Making things, doing things

I made some stamps the other day from some craft foam, wood, and an xacto knife. It was so easy I loved it. I’m going to stampity stamp stamp on everything. Like this journal I made Sunday for the Craft Leftovers Pattern.

I cleaned out my art box and doesn’t it just look great! Everything was covered in a charcoal powder and all my nibs were crusted with dried ink, no more!

I found a whole box of this ribbon in various colors at a garage sale on Saturday. Hooray for Garage Sale Season! I’m going to go to the early bird ones on Thursday morning!

Sunday night we had an awesome dinner of Cheese Burgers (we bought some ground beef from the farmer’s market, it was the local couple that raised grass fed/cared for lovingly steers), potato salad (my grandma’s recipe), salad (also bought from the farmer’s market), and this apple tart (before and after baking). I found the recipe for the tart here. You should check it out, it was delicious! The crust was wonderful too, I think I’ll make it up without the sugar and make a quiche for dinner tomorrow night. Oh my only issue was that it didn’t make enough dough, so I’m going to make more up next time.

Here is the start of my container garden. We bought 3 types of tomatoes, 2 types of peppers, some thyme, purple salvia (from the garage sale), ginger basil (garage sale), black raspberry (garage sale too :), and then I planted seeds for a lettuce mix, basil, cilantro, nasturteums, and I can’t remember what all else. I labeled them though. I used one of the white plastic containers that they came in and cut it into strips and then wrote on it with permanent marker. I’ve been using gray water to water them, anything left over from boiling pasta, waiting for the water to heat up, and so far I haven’t had to fill up my watering can once. It makes me feel better. I don’t want the water bill to go through the roof.

This is my neighbor’s container garden. I’m so envious. I want mine to be that huge and wonderful! Someday

So my little Ferret Beuler (Mr B) decided when he saw this big june bug that it would make a most delectable snack. He crunched on the back of it until he cracked it and then ate out the insides! So gross! So smart though.

Anyway, it’s back to work for me. I’ll post more soon!

Kristin

Grand Adventures!

Well the new shop is open and ready for business!

Here is a shot of what my new store front looks like! You can visit by heading over to www.craftleftovers.com/shop!

Oh and I’m having a 10% off sale all this week, just enter the coupon code: GrandAdventure to get 10% off your entire order! The sale will end Sunday night at midnight, which means that Craft Leftovers Monthly will be 10% off the first day it’s on sale! Hooray!

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I have had such a good last week! It’s been surprisingly busy, but wonderful all at the same time.

Last post I mentioned how I was going to share some tips I have been learning about working from home and so I will. Have to admit, I’ve been reading this blog a lot lately and it has helped a lot with both working and saving money, you should go check it out if you are interested in either. So what have I learned?

Budgeting Time
Just like budgeting money, budgeting time is huge to staying on track. What’s the first step everyone tells you to making an effective budget? Track alllllll of your spending by saving all your receipts and writing it all down, this helps you to see where you can save money, what your impulses are, where you tend to get sidetracked from your budget… for me, that latte, those little random things, a fancy pack of crackers at the grocery store. In the same way, track your time religiously for the first couple of weeks that you are working at home, in the same way that receipts work, this time keeping will help you to find when you are getting side tracked, how long tasks really take (3 hours instead of an estimated two is a huge difference!), when you break for lunch. Long in and out for bathroom breaks. When I get up to go to the bathroom I have found I often get side tracked for 10 mins by walking to the kitchen and grabbing a snack, cleaning up a little bit, playing with the ferrets, etc. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s just good to be aware of where your time is going.

To do lists
I’ve talked about this one before. To do lists are wonderful for me. I try to never make them the day of, I always make them the day before, usually right before bed. It helps me feel settled. Also, it keeps me realistic about what I can do. If you make a to do list as you go along, it’s kind of like making your grocery list while in the store, you add things on that aren’t real priorities.

I write down each thing I need to do, not just the project. So for today’s to do list I had not just “open shop for business”, but “add last products to shop”, “finish shipping policy”, “post to cl blog”. It helps me to remember each task I need to do as well as help me feel more productive by being able to check more things off. I know it’s psychological, but if it helps me to feel better about what I’m accomplishing, why not do it?

Since I’m working at home, I add my house stuff to the same list “dishes, fold laundry, bring hammock in for ferrets”. It’s not just a list of the big things I want to get done, but also a reminder to say walk out into the garage and grab the bigger hammock from the travel cage for my little guys; something I have forgotten to do for the last week. Now that it’s on the list I’ll make sure to get it done.

