Confessions of a Craft Addict

Hello, my name is Lauren and I am a Craft Addict. I'm a junkie. I want it all and I cant quit. DIY is my drug. I have a serious problem. All I want to do is make stuff. All the stuff. Any stuff. Just all of it, OK! But I have shiny-make-stuff-syndrome. I'm a quitter. I'm a half-way througher. I'm a short-attention span.This has been my craft personality pretty much my whole life. As a child I had every craft kit known to man. I poked a mean light-bright, swirled some magical swirl art, poured some awesome sand art, tye-dyed anything and everything I could find, rolled some rad beads from magazines, felt-colored like a boss and stayed in the lines like nobodies business for some paint-by-numbers. I did it all.Now I scrapbook, do project life, knit, sew, crochet, art journal, quilt, decorate my home with any and every DIY project possible, paint, weave, make mini-books, take photos, hand-stitch, embroider, and any other Pinterestable project known to the modern crafting woman.But along with all of those hobbies, comes the great equalizer: TIME. I cant do it all, at least not at once. Therefore projects are constantly left undone due to multi-tasking, loss of interest, failed attempts and general life interruptions.A perfect case study on human subject L. Hooper, crafter: Subject see's a cute cowl tutorial by favorite blogger, Elise. Subject immediately runs out within the week and buys yarn to make said cowl. Subject travels for a week and returns home ready to knit. Subject digs out knitting needles to find a FOUR YEAR OLD project still attached. The project was started 4 Christmas's ago when subject saw a cute mug coozie pattern online, bought it and immediately realized it was too hard and resorted to just knitting straight lines. Subject became bored and stored knitting until next winter when subject realized that she would still like said mug coozie to keep her hands cool when drinking hot drinks in the winter. Every winter for 4 more years subject would knit approximately 2 lines on the coozie. Now 4 years later, mug coozie is still unfinished and subject needs to start a new project. Coincidentally subject has forgotten how to knit.This is the story of my life, this one is one of the most ridiculous circumstances, but sadly true. I constantly hop from project to project, sometimes I come back more inspired and sometimes less. I haven't found the magic formula yet for completing things. But I do think that I mostly work better if I single in on one project, carve out a big chunk of time and just do not allow myself to stop. Once I become engrossed in a project it will be death or finish. But if I stop, restarting again is just sooooo hard for me. I don't know why I'm wired that way, but it definitely drives my husband crazy as half-finished projects are just lying around everywhere. So I thought I would play the honesty game and show you some unfinished projects I have lying around that I want to finish up here soon!Piles of project life printed pictures that just need to be put in pockets....The new yarn for the cowl mentioned in the case study.   Photos that need to be framed. I knit a few more rows on the mug coozie! Now I just have to learn how to FINISH a knitting project and figure out how I want to close it. I have a button I like, I need something to be able to open and close it around the handle of a mug, any suggestions or links for a technique? This is actually something I'm on top of: Decorations for our church Thanksgiving dinner. Oh but of course there are some other projects peeking out from underneath. This is about 4 projects. A corkboard to turn into my jewelry holder, a blank canvas for painting an abstract, a stack of frames to finish my gallery wall and those cool retro ranger prints I want to turn into some sort of gallery on their own. A giant weaving...  This adorable minibook I started making of our wedding. Plus the minibook I'm making of my trip to Malaysia...This doesn't even touch the pile of fabric I have waiting to be made into quilts and other various home projects....But! On the bright side, think about how many great tutorials and projects are coming to the blog as soon as these are done! What are your craft addict confessions? Lets share and hold hands and stay up half way crafting things together all night!