Some people say I'm crafty but I'm really only slightly crafty. I love doing cool homemade projects that I can be proud of. I love taking pictures of my kids and have occasionally taken pictures for other people, some I was confident and comfortable for and some a nervous wreck! Probably because I don't know much of what I'm doing with my camera. A dear friend GAVE me his amazing Nikon D70 and some neat stuff to go with it a few years ago and I'm not worthy of it's awesomeness. I keep it on "auto" (wincing with embarrassment now). I took a photography class in high school and remember nothing. I have an eye for taking the pictures, just no clue how to do it in the best way. Besides, it's more of a hobby that someday I'd love to pursue professionally, but for now my attention is devoted to my kids.
I also love editing my pictures! Intelligent Man bought Photoshop Elements 8 for me for Christmas last year and I've loved using it - but again, I'm no professional. I admit to you all right now that I've been cheating (wincing with embarrassment again). There are these things called "actions" in the photo editing world, they are a series of editing steps that someone put all together so you can get a result with one (or a few) clicks and minor adjustments instead of spending copious amounts of time on each picture. There are actions for making black and white photos, for making dreamy looking photos, and for making "the perfect portrait" just to name a few. PSE8 is complex and I have not figured it out yet so I'm cheating with actions. This will result in me being spoiled and always relying on them (wincing... again).
I had a short-lived interest in scrapbooking about 2 years ago. I bought some really cute scrapbooking cardstock pages and other decorative pages and planned on making a scrapbook for each kid. I got one page done for each of the girls about a year and a half ago. I also bought two little scrapbook albums so the big girls and I could scrapbook their first Disney World vacation! The albums, the pictures from the girls disposable cameras, and all their little memorabilia are still sitting on my desk, completely untouched. We went to Disney in May of 2009 (commence wincing).
Let's go even further back... 2004. My sweet freakishly long-haired first born baby girl was born this year and I had it in me that I wanted to sew clothes for her. I bought a pattern that had some pretty simple patterns for baby shirts, ruffled pants and bloomers, blankets, and hats. Intelligent Man's wonderful grandmother (the gifted seamstress of the family) bought me a sewing machine and tried my hand at making her first Halloween costume (without a pattern... double wince). Dumbest. Idea. Ever. What amateur seamstress can sew something without a pattern? Ugh. My poor, poor 5 month old Prissy Pants wore a pretty lousy Tinker Bell costume for her first Halloween. I still have it in her keepsake box. The sewing machine rested peacefully in the closet, tucked nicely in its box for a few years after that (by now you know what I'm doing in these parentheses, right?).
However, after Funny Bones was born the sewing bug bit me again and I dug out my machine. Since then (about a year and a half ago) I've managed to sew a wrap style baby carrier, a cart cover, 3 fairy tutu's (with matching hooded capes, head pieces, and wands), my own renaissance costume (even made the wings myself), a blanket and pillow for my cousins baby girl, a strange looking ragdoll, a tutu with a matching headband for a friend's 3rd b-day, another blanket with matching pillow for the same friend's baby brother, a nursing cover for the mommy, some cloth diapers, cute little shirts for my girls that originally started as dresses, more cloth diapers and cloth diaper covers that my friend loved and used on baby, a few cloth diaper covers for Funny Bones that she refused to wear, a nursing cover for myself, another cart cover for a generous friend, a few wet bags and another diaper cover for yet another friend, a "grow-with-me" dress/shirt, and some boutique style burp cloths. Whew! Success! I found something crafty that I actually followed through on!! WOOT!
The Texas Renaissance Festival is upon us once again! Last year I planned on making us a family of Pirates for this year... Arrrg! So I'm counting on my slightly crafty self to pull through with only a few short weeks to get it together! I may cheat on my pictures, I may never finish the girls scrapbook, and I may start and never finish a thousand other crafty things (like dressing up the boring plain white furniture in the girls rooms), but if I can manage to keep sewing things that I can be proud of, then I'm ok with being only slightly crafty!
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