Another Bout of Craftiness

Okay, I am terrible at this whole blogging consistently thing. I have actually been meaning to make this post for a while now, but I kept finding things I wanted to add. But it is finally here! I have finished all of the projects I was working on and they are ready to be shared.

Whenever I want to do a craft project it turns out being cross stitch. A few years ago I decided I wanted to try something new and I discovered I loved cross stitch. I had tried it when I was little, but my attention span was not nearly large enough to complete an entire counted cross stitch picture--I still have the one I started all those years ago. Now I am more focused and able to complete multiple pictures, given some time.

I am currently working on a large counted cross stitch, which is taking me much longer than it should to complete. I am easily distracted and I do not work on it as much as I should. But when I do finish it  I am sure it will look amazing. It is a picture of a wizard fighting a dragon.

I like to work on smaller cross stitch projects that I am able to finish in a reasonable amount of time. I do not really know how to go about making my own patterns so I turned to the internet. I searched online for fun patterns and I have actually found so pretty nice websites. The first thing I found was a lovely blog called Dork Stitch. I discovered it when I was looking for some sailor moon patterns to make something for a friend of mine (which I finished a while ago and do not have a picture of). I found many adorable patterns there, and it also led to me making this:

 It is a small hand towel. I am quite fond of the Avengers so it seemed necessary to make something with them on it. I was very happy to find that she had posted patterns of them on Dork Stitch.

And after the Avengers towel, this happened:

 Key-chains! This is the first time I have ever made key-chains so they did not work out as well as I had hoped. Today, only one of these three is still attached to the ring. Sadly, I have been told that Sherlock is lost. He fell off into the unknown. Hopefully someone has found him and is enjoying a small cross stitched Sherlock Holmes. The other is still around, but in need of mending.

These two cross stitch projects actually came after another one. This first was from some patterns I found at The Leaky Cauldron. This website is a lot of fun and has many patterns that I have yet to try. This is what I made:

These are fun little coasters. I know it is not a complete set. I made these for a friend to complete her set. She already had Gryffindor and I told her that I would make her the other three. I altered the colors on Ravenclaw some. I did not like how the colors were on the pattern and I liked how it turned out. The cross stitch part of this was enjoyable, but making them into coasters was not the most fun and it is something that I will not do very often. 

And that is all of the projects I have to show for now. I will give an update if I ever make more progress on that wizard and dragon. And maybe someday, I will start designing my own cross stitch patterns. That may be a long time from now. I need more practice! 

Jumping Out of My Comfort Zone

Well first off, happy St. Patrick's Day. One of my favorite days of the year. 

Lately I have been feeling more adventurous than usual. I am doing stuff that is out of my comfort zone, which is a good thing, but it doesn't always lead to good experiences. 

My latest adventure was a date. Now I am sure that to most people a date is not an exciting new adventure. But I don't go on dates. I am not a very social person, so it is surprising to say that I did most of the talking on this date. 

So this date: it started with dinner (and I met this guy online so this was our first in person meeting) and he was awkward. I think at one point he said he was shy or something, I don't even know. He didn't know what to say to me when I met him at the restaurant (he got there before me and already had a table). I am actually surprised at how much talking I did the whole night. 

Back to dinner. 

It was nice. The conversation kept going and there were only a few moments of awkward silences. So I do not have much to compare this to, but he started at me a lot. Just looking while we were eating or walking around after we left the restaurant. I thought it was strange and really it made me feel uncomfortable. This date stretched out for a good three hours. 

I talked to a friend of mine before me and she made sure to tell me to never get into a car with a guy on the first date. Seems like common sense when it is said out loud, but I am a blindly trusting person. I never think the worst of people so honestly it wouldn't have crossed my mind that it was a bad idea until I was in the car with him. Luckily it did not come to that. She picked me up and that was when my date got to its peak of awkwardness.

We were standing outside the restaurant waiting for her to pick me up--and he was bummed that he was not going to get to take me home--I am so glad he didn't. While we were waiting he was staring at me, so much that he even commented that he kept staring at me. And I didn't really know what to say to that. Anyway, this whole time of waiting he was trying to get up the courage to kiss me. I knew it and I was avoiding it. Something I have noticed about myself lately is I can't stand still. I bounce around a lot (something else he commented on). And that probably made it more difficult to kiss me.  Well when she arrived in the parking lot he finally did kiss me. He was aiming for the lips, but I told him no. I was just not comfortable with that. And that was the end of our date. Not terribly exciting.

