The flu meets the best of intentions.

This time, my project lag can actually be attributed to diagnosed illness, rather than laziness.  All of us except for the one kid who never gets sick (he subsists on a diet of oranges, apples, and bagels -- you, too, can emulate this lifestyle and avoid viral illness, perhaps) have had the flu in shifts over the past few weeks, leaving "getting optional scrapbooking completed" below "standing upright" and "not developing pneumonia" on the to-do list.

I am backfilling now, and it is going to take a while.

Here is day four, which I had managed to get to before we started falling one by one:

The patterned paper is from this year's December Daily kit, but the little star circle is from last year's.  The penguin stamp is from Mama Elephant.  Look how ambitious I was -- I even embossed.

On to day five:

The "magic" card is from Studio Calico's Christmas cards.  The wintry branch stamp is from Memory Box, and I colored it in.  I am not giving a close-up of it because my coloring skills are faulty.  As Cher would say, it is like a Monet -- up close, it's a big old mess.

Day six is a little moody for a holiday album:

I spent most of that day in a meeting on the thirty-third floor of an office building.  No one even blinked when I took pictures through the window.  The gold polka-dot envelope is about as festive as this spread is going to get, and it is in there functionally holding business cards.

Finally, day seven:

This layout features one of my favorite things to do (I will not say "my favorite techniques," because it does not rise to that level) -- stamping a title directly onto a photo, with a journaling block underneath:

This year I am also putting borders around most of my pictures as I print them at home.  I'm just printing the photos a quarter-inch smaller both vertically and horizontally and cutting them out by eyeballing the borders.

December Daily for the goal-oriented

If you are joining me here for December Daily posts specifically, permit me to tell you a little bit about my crafting philosophy.  One, I am pretty lazy.  I like crafting, but I do not enjoy doing anything particularly taxing or complicated for leisure.  Two, I like to produce things, as in, I want a thing at the end of my crafting efforts, as opposed to a half-finished thing that I am putting aside because I cannot get it to be perfect.

I hear the same thing from a lot of people about December Daily, December Diary, Daily December, or whatever you want to call it -- they get started, but they do not get finished.  I have finished this project the past few years, not by being awesome at it or by doing a lot of pre-planning (the amount of planning I do is zero), but by doing it every day in a very simple way, and, when I finish a page, leaving it alone.

This year, as I did the last two years, I purchased the Studio Calico/Ali Edwards December Daily kit.  I like it because I do not celebrate Christmas, so the fact that it is light on Christmas trees and Santa and heavy on sparkly things and the word "December" is a plus for me.  I can repurpose sparkles for Hanukkah.  Santa, not so much.   If you are not familiar with the kit, it has come this year and last year with a Handbook, which is a six by eight album with page protectors in various configurations (like a SN@P album, but with a thicker spine).  I bought the white version of the kit.

I am caught up so far on my album, but, since I have been sufficiently slack that I am only blogging about it now, I will post about it in three-day chunks for now.

So, without further ado, here is Day One:

Please note that I am not going to let an opportunity for featuring hand knits in my scrapbooking go by without taking advantage.  Craft in a craft.  Craft in a craft!  Please note also that I blew up the left-hand photo into a 6 by 8 and therefore did not have to mess around with it.  Anyhow, I am using the Ali Edwards December Daily templates for 2014 so that I do not have to fuss with dating my layouts.

I recolored it white and layered it onto the photo.  The end.

And now, for day two.

Still only using items from the Studio Calico/Ali Edwards kit.  This time, I used one of the Ali Edwards templates by printing it out and cutting down a photo to fit in the frame:

As an editorial aside, that is what passes for "snow" in this part of the world.  Day three:

Yes, once again, knits in my scrapbook, as, if I am going to craft, I am getting eternal credit for it.  This layout has a couple of non-kit items; the "sweater weather is better weather" label is from the Walden Project Life kit (November's edition) from Studio Calico, and the little snowflake and "December" stamps opposite are from the Countdown Details stamp set sold by Papertrey Ink.

And thus, the path to completion is cleared, or trod, or forged, or something.

