look what i can do

I’m not big on self-promotion.  I don’t like to brag about myself.  Taking compliments is not easy for me, either.  But, I am also a self-professed attention whore.  This combination of personality traits can lead to problems. 

See, every once in a while, I’ll do something that makes me stand back and say, “Damn, that’s pretty clever.”  And, because I have this here blog, I get to share it with you.  Afterwards, I sit back and bite my nails hoping that someone else thinks what I’ve accomplished is clever as well.  Cause, if I come right out and admit that I’m über proud of something and everyone else is like “meh” then I feel like a real tool and have to back-track and be all like, “yeah, just joking, I think this is lame, too.” Then, I crawl into my closet for a pity cry session and I get the hems of my pants and skirts all snotty.   

Don’t give me that look.  I know it’s schitzo.  Knowing is half the battle though, right? At least that’s what GI Joe always told me.

Anywhoo . . .

Here is something I made and I like it.  So there. 

It’s a bag.  Whoop-di-do, I know.

But, I did dissect an old pair of pants to make it.  The pocket on the outside as well as one inside were pockets on the pants. The handle was the waistband, and the lining and the bottom were cut from the pant’s legs.  The main body fabric I just had lying around as well as the fabric used to make the stripe detail and the appliqued flowers.  Kinda funky, huh? Not having to make pockets and a strap saved me quite a bit of time, plus I got to recycle some pants. I believe that is what’s called a “win-win.” Don’t quote me on that or anything.

And now here is where you get to determine if my evening will be spent curled up in my closet or not. 

Ha, ha! Just joking!

(I’m not joking.)

 

creative procrastination

Lately, I’ve felt uninspired. I want to do anything other than what I should be doing. The responsible side of me says, “You really should stop wasting time.” The immature child side of me flails around on the floor screaming, “I don’t wanna!” Then, I open my eyes and realize that I really am on the floor, throwing a massive tantrum. People are staring down at me, slowly shaking their heads.  Not my proudest moment.

So, do I get a grip on myself and buckle down? Do I open up any one of a dozen stories (my own and slush for the magazine I’m working for) and get to work editing? Do I grow the f*ck up?

Nope.

I do this:

I could tell you that this is a meditation on how technology is distracting us with bright lights and pretty, pretty colors while simultaneously fracturing our perception of reality.  But, that would be a lie.  It’s just a robot.

I found a box of old business cards, painted the backs of them with watercolors and then drew a robot on them. And now I’m wasting even more time by posting this insanity for all you nice people to read.

My apologies.  I shouldn’t drag you down with me. 

I gotta get my act together.  Enough playing around.  Back to work.

Ooohh, look! Zombie movies on Netflix!

the best laid schemes

At the beginning of this year I ran into a little snafu with my day planner.  For some reason, I fell in love with a cute little planner from Korea.  It was already the first week of January before I ordered it and because it was being shipped from half a planet away, it didn’t arrive until mid-February.  This caused me undue stress.  I wanted to avoid this situation when it came to my 2011 day planner.  I planned ahead, you could say. 

From past day planner purchases, I’ve learned what I do and don’t want.  I want to see one whole month at a time.  I don’t need weekly or daily pages.  I want a lot of blank, or possibly lined, pages for notes, doodles and random thoughts.  I also want a pocket for stickers, post-it notes or slips of paper that are important for one reason or another.  Sometimes those fortune cookie fortunes are right on the money, ya know? 

Most planners on the market have some of these features, but they also have a lot of other added crap that I don’t need.  (Who transfers their address book into a new day planner every year?)  So, I decided that I should just make my own. 

Yeah.  Make my own 2011 day planner.  Obsessive?  Maybe.

I figured out the size I wanted, did a simple grid in Excel and picked out my fonts.  After I printed the month pages, I turned the paper over and printed lines on the back.  This way when the planner is opened, I can see a full month, then when you turn the page it’s two full pages of lines for notes.  I had two name badge holders I’d saved from conferences that I planned on gluing on the inside of the back cover to use as clear plastic pockets.  Decorated card-stock would be the front and back covers and I would use the binding machine at work to hold it all together. 

I was feeling pretty smug.  Building a day planner from scratch using existing, found and recycled materials was hard-core crafty bad-ass.  So what if I had to cut each page by hand to fit my size requirement and the paper curled a little from printing on each side.  I could deal with that.  And, yes, my x-acto knife blade was getting dull, but a quick trip to Hobby Lobby would solve that.  Configuring the binding machine to fit my odd-sized paper would be a challenge and may actually involve something like math, but I would figure it out. 

My undoing was a trip to the bookstore. 

I already have a whole shelf devoted to books that are waiting to be read, so I was just casually browsing through the pens and stationary while my husband searched for the book he needed.  My wandering eventually took me to the calendars and day planners. 

That’s where I saw it.  MY day planner.  The one I was trying to piece together from dreams and scraps of paper already existed.  And when I saw the manufacturer, I realized that I should have known. 

Moleskine, thy name is perfection.

Everything I wanted was here in one elegant package.  Two page monthly spread, lined sheets between months (and extra lined sheets in the back) and a pocket.  This is a design that can not be improved upon.  So, I decided that I wouldn’t even try and bought the beautiful object outright. 

I own a couple Moleskine notebooks and adore them.  Just holding them makes me feel smarter and more creative.  I make a point to scribble in them while in public so I can distinguish myself from the rabble passing by.  I don’t know why I haven’t owned their day planners until now.  There is probably some great life lesson to be learned here, but I won’t have the intellect to glean what it is until I start using my perfect planner in 2011.  I’ll keep you posted.