Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Out On A Whim Wednesday: Christmas Tree Wine Bottle

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  I Need A New Productivity Equation
Why do I feel the need to measure my productivity every day?  And how the heck do you measure "productivity" when you are a "creative?"  When I do other types of work it can be easy to see what I have accomplished.  If you cook a meal - you can see and eat the finished meal and you have that sense of accomplishment.  When you check things off your "to-do" list; you can breathe a little easier - paid bills - check!  Did blog post - check!  Wrote out thank you card - check!  The more risk-taking I do in the craft room though, the harder it becomes to just check things off a list.  Some of my projects are in progress for a long time.  Some I decide not to finish or just set aside.  Some take a lot longer than one would guess.  So I can walk out of the craft room feeling very satisfied from a creative perspective and then my logical mind (or maybe it's better described as my inner critic) shows up and says something like, "so, what did you really DO today????"  And I feel a bit let down - and begin asking myself, "What did you really accomplish today Michelle?!"  I definitely need a new productivity measure for tracking my success so that I can confidently respond to that logical side and say something like "I took three risks today!" or "I tried a new technique today" or "I engaged the creative gifts that I have been given."  Any of these measures would make each and every day in the craft room equate to an incredibly productive experience!!!!!!!  Yes, I don't need to change my practice - I just need to change how I measure it!
We have friends who invite us to dinner on a pretty frequent basis and our job is to bring a bottle of wine and the salad.  We also get to bring Buddy since they have a dog who is one of Buddy's best friends :)  I have gotten into the habit of decorating the wine bottles we bring and this last one was no exception :)  For this week's Out On A Whim Wednesday I began with bright green felt.  I had two large rectangles of the felt and I just sewed two diagonal lines down the felt to make a tree shape and then trimmed off the excess felt.  You could just cut the felt down and glue the pieces together.  I then die cut a star from sparkly white felt and glued it to the tree top.  Next came the addition of pom-poms and rhinestones - so simple to add with hot glue or a quick dry glue.  Finally, I stamped a piece of ribbon using Staz-On and adhered it with glue.  So simple!  I hope you like it!  (You could also attach an elastic strap to the bottom and then it could turn into a Christmas tree hat :)  Have a beautiful day!!!!!

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