Must Be A Virus

And surprisingly not the swine flu. Or the regular flu. I am hoping for a certain level of herd immunity on those two since the vaccine supply here is non-existent and I am not in a priority group anyway. If I'm lucky I should be able to get one about mid February. In the meantime, it seems I have caught a full blown case of the craft bug.

I had thought that I was already immune. That the very core of my being was so craft illiterate that it wouldn't recognize a craft bug if it was quilted and covered in glitter. But somehow, when I was least expecting it, I got hit. And these are some of the results.


An apple pie. A homemade apple pie. A made-from-scratch-including-the-filling-and-both- crusts apple pie. I know that this is not a craft, but considering that the only thing I didn't do from scratch with this pie is hand-mill the flour, I am counting it. I think the apples that came from our tree and which I peeled, cored and sliced myself, were harboring a virulent strain of the craft bug and that's where the whole thing started. Because then I found myself making these.


These leaf prints were actually surprisingly easy to make. Even more surprising is the fact that I finished them. Within a week. And hung them on my wall. On the rare occasions when I am forced into crafting, such as for Young Women's activities and the like, I rarely finish the project within a year. You only need to see the unfinished state of my "Temple Wedding Time Capsule" from a Young Women's Activity EIGHT years ago to realize that I am quite serious about this procrastination. (Maybe the reason I am not married is because I never finished it...Hmm... So if I DO finish it, does that mean I will get married? If so, I will probably have to wait for a few more years to catch another craft bug to be motivated enough to finish it. Also, don't think that I haven't finished it because I am planning some elaborate wedding. No, no. Not for me. I actually just have to seal it to have it be considered "finished." It is in one of those metal cans that you use for storing flour and sugar and the like and I don't have one of the machines that seals it. So eight years later, its still sitting in a drawer in my room somewhere. And probably will be for another eight years.)

Anyway, back to the leaf prints. Here they are all finished and hanging neatly on my wall, which I painted green by the way. But I promise it is not such a barfy color in real life. Blame that on the camera I guess.

It was really easy and they turned out pretty good. I just took some leaves and dipped them in craft paint, mixed with a little water, and pressed them onto some fabric. Then I used some fabric glue to stick them onto some boards I found in the garage, glued some ribbon onto the back for a hook and hung them on the wall. I liked the result so much that I decided to do leaf prints on a bag. The only problem was that I didn't have a bag. So I made one.

Now, here is where it gets really crazy, because not only do I not sew, I don't even know how to thread the machine. Seriously. And I have taken several sewing classes. Why they can't make a self threading sewing machine is beyond me. Or even one with arrows pointing to the various holes you have to wind the thread through. I mean, really, you have to guide the thread through like 5 different gadgets just to get it to the needle. Is that really necessary? Fortunately for me, my mom had just finished a sewing project herself and had left the machine threaded. So I went ahead and made this.

I MADE IT! I'm telling you, I was ill. Really, truly ill. Anyway, the only fabric we had lying around when I got this idea in my head was some drafting paper (which is actually really thin linen that has been starched into compliance) so it turned out to be kind of a flimsy bag, but a bag nonetheless.

This virus was unrelenting. It even manifested itself with random creativity. Case in point: After I painted my room I was going to put the curtains back up but I suddenly got this idea that they didn't really go well with the new look and I decided to change things up a bit. I was thinking of hooks and my mom found these cute bird hooks at Tai Pan Trading (Of course she found them. Like I would ever set foot in there of my own accord :)

So I nailed them to the wall and used some willow branches as curtain hooks. The curtains will probably be up in a few years when I catch another virus, but in the meantime here is what the rods look like.

(I took the pictures at night so the colors are really off. It's usually a lot brighter and less olive-y but you get the idea.)

Just so you know how bad this virus was, it even gave me the motivation to finish a project I started two years ago!

I had been meaning to frame these pictures from my mission for a long time but I could never find a frame that had the extra long mat to fit the Seattle skyline picture. But when we went back to Tai Pan to get the bird hooks I found this frame and altered it a little. The top part of the mat originally had two photo slots but I just used an exacto-knife and cut them into one. (The fact that I even know what an exacto-knife is should give you a clue to just how badly this bug affected me.)

Fortunately I survived my bout with the craft bug, and I even got a few cute things out of it. Thankfully I am over it now and I should hopefully be craft free for a few years. Too bad it doesn't offer any immunity against the flu :)