The Introverted Crafter

Obviously by the title you can see that i have been unsuccessful in my attempts to lift myself out of depression thus far; in fact i seem to be spiralling further downwards. The question remains, how close am i to the edge, and what happens when i fall off? Spending ban wise i am still doing ok. I had my April takeaway last week, and, aside from still wanting that trolley, i have kept my bank balance relatively ok. It could be better...but it could be worse. Before i get to the crafting, i wanted to share something i forgot in the last post. This is my sewing machine The reason for this is a combination of being afraid my fingers will end up being stitched if i use an electric machine, and the simple reason that i love vintage!  I've done another two cupcakes on my second stitch, so have five more to go before the backstitch. Papercraft wise i have been relatively busy, so the rest of this post will be pic-heavy. This is for my older brother's birth...

For some reason i appear to have got into the habit of updating this every Thursday, including everything i have done craftwise within the previous week. I don't know whether this is the right way to do things, or whether i should update with every new item i've made. To be fair, i don't think there is a right way of doing things. I don't want any readers there are to be oversaturated with posts, especially as i seem to write very long ones! Part of the reason i only update once a week is because i have to psych myself up for it. I have a general idea of what each post should contain, but, when it comes to writing it it is straight out of my head. No rough draft, just type and post. I have always worked this way, even when i was at university writing essays. I just can't work with a rough draft. Of course, yet again, depression has a hand in my posts. It affects your ability to think, or to process thoughts.So, to counteract this i make lists of things i have to do ...

I love shrink plastic but it doesn't seem to love me. Still, i decided this week to try to make some jewellry. I used some Gorjuss stamps that i have to make a necklace and earrings. First lesson learned, leave the ink to dry for a couple of days before you try to do anything else with it. It smudged a little, but when shrunk it still kinda looks ok. I coloured them with promarkers, and spunched a star hole in the relevant places (i have a star and a christmas tree hole punch so i had to use the star). Then i shrunk them, and made them into jewellry unsing jump rings and jewellry findings i have in my stash. You'll notice that the name is above the girl not below. I punched the holes in the wrong place! Whoops! I also made a little charm for my friend April's birthday. It didn't come out exactly the way i wanted it but i think it's ok. It's a play on words - April showers I have made one birthday card this week, for a little girl who is my h...

For some reason i feel the need to, yet again, address the negative aspect of my personality before i get onto the creative side. Although, there is a fine line between depression and creativity in most cases; they appear to go hand in hand with each other, perhaps showing that there is a profound beauty to be found even in the most chaosed mind. This week's little tidbit about depression is actually slightly more positive than previous posts, as it is about the little things you can do to stave it off. I have had many many days where i literally do nothing but go on the internet or watch television, too mentally exhausted to do anything. This is what depression does to a person; it is a vicious cycle of self loathing. You fail to see the point of doing anything and then feel guilty because you haven't done anything. Well, the other day i was surfing (that's the internet not the sea) when i came across something called no more zero days. The basic premise is that, even if...

Is it ever too late to change your life? I know that i am only thirty, and to a vast majority of the population that is still young, but i feel old. Not only that, i feel lost. I know a lot of people feel lost at some point in their lives, but i've felt lost for so long that i don't know how to get back to myself, or even if there is a me to get back to. I apologise for the opening paragraph, but i have stated before that this blog is two-fold; crafting and introversion, so occasionally there will be days when i just need to express how i feel. For now, onto the crafts! As you can see, I have finished the Vintage stitch. I'm disappointed in myself that i haven't made much progress on the photo stitch, but i think i am so worried about making a mistake on it that i keep putting it off. I have made a few things this week, the first being a memory box. It will be a present, at the moment i'm leaving the recipient anonymous as they probably don't read t...

I made a fuck it list last year, which is essentially a bucket list, the vital difference being that you don't wait until you are terminally ill before you start. Life is short, although we do not seem to notice this until we feel death upon us. Number one on my list is to meet a boyband that i have been a fan of since i was thirteen years old. Yesterday i completed it. They always say that you should never meet your idols, as you will always be disappointed, so it was with some trepidation that i queued outside the Lakeside entrance of the NEC in Birmingham with my little brother. While waiting in the queue (and getting caught in the rain) we got chatting with a lovely woman called Chloe, who had met them once before, right at the beginning of their career in Britain in 1996. We were let in at half three, and picked up our gold VIP's and tickets. Then we had to queue according to what level we had.We met another couple of lovely women in that queue, including Nicola, who h...

I can never do one thing at once. There are positives and negatives to this, the main positive being that if you get bored with one project you can quickly switch to another. This week i have been delving into papercraft, polymer clay, shrink plastic and my favourite craft, cross stitching. You should all be familiar with shrink plastic, even if you have never used it. I have always thought about it as a thing for kids until i saw some of the articles in the craft mags. I'm in the middle (very slow progress) of a configuration box from the genius that is Tim Holtz, so idecided to use some shrink plastic to make some ghosts and autumn leaves. It'll all become clear once the project is finished. First thing is to either stamp or draw onto the plastic. I used google image to trace some leaves, and drew the ghosts freehand. The next step is to stick them in the oven, at 160 degrees for a fan oven. I did that and ended up with this As you can see, they curled up. A qui...