If I need to buy anything, I make a To Buy list and take that with me when I go out. It helps me from buying randomly and also from having to go out several times because I forgot the potatoes or the potting soil or whatever it was that I needed. It saves me time and money by just making a list of things.

Well that’s all for now. I have a lot of fun stuff that I want to show and tell, but, I need to break for lunch. See you all later!

A Great End : An Exciting Start!

There are so many things to talk about that I’m just not sure really where to begin. I guess I’ll start from the end of school and work my way forward.

The end of the semester was great. It was stressful and exhausting, but really good. I went to shows just about every night for a week or two there, hung out with friends, packed, gave presentations, intense hours weaving and filing and making of things. I said my goodbyes and my come by my place anytimes. I managed to send of a submission to KnitScene by the deadline (cross your fingers that they will see the potential in my amateurish submission packet and take me up on it).

I walked for the graduation ceremony, ate dinner, lunch and breakfast for the next week with friends to catch up, see them all that one last time before the move. Picked up Jason from Ames, drove back, packed up everything, cleaned everything, cried a whole lot about the loss of my studio and friends (funny how studio comes first to my mind), drove through horrible rain storms with 0 vizablity, met up with the folks who followed us to Ames to help with the unpacking. Everyone was wonderful. Special thanks to my sister, the dynamic duo, Jason, my mom and dad, and Katy N. You all kicked some serious boxing and unboxing butt.

So now I’m here in Ames, IA. It was a rough few first days. The amount of things in the apartment was overwhelming. Having not made anything in over a week was starting to stress me out too. So I worked like mad those first two days getting things unpacked and cleaned. My studio space is set up and now I’m not so sad about leaving the old one. Art and Craft materials are combined in one studio, what a lovely flow of making whatever I need to be making at any point in time without having to run back and forth between the home and school studios. The kitchen is 100% together, the bedroom is close, basically a ton of laundry to be done and some cleaning, but unpacked. The living room is close and there is a little other section of the main area that needs finishing too. Once I get the loom cleaned up it will go into that area, so I need to leave some room there for it.

I still have many boxes of things to go through before that is done. Pretty much everything to the left hand side needs to find a place to go.

Oh and yes, that is totally a refurbished Street Fighter II arcade machine in my studio! Unfortnuately the cat got in there and shorted out the monitor, which will cost a whopping $200-300 to fix… Eventually. It is just too much fun to give up. I think totally worth the money to fix it… now to get Jason to the point where he would have the time to do that….. hmm.

Here are some semi-blurry pictures of molly! She is not really a big cat, but just has tons of fur that sticks straight out!

She was just lapping up water from the glass, and now that we were looking at her, she was giving us that “I did not just drink out of that glass, what are you talking about” attitude. Ha! I know better. She has become my just about constant companion in the studio. It’s so nice to have a cat again.

Anyway, after moving here, the first thing on my mind of course was “get a library card!” and then “I need a checking account” so that was yesterday’s errands. I checked out The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kid (audio book) and am only half heartedly listening, it seems like it could be good. I’m enjoying one character, but not the other. Anyway, I also checked out a book on Calligraphy and plan on brushing up on that (I learned it a long time ago, but, well, that was a long time ago) and a book called Smallmart. I think that it is about small vs large business. The name being a play on Walmart. I’m hoping to start reading that tomorrow morning as my read an hour a day plan.

Then I opened a checking account. And they asked “occupation” and I hesitated…. “Self Employed” I said. And it’s true. 100% true. And that is my exciting start… on top of moving here to ames to be with Jason! I am jumping into self employment. Officially this Monday coming up. I’ve been trying to do a lot of organizing, not just physical moving things around, but mentally too. I’ve been doing all sorts of nutty stuff to get me started on the right foot and stay productive.

The biggest thing is the notebook. The notebook is the best tool ever.
Every night I write a to do list for the next day and date the page. Each Page is one day. I “clock in/out” every time i’m working/not working. It has really helped me to stay on task as well as see the procrastination trends.

So here I go. Self Employed. Oddly enough, I’m not the only one. Lee is also starting on her own adventure into self employment! Hooray! High Five and beer pint clinking cheers back to you!

I’m gearing up for Monday, it will be the grand start of things, so check back then for all the fun announcements and scheming talk. Right now I’m still settling in to my new surroundings. I’m going to post again soon to add to the integrity post I did early as well as some staying on task when working at home tips I’m practicing (and maybe failing at sometimes) later in this weekend.