Over all, I am glad that I went on this date. It may not have ended well relationship wise, but I learned a few things about myself. It took me until last night to realize that I am perfectly happy with where my life is at the moment. I do not want or need to be in a relationship. I want to focus on my goals and living my life. I am content.

And this date led to a wonderful night with a friend. Sometimes all you need is to get drinks and talk with your best friend.

Of trains and tattoos

Hello hello!

I am still thinking about traveling because, well, I am always thinking about traveling. I have added another city to my travel goals: San Francisco. Okay, I didn't really just add it. I have wanted to go here for a while, but now I have decided that I want to take the train there.

I have never been on an Amtrak train before and, even though the trip will be super long, I want to try it out. I was looking at ticket prices and just general Amtrak information and it takes over thirty-four hours to get from Denver to San Francisco. I still want to do it. It'll be a good time. I am thinking I want to make this a winter trip.

This might actually end up being the next trip I go on.

And on to tattoos. I have one on my ankle and before I graduated college I was thinking about getting another one. I actually chose what I wanted and almost made the appointment, but I wasn't sure of what I chose. So I stopped looking and then I didn't have money so the tattoo plans went away for a couple of years.

Now that I have a job again I want to get another one. And everyone at work seems to be getting tattoos and that just makes me want to get one more. I know where I want to get it (behind my ear), but I am not sure what I want.  I am leaning towards a key of some sort, but I don't want a plain boring key. So I am looking into keyblades from Kingdom Hearts. Some of those designs are actually really cool and I did consider this before, but I am not sure that is what I want. And then there is the size. If this tattoo is going to be behind my ear, I don't want it to be really big and if I choose a keyblade it might be too small to get all the detail.

I don't know. I need to start a tattoo fund and maybe when I have saved up enough I will know what I want.

Getting Crafty with Maps

So after all of the talk about traveling I decided to try out some craft ideas using maps. I love maps almost as much as I love traveling and since I have some lying around I thought it would be fun to do something with them. I found a website with a few different crafts that could be done with maps. One of them was to use marbles and mod podge to make your own magnets. I thought the finished product looked really neat so I chose that for my craft project. 

This is what I started out with. The wood words were a different craft project, but I had today off so it became a general craft day.

I'm sad to say that I do not have very many maps lying around and the ones that I do have are not very colorful. Generally, I like those kind of maps, but they do not stand out very well as magnets. So I used the internet to download a few maps. I found some historic maps that were pretty cool, but since they were downloaded they are not the best quality. I decided that they worked fine and made a couple magnets out of them. Then I thought I would have fun and bring out my nerdy side and I found a map of Middle Earth. I think those turned out to be my favorite magnets. Here is the finished magnets. It was hard to get a good picture of them so you get the less detailed picture.

After I finished the magnets I moved on to the words. All I wanted to do with them was paint them. Nothing too exciting there. Someday I might actually hang them up, but I don't really have a good place for them at the moment, so they will just lay around my room. 

Those are the results of my crafty day. Next I will work on my dragon and wizard cross stitch.

Traveling

I have been inspired to write my own blog by some other people and their blogs. My life is not particularly exciting, but that is not going to stop me.

A while back Samara and I were talking about what I could do with my life--since I still have no idea on that front--and she mentioned that I could get a job, any job, and travel. I would love that. I have always wanted to travel the world, but so far I have been unable to do so.

Now that I have a job I am going to try and travel. I do not make enough to go with out saving up for quite a while, but I am going to try. I found a website that has travel packages, to Europe mostly, for people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six. It is pretty much perfect for me. It is called EF College Break, and I suggest anyone interested in traveling through Europe to check it out.

At first I was a little worried that this website was not legit, but after some research I am sure that it is good. You can follow them on facebook and everything. I want to go next summer, but I am not entirely sure I will be able to save up enough, but I am willing to do everything I can to go. 2013 trips are not available yet, but when they are I will be able to get a better idea of what I can do.

I think it would be a great experience and it makes me feel better about traveling to Europe by myself. They keep showing pictures on facebook of previous trips and it just makes me want to go more. Hopefully it will all work out.