Creative Project(s): January

To hold myself accountable in achieving my 2014 goals, I had promised to share my progress here and keep you updated on which ones I had started, ignored or accomplished each month. Change of plans!

Let’s face it, some of my goals are just not that interesting. Other goals won’t be tackled until Spring or Summer, so rather than writing “…Ummm, not yet…” every month – I decided that I’m only going to post regular updates on my 1 monthly goal: Get creative: Complete 1 art/craft/creative project a month.

I already mentioned that I accomplished this goal – but I’m happy to report that I actually exceeded it by completing 2 projects this month! Can I get a boo-ya??

These are projects that I’ve wanted to do for a while now, and since they’re both winter-themed, I decided to get them done while it’s still blustery out.

The first project was the wine cork Christmas tree, inspired by this pin:

Merry Winemas! :P

This project was super easy…all it took was a healthy obsession with wine and some embellishments like buttons, stamps/ink and washi tape. Paul had already cut some corks down for me for a different project, so these are all half corks, but I’m sure full size corks would work as well.

For my second project, I had to channel my inner kindergartener, as it involved an elementary school’s favorite medium: dry pasta! I made pasta snowflakes, inspired by this pin.

While this was another easy project, having to wait for the glue and spray paint to dry made it pretty time consuming. My process was: lay out pasta, glue edges together, spray paint one side, then spray paint the other. I sprinkled clear glitter on while the spray paint was still wet, but I wasn’t quite satisfied, so I ended up adding more glitter with a thin coat of glitter glue. They’re still not as sparkly as I’d like, but I’m happy with them otherwise.

I was a little worried that they would be super fragile, but I’ve already given them a few [unintentional] stress tests, and they’ve survived. Thanks Tacky Glue!

Not surprisingly, I got a little carried away… I ended up making 8 snowflakes, so I’m planning on giving one to both my Mom and sister-in-law when they come to visit in February :)

In other creative news…

January was a month of trying new things!! Two weeks ago I took a knitting class, downtown, at Cherie Anne’s (my favorite tea shop). I really enjoyed it :)

In addition to that, I also took up playing a new instrument! Say what?!? Yup – I had merely mentioned to Paul “I think I’d like to learn to play the violin one day“. Next thing I know, he ordered me a [cheaper] violin so that I could try it out and see if I dig it. Is he crazy awesome, or what?! I carved out a little time to practice over the last couple of weeks, (I even mastered “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star!”), but I’d like continue to make time to practice. I have to admit, it’s exciting to learn something new, and I feel proud that I’m the one teaching myself!

Despite a lot of plans, and a busy month at work, I’m hoping that February proves to be as creative as January was. :)