Loonstruck

July 2018 update

Aaaahhhh.... Where did the year go? I'm pleased to report that I'm making progress on learning Spanish. Enough to catch puns on sitcoms. I'm kinda at a standstill for creating right now because hubby and I are concentrating on getting the mess out of the house. I'm doing stuff but not lots of stuff. Work, family, health, all good-ish.

Stuff About Me in General

I will try any craft at least once but I prefer needlework, drawing, and paper craft. I'm learning that I can make nearly anything out of fabric or paper. I've discovered that I hate knitting but I love the things you can produce with knitting. It's kind of a pickle.

I am the wife of a very sweet man who puts up with my craft clutter (and a has a painting table of his own!). I have two boys, one of whom aspires to craft but gets bored pretty quickly. He loves handmade stuff because he's watched us put so much care into gifts and decorations for the home. He just got his own wood burning kit and has completed some pretty complicated beading projects. Most of his creativity is invested in Minecraft though. The other boy is amazingly patient and deliberate with perler beads and puzzles. He's not limited by patterns and turns out some pretty great stuff.

Our general themes are fantasy, dragonflies, Magic, space, books, goats, cats, and monkeys. Our house is a real hodgepodge and we love it!

When I'm not at home, I work as Library Supervisor. It's an interesting transition from full time service to the public to 3/4 time service to my staff and 1/4 time service to the public. All previous library jobs have been the best job ever. I'm still deciding about this one.

Goals for 2018

I will learn how to speak Spanish, play the guitar, operate my sewing machine, and wire a lamp.

Frequent visitors to my profile will notice these are the same as last year AND the year before. Whoops! Maybe I'm doing this wrong.

Wishlist

I would rather have something you made than anything else. If we are in a swap where you have to give me something, feel free to send useful items for my favorite craft habits, contribute useful advice or items towards my goals, or use my alphabetical list of happy things to guide you.

Happy Mail Swaps

I will take anything you offer but in particular for flat swaps, I love handmade envelopes, hand drawn anything, ATC blanks, unused postage, washi tape, stickers, your favorite poem, heart healthy recipes, DMC floss in your favorite color, fun paperclips, matching stationary and envelopes, directions for card games or dice games, and handmade anything. Truthfully, I can't wait to see what randomness you have buried in your stash. Isn't it amazing how much we collect!

How are you?

If you need a kind note in your mailbox, please do drop me a PM with your address. International addresses are welcome. Sometimes, that's all any of us really need, is for someone to be nice to us.

Crafts I'm good at:

Cross-Stitching, Embroidery, ATCs, straight crochet (scarves and washclothes!), and Kid's crafts

Crafts I like but am still working on learning:

Beading, beading embroidery, Book Making, knitting (why, I don't know.)

Things I use in crafts:

My husband makes fun of me for always picking an alphabet based sampler and paper with letters on it. Anything cats. Old paper (wrapping, maps, books, pictures), stamps, tag board, glue, pens (oh, how I love pens!), blues and greens especially though I like all vibrant colors, water themes, forest themes, odd dictionaries...

I'm just starting to build up my fabric collection. I've pieced together a few quilts and it seems I like everything but pastels. I like contrast in my work.

Captain Chaos is 16 and likes almost everything. He particularly likes:

• Computer games that have building elements to them

• Fantasy books (Suggestions welcome! He prefers strong characters and appreciates a good plot.)

• violins and modern music sheets for violins

• cats

Kid Chaos is 8 and likes everything more than his brother. He particularly likes

• animals

• super heroes

• Minecraft

• Books with strong storylines rather than concept review (Suggestions welcome!)

• Please no more Cross Stitch Kits. I know it isn't glamorous but I will take your favorite colors in DMC floss or AIDA cloth any day! If you don't have a favorite color, I will take skeins of DMC 310 or DMC 823. I go through them like crazy.

• Smelly stuff (even pretty smells!)

• Dog stuff
• I like dark stuff but not gory stuff
• Pink or any pastels really
• Cutesy
• Television characters or movie characters
• Tea (never got the hang of liking it),
• Boring marketing (different from clever or pun-ny marketing)

Your trash. If you don't want it, I don't want it either. :)

Extras

If you are sending me extras because you want them to help you get a heart, please don't. I would rather we both know you got the heart because of your hard work on the swap.

