SO WHAT'S NEXT?

Are you wrapping up your outside work for the year like me?  Are you wondering what you are going to do with your time next?

Retirement gives you those options, but here's the thing - I am busier in retirement than I was when I was working full time!

Well maybe that's not entirely true, it's a different kind of busy in that now I can choose to be be busy, when I want to be busy.  I have lots of things to do, but I no longer feel pressure to do them.  Maybe that is the difference.

When I was working full time, there was never enough time because working took up the majority of my day, 5 days a week.  Weekends I scrambled to catch up with the things I had to do, and then it was back to work again.

Not so now.  I do plan my days when I get up, but more often than not, the plan is changed by the time I have finished breakfast.

So - what IS next?

For me its not really Next - but Still.... crafting, of course!  I have rented my space for a craft sale on November 5th.  Not that this is anything new for me, but this year I am challenging myself to try different things entirely for my sale.  I will have a few of my crochet ornaments, but only a few.

For some reason crafting has evolved into a whole new experience for me.  Gone are the days when I spent a lot of money at craft stores (is there even really such a thing any more) for supplies.  Instead I have become a "hunter" of things I can use to make some something new and different.

More and more I am recycling, up-cycling... using used and sometimes new items, tearing them apart and making something else.

At the moment, my skills are being put to the test recycling blue jeans.

I am discovering that there is actually a use for every part and piece of a pair of jeans.

For instance - these are made from the pockets of Jeans, and the handle is the very heavy seam you will find in the leg of every pair of blue jeans.  I made these for my sale - they can be a cute little gift/ treat bag for a child, or  can be used as a door decoration, perhaps with some Christmas greens popping out of the top.

I made this fellow from scraps of several pairs of jeans.  You can see the different colours of blue jeans used.  His collar is from Jean shirt, and even his wrist band is a patch from a pocket.

Even the tiniest scraps can be used to make gorgeous flowers of all shapes and sizes.  This one would be suitable for a hat, or a hair band, a purse, even a jacket... and its just scraps!

Now, I am making a very large angel from a blue jean dress.  I haven't quite finished her, but late last night I was listening to music trying to slow the brain down a bit,  when I decided that the big angel needed a little sister.  So I turned the music off, went up to the studio and made this little cutie.

I paid a dollar at the dollar store for the worst looking angel ornament, only because I wanted the head and the hands.  I took took it apart, kept what I wanted and discarded the rest.  She is made with left over pieces of the jean dress, and a few scraps of lace and those rescued head and hands.  I even made the wings.

I love this new way of crafting.  Its creative - it allows me to do things, my way.  I don't need to buy patterns, expensive supplies, I just need the idea, and its done!

Even people who aren't really into crafts, and who don't want to spend a lot of money on supplies can make their own gifts this way.  

Handmade will always be better than store bought.

Coming up next...

An Angel tutorial.....