Want to Know What's Amazing?

It's amazing what you can do with yourself when you are not obsessing over Facebook. I've recently taken a 'break' from facebook and while I was afraid I would go into serious withdraw, the reality has been that I've been feeling truly happy and free and living life. The irony is that I have my blog set up to update my facebook account automatically so some people may actually be reading this on facebook.

Recently, you see, my life went a touch topsy turvy. In hind sight I could totally see where it had all been building for a while, but of course in the throes it always seems so shocking when life changes out from under you. I took a long hard look at things and couldn't for the life of me figure out why I was continuing to invite things that mostly brought negativity into my life. So I decided the first step was to stop looking at facebook cold turkey.

I picked facebook because it seemed to be only adding to the stress in my life. Plus it had become an obvious time sucking obsession with me. I kind of anticipated it being hard to stop, but was really surprised by how wonderful it's been. Suddenly I feel like I just quit some kind of part time job where I felt the need to constantly read status updates from people I may or may not know very well at all.

So I've made a decision to do more living of life and I really like the idea of being constructive with my time right now. I've been feeling a pull to get out the old sewing machine for a while now and this seemed like the perfect time. I have some really cute ideas for things I'd like to sew that are just beyond my skill level, so I've challenged myself to make as many easy projects in the next 3 months as I possibly can with the goal being that 'practice makes perfect' and I will thus improve to the level I wish to be at.

All of this coincided well with a little girl's 5th birthday party in which we were invited. Since we are presently on a spending freeze due to the financial month from hell in June (doc bills out the wa-zoo), I turned to my fabric stash and my trusty bag tutorial to make this cute little tote for her.



It turned out ok for a rusty novice sewer. I painted her initial on the pocket and used some rick-rack from my stash for the straps and embellishment.



After that I got an idea for different pockets and decided to wing it. I think this one turned out ok for a novice sewer making it up as she went. I once again used scrap fabric and notions. While there are a few imperfections, I'm not going to beat myself up since it was made with practice in mind.



As it turns out, it is the prefect tote for carrying around a certain 4 year old's Bakugan collection. He has also now placed an order for a replica of Diego's Rescue Pack. I'll have to think on that one....