Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

So I did something really strange today, I deleted my facebook account.  I was inspired by Carina, and she very kindly posted a link to help do this, because it’s virtually impossible to find this option on the website.  It is easy enough to deactivate the account but not so much to permanently delete it.  If you want to be set free the link is here.

You might be wondering why?  Well, a few years ago I found myself sitting on my bum every night watching about 2 hours worth of Friends re-runs.  It dawned on me one day that this was a supreme waste of my time, so I cancelled our Chorus subscription and started blogging, reading and crafting instead.  I am much happier since that because I feel like I’m actually doing something productive with my evenings.  However lately I spotted that every time I had a spare minute I was logging into Facebook to “have a look”.  The first thing I did was delete the Facebook app from my phone and installed The Irish Times app instead, already a better use of those minutes that I spend waiting in queues etc.  But I was still using it at home so I decided to go the whole hog and delete the account.  Hopefully this will mean I will blog more!  I feel kind of liberated.

PS I had previously deleted my Twitter Account, deactivated my Linked In account and deleted my Ravelry account.  I think I may be virtually social networking free (apart from my beloved blog of course)

A craft supplies revelation that is!  I am having difficulty organising my craft supplies in a way that really works for me and works for this 600 square foot apartment.  The real problem is that I have so many interests and I have lots of paraphernalia that comes with each one, crochet, embroidery, card making and all the crafts that I have attempted to get into, sewing, knitting, jewellery making, the list goes on.  Most of this is shoved into the spare room as follows;

Drawers mostly contain card making stuff but also buttons and stuffing for soft toys etc as well as some halloween and valentines decorations. And a box on top which contains fabric scraps. AND a box on top of that which contains napkin rings for the wedding (handmade of course), that pile of crap you see to the left is wedding related so I’m consoling myself with the fact that it will be gone in a month.

Shelves hold office supplies, pens, rulers scissors stampers and inks as well as household stuff like medical receipts, user manuals and some notes from work/college courses.

It’s not too bad I suppose but ultimately I don’t craft in the spare room as there is no suitable surface so if I want to make one card, I need to bring what I need out to the kitchen where I have more room, this is not ideal as I’m up and down every five minutes to get something I’ve forgotten.  I need some method of organising these things where the most used items are all at hand in one container so that I could bring them out in one go.

I literally just finished the book this morning and this will most definitely be my least detailed review yet!

I loved the concept of Colm McCann’s book where all the charcters are entertwined around the tightrope walker and his amazing feat.  Incidentally, have you seen Man on Wire - it’s really worth watching.   My favourite characters are Claire and Gloria.  Claire’s first chapter was so fast paced you could almost feel yourself going off to war with her son. Gloria’s story was fascinating and I absolutely loved how the friendship between Claire and Gloria ended up.  My heart went out to Claire as the ladies were leaving her apartment and she desperately wanted to cling onto Gloria, so much so that she accidentally said the most offensive thing possible to the African-American lady.  As for the other characters/stories, I couldn’t really identify with the Corrigan brothers at all, the monk was just a little bit unrealistic and I just kept wishing that the older brother would do something, anything really, he just seemed so aimless. Although, I loved how the artists and the Corrigan brothers stories ultimately came together and it transpired in the last section of the book that he obviously did acquire some get-up-and-go as he seemed to be a very successful business man.

There is a great little interlude in the middle of the book which tells the tightrope walkers story, this came at the perfect time as I felt there hadn’t been enough about him in the book.  I am so tempted to watch Man on Wire again as it was a phenomenal accomplishment.

It is a really enjoyable book to read, each sentence seems crafted as opposed to merely written and the individual stories are weaved around each other and the walker in a way that really keeps you gripped.  Now, off with you to enjoy a much better review from the other members, the links are at the side.

Update:  Can anyone remind me what the next book is….I have the next two on my dresser but can’t remember which one is next?

