Home Sweet Home Yoshi is DONE!

After almost three years of off and on work, I have successfully completed my goal of finishing our Home Sweet Home before we've moved in. And if I may say, for my first time finishing, lacing, matting, and framing something, I feel like Yoshi looks pretty amazing.

I stopped counting how much time I'd invested into the project, but I know that it's probably close to 200+ hours and there are a total of 21,600 stitches in the completed piece. It took my a while to figure out how best to handle all the framing work, but after about an hour of trial and error, I feel like the final product turned out very well.

I'm hoping to get a better picture of Yoshi as soon as he's in the new house, but for now the picture below will have to suffice. I can't believe that it's finally done, but I am so grateful and excited to have completed this project. It's really boosted my confidence as a cross stitcher and has helped motivate me to move onto bigger and better projects like Mario Through the Ages and Epic Pokemon Gen One.

Unproductively Moving Forward

As predicted, I've already started working on Yoshi again, but every stitch feels forced and frustrated right now. I feel like I got almost nothing done yesterday night (and ignoring the fact that more than half of my attention was focused on the Philadelphia City Finals of ANW.)

And while I didn't have the most productive day in the craft room, I did manage to find foam core, mat board, and a frame for this little guy after work yesterday. It's small, but it'll allow me to get Yoshi framed as soon as I'm done with him and that way I can have him move-in ready!

Speaking of which, the notary didn't deliver our paperwork back to our idiot escrow office on Friday, so our closing date has been pushed back again. I scheduled an appointment for the internet to be installed on Saturday, so things better get done quick, you know? Egh...

Anyway, more to come very soon. If I can get the tan area finished by tomorrow, I think I can have the whole thing done by Friday. Fingers crossed, as usual.

I Admit It, I'm Totally Behind

I have been up to so much since I last posted...and managed to procrastinate on so much more.

First and foremost, I gave up on trying to track how much time I've invested into Home Sweet Home Yoshi. It's been over five days, so I might as well, just admit that I've invested an enormous amount of time into it--and that's okay. My goal is to actually get it finished by the end of this month, if not sooner. I really don't have that much left and the vast majority of it is fill work, so the stitching is easy and I'm able to tune into other things like Netflix while I work. This is where I'm at as of yesterday night. Pretty cool, huh?

The fiance is ecstatic about it. We finally bought our first place--yes, bought--and he is really excited to have it hung up somewhere prominent. For him, I think that it's a milestone that we have our own space and we're able to decorate it with our own things that are based off of our own interests. As I've probably said before, we're pretty big on video games and video game culture, so for us, having a four foot by one foot pokemon cross stitch on the wall really isn't that weird. In fact, it's a medium-term goal that we'd both love to see come into fruition.

More to come, though! I really, really want to get this project done and then get moving on Christmas.

A Decorated Journal Jar

I have been a semi-bad crafter, but I have to admit that even though much of my crafting has been on pause for the last few months, my stress relieving activities have not been.

Life has definitely thrown me some curve balls over the last year and particularly over the last six months, but journaling has really been my rock and my physical foundation on bad days, so I've been channeling quite a bit of my extra energies toward it as a result.

On April 1, 2016, a coworker and I decided that we wanted to start a Journal Jar. If you're not familiar with the concept, a journal jar contains guided journal prompts that are randomly selected each day for participants to reflect on and write about. Today marks Day 28 and after four weeks of habitual writing, we finally managed to get the front of the Journal Jar decorated. My coworker supplied the mandala from her favorite coloring book and her incredible set of colored pencils for me to borrow and as of 9:00 o'clock this morning, our Jar is no longer plain and simple. (And we can actually display it now since the not-so-safe-for-work label that's underneath the mandala can no longer be seen.)

Eventually, we'd like to do more with the Journal Jar and make it more whimsical with ribbons, quotes, and other assorted craft items, but for now the blue-green zen of the mandala works wonderfully. And--my four favorite ghosts from Haunted Mansion are on watch to make sure all stays fine and dandy. How could I ever ask for more?

P.S. If  you are interested in creating your own Journal Jar or prompted journal experience, please keep an eye out for my new blog which is coming soon. The new blog will contain daily journal prompts for you to work on as well as information about starting your own journaling group and physical Jar.