Half finished or half not finished?

    Yes, yes I'm still trying to get done with the works of art that have come to be my nemesis. "You are still on the same ones?" you shout. Yes. And it's not like they are masterpieces. I am just stuck on the diptych and can not get enough little papers rolled up to finish the quilled piece.
     I had to resort to scrapbooking paper to finish out the quilling one. It does not look the same, though. Instead of pictures and color variations it is just block color. However, it takes waaay too many magazines to get enough single-color pages. I went through 5 magazines just to get maybe 1/4 of the piece done. .
    Do you know how long it takes to roll and glue that many little strips of paper? They just don't cover much. I could probably fit two or three paper tubes per square inch. On a 9x12 canvas that is plenty- 216 to be exact. It takes some time. Give me a break.
    But I will continue. I will get these done. I have put myself on a crafting freeze until I finish at least one of the two. Otherwise I'll end up making the quilt, bookmarks, and woodblock transfers that I want. I already made cards, a few bookmarks and a cardbook (where I put all the cards from one holiday together and make a cover for it).
     Here are a few tips I've learned from these projects:

• If you decide to quill and want to use magazine pages, start saving magazines. Get friends to save magazines. Does your work get magaziens and throw them out at the end of the month? Take those, too.
• Have a best friend? Talk them into coming over and ripping out pages of said magazines that match with your criteria. Watching movies or TV while doing this is acceptable. Eating popcorn or pizza is not.
• If you decide to use scrapbooking paper, you will need a heavier glue. The weight of the paper is heavier and will require a stronger hold than the lightweight magazines pages.
• Paperclips hold the tubes together long enought for the glue to dry.
• If you have a cat, keep the tubes away from the cat. He or she will begin a separate project.
• Patience. Patience. Leave it alone for a while. More patience.
• Something I haven't learned, but hear it works well- focus. Focus and finish one whole thing before you start another. Not my style, but OK.

Are we surprised?

     So this goal of posting every week doesn't seem to be going to well. Part of that is that one week slips into the next before I can even get a hold of it. Another part is that I'm not done with anything.
     I finished a little more of the quilling. But let me tell you it takes a lot of time. I have been rolling the paper into the proper tubes while watching movies. Even still, it takes more free time than I have (or want to devote to it).
     It also takes a lot of magazines. To find a page with enough constant color for it to read as that color when rolled up is surprisingly difficult. They are either blotted a bunch of colors or just white. I've gone through about six magazines and only have about 25 rolls. Do you know of any particularly colorful magazines?
     The diptych I'm doing is almost done. The last little bit is newspaper shreds. More time consuming paper cutting. Yay. Do you want pictures of unfinished things for instant gratification? Or wait or the whole thing?

Am I smarter yet?

     I don't know if it's all the blueberries or just all the practice, but I managed to finish a 500 piece puzzle in about three and a half hours. Technically on the clock it was longer than that, but I kept taking little breaks to check on my asian pork in the oven. Yum. If you are interested:
1/2 tsp chili oil
1-2 tsp sesame oil (to your preferance. I like only 1tsp)
3 tbsp low sodium soy sauce.

Pour over pork loin and bake at 350 until it reaches appropriate temperature. It is just the right amount of salt with a hint of spice.

     The last you heard I was still sewing. Done! for now at least. I successfully made three adequate headbands. Eventually I want to tackle a baby quilt. But not yet. Now I've moved on to about three different things.
     The first project that I accomplished this weekend was to make my own charm necklace. I love the looks of them in stores, but decide it was best to make on that meant something to me. I took shells I brought back from Hawaii, a red stone I brought back from Santa Fe and made a charm from bits of shiny rock from Gatlinburg.  The charm was actually the lid of a spice jar that I glued a vacay picture in, then used hot glue to attach the stones and then added another layer of glue to seal. The picture is kind of obscure, but that I think looks neat. I used a hemp chord to attach them to a leather chord. Ta-da. Personal charm necklace with bits of my travels.
     Next I have picked painting up again. I am working on a diptych. So far I only have the backgrounds painted. One is blue and one purple.
     The third thing I'm working on is a quilling project. Quilling is a paper art and, in my case, involves tubes of colorful paper glued in rainbow patterns to a canvas. I made the paper tubes out of magazine pages. However, I hit one hitch. I used  a vogue magazine and a surprising number of their pages are in black, white or tan. That does not make for a very interesting piece. I will put up a picture once I've gotten another magazine and start to roll more paper tubes.
     What are you working on right now?