Well it’s done.  Phew, three after-work evenings later and I can safely say that my kitchen is spotless.  I defy anyone to find something out of place or dirty.  Here are some photos.

Contents of the Pantry Press

More contents of the Pantry Press

Empty (filthy) press

Clean, re-organised press

Cleaning supplies press with small items corralled into little storage boxes from Tesco.

Small spice jars corralled into a Roses tin and all labeled so I can what’s in each one without taking them out of the tin.  I am thinking now that I need a nicer tin, they are on top of the microwave beside a vintage Mini Mars bar tin and to be honest the Roses tin looks crap beside the beautiful vintage one.

More Tesco storage baskets, this time to store loose plastic jugs and squeezy bottles.

Spices, nuts and seeds in larger jars.  These are all repurposed, I need to buy more honey to get more of those pretty kilner jars

The Tea station - Barry’s Tea in the Orla Kiely tin, decaf in the London Phone Box, Earl Grey Teabags in the blue one and Earl Grey Loose Leaf in the small chinese tin.   The tiny silver tin beside that holds vitamins that I take in the morning, this is a repurposed tin from some flavoured tea I got for Christmas.  There was no way I could look at an ugly vitamin bottle up there and if I put it out of sight I’d never remember to take them.  The teapot stand and the fruit bowl that you can just about see, are by Sinead Lough, one of my favourite artists.

Here’s a close up of the smaller tins.

Well, that’s all I have on the kitchen for now, stay tuned for a spare room update, the spare room is the hardest working room in the apartment, it multi-tasks as a guest room, craft room, storage room, home office and wedding HQ!

Way, way back in November 2008 I bought this gorgeous calendar from Joom’s etsy shop.

Along with the rest of you, I spent 2009 living in a country in the throws of a recession which darkened everyone’s mood so you had to take pleasure in the small things.  This calendar was one of them for me, everytime I looked at it it brightened my mood, even if I was already in a good mood!  I was (almost) disappointed when 2009 ended as I had no reason to use my calendar anymore.

This is where an empty frame languishing on a shelf behind my photo albums came into play.  I choose three images that could be cut easily into a rectangle and mounted them onto some cream card stock and then placed those behind the built in mounts in the frame……viola!

PS Joom has many of the images from the calendar for sale in the shop, some are even framed for you.

PPS: Apologies for the crappy photo!

The wedding is just over two months away and I’ve reached the eye of the storm in my preparations.  There were lots of crafty projects which are now done and dusted but photographing them and posting about them was not my priority at the time, now I wish I had.  I could have done some sort of scrapbook but instead the camera has sat on the shelf unused and unloved for months.  There is a lot more work to be done but it can’t be done until the last three or four weeks, so I have about a month where the wedding is not my top priority!

So, what will I fill my time with between now and then?  Er…cleaning and organising actually.  I have a scary obsession with those two pastimes and yes I do consider them my pastimes.  If it was a chore to deep-clean my kitchen I wouldn’t have been anxiously waiting for 5.30 to come so that I could get home and get started.  It doesn’t really need any re-organisation this time but I will definitely be on the look out for “stuff” that we no longer use, need or love.  Anything not fitting into this category will be binned or donated.

My list for this week includes but is not limited to moving our butchers block and cleaning the floor under it, moving everything out of the cubbyhole under the microwave and cleaning both the contents of said cubby hole and the floor and walls, cleaning all our spice jars (they are kept in a biscuit tin beside the cooker so get very greasy), cleaning the cutlery drawer and putting in new liners (aka kitchen paper) and reorganising a storage trolley.

Then I will be taking everything out of the presses, giving the cabinets a good scrub and then putting everything back in, well maybe everything! Some of the little used things at the back of the presses will probably need to be washed too and although I clean the counter tops every day there are a couple of utensil holders that might need a good wash.

PS: Regarding the photo above, I absolutely love CIF, up until recently I considered it an old fashioned product and therefore presumed it wasn’t very good.   I only bought it because I went to a small local shop and they had a very poor selection.  I’m totally hooked now though.  There’s a lot less scrubbing involved because it’s slightly abrasive,  like an exfoliator for surfaces!!