On the flip side, I very rarely send extras. It has to be something in my collection that I think you cannot live without. If I send extras, it is usually one or two more of whatever we were trading in the first place.

This is a work in progress. Thank you for the inspiration @CajunLady

A-- Alphabet, ATCs, Architecture, animals

B-- Books, blues (the color, not the music), boxes, board games

C-- Christmas, cats, cooking, competence, cross stitching, compass roses, card games

D-- Dictionaries, Dia de los Muertos, Dragonflies, Dr. Pepper

E-- Elephants, embroidery

F-- Full moons, flea markets, fabric, Fairy Tales

G-- Gypsies, greens (the color and the food), green left turn arrows, Grimm brothers, games

H-- Herons, Halloween

I-- Italy, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

J-- Jelly beans, journals

K-- Kiwi (I like the fruit and the word.), kaleidoscope

L-- Loon calls, Laughter (Specifically kid laughter)

M-- Maps, music

N-- Northern Lights, notebooks

O-- Ott Lights, oceans

P-- Private swaps, postcards, pictures, pressed pennies, pelicans

Q-- Quotes, quilting, quilts

R-- Rome, Rhinos, Red Riding Hood

S-- Stars, sunrises, sunsets, summer, spring, shrines, Sherlock Holmes

T-- Tattoos, Tie Dye

U-- Useful things (I really prefer useful over pretties though I love pretties too!), Umbrellas

V-- Variegated thread, Venice

W-- Words, whisper

X-- Xeriscaping

Y-- Your craft (make me want to learn how to do something new!), Yarn

Z-- zombies, zentangles, zoos

Things that don't fit neatly, In no particular order... Good pictures, Learning something new, Finding something beautiful, Making something that I want to touch over and over, Curling up with a good book, Spring after Winter, the five minutes when everything is tidy and clean, Handmade pieces that reflect someone else's obsession (I never know when I'll find a new obsession for myself!)

Things that make my kids happy: High contrast, monkeys, outer space, legos, cats, running (or crawling as the case may be), swords, a bad guy to conquer

ATCs are awesome and I'm always looking to expand my collection. If you'd like to do a swap of profile based ATCs, so would I!

Daisy Yellow does this index card challenge once a year that is super fun. One year, I did them from June to December and sent them to my Mom as a Christmas gift. She keeps them in a box in a place where she can go through them every now and again.

I've recently started sending her "refresher" cards. I can't do one a day but I do one when I'm trying out a new drawing or new technique. If you make an index card piece of art or scribble or whatever else, I'd love to send it on to her. Make sure you sign and date it. Mom hates it when people don't take credit for their art.

Please only do this if it tickles your fancy. And don't worry about it at all if it doesn't. As I said before, I'm generous with hearts and they are solely based on the hard work of the actual swap.

This section is usually of no use to me on other people’s profiles. I can’t draw characters and I don’t collage. (Unless you want glue hanging off and too many papers piled on top of each other.) So I’m moving mine to the bottom of my profile and combining all the media together.

I’m a librarian so I love books. I love fantasy best though mysteries have been sneaking in to my “to read” pile more and more lately. Books that changed my life: To Kill a Mockingbird, Tigana, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Good Omens, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and 100 Years of Solitude. I carried around a book of Grimm fairy tales when I was a kid and still love Little Red Ridinghood, The Six Swans, The Goose Girl, The Frog Prince, Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Nightingale and The Tinderbox.

I watch far too much Netflix and have gotten addicted to crime dramas from other countries. I get alot of crafting done while bingeing on Netflix. It has re-introduced me to the documentary world and while I’m just as likely to turn it off after 15 minutes as watch the whole thing, I really like them. Which is not to say that I won’t watch funny movies or musicales. Because I totally will.

I listen to my Pandora radio nearly all day. My favorite stations are musical based or 50s-60s music based. I like being able to sing along. Everything else has its time and place. For example, from late October to mid-January, I listen almost exclusively to Christmas music.

I don't believe in grand promises to rate, to send, or to communicate. Those should be minimum expected behavior on this website. If we need to talk about something, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Heck, contact me if we don't need to talk about something. I like a nice random conversation now and again.