Hello again folks and see you again really soon!

Kristin Roach

Integrity in Art : Integrity in Life : Part I

There have been a lot of things coming up in reading and listening and doing that have made me start to rethink what I make my art and craft with, how I live me life and how those two things intertwine and the implications they have.

If I am truly devoted to the idea of craft leftovers, should I really order yarn for a yarn giant that treats me like complete crap while I’m placing an order and gets all their yarn milled 1000 miles away? Shouldn’t I order from the mill that is in my state, or at least my country? Should I try just get yarn that is used, old, recycled, local, on sale, run offs?

And in the same vein of that, should I really even ever shop at Joann’s for craft supplies? But that begs the question, where to shop than? Where is a place that I can buy satin cording for the sock bags I’ve been making lately? I couldn’t have had that spontaneous crafting moment on Wednesday had it not been for my trip on Joann’s the night before.

I heard a great podcast on Bad At Sports Sunday that was kind of in this vein, talking about integrity, but also about legitimacy. Advertising and corporations squeezing in on independent artists and crafts people. Kind of a commercialization of the independent movement that is so rich and wonderful. The artist they were interviewing said at one point, “commercializing something that I am a part of that I don’t want to be commercialized” and “we have to attack them every time they come into our space”.

There has been some controversy in the chicago area about big beer companies providing free beer to art openings to try to appeal to the ‘arts’ crowd. About that she said, “who made this decision, what was signed, what are the concequences, and how can it be replaced”. It’s hard to resist free beer for your opening when your a starving artist, but by taking that beer from that company, you are stopping support for brands you like and are dedicated to. Why is it always up to the artists putting on the show to provide all the spread. I like the model that has been set up by Mess Hall.

Pot Lucks. Home Brew. BYOB.

There are so many alternatives to accepting handouts from big corporate companies, to buying supplies from Joann’s. From buying new things in general

Can I reasonably go without buying new things? Can I keep buying new books and craft supplies to a minimum when all other options are exhausted…. Taking Craft Leftovers to the extreme and really embracing the motto I’ve set up for it of living life creatively, not just crafting creatively sometimes.

I’ve always attempted to keep my materials in line with the concept of my art work and now I’m finally bringing it all together and I’m starting to live my life with more integrity, and I want to share with you the ideas I have come up with to keep my life in line with my morals. How can I stop buying from A-holes and  restore the adventure and uniqueness to life experience. How can those two go together when the common perception that adventure and pleasure comes from buying the cheapest in the best deal?

I’ll post about what I’ve come to find the last couple of years of Craft Leftovers and how I’m going to apply it to my life in general over the summer. An experiment of sorts. See where it goes.

See you soon!

Kristin

Sock Bags!

And some other stuff too!

So I did my dishes and made some sock bags! Hooray!

And here is the mug I made in ceramics filled with yummy ginger spice green tea!

And here is the story that happened yesterday. So my tire was peeling. It was really strange because all the other tires looked really new, but this one back right tire looks old and crappy and where the white was on the tire it was peeling away from the inner part of the tire. I felt like it was going to explode if I hit a bump wrong. The thing was that it’s my parent’s mini van, they were nice enough to let me borrow it for the move and the extra length has caused me to consistently hop curbs all over town with that said tire. Over the past couple years my parents have been really nice about letting me borrow their cars off and on and fixing mine when it breaks. So getting the tire fixed and the oil changed was the least I could do before giving their mini van back to them in 3 weeks.

I went to farm and fleet because they do pretty good work and it’s cheap. I knew it was going to take 3 hours though, so I took plenty of knitting and crochet to work on as well as my sketch book. I went there and was really surprised because the guy who put in the work order said it would be “1 hour” maybe less. And I was like “really! that’s awesome!” So I pulled a chair from the waiting room to outside (it was like 75 and wonderful, i couldn’t sit in air conditioning in a gloomy smelly room on a day like that) and I proceeded to make a new crochet head wrap pattern. It felt so good to make a pattern up again. It’s been too long!

Here is the head wrap:

(I totally need to cut my bangs btw, geeze, it’s on the to do list now.)