Our book for this month was Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.  I have not read any of his other books so I had no idea what to expect with this book.  The book opens in 1950’s Enniscorthy and tells the story of Eilis, a young woman who shows potential but has no prospect of getting the bookkeeping job she would like.   Rose, her older sister arranges for Eilis to go to America to live in Fr. Flood’s parish, he has organised lodgings and a job for Eilis.  Eilis doesn’t seem too enthused about going and she really only goes out of a sense of duty, or an inability to stand up for herself and say no. However she soon settles in and is pleasantly surprised with her situation, she becomes very passionate about her education, she also finds romance with an Italian-American called Tony.  She quite often comments that Rose would love the glamourous clothes she sees and it’s almost as if she finally realises that Rose sacrificed her own chance to live that kind of life because someone has to stay at home with their mother.

I think her romance with Tony is a bit one-sided, Eilis likes Tony but she doesn’t seem ready to commit to him.  She is much more concerned with her education and getting an office job at work.  Eilis is devastated when her sister Rose passes away and she organises a trip back to Ireland to be with her mother.  Tony, predicts that Eilis may never come back to America and talks her into a clandestine marriage at the last minute.  While at home Eilis shows herself to be a very fickle person as she conveniently pushes her new husband to the back of her mind and begins an “almost” romance with a local guy called Jim Farrell, although in my opinion she is more in love with the idea of Jim Farrell than Jim himself, she was only at home for a few weeks, is it believable that she could fall out of love with one man and in love with another in that space of time?

Much of this section of the book is taken up with speculation as to whether she will return to America or not, I found myself routing for her to go back to America as I felt she was being sucked into staying in Ireland out of a sense of duty. But in the end she returned out of a sense of duty.  The events with Miss Kelly and Mrs. Kehoe leading up to her return to the States should be rediculous but in fact I found them completely believable, which is a sad reflection on small town Ireland in the 1950’s.

I think there were some parts of the book that could have been better explained or drawn out more.  For example, what was the point of that scene in the changing room with her supervisor?  Was it just to emphasise how easily led Eilis is since she didn’t once point out that she was uncomfortable?   And why was Jim Farrell so taken aback by the mention of Father Flood?  Could Rose and Father Flood have had a thing?  I Speaking of Rose, the fact that she was so glamorous and well liked makes me question why she didn’t have a boyfriend or husband?  Could this be related to my Father Flood question?

In general I never really warmed to Eilis at all. I didn’t like her half as much as I liked Tony and Jim and to be honest I couldn’t really see what they saw in her? Having said that I really enjoyed the book and have already passed it onto other people and encouraged them to read it.

PS Please don’t forget to read the reviews from the other BBC members, you can find links to their blogs on a separate page, the link is in the side panel.

I have blatantly abandoned my poor blog for wedding planning at this stage, but here are some photos that tick both boxes.

These are some supplies that I have acquired for crafty projects for the wedding.  I can’t really say too much of course, but I’ll have loads of photos after the big day.

We decided to get the invitations printed for the wedding because we have the opportunity to get a professional graphic designer to do them as a wedding present and some people have been surprised that I’m not making the invitations by hand.  I did think about it, but in the end I wanted something a bit different and when you have a brilliant graphic designer in the (soon to be) family why not take advantage of that.  However I absolutely love handmade invitations so I decided to do something a bit unusual and make invitations for my Hen Party.  My Mother is hosting the party in her house and it’s mostly family (both sides), including three children under 10 so it will be a very civilised affair.  I ordered supplies for a very girly invitation from daintree and here are the results.

You might have noticed the lovely yellow buttons in the first picture, well buttons will be a big part of the wedding so I decided to introduce them here too..

First off, apologies for the fact that I’m posting this with a few minutes to spare in the Easter Sunday deadline, I had a very crafty day making invitations for my Hen-Party and all thoughts of blogging slipped my mind.

