Summer makes me impulsive.
Summer also distracts me.
The hot weather, the blazing sun. The thoughts of beaches and sand and fruity beverages with alcohol. Such goodness. Except when you're a workin' mama.
When I was in the corporate world, I used to look at websites and read stories about writers and their summers. They were always talking about side projects, hobbies that would be interspersed with their writing days and work week. Bitches, I thought. I want that writing life. I guess I'm that bitch now. Tee hee.
Thus summer I have crafts on the brain. As I wrote at Job-Mom, I think my current lack of work/life balance and general dog and kid chaos is making me think about other areas outside of work. My hobbies, for example. And my inner crafty chica is calling out all new ideas all the time. It's dangerous, expensive and exciting.
I've been veering away from traditional scrapbooking (a la Creative Memories) and looking at some newer, more artistic types of scrapbooking for the past few months. And last week a little match lit my ass on fire to create an album made of chipboard based on one done by scrapper extraordinare, Ali Edwards. The only problem was that despite searching high and low, I couldn't find the album needed for the project.
I took matters into my own hands and ended up creating this little memory album for my mother-in-law's birthday. It's called the "Why I love Grammy" book, with a photo of each grandson and a journal entry that details about why, well, they love their Grammy.
I bought a heat gun to emboss the cover, which turned out like this:
Learnings:
-Heat guns are no fun. This particular bad boy made the embossing powder fall everywhere. And damn did the house reek after I used it.
-Chipboard rocks. I can't wait to test out some new albums by Maya Road.
-Being crafty can be learned -- you don't have to be born with a "craftiness" gene.
-I love my life. I love that because I was so motivated to make this album, I could finish up my projects early in the week so I could focus on other fun stuff. And I thank my husband every single day for encouraging me to take this risk to pursue my life-long dream of being a professional writer and helping me make it happen. Because while it's summer, and I'm busy being mom, wife, wordsmith, dog-trainer and general crazy chica, I can still make time for me.
Almost guilt free.
