A (minor) Christmas Miracle!

So, lo and behold, a day after I posted about my great desire for crafting, a $50 sewing machine pops up on craigslist! Awesome! After some inquiry (and agreeing to take the machine without the manual), it is mine! I went and picked it up this morning and the guy was nice enough to show me that it actually works before packing it up in the box to bring home. This is the machine I got:

And to top it all off, JoAnn's sent me, get this, FIVE 50% off coupons to be used over the next five days! (Too bad it is a one coupon per customer deal... I guess I'll just be making a lot of trips to the craft store before we head home on Wednesday!)

I think it's a sign that my desires should come to fruition (on a budget, of course). Oh, I love the holidays!

Arts and Crafts

For some unknown reason, I have been harboring an insatiable urge for crafting. And the biggest reason why I cannot satisfy this urge is because I have no supplies! I would love to make a "wellness pack" of heat and cold therapy packs like these, but I don't have a sewing machine or materials. (I realize the materials piece is pretty cheap and easy to find, especially if I am just using scraps to piece together, but I haven't yet been able to find a sewing machine on craigslist and don't really want to shell out $200+ to get a new machine... plus we don't really have a good space to put it in our apartment.) I want to make this handy coffee cup cozy for one of my coworkers who I get hot beverages with on occasion. I have two very blank walls in my office that I would like to hang some art on, but I have no art to hang! It would be nice to create personalized blankets for my neices and nephew for Christmas. My creative juices seem to be flowing, but I haven't created an outlet for them. I am almost afraid of going to JoAnn's or Michael's for fear that I will walk out with a year's worth of craft projects that I would lose interest in completing... or that I would want to continue to complete, frittering away the money we are trying to save for important things (like a house) on crafts that we don't really need sitting around the apartment.

What is a girl to do?!

I tried to satisfy my need by baking two different types of ball cookies over this past weekend, but it only helped a little. My only remaining hope is that my mom will have some craft stuff that she is willing to part with next week when we visit.