More Monkeys

Last night, I worked on cleaning up my scrapbook room.

Since the baby's been born, it's no secret that I just haven't been in there doing much of anything. It's funny, because you can always tell when I've been my most productive by how clean the room is. Unlike the rest of the world, a clean scrapbook room is a sign of a productive Miss M. I'm one of those people who cleans as I go, and puts EVERYTHING away in it's proper place before even THINKING of starting a new project. Yeah, OCD much?

As you can imagine, that means that if I have NOT been creating, the place just ends up going to hell in a handbasket. Random crap ends up piled all over my work table and any other available surface. The whole place gets a nice, thick coating of dust. My husband takes advantage of the fact that I'm not in there and leaves laundry baskets in the middle of the floor and piles of clean laundry on my chair.

It's not pretty, y'all.

But you may be saying, you've MADE stuff since Bubba arrived! That is true, I have. Most of my creative endeavors have taken place in other rooms of the house. I stitched bibs on the couch, in front of the TV. I've also made jewelry sitting on my living room floor in front of the TV. Knitting happens on the couch as well. The few times I've had to go in the other room, like to use the sewing machine, I simply moved the clothes off my chair onto my husband's chair, cleared a small space on the table, did what I had to do, then got the heck out of there.

After nine months of neglecting my poor scraproom, I decided it was time to get back in there and clean it. It's been a slow process of a bit here and a bit there, but I've finally managed to get it into some semblance of order. Those shelves I bought last year? Finally hung. The pile of cardstock on the stamping table? Sorted and put away. The bin with miscellaneous cards that I've made? Cleaned and sorted. Now, all that remains is to give it a really good dusting.

I'll let you know how that goes.

So after I had the place all tidied up, it was time to get to work! I had started a blanket for a friend who had a baby recently. Started being the key word here! Fortunately, unlike the one I made for her first child, it's looking like the new baby will get his well before his first birthday. Check it out:

It's MONKEYS! And BANANAS! And POLKA DOTS!!! (haha)

I quilt, but I'm so not a traditional quilter. I'm okay with that. I don't like a meandering quilt. Most geometric designs, outside plain squares or rectangles, look kind of hokey to me. I know how to bind the edges properly, but I'm way too lazy to do it for the most part. I mean, we all saw how long it took me to bind the Seahawks blanket I made for Bubba! (four months, in case you were wondering.)

I end up making very simple square or rectangle patchwork quilts with no binding and topstitching in some sort of simple shape or design. For this one, I went with stars.

I love this blanket! It's mint green with little monkeys, bananas, and white polka dots on a chocolate brown background. The backing, like most of my quilts, is flannel for extra coziness and warmth. I used super soft bamboo batting for the filling. I can't remember if it was organic or not, but at least it was a bit more Earth friendly!

Ah, such prettiness for a sweet little boy.

I also started to make another blank junk book, like the one I did for my gratitude album last year. I'm thinking of making a few and listing them on Etsy. The one I'm doing is all in browns and greens. I'm also planning on doing one in pinks and purples, and maybe one with blue and another color. I have no idea how much to list them for. Maybe when it's done I'll post pictures here and people can give me suggestions?

Well, off to putter in newly my cleaned room!