Resolution Review Time & A Neater Craft Room

Back in January, I made some resolution-type goals to follow in the crafting area of my life.  The year isn't quite half over, but I think it's a good time to review those goals and see how successful I am.

The first one was to finish some WIPs, and I haven't done that as of yet.  I have worked on some of them though and am happy with that bit of success. 

I also planned to stitch a Christmas ornament every month, but thought it would be better to amend that to every other month.  Two have been stitched so far, and I have kitted up the third!  Yay!  Success!  Going along with this goal was to try out different ornament-finishing techniques.  I haven't gotten to this yet.

Another resolution that has not been successful as of yet is learning to do some different crochet stitches.  BUT I did find a cool Facebook page called "Starting Chain" which has videos of different stitches.  Nice clear instructions and totally doable.  Gives me some inspiration and confidence to succeed at this one!

And what about the Pinterest project goal?  Am I the queen of that or what?!  I have managed to create a Pinterest-inspired each month of this year so far!  Look for more of these posts.

I have also been extremely successful with the craft room cleaning resolution!  It is now completely organized.  I went through stuff and did a purge of unneeded supplies.  Yes, I still have the box of pine cones.  Don't laugh.  I labeled boxes and containers and put items in their rightful places.  Now I know where everything is.

The closet.  Now I know what's in there!

Why didn't I do this sooner?

More awesome organization in the armoire.

Makes me want to go in there and create something!

An old bookcase is perfect for display and organizing materials.

The spool holder.  I just got a second one installed today.

Added a little "pretty" in the way of a colorful window valance.

So I'd say that the resolution to get organized was a complete success.  Now I just have to keep it that way.  Or somewhat that way.   I am finding that I do find things quicker, which makes crafting more pleasant and fun.  If I only have an hour to work on something, I'd rather spend that hour working on something than searching for something I need. 

The spool holder:  If someone had asked me a couple of months ago how many spools of thread I had, I would have guessed 25 or so.  This spool holder holds 60 - count 'em 60! - spools of thread.  And I have overflow.  Hence the installation of a second one.  Thank goodness for Joann's coupons!

I knew I wanted a bright and colorful valance and went back to fabricguru.com and found this happy fabric.  It was quick to sew and I enlisted the help of Mark to install the curtain rod just today!  I think I'm done sewing window treatments for a while.

Thanks for putting up with this wordy and extremely picture-heavy post.  I hope that you liked the little virtual tour of my craft room.  Visit again soon for some more crafty fun.

Sticking To The Crafty Plan

Am I the only one who is having fun sticking to resolutions?  Probably not, but I have pretty much amazed myself by diving right in and getting stuff done!  For example, last weekend I barricaded myself in the craft room and put a major dent in the organization project.  The first thing I did was to take everything out of the closet.  Everything.  And yes, it was an awful mess.

Right in the midst of the havoc you can see the label maker.  See it?  It's on the table between the stacks of junk.  That thing got a workout.  Now each container is organized and labeled.  Astonishing.  I can actually tell what's in the boxes.  And there were several instances of "Hey look.  I didn't remember I had that".  On Sunday I did the same thing with the craft cabinet.  I figure I'm about 75% done.  The result: unbelievable accomplishment.  I'll post a picture of the awesome organization in an upcoming post.

Now onto the WIPs.  I am happy to report a finish!  All of the stitching has been completed on Just Nan's "Jasmine Mix".

This little project used about a million different floss colors.  OK, maybe like 15.  So many color changes in such a little design was a challenge for me, but the finished product is so pretty.  I'm thinking that a simple square frame will be perfect for this.

Next I pulled out a WIP that puts me in a springtime frame of mind.  I started "Tulip's Praise" by Gracewood Stitches last summer, but had put it away to get some seasonal stitching done. 

I've made some progress on this one during the past week.  I just love the colors in this. 

One more thing I want to do is choose a Christmas ornament to stitch.  I'm looking forward to that.  At least I'll be able to find everything I need for it in the craft room!

I want to welcome my new followers!  I hope that you'll find this a fun place to visit.  Also, there's still time to enter your name into my Grow Your Blog giveaway!  All you have to do is make a comment on the Grow Your Blog post and you're instantly entered.  I'll be drawing a name on February 14th and announcing the winner on the 15th.