Bittersweet....

Well, waddya do.....

This is another lesson in turning a negative into a positive so I thought it would be cool to let you know about it.

My son moved out in December ***pout*** but, after all, he is almost 22. Last weekend, all of a sudden we had no water!! The city water dude came out and as soon as he got to the basement, he said - 'oh, yea, your meter is frozen. It's way too cold down here.' Greeeeat. Well, see, here's the thing, even though we've lived here for 4 years, it was never an issue because the meter is in Matthew's room and he always had the space heater going down there!! We, of course, turned off the space heater when he left. oops.

So, can ya guess what happened when the room got warmer? Yea......

The split in the pipe was about 1 1/2 feet long. Matthew's room was basically annihilated. He had done so much cool stuff down there! He had painted the room, put up ceiling tiles, strung wires and lights and hooked up speakers all over and..... *sigh* it was just cool and he had done it all by himself. I found a box of his journals that had gotten totally drenched. His journals are very important to him so I painstakingly pulled the pages apart and layered them in towels and sheets and was able to save them all.

After the water was turned off and the gushing subsided, we assessed the situation and decided we had to strip the room of everything. His TV, VCR and dresser took the brunt of the shower so those are toast. Half of the ceiling tiles were soaked and fell down too. We're not sure about his bed, that will be assessed later, but we had to take everything out so we could get rid of the carpet.

Now, here's the bittersweet part. I now have an empty room in my basement...... hmmmm......what would a crafter do with an empty room..........

I'm thinking Studio!!!!! I now have a craft studio!! I've been wishing for a room of my own since we moved in!! So, on the one hand, I'm pretty bummed about Matthew's room but on the other hand - I'm pretty excited!!

I'll post pics when I'm done - right now it's basically an empty room with a bed leaning up against it but shortly, it will be my craft haven. :)

So, class, the lesson for the day is - balance. Look for the positive in the negative - it might not be this big but there usually is something positive you can find in the ruin of the negative.

Random Crafty Thoughts

Hey! Check out the bracelet I made!

It's for sale on my etsy site!! (www.craftinator.etsy.com)





Ok, the subject is......crafty stuff......

I HAVE to start writing stuff here and haven't come up with a certain topic but, as I was wandering the aisles of "Value Land" (one of my fav second hand thrift stores) I kept coming up with thoughts of creating things bing-bangin' around in my head so I thought maybe they could benefit yous guys and maybe it'll stop the bing-bangin'!!!

I just got an email from HobbyLobby - their Christmas stuff is EIGHTY PERCENT OFF!!!! AAHH!! Get me a drool bag!! So, here's the deal - Christmas stuff doesn't HAVE to be used just for Christmas! Red basket = Valentine's day! Green napkins = SOMETHING for St. Patty's day! Maybe stencil a four leaf clover in the corner? Silver, Gold, White = Mother's day, Birthdays, and on and on! And, yea, maybe buying some definitely Christmas stuff and putting it away for next year.

OK, another random thought -

So, I'm walking through ValueLand and, of COURSE, peruse the craft aisle. I found a few awwwwesome treasures! There was a bag that had one thing of silver wire and another of green wire - for 49 cents! Woot! But - - what's this???? small green glass seed beads strung on the green wire?? SCORE! heehee.

I'd like to encourage everybody to look for potential of outcast treasures! So many of the things at second hand places have TONS of potential! I found the cutest little suitcase that needs a little TLC and elbow grease, it'll look all cool-like - I just got it today so you'll have to be patient to see what it looks like when I'm done.

I also got a bead necklace that I'm going to take apart and make into other pieces of jewelry. I could eeeasily get two pair of earrings and a bracelet out of it! Heehee.

Kinda ADD today.......easily distraa....hey! look! shiny thing!!

Ok, I'll be done for today. Hey! Make something today!!!

Later.......