To mark World Book Day, Lily came up with the idea of a Blog Book Club, where we would all read the same book over a month and then review the book on our blogs on the same day.  I had been berating myself for not reading enough so I saw this as a great opportunity.   We chose A Thousand Splendid Suns or rather, I suggested it because I borrowed it from someone ages ago and had yet to read it. Lucky for me, the others were all keen to read or re-read it.  So, here goes.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is the second novel of Khaled Hosseini (he of The Kite Runner fame) and like alot of people, I put off reading A Thousand Splendid Suns because I couldn’t imagine it being as good as The Kite Runner.  I was right, it wasn’t as good, it was even better.  This one is the story of two women in Afghanistan whose lives are brought together by the state of their country.

The book is in four parts, the first tells Mariam’s story, a little girl growing up in Herat as the illegitimate child of a successful business man.  She lives with her mother on the outskirts of the town and is not allowed to meet her legitimate siblings.  When she is still a child her mother tells her that “Women like us.  We endure.  It’s all we have.” This sets the tone of the book and is the dominating theme in Mariam’s story.  As a married woman Mariam endures domestic violence and emotional bullying.  At one point in the book, after seeing some glamorous women on the street the author comments that “these women mystified Mariam.  They made her aware of her own lowliness, her plain looks, her lack of aspirations, her ignorance of so many things”.  Mariam seems ready to accept her lot in life, just as her mother advised, only twice trying anything to change her situation.

The second part of the book tells  Laila’s story, she is about 15 years Mariam’s junior and lives next door to her and her abusive husband.  Laila comes from a family that could be considered quite liberal in that time and place.  Her father encourages her to learn and tells her that “You’re a very, very bright girl.  Truly you are.  You can be anything you want”.  Her friends tell her that they expect to see her picture in the paper for all her achievements while they are at home being wives and mothers.  However, Laila, who was destined for great things suffers the cruelest blow and the course of her life is completely changed.

The third section of the book deals with the story of how Mariam and Laila become friends and ultimately how they form a bond as strong as any maternal bond.  They find strength in each other when their country is being torn asunder and when they are faced with repression, violence and starvation.

The final section of the book switches to present tense which I believe is an indication that the characters have moved on from the horrors of their past and can finally look to the future. The tone is much lighter despite the events that have gone before. You really feel that there is hope for the future of the country and for the characters.

This is a page turner if ever I’ve read one, I read it in about 10 hours over two days.  Khaled Hosseini writes in short, to the point sentences, there is nothing superfluous in the book so it moves at a rapid pace, this suits me down to the ground because I have a terrible habit of skimming over sections with too much description or bits that I don’t think are relevant (hello Lord of The Rings Trilogy!) However “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is not light reading, the themes include oppression of women and shame, the effects of war and there are vivid descriptions of domestic abuse and violence.  This shouldn’t put you off though, the story is quite uplifting and yes you will cry!

And now, I’m off to read every one else’s reviews. And wave to the other BBC members  Lily, Teresa, Cathy, Marie, Lorna, Val, Jenn, Edie, Catherine, Jenny, Kirsty and Steph.

That’s the name of the pattern I used to stitch this tester for some white linen cushions I’m planning to make.  The pattern is by Carina and is for sale in her Polka and Bloom shop.

My stitching is definitely in the “needs improvement” category but it was a fun pattern to work with because the colours are so bright and cheerful. However it took me way longer to finish than I would have hoped. I just seem to be running out of time for crafts these days, or maybe it’s a case that I’m not making time for crafting.  There are unfinished projects and supplies for not yet started projects haunting me all the time.  As well as an ever growing folder of bookmarks for potential projects.  It’s enough to drive a girl to drink! My excuse is the wedding of course and the fact that I’ve taken up walking so these things are eating into what little time I have that I’m not spending at work or asleep.  This is the point where my parents would point out that I haven’t much to worry about if this is all that’s bothering me