Home 365 - January

Inspired by Elsie's post over on A Beautiful Mess, I decided that on January 1, 2013 I would start a 365-day photo challenge. I'm 31 days into my Home 365 project and wanted to share my month in review with you!

Home 365 on Flickr

I'll admit, January has been a stressful month. With the start of a new year, opening up shop, my birthday, a week+ of cold and rainy weather, and the stress of searching for a job, I'll be glad when the clock strikes midnight tonight.

How was your first month of 2013?

A New Year, a New Start - An Origin Story

We moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana in July of last year and it was hot as a damn furnace. My boyfriend - it sounds funny calling him a boyfriend after almost 7 years - got a new position in his company and we packed up our bags, sold the house, and moved from the rural Eastern Shore of Maryland to downtown Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana. We're renting a 740 sq ft house - a huge downsize for us - in a very eclectic neighborhood just blocks from the Mississippi River. We can ride our bikes downtown for a bite to eat and walk to the farmer's market. Everyone is friendly and there is a great sense of community. Its a huge change for us and we love it.

I thought it would be a piece of cake finding a job in my field in a capital city. In the meantime though I had a good amount of contract work to do for my previous employer so money was coming in. As time passed with only a few job interviews and my contract work beginning to trail off I needed to find a way to make money so I could continue to contribute to my portion of our household expenses. I remembered back to last Spring when I was sitting with my dad and my brother at Hamilton Tavern in Baltimore. We were having burgers before heading downtown to an Orioles game. My dad asked us both what our ideal job would be - what would we do if we could do anything at all. My brother answered that he wanted to work for a major league baseball team, something he's wanted for years. I remember my answer because it was completely honest - no trying to please Dad, just the honest truth. I told him I wanted to live in a small house where I didn't need to make a lot of money to live the simple lifestyle I wanted, to work from home with flexible hours and time for family and friends, and to do something creative like start a needlework business that would turn my hobby into a way to support myself.

I had thought about opening an Etsy shop many times but never actually did it. Going to work in an office building every day, staring at a computer screen was tiring. By the time I got home all I wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch television until bed time. Things are different now. When you take the 9-5 and the daily commute out of the equation your outlook on life changes. I still set an alarm and wake up fairly early. I have coffee and a small breakfast. I go for a nice long walk around Capital Park. When I get home I might start a load of laundry, clean up a room in the house (which is so easy with a small house), make a grocery list, I even volunteer at an animal shelter 2 days a week. All of these positive changes in my life have given me the confidence to take the next step...

Kate + Ice Cream is officially in business!

The time is right and I'm ready for the challenge. I am incredibly lucky to have a boyfriend who is so supportive and friends who have given their kind words. Expect great things from K+IC and I will not disappoint!

I will be posting regularly here on the K+IC blog so add me to your readers. I also have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Of course there is also the Etsy store so favorite it and check often. Will you be my first customer??

I can't wait to see what 2013 will bring!

30 Things to Do Before I'm 31

Since it's now a week before my 30th birthday, I think it's a really good time for me to set some goals for the upcoming year. I've seen this on a few different blogs and think it's a great idea.

So here it goes... my 30 before 31:

1. Exercise 4 times a day (*edit - a WEEK :) ... I'm not that hardcore*) - I got EA Sports Active for Christmas, hopefully I can keep it up!
   
2. Find a job in Baltimore
3. Make all homemade Christmas presents
   
4. Get an iPhone
   
5. Finish the teardrop
6. Attend an out-of-state Tear Jerkers rally
7. Buy more local produce
8. Have a party at the house
9. Knit my first scarf - in the works!
   
10. Go to New Zealand
11. Design a cross stitch chart
12. Take a personal day off of work for myself and RELAX
13. Complete my footware photo project
14. Spend less time on the internet at work
15. Install new AC in the house
16. Insulate under the house
17. Make an article of clothing for myself
18. Buy a new "fancy" camera
19. Make a rug
20. Transfer childhood recordings to digital - I've been wanting to do this for years
    
21. Learn 1 new craft
22. Yarn bomb something
23. Take a class at the Arts Center
24. Learn to play the mandolin
25. Learn to surf
26. Rearrange the living room
27. Simplify the house - downsize!
28. Donate unused clothing and shoes to a charity - downsize!
    
29. Grow a beautiful garden
30. Don't stress over little things - focus on the positive and live a happier life

I think most of these goals are attainable. I can't wait to cross things off the list!

What are your goals for the new year?

Let the Journey Begin!

I got sidetracked again. Instead of going back to my cigar box WIP I decided to start on a whole new something.

Since the end of June I've had a one track mind - and for once it's hasn't been cross stitch! I have discovered the wonderful world of vintage travel trailers - tiny travel trailers to be exact. This includes the old canned-ham-type trailers from the 50s and 60s as well as the older teardrop trailers that are just large enough to sleep two people comfortably. I love them so much that my boyfriend, Jeremy, and I have decided to build one! We've started a blog dedicated to documenting the construction from start to finish as well as all the fun decorating bits in between. Once the thing is built, we'll also use the blog as a travel log for all those fun tiny trailer gatherings and cross-country trips! So come on over to Tracks of my Tear and read all about it!

