Me and My Crafty Goodness

Okay, so I was just so lucky as to be able to have coffee/cupcakes with the lovely Rosemary yesterday. We started out at Companion (which has DELICIOUS quiche in the morning, I highly recommend it) and then window-shopped around the West End for quite a bit. We went into some ADORABLE stores. I don't remember the names of all of them but Cassie's and Left Bank Books were a definite.

Cassie's is a cute little boutique on Euclid that has all kinds of fun stuff, but their main schtick is creating custom-made fragrances. They have all these teeny bottles of scents, and you can mix and match them however you want to create the ultimate YOU fragrance. I should also mention that they have many "knock-off" designer fragrances, like Chanel No. 5 and Dior, etc...so, you could go there and get 2 oz. of Chanel No. 5 for $20, as opposed to the $260 1 oz bottle of fragrance at Macys.com. So, they kind of win. I decided that mum and pops will be treating me to a BRAND NEW PRETTY SMELL for my birthday.

Left Bank was great, too. I've been there tons of time but it was so much fun being there with someone else who just wanted to LOOK at things, and not necessarily buy. When I go with Pete he likes to get in, get out...and not really browse. We looked at poetry and cookbooks and art books and I didn't spend a penny! It was pretty great.

ANYWAYS. The whole meaning of those post has to do with the fact that while at Left Banks, Rosemary pointed out a book to me: Born Again Vintage, by Bridgett Artise & Jen Karetnick. It. Is. Perfect. The entire thing is about picking up two (or more) random pieces of clothing at a thrift shop, like Salvation Army or St. Vincent de Paul, and sewing them together to create a lovely hipster dress, blouse, legwarmers, etc. In short, it's genius. And I want it.

So I'm sitting there thinking, wow. Seriously? Me, getting another craft book? I was thinking about all the craft books that are sitting on my bookshelf right now: ReadyMade: How to Make [Almost] Anything; D.I.Y., Design it Yourself; and Handmade Modern, just to name a few. I was so excited to buy each of them! I ran home and went through the whole thing, bookmarking up a storm and imagining where each thing I LOVED would be in my future home.

But guess how many projects I have done so far? ZERO. ZERO ZERO ZERO. And so with this fabulous new book in my hands, I thought, "What will I do with all these crafty wonderful lovely books? They just sit on my shelf and do nothing." And then my mind went into the sad thought of giving all these books away when I'm 80 and I can hardly walk, or making my kids pack them into boxes and they sit in a storage closet somewhere. And what will I have to show for my years of buying crafty books? NOTHING."

So, while somewhat morbid, I've been crafty all day. I pulled apart an old phone to create a rolodex, soon to be filled with tons of phone numbers (when Pete asked why I would waste my time doing this, as all my numbers are in my cell phone, I didn't know what to say). I FINALLY put my Ikea frame to good use. It looks like this:

I finally tracked down some REAL corkboard, at my local Hobby Lobby, cut it to size, and am turning it into a bulletin board. It's in, but I'm also going to spray paint the whole thing white tomorrow, when I'm not stuck in a small apartment for the evening. It's going to be aweeeesome. I'm going to make it my 'inspiration board', where I tack everything up that inspires me. Yes, I am quite excited.

ALSO, exciting news! I got the last things needed to start using my GOCCO! The bulbs came in two days ago. So now I have to get a design ready, and put on my big girl face because I am so afraid I'm going to mess up and ruin an expensive screen or bulb. But I guess trial and error is pretty important.

So, because of my little realization in Left Bank, I am on a craft kick. I have a decent amount of free time throughout the days this semester, so keep an eye here for fun craft projects! I don't have my camera or else I would document right now...