Unfinished Umbrage

Welcome to Day Twenty-one of the A to Z Blogging Challenge! This is the day for the letter U, and I'm talking about Unfinished Umbrage, or the annoyance with unfinished projects!

Every crafter has a pile of unfinished projects, and sometimes it's hard to not get overwhelmed with them! With our different moves, certain projects got packed away in boxes, almost forgotten. Every now and then, going through a box, I'll find a project and wish I had finished it. Sometimes I do finish it! But usually... not. 

I made a new years resolution in 2011 or 2012 to finish a project as fully as I can before getting really involved in another, but it's really difficult, especially when real life gets in the way, or a deadline pops up!

Here are a few of my unfinished projects...

 Water under the bridge... a bridge I'm making! It's actually more finished than this but I don't have more recent photo at hand. But there's still work to be done - once I'm done shaping the blocks to the right slope, it all has to get painted a grayish color.

 These dice bags ended up a bit too small in the neck to finish, so I made a new pattern and started work on black and white satin bags, they still aren't finished. I did successfully make dice bags with my new patterns with a third set of fabrics, but the black and white sets still aren't finished! Someday...

 This pillow case is almost finished, I never hemmed the open end, but my daughter loved it so much I haven't really gotten it away from her TO finish!

And one of my more notorious unfinished projects... sword plaques! The one with the shiny black sword and star came finished, which is what inspired me to make holders for our other replica weapons. The plain pine plaque is stained now, and I have plaques for the short sword and dagger also, with sketches and plans for what to do with them, and the idea of a shelf to hang the katana from. But, alas, unfinished. The swords are all in a well-padded box in a storage closet and the plaques and wood stain (what didn't get mistakenly tossed in the move) are in a storage bin in another closet. Just waiting, waiting to be finished. More wall space would help too, I'm already running out of it at our condo right now! When we buy a house, maybe I'll have them done for the new house =)

These are just the tip of the iceberg, but I have gotten better about finishing NEW projects since my resolution. It helps if the item is for a friend, or one of my daughter's dresses. Then I HAVE to get it done!

Do you have a problem with unfinished projects? Are there any projects you really want to finish sitting forgotten in a box, on a shelf, in a closet? Maybe you should try to find some time to finish them, and tell me about it in the comments! I think the bridge should be the first one I finish, then maybe I can take photos and share some of my husband's war gaming terrain.

Thanks for joining me again on this blogging journey! Come back tomorrow for something that starts with V! Only five days left!

Pretty Paintings

Oh no, I'm late! Thursday was very busy and I didn't get my blog post up! So two for today. First, for April 18th, the letter P for Pretty Paintings.

 You already know from my Alicorn Art post that I paint a little for my daughter's room, and other rooms in our house. Mostly small stuff - the canvas above is about five by seven inches. It's not on my daughter's wall yet, but it's the companion to her Alicorn shield.

This is where the whole gray and purple theme came from for her room, I started out with the coat rack and shelf, then added little by little.

This is how it looks on her wall now, more or less altogether - the flower coat rack is on her closet door for sweaters. And now with the new headband rack I made up, it's a little different again.

But I don't paint just for her room. Below are some other things I've painted.

 This is a tray I'm still in the middle of painting, someday I'll finish! I made the stencil back in high school for a series of trays I painted as gifts, it's cut from a bacon tray (very well washed).

 These were grandmother gifts, at different times considering one is a newborn photo and the other is a six month old photo. Wonder if they've updated the photos, almost four years later!

 Some woodstaining above, with some gold and other detailing - lots of fun! These are all finished, the chest was a gift.

This is MY headband rack in my room, I don't have as many as my daughter. I painted it to match my quilt.

Except the canvas and the bear, these were all unfinished wood items from the craft store, painted with mostly acrylic paints, brushes and sponges and stenciling. Lots of fun and adds a little personal touch to your home or a gift!

I hope you enjoyed this feature in the A to Z Blogging Challenge even though it was late! In other posts I might go into more detail on some of these projects. Join me again soon for the letter Q!

Kids' Crafts

 Welcome again to the A to Z Blogging Challenge! Today's letter is K and I'm focusing on Kids' Crafts for the day.

 

 Doing crafts with kids can be fun! But you don't always have the best outcome...

The point is, though, that they had fun!

We used to go to a story time weekly in Michigan that did a craft after the story, and ended up with a fridge full of kid crafts!

Here's the pink pumpkin in detail, I came up with that for her after we read Pinkalicious' pink pumpkin book.

One of my favorite crafts that we made recently was a little pennant flag.

 It's really simple! Just fold a piece of construction paper in half and cut a triangle out.

Take a stick and stick that in the fold, slather glue on one side to glue the sides together, then decorate with crayon, markers, or even better, sticky back fun foam! I have some left over from other crafts, so I've been having some fun with it. 

Can you tell? (I had to keep looking at reference pictures for the mice)

One more fun craft is this pot o' gold, that we made for St. Patrick's Day

I feel bad, my daughter didn't get to make any Easter crafts, have to make that up to her with some fun spring and summer crafts! Her birthday is coming up, I'm pinning some fun ideas on Pinterest for her party! Follow me on Pinterest for more fun ideas!

Thanks for joining me again for the A to Z Blogging Challenge! Join me again tomorrow for something that starts with L!

Alicorn Art - A to Z Blogging Challenge

Today I am starting something called A to Z Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. This means I will make a new post every day of April (excluding Sundays) starting with the letter of that day, getting through the alphabet and making 26 posts by the end of the month. See the button on my sidebar for a link back to the challenge website =)

So onto the first post of the month!

It's no secret that many girls love ponies, and my little girl loves them a lot! She has this shirt, one of her favorites, with an alicorn on it - a unicorn with wings.

After dressing her in it for a while, and seeing a plain wood plaque at the craft store, the idea popped in my head to make it a bit of wall art for her room. I couldn't follow the design exactly but I wanted something inspired by, with the same colors. I looked online for more inspiration, found a unicorn design I liked and a wing design. A little sketching and layering, and I got this:

I painted the shield pewter gray, so then the next step was tracing the design onto the wood.

I retraced the design, cut it out in the placement I wanted and taped it to the shield. I tried cutting the design with a nail, but that didn't work so well. A hard-pressed pencil worked though!

Next, painting. Outline first, then filling it in.

My painting studio is a little more limited than it was in our last house, but I'm making do!

 I didn't like how the bottom of the neck and shoulders were looking, so I decided to add a cloudy mist underneath, and stars as well.

I used rubber stamps for the stars, instead of painting them and ending up with too much difference in size and shape.

But I was still missing something... there was metallic shimmer, stars, the wings and horn and curly mane... but no glitter!

It might not show up very well in photos, but I love how it looks in person! I added some stripes around the sides to finish it off.

Finally! 

Something new and pretty for my pony loving girl!

Soon it'll be up on her wall with a painted canvas with her name.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my Alicorn Art, and join me tomorrow for a post about something that starts with B!

Edit: This is a blog hop, my first! Here's the list of the other blogs in the challenge, there are thousands! Go see a few, and have fun this month!