33! yay.), I'm going to take some initiative and set aside at least half an hour a day to work on some kind of designing, be it fiddling around with colour combos or figuring out how to use the new design programs I've got or even just checking out other design sites. I need to do something before my mind turns to mush and I end up smothering my child with overbearingness when she's 7.
Perhaps it's time to stop bitching and start doing
I'm still battling with time, for the most part, to get my act together and start doing something. There's a constantly growing list in my head of things I want to do in the next few months. In just over 3 months, I have to go back to work and my 'free' time will vanish. The plus to that (besides a better paycheque) is that I only have to go back for 2 weeks. After that, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I want to take the last couple of weeks of the year off, for both personal and career-related reasons (mainly, who the hell hires anyone at Christmas?); but come the new year, I'll probably have to find another job, hopefully one that lets me work part-time.
I wonder, sometimes, if I'm avoiding doing anything on purpose. I've always blamed 'fill-in-the-blank block' for preventing me from doing anything outside of what people may consider my normal habits. But really, who cares? If I'm doing something I enjoy, why should anyone else have the right to judge me? I guess in extreme cases (ie. criminal), my actions could be judged, but for the most part, it's my creative acts that I'm most worried about.
The kicker? I'm a graphic designer by trade. Also a semi-non-amateur (make sense?) writer. Yet, those are the two things I'm most worried about others passing judgment on.
Time to get over that hurdle. And fast.
Here's a sign of how much of a procrastinator I am. My iMac 'broke' a couple of weeks ago. I fixed it (thank god) and managed to salvage most of my files via backups. I have yet to create a single playlist in iTunes. Not even one for my daughter. Plain sad, if you ask me.
I wonder, sometimes, if I'm avoiding doing anything on purpose. I've always blamed 'fill-in-the-blank block' for preventing me from doing anything outside of what people may consider my normal habits. But really, who cares? If I'm doing something I enjoy, why should anyone else have the right to judge me? I guess in extreme cases (ie. criminal), my actions could be judged, but for the most part, it's my creative acts that I'm most worried about.
The kicker? I'm a graphic designer by trade. Also a semi-non-amateur (make sense?) writer. Yet, those are the two things I'm most worried about others passing judgment on.
Time to get over that hurdle. And fast.
Here's a sign of how much of a procrastinator I am. My iMac 'broke' a couple of weeks ago. I fixed it (thank god) and managed to salvage most of my files via backups. I have yet to create a single playlist in iTunes. Not even one for my daughter. Plain sad, if you ask me.
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