Merry Christmas

"Merry Christmas!" says the bear in the 10-minute-insta-sweater I made it, my only finished craft project lately.

Hope everyones' holidays are going well. Mine did! Small Christmas, but a good one- I got a macro lens for my camera (macro lenses tend to be really expensive so it was exciting for me to get one).

I took this photo from 8 yards away with my macro lens! This catapult was my present for my brother- he loved it!

Tomorrow I'm heading out with family to visit my grandparents, who I haven't seen (not counting graduations) since I was about 15 years old. It's a 15 hour drive each way, and since I get crazy car sick at the least provocation, I'm taking along a pound-sized ball of yarn for my latest crochet project- it involves 30 8"x8" squares in different stitches that get sewn together into a moderately sized afghan throw. At this point I only have one square done, so there's room for a lot of work during the drive!

Hoping everyone traveling gets where they're going safely, and I'll be back in a few weeks with updates!

Pre-Christmas Stress

There aren't words for how bad I am at wrapping presents (except maybe 'I'm bad at wrapping presents'). My mom taught me the proper way to wrap presents when I was a kid, and I took that knowledge and skill and threw it all out, deciding in my strange child head that my way was better. A couple decades later I still suck at it to the point it's a running family joke.

This year I'm finally trying something new- boxes! My friendly local Joann's had these printed boxes on sale, and the peppermint ribbon was half off (!) too. I can't wrap presents, but I can put things in boxes and tie ribbons around them really well!

All of this is completely negated by my use of Post-It Notes as labels.

I have been crocheting as well. Some of those boxes in the photo contain crocheted gifts as well as storebought ones, but until the people receive them I'm not going to post anything more about it.

And below, these are the first few flowers in a flower-heavy project I'm starting with some yarn I found in my bin.

My yarn bin is like free shopping because I'm a compulsive yarn buyer and have a really short-term memory.

After my finals are over I can get moving on crafts for real. So close!