Birthday and Valentines Cards

Now that I have returned to work, my crafting time has come to almost a complete halt…dang government for wanting money for everything.  I did however sneak in some time to make a few cards after everyone else was in bed for the night.  I was also able to make some valentines for K’s class, since she insisted on having Alvin the Chipmunk (her current obsession) on her cards and since he isn’t “IT” right now, there was nothing in the stores, so I had to make them for her.

 

My hubby’s 42nd birthday was on the 12th, so I made him cards from both K and I.  The one from K was one I just made up in Photoshop Elements, the owl one I made using both Photoshop and just a paper cutter.

Valentines day card that I designed using SCAL3 and my Cameo.  The pink is an overlay on a solid red background.

I ended up making 18 of these Alvin the Chipmunk Valentine cards for K’s class. Only took K 3 hours to write her classmates names and her name on the back of each of them. granted that was spread out over the whole weekend, but ugh, what a pain that was, maybe I should have just been like the majority of the class and filled them out myself for her…but we were asked to let them do it so they could get the handwriting skills in, so I did as was asked, but when your child has ADD, it takes patience on all ends to get through such a simple task, something we all need to work on here.

And Life Happens…

With our return to WI, and closer to being “back home”, we have attended a family reunion, K has started 4K at school, hubby started a new job, I have returned to work, a year earlier than planned, but  more financial issues reared their ugly head and it became a necessity for me to do so.  I have done some work on a few odds and ends projects. I have hemmed some pants.  I have made some more crochet hair clips for a friends daughter back in CA.

I have made some washcloths.

  I made some Halloween treat boxes for K’s new class.

A birthday card from K to her old teacher.

I made an owl hat for K and designed a skull mohawk hat for hubby.

And I am currently working on a sweater for K. It’s been ripped out about 5 times now, but it is slowly getting there, just taking longer now that I am back to work.

A Little Time To Get Back Into Crafting

We are moved!  Almost completely settled in.  I have my sewing machine set up, my serger is still in the box, as is my cameo, and my crochet hooks are still down in the basement in a box. I have done a few small sewing projects for my husband, basically making him cozy’s for some camping gear and boxing a bag he had.  Last night I made some stickers for an order from a gal on Facebook.  Tonight I managed to make a few new scrapbook papers.  If you would like other colors or sizes, please feel free to ask for them. These papers are all 12”x12” papers at 300dpi. And you can download them HERE.  ENJOY!

   

 

Hopefully now that we are almost set up completely, I can get back into creating.  I have a few dresses I want to make for K as she starts school in a week and a half. I received my CB09 blade today for my cameo, so when necessary I finally have a backup blade for her, and will be more willing to play around more with different weights and materials on her. 

Very Thankful For Family!

If you read my last post, you will know that we were struggling to make ends meet after the lay off and had no clue how we were going to get funds together for us to move. No bank was going to lend us a penny, since neither of are currently working.  We were so lost.  Let me just say my FIL is a true godsend at this time.  He was willing and able to loan us the amount we needed for our move.

I did talk my hubby into staying here one extra month so we can let our daughter graduate with her pre-K class in June.  Our house is slowly getting packed up, A LOT of it is getting purged via craigslist & freecycle & friends.

As of June 22, our place here in CA will be packed up on a truck and shipped to WI.  We will leave here either the 24th or 25th, after we do final clean up.   We will drive till we can’t handle the drive anymore, it’s a 22 hour drive to our first destination, and stop to sleep at a hotel or if we make it to the in-laws in OK, all the better to save us money.  We will stay there for a few days and head up to WI by end of the week.  Will stop in IL to finally meet a friend of mine face to face, we met on a message board when we were both pregnant 5 years ago! but living across country from each other, we never got to meet in person, and now we finally will!  Then after our late dinner with her and her family, we will finish the drive to my brothers house, where we will be staying until we can get established finding jobs and getting our own place.

I am so thankful for family in our time of need, and honestly do not know what we would do without them.  They will never know how much this truly means to me and my immediate family.

Our daughter is so excited about moving, she asks me at least 3 times a day, if we are going to Uncle T’s house now.  Every time we get in the car, she thinks we are going, and gets bummed when I tell her it will be another 2 months before we go.  Of course at 4, 2 months is 2 hours later..  She is so excited to play with her cousin.  And so excited to be able to go spend the night at grandmas.  I have decided that I am going to make a calendar to help her understand and mark off the days till we move. 

So there you have it, things are looking up so much in the last week.  That being all said, the sewing machine is already packed up, the cameo is still out, but will be packed up soon. I do have a friend wanting me to make her daughter a couple hats, so I will keep out my crochet hooks and the yarn, but other than that my crafting is pretty much put on permanent hold till after the move, and possibly till after we find our own place.

Where has all my crafting mojo gone?

This is a pretty personal post for me, so if you would rather not read about my personal life, then you may want to skip this blog post.

You may have noticed my crafting blog here has completely been lost in the last few months.  Why you may ask? Well stress is the answer.  In December, my husbands job downgraded and he got put onto part time.  He knew it was coming, sorta, they are always slow around Christmas, and there really wasn’t anyone else they could cut, as they were already down to their bare minimum of employees, all they had left were managers, including my husband, but he was what you would consider middle management.

In late January, I was diagnosed with depression and was put on antidepressants.  I never got to the point of wanting to hurt or kill myself or others, but a mild case of depression in the least.  I had lost all motivation to do anything, crafting and doing anything with my daughter were feeling like chores to me, instead of fun and an outlet.  I sat on the couch all day, didn’t care what my house looked like, that the dishes piled up, that the house really needed to cleaned, spending time with any friends, let alone leave the house or even want to shower, none of it mattered to me.  I was sad all the time, I wanted to sleep all the time, and every little thing just got me flustered and irritated and I would have loved to just stay in bed all day long, but I couldn’t, I had a family to take care of.  Things are better now, I still have days when the meds just aren’t enough, but that is my choice.  My doctor wanted me on 40mg of the med, but I noticed a huge difference in my mood and motivation at just 20mg, so I told her I would not go up on my meds unless I don’t feel it isn’t working.

In March, we came to realize that my husbands company isn’t picking back up this year, and I was finally able to talk him into moving back to Wisconsin where my family is located.  We started looking into moving companies to move us across country.  The quotes were a lot higher than what we expected them to be, so on a tight budget we went so we could save up for the move. 

April brings us to our current state, 2 weeks ago, my husband got laid off. Stress has super kicked in.  We don’t know when his unemployment will kick in, and here in CA, they have a cap on the amount you can receive on unemployment each week, which happens to be even less than what he was getting working part time. Funds were already tight, now I have no clue how we are going to save up for a move, let alone even make bills.  Once we get out of CA though, things will be better cause we won’t have the ridiculous high rental costs, so things will definitely be less stressful, but we have no clue how we are going to get the funds to do a move now.  Which leaves not only myself stressing, but my husband as well. 

And that is where things stand, we have been selling items we are not planning on taking with us for the move, FreeCycling other items that aren’t worth much, but still have plenty of use left in them. We have also decided a lot of the items we were planning on taking with us, will no longer be going so we can downsize the costs of the move.