Anyway, so then I proceeded to check out my sock. I turned the heel yesterday and had this feeling that one the heel flap (which i just accidentally spelled hell flap! maybe it is, who knows) was too long and two I didn’t turn the heel right. It just seemed like the center between the two sections of decreases was too wide. So here I was at Farm and Fleet sitting outside the automotive shop, tooling away at my socks. It turned out that the deal was I divided it in half wrong. In fact, not in half at all! I made the heel flap on 44 stitch out of 68 instead of 34! That’s a huge difference. So I ripped it all back to the cuff, picked up all the stitches, and returned the heel, no wait, cuff! Gah! I neglected to knit another heel flap before turning it, so Riiiiiiiiiiip! Out that went and now I’m all set knitting the heel flap on 34 sts and before I turned the heel.

I looked at the clock when I saw them take my car in, I had been there for 2 hours! It was another hour before they finished. I was there for almost 3 hours exactly. Ha!

That’s my story.

The head wrap will be this weekend’s pattern. I need to tweek it a little though. I made it too long, so I need to redo it with a chain of 50 instead of 65. I can actually tie it and it’s supposed to button. Woops! I’ll just make it will a different color and then I can have two

Well, I need to do some more cleaning and then go to the BFA show group opening. I should probably change first too. I still have clay all over my pants.

See you all later!
Kristin

Study Time = Good Grades

So I put up a little thumbnail of my notes laid out yesterday from when I was studying for my exam in ceramics. Some may think that exams in art classes are cake, but let me straighten that one out, exams in studio classes are the hardest I have ever taken. Hands down. We had 10 essay questions that we had to answer, no multiple choice, no true false, you just have to know… really the best way to test because you really do have to know in order to do well, no guessing here. And the subject is hard to remember too. Firing temps, the different definitions for different terms specific to ceramics. Quartz Immersion Point, Crawling, Crazing, Dunting. Then what are the various temps for glaze firing and bisque firing and the corresponding cone numbers and etc. You either know it or you don’t.

I studied like mad. I copied by hand all of my notes into one place, then copied all the definition, then read it all over and over again, repeating it out loud…. for hours over the course of 4 days.

It paid off! Hooray! I got a “19.5! Excellent!” So, I was worried I was going to get a B+, but now, i’m going to get an A no problem! (The exam was actually worth 20% of our grade, yikes!)

And with that good news, I’m going finish the dishes and make those sock bags. I’ll show you pictures later.

Isn’t this great! Posts yesterday and today! Amazing!

Kristin

Hooray for Today!

I am so almost completely graduated and I am just so happy. I just did my final presentation and now it’s just cleaning up studios and getting final grades and having final individual conferences with professors. Cake! Well mainly it’s cake because I don’t have to work on things like a crazy person, which of course makes me really work like crazy person. Remove assignments and I work like mad, give me assignments and I just fulfill the requirements. Go figure.

So tonight I went out for a celebratory dinner with a friend, took a shower for the first time in I’m not telling how long because I’m embarrassed, but I promise you it hasn’t been a whole week or anything like that.

I wanted to show you the finished window display for the On Finishing project:

And some of my favorite projects that I’m still working on:

In the next order of business here are the pictures of me playing with resin and studying for an exam that I was talking about like a week or so ago:

And more making stuff, but no pictures yet:

I sold the sock bag I made the other day and got an order for another one to be made so I cut the fabric for that today. I’m going to try to do all my dishes up, clean the ferret litter, and sew those bags up. That’s my goal for tomorrow.

I’m going to also make more of the small sized reusable tea bags too because those seem to be selling like hotcakes, although that’s only an assumption because I’ve never sold hotcakes, just reusable tea bags…. hotcakes and tea does sound like a stellar combo though. Yum!

Perusing the internet is what I do and I came across this artist and this zine which made me think of how badly I want this bike:

This little beauty is made just for women of shorter stature, me at 5′3 1/2″ qualifies for that. Ah someday, I guess my 5 year goal is to get good enough and active enough in biking (and enough cash flow) that it would warrant this purchase.

And with that in mind I’m getting to work

From now on I’ll be posting more often and I’m so excited about that.

Oh I just thought of another story to tell you, it will be a good post for tomorrow, so check back!

snow in late april

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Originally uploaded by Kristin Roach

So it freaking snowed a few days ago. Can you believe it! It was almost May! Those white flecks in the picture are snow! Big flakes of snow!

They Smell so Wonderful!

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Originally uploaded by Kristin Roach

Summer is here

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Originally uploaded by Kristin Roach

Now where the heck did spring go? I swear it was about 40 degrees just 3 days ago and today it is beautiful and 80 degrees. I rode my bike all around town and shot some photos.