I'll be posting the progress of a lot of the things I'm making for the trailer here - curtains, pillows, bedspreads. All that good stuff. I started something already, even though we're only in the planning stages of our build. Back when I first started cross stitching I found a Jiffy kit of an RV driving off into the sunset. I held on to it for a long time not really knowing when or if I even wanted to stitch it anymore. The disign is really simple and not completely my aesthetic anymore. But this last time, looking through my stash, I decided it would be perfect for inside the Tear. This is what I've stitched so far. I have a lot of backstitching left to do. And there is a saying that I still need to write in - "Home is wherever you roam". But I'm rolling right along.

I'm going to keep working on it this week and maybe have it finished up by the weekend. We shall see. Until then don't forget to stop over at Tracks of my Tear and tell me what you think of the project so far!

Happy trails!

How-To: Idea Book

There are so many ideas that I have for the new house. I've been holding on to years-worth of magazines (Domino, Dwell, This Old House, etc) planning to look back at them when it comes time to work on the house. The problem is now I'm running out of space for all of the magazines. As I was attempting to tidy up the house yesterday I had a great idea. I decided to clip out all of my favorite photos and articles from my stash of magazines and put them all in one place - an organized Idea Book. (The full tutorial is also on my flickr in my How-To collection!)

Gather your thoughts by gathering your favorite pictures and inspiration is at your fingertips!

Materials: 3-ring binder, dividers w/ tabs, clear pocket binder sheets, glue, scissors, magazines, pictures, drawings, etc.

Decide how you want to organize your book. My book is for home design inspiration so my tabs reflect the rooms in my house. I chose to print out labels to use in my binder tabs. You could just as easily write out the tabs yourself. Some tabs are even formatted to run through a printer. Just remember to print out two of each label so both sides of the tab are labeled.

If you decided to print out your labels trim them up so they fit on the tab insets included with the binder dividers. Use glue or tape, whatever you have around, to stick the labels to the tabs - one on each side so you can see them no matter which way you flip through your book. I used a glue specifically for paper crafts (Elmer's Craft Bond).

Once finished your labels should look like this...

Insert your labeled tabs into the dividers - oh, so pretty.

This is an exercise in consolidation so gather up your favorite magazines, pictures, drawings, blog posts - anything you've been holding on to or frequently look to for ideas. Clip away!

Once you have all your favorites clipped out throw all those stacks of old magazines away! Aaah, isn't that liberating? After all everything you refer back to those stacks for is now in a neat little pile on the table.

The good thing about clear plastic binder pages is they're perfect for magazine articles - you can still see both sides! Bits and pieces that aren't full pages can be glued/taped/stickered to printer paper, even construction paper for more color. You can even scrapbook it up with text, photo corners, anything you want.

Now categorize your pages under the correct binder heading and voila! You're finished! At least for today. Add on when ever you feel the urge.

Here are a few pages that I made for my Home Idea book...

Having 5 Days Off of Work is a Trick

...because then you have to go back. Blah.

So I had a fairly eventful start to the new year - if you consider seeing the Wu Tang Clan(!!) an event. Wu Years Eve at Sonar in Baltimore. Good times even if there were 7 opening acts and the main event didn't start until 1am. I definitely want to see them again but maybe not on a get-drunk-and-pass-out holiday.

Side bar: I can't believe how many people wear the shirt to the show - I thought that was considered "Uh, not cool". Maybe I would have sported my new ODB shirt. Or would that have been overkill? Notice the gold teeth. Throw your "W"s in the air!

Thursday was entirely spent waiting to eat. Dad always makes pork and sauerkraut on New Years Day - a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition. And in true Donovan fashion the meal was scheduled for 5pm and didn't actually commence until 8. We didn't get back to the house until about 11. Just in time for Jeremy to go to bed - he had to work on Friday. Sucker! :)

Me? I spent all Friday stitching - finally! Got another good chunk of my Told in a Garden project finished. Behold...

On Saturday Christmas disappeared. It's always a little sad to put away the tree and all the lights and presents and advent calendars but, finally, I have my house back! Everything got tucked away, back in the attic - hopefully staying intact for next year.

The rest of the weekend was spent organizing. We've been in our house now for about 5 months. We've done a lot of work and put a lot of personal touches here and there but some rooms still just "wear me out" when I look at them - namely the laundry room, dragonfly border and all. I bought some fabric tubs and tried to unify and tidy up as much as possible. I must say its a nice change - far from being finished but much easier on the eyes. I'll post pictures in the next few days once we do a little more - a shelf and ironing board still need to be hung and in a tiny room that can make all the difference.

I also started the Great Craft Reorganization of 2009. We'll see how that goes...