I am very efficient.  I started this quilt in the spring of 2013 and only let the half-finished pieces of it sit around my office for a year.  The pattern is from Moda Bake Shop and involved a layer cake of the Aneela Hoey posy fabric that I have been hoarding.  The pattern called for wonky nine-patch blocks in the middle and solid blocks around the outside, and I started out with ambitions of making all of the blocks nine-patch blocks, but the desire to finish won out over the desire to impress.  My machine started acting up while I was quilting, and I broke eleven needles (said machine has been banished to the repair shop), but it is finished and on the couch.  I will envision children reading peacefully under it and will ignore the fact that the reality is that it is wadded up on the floor every time I walk into the room.

So, while knitting is a relatively socially acceptably crafty hobby at this point, I am not sure scrapbooking is there.  I will admit that I carry my knitting into professional meetings, but I don't flash around the fact that I scrapbook.  It's not cool.  No, really, it's not.  Ok, perhaps you were not actually arguing with me.  Oh well.

Anyhow, I just returned from a trip to the Salt Lake City area, and I was excited to go (for a work conference) in large part because I thought it was a trip to the promised land of scrapbooking.  Sad to say, the national epidemic of store-closing seems to have hit SLC just like everywhere else, so I went to an Archiver's and Pebbles in my Pocket, bought what I thought wouldn't get bent too badly in the overhead bin, and went sight-seeing instead.  My Project Life spread from this week is pretty much all about the trip:

Now, if scrapbooking is uncool, Project Life must be double plus uncool.  For non-scrapbookers, it is scrapbooking.  For scrapbookers, it is just sticking photos in pockets.  Where is the art?  Where is the craft?  Like my kids care.  They don't.  Anyhow, for you slack crafters out there, you can do this.  Yes you can.  Round some photo corners, print out some cards explaining what is in said photos, call it a day in twenty minutes.  Do it once a week.  At the end of the year, you have a big fat album documenting what you did all year, in the order that you did it.  You are welcome.

I know we have only known each other for these two posts here, but by now you are gathering that I like to do anything with sock yarn other than make socks with it.  This is, as it happens, the Sock Yarn Sweater from Hannah Fettig, made with Caper Sock yarn from String Theory (I would tell you the color, but raise your hand if you think I kept the paper from the skeins).  I finished it in May except for the sleeves.  Sleeves.  I mean, there simply is nothing good to say about them.  Finished, however, and in a size 2T (the pattern goes from 0-6 months to size 16, and if you're planning to make this, I would size up a little, because that 2T is on my 16-month-old, and he is average-sized on a good day).  Slack factor:  high. This thing is knit top-down and in the round, and had very little shaping.

An introduction to my den of slack.

The truth is that I am a lazy crafter.  I like easy knitting patterns that do not require me to focus or seam or, I mean please, twist strands of yarn together to form some sort of design.  I've spent ten years now avoiding learning how to set in a sleeve on a sewn shirt.  It is unlikely that you will be seeing any Pinterest-ready photos around these here parts.  I may not always list what yarn I used in a sweater because there is a realistic chance that I purchased it in 1999.  What this blog is here to do is to motivate me, and anyone who stumbles in, to get some projects done.  Done is better than perfect, as always, and any dent I can make in my supplies means room for more supplies.

Socks for the fundamentally lazy.

Do these socks have feet?  Of course they do not.  There is a reason for that.  They are not socks.  Years ago, I asked a sales person at a yarn store about where to start, sockwise, and she suggested that I would need a period of peace and quiet to myself to do things like "turn heels."  Oh, ok.  Pardon me while I buy sock yarn but do not knit socks with it.  This is a leg warmer "pattern" from Oat Couture, knitted in String Theory yarn from Blue Hill, Maine.  I say "pattern" because, unlike, say, socks, all these things require is memorizing a four-line repeat and sticking some ribbing on each end.  No shaping, no sizing -- they are like sleeves in my fantasy world where sleeves do not require me me to count rows and increases and then seam them on to something afterwards.  Are green leg warmers a little witchy with a black outfit?  Did my oldest jaw-drop and ask, "wait, did you wear those to work today?"  Sure.  Guess what?  They were quick, they are finished, they are warm, and I almost never wear pants.  Get used to them.