Trends just aren't my thing.

I'm funny when it comes to trends in the crafting world (well...just trends in general I guess). I don't like them usually. About a year ago chevrons were everywhere. It seemed like crafters were doing zig-zags on everything. The first few were cute, but eventually my eyes felt like they were bouncing up and down following the zigs and zags all over. Now all the sudden ruffles are being added to everything. Skirts, shirts, tree skirts, wreaths, cakes, books, purses, dogs, cars, etc. Okay, so I haven't seen a car with ruffles, but it wouldn't surprise me right now. I don't hate chevrons or ruffles, they just aren't my favorite look. I like things pretty plain, simple, and clean cut. I love classic and timeless styles and looks. Not vintage necessarily, just classy. My one exception...orange. I've loved the color orange for years and years. It's not really a "classy" color, but I do love it. It's becoming more trendy and popular, but I still love it and I always will.

I've just finished reading a book called "Radical Homemakers" by Shannon Hayes. It has triggered a huge shift in my views on life, style, needs, creating, everything. I'm trying to reduce and simplify. Anymore, so much of what I see just seems like stuff and fluff. I want to create and craft and design, but I want those things to have purpose and to still look nice when the latest styles have changed over a few times. This book and shift in thinking has me interested and excited about things I haven't really considered before, and things I haven't really done in a while. I think it would be amazing to learn how to make beautiful soaps (beautiful smell, appearance, and feel), to find and lay local rocks into an outdoors patio/picnic area, to start painting again, to learn how to reuse so much of what is often wasted, to revamp furniture to fit our needs/styles, etc. These sound so exciting and fulfilling to me. They sound hard, and some are a little intimidating, but they each are so worth it. I'm excited to learn new skills. I'm excited to make goof-ups (as odd as that sounds, because that means I've tried and I know better what to do and what not to do). I'm excited to just try.

Diaper Trike

One of my friends is having a little boy sometime in the next few weeks and today was her baby shower. I'd seen diaper cakes made before and noticed pictures of diaper trikes online and decided that was what I wanted to try making for her. I picked up all the supplies and got to work. The front wheel and handlebars were easy, but it took some figuring out on how to do the back and connect it all. I originally was going to do a motorcycle, but this just worked better. 

Contents:
1 felt blanket
10 cloth diapers (since she's doing cloth, I got the cloth ones)
1 small baby bottle
1 set of hand mittens
1 pair of booties
3 hats (came in a package)
4 Diaper Pins
1 stuffed animal
4 small safety pins
1 spool of small ribbon (I didn't use the whole spool)

I didn't take pictures as I went along because I was going by trial and error and I've been trying to type up instructions that make sense, and it's not working. But it wasn't all that hard to figure out how to put it all together.

Here's what I've been working on the past little while:

Ben and JoLyn's Wedding Pictures

And Kyle and Mackenzie's Mini-Bridal and Reception Pictures. 

It's so fulfilling and fun to watch each shoot pull together with its own unique style. Both of these couples were gorgeous, fun, and laid back, but both each brought their own personality to the shoot, making it completely their own. 

Cleaning Schedule

We've been avoiding our house for the past week. And avoiding something you live in daily doesn't work so well. We have been super lax on our housekeeping and it now needed some strong TLC to get it back to being somewhere we want to be. I just now took down the Christmas decorations. We're behind. Like most people, we hate cleaning...but we love having a clean house (especially while Cameron is trying to study or do a project). We figured if we break the chores up and assign a different room for each day of the week that maybe we'd might possibly keep the place clean...ish. It's worth a shot. So here's the schedule we made that we're trying out. We'll see how it goes!

Click to enlarge