Firstsies

In classic ME fashion, I had every intention of starting my new do-er/maker blog on New Year's Day 2014 and it just didn't happen. Because because.

If you decide to join me, follow me, laugh at me as I fumble my way through recipes, crafts and projects; know that you will be doing so in a hibbity-jibbity fashion because that is how I am with my crafty creativity. One day, I am running around the house cleaning and sprucing and tackling projects, the next (and the next and the next) I am permatucked into the sofa, Arnold Palmer in one hand, jacked into Netflix, binge watching Sherlock or Supernatural or OITNB (or whatever), iPad in lap - pinning away on Pinterest. Soooooo... Do not be surprised if you see a flurry of posts followed by a spell of quiet. Just know I am plotting and pinning (and trying to rally supplies or the cash to procure supplies).

I'm a crafty bitch. I love a weekend project like a kid loves cookies (mmmmm, cookies...).

I was making cookie-in-a-jar gifts before you were born, before there was an internet, back in the Nineties. I have made candles and soap and chocolates. I dabble in beadwork and jewelry and ceramics (there is a 50 lb chunk of porcelain in the bottom of my closet just aching to be pinched into precious little bowls, but apparently the ceramics skills gained during college back in the Dark Ages have gone the same place as all my left socks).

I love to work with leather. I made this journal cover for a friend two winters ago:

One day, I decided I liked tiny hat fascinators, so I made a tiny hat:

I would really like a cookie right now. Who mentioned cookies...?

Also, before we stumble too far down this road, be warned - I have a potty-mouth (the blog title should clue you in, but I enjoy stating the obvious). My first craft of the year should be earplugs for my sons. The worse a project is going, the more interesting the phrases become that my sons learn.

My goal for this year is to learn to do things I've always wanted to learn to do. I am basically a frustrated designer without the skills to output my ideas. I'm a fashion designer who can't machine sew, a furniture designer who doesn't know construction or carpentry. My family and I just moved into a fixer-upper and I don't yet have the abilities to feather my nest in all the ways I would like. I hope to change these facts about myself over time. I am inspired by so many of the lovely things I see on Pinterest and on etsy and elsewhere. I hope to make the shift from spending time thinking about making/doing things to spending time actually doing/making things.

Because Pinterest has become such a part of the do-er zeitgeist (I went to college damnit, I'm allowed to drop that word at will), it will be my primary source scapegoat. And while I'd love to think that everything I try will result in beautiful/functional/delicious results, I am a realist. Cakes fall, hems droop and paint mysteriously fails to dry properly occasionally. You can laugh, you can cry or you can invite your friends to laugh at with you.

Monty, I'd like like to see what's behind door number three.

(Link for you youngs who have no idea what that last sentence even means)