Ugly Dolls and Craftster

If you are remotely crafty and have never visited, Craftster, I highly recommend checking it out. It's a melting pot of every thing creative, including cooking, sewing, knitting, and crocheting, which are my personal favorites, although I have definitely been inspired to try new things that I didn't even know about until I saw them there. Members share their creations and you can even get into doing swaps if that's your thing. I found this pattern for Wayuki's interpretation of an Ugly Doll, and (as you can see) just couldn't stop making them. It was so fun putting my own twist on her pattern. I do think it's a bit hard navigating around the site for the first time, so I recommend starting with "Recent With Pictures." You will find it on the front page, right side. I like scanning through the pictures for inspiration as well as new patterns and techniques to try. I, unfortunately, do not recommend Craftster for children. Although rare, there are some "mature content" type crafts on the site. Why someone would want a tea towel, with x-rated material embroidered on it, hanging in their home is beyond me. Any who, I still strongly recommend the site, especially if you are looking for something outside the mainstream style of crafts.

One Month Shopping Challenge - Week 3 & 4

Well, I have to confess I blew it, I went shopping Saturday. It started out harmless enough, I had some basics (milk, eggs, etc) to pick up. But the weather has been unseasonably warm so I broke the challenge and picked up a few pairs of capri pants, hanging flowers baskets to plant fuchsias in for my front porch, and some other miscellaneous items, some of which are for some craft projects I have been wanting to make. All in all I spent about $100, and since I know I won't be doing any shopping for the rest of this week (week 4), that puts my total for the month (including gas) at a little over $150. An average of less than $40 a week for all out of pocket moneys spent this month really isn't too bad.

My purpose for the whole thing was really only to break a bad spending cycle I had got myself into. This usually happens at the beginning of every year when I am doing a large chunk of my Christmas, birthday, and clothing shopping for the up coming year. I just need to know when to say, "enough!" My focus now is to clean out and use up anything and everything I can. We are still trying to decided on having a yard sale verses hauling it all to the Salvation Army. Guess I'll have to wait and see how much stuff we want to get ride of! ;-)