WFMW - Canine Christmas Cookies!

My first Works For Me Wednesday Post! Woohoo!! I'm excited - can you tell?

Well, we're shooting for a very frugal Christmas this year, and so many of my gifts will be home-made. Now, since I'm a dog lover, and most of my family are dog lovers, I came up with a gift for the four legged members of the family! After all, my girls would like to share something with their "cousins," right?

I got the recipe here, and Hubs and I had a blast making these.

Pumpkin Puppy Treats !

I took a couple of those Making Memories Plastic Jars and filled them with the homemade cookies, then decorated the outside with some pooch-themed paper.

I added a little tag for the To/From info:

For the smaller dogs in the family I rolled out the dough and cut it into 1x1 inch squares. For the bigger dogs we used a tiny cookie cutter. The girls had fun being my taste-testers, and Hubs enjoyed "voicing" the little gingerbread-men shaped cookies as he fed them to the girls.

"Well hello you nice puppies! How are you today? Why do you look so hungry? No! No! Don't eat me! Noooooo..." followed by much crunching...

Yes, Ladies and Gents, that's my husband... ain't he charming?

For more Works For Me Wednesday ideas, head back over to Shannon's place at Rocks In My Dryer!

Anybody need an Elvis?

The sad part is, I'm serious. I was going through my extensive collection of project supplies and I came across a portrait of Elvis. This was something I ordered in March and had never opened the box! Of course, it's too late to return it, and I have no desire to stitch it, so what do you do with it?

This got me to thinking about all of the stuff that I've purchased over the years, either because I thought it would be a fun new craft to learn, or because I had visions of grandeur about completing all these projects. I realized that a lot of these items were things I purchased to make for someone else as a gift. And do I still talk to any of these people?!? Nope, very few of them. And most of them I'm not close enough with to justify spending hours stitching a project for them. I mean, c'mon... I procrastinate enough on the projects I *want* to work on, why would I realistically make something for someone I really don't talk to?

And so, alas, it is time to purge. I've been reading a lot of blogs lately and been inspired by Trent at The Simple Dollar and by the folks over at Unclutterer. This article, among others, really drove it home for me. Trent tells us to imagine a desert island where it's just you and your closest friends, the people who care about you that will not judge you. You could surround yourself with whatever you wanted here, so what would you actually own? He sums it up very well with this statement:

Here’s the real truth of the matter: the difference between the items you’d have on the island and the things you actually have now is the stuff you’re buying solely to impress other people.

How true is that?!? How much of this stuff was purchase only to impress other people? I'm not talking about the projects I actually intend to work on, that are gifts for those I hold near and dear. I'm talking about the things I look back on and say to myself, "What was I thinking?" A good portion of this stuff, when I look at it I can't remember who I bought it for. That's a bad sign...

Another bad sign is that I seem to have lost my joy with my stitching. It used to be the way I relaxed; you could actually call it my meditation. I would be able to let my mind wander and let it process through all the events of my day. I found I was at my happiest when I had a needle in hand. Here's the scary part... I haven't worked on my stitching in over a year. I picked it back up when I started going through all the patterns, kits, and magazines that I had accumulated. And you know what? When I started looking at all my stash with an objective eye, and gave myself permission to let go, I rediscovered my joy. I can look at an item now and as myself, "will I actually make this?" Truth be told, most of the time the answer is No.

So it's time to say goodbye to the extras, time to allow myself to focus on what I really enjoy. Craigslist and Ebay, here I come!

First Post!!!

Mmmmkay, so I've officially been suckered into Bloggyland... Heaven knows I've lost enough hours of my life traipsing around the "intertubes" peeking into everyone else's life; now's the time to make my own contribution, I guess. :)

On to the basics:

Who: My name is Rachel, and I'm a resident of the Great White North where 9 months of the year we are surrounded by that cold, icky, white stuff called Snow.

What: Some random ramblings, my thoughts on day to day life ('cause that's SOOO interesting) and a little bit about my version of Trimming The Fat... i.e. finances, clutter, all that toxic crud we surround ourselves with mentally... Getting down to what's really important in my life, and perhaps seeing it in "print" will inspire me to continue!

Where: Why, here, of course... in the magical land of the intertubes...

When: Probably when I should otherwise be working...

Why: I'm hoping to use this to keep people updated on my crafty progress. After all, whenever I actually finish a project, it is something that should be ANNOUNCED TO THE WORLD!!! since it happens so rarely.