It’s a cloudy, dreary day out today. I have the itch to do something crafty. I don’t know if I’ll actually find the time to do something crafty today, but I figure blogging about something crafty might help that a bit—kind of like when I have a craving for ice cream from Cold Stone and instead opt for the fat-free fudge bar. It’s not completely satisfying my craving, but placating it enough where I can survive. ;)

On Monday I scrapped a layout with those photos of Madison that I’ve been dying to use. I’m hosting the technique challenge at PGD this month, so it was the perfect time to grab one of those and get to work. :)

You Are <--click for credits

I’m quite happy with the way it turned out. Vast expanses of white space and the color white itself punctuated by pops of bright color has really been appealing to me lately.

The other crafty thing that I want to share with you today are epoxy scrabble tile pendants. I made several of these at Christmas for the PGD creative team and 2 for” the Lisas” (my sisters-in-law). Amazingly enough, I didn’t photograph the pendants before giving them. Yes, I’ve been kicking myself for it every since! But here’s an example made by Anne Howes, who is also the author of the tutorial I will be linking you up to:

Bee-lieve it or not (get it? bee-lieve? heh. corny wordplay is my specialty. :p ) these little beauties are not that difficult to make. It can be a little scary working with the epoxy at first—especially if you read online because some of the tutorials make it seem like either the fumes going to knock you out cold or that you have to be really fast at working the epoxy or you’ll have a ruined project. I used Envirotex Lite epoxy (got it at Michael’s) and found it both relatively “non-stinky” (and it was winter, so the ventilation was minimal because I live in a very cold state) and easy to work with.

I’m not going to recount the steps because Anne does that so beautifully in her tutorial HERE, but I will say that it was a fairly quick project that I really enjoyed. I plan on making more in the future—maybe even one for myself, this time around! You should give it a try!

Today is Nicholas’s first day of summer vacation. He seems to be quite happy about this and woke up all smiles this morning. I tried to get a few shots of these smiles, but I encountered a problem that is becoming a common occurrence with him when I try to snap a picture.

His fingers in his ears. :(

The older he gets the more sensitive he is to certain sounds (though some sounds that drive me bonkers seem to have no impact on him what-so-ever—go figure), and now he’s in the habit of plugging his ears. He does this when he knows I’m saying something he won’t like too—so I know some of this ear plugging is not simply a sensory issue. :p  But now we’re at the point where apparently my camera shutter makes a sound that he finds very unpleasant, because when I pull the camera out—before I can even get the lens cap off—his fingers are planted firmly in his ears and there they stay. It’s very frustrating. I have to figure out a way to break this habit so I can get my cute photo ops back.

And speaking of cameras, photography and all that jazz—I’ve discovered a whole little retail market that I never knew existed: cute camera straps. I guess I never realized that some people desire a strap for their camera that isn’t so---utilitarian in look.

I found a couple sellers on Etsy who make them. How cute are these? (These photos happen to be of ones sold by Shabby Straps)

Shabby Straps also sells wrist straps which are great for point & shoot cameras if you don’t need a strap for an SLR or dSLR.

A couple other stylin’ strap crafters on Etsy:
Cotton Candy by Natalie (she’ll make custom straps in fabric you choose too!)
Phat Straps (lots of straps here, including guitar straps, wristlets and even lens huggies if you want cute bags for your lenses!)

I haven’t girly-fied my camera with one of these yet, but I just may some day. :)

I found my way to Wil Wheaton's blog this afternoon and in my perusing I came across this post which I found priceless:

Who's gonna drive you home tonight

Boy, I'm not looking forward to this kind of experience with my own kids. I know it will come soon, but I'm very, very afraid.

And I have to say, Wil Wheaton tells a good story. I didn't realize he was writing books now. I've heard recordings of some of his speaking at events and he's quite entertaining to listen to. I used to have the biggest crush on him when he was on ST: TNG when I was about 9. LOL  It was weird for me the first time I saw that he speaks at a lot of game conventions because he's all grown up. I still pictured him as the teenager from the show that I remember. It reminded me that I'm getting old too. ;)