In this season of joy, hope, love, and thankfulness, I find it appropriate that I am up for the second night in a row at 3 a.m. thinking about how thankful I am that I took a couple of sewing classes this year. I love that I have found like-minded friends and that we share our ideas, our struggles, and our unabashed pride in our creations. I hope this continues not just for the new year, but for many more to come. And I am overjoyed that along with those classes and my friends, I found this other world, the blogosphere. It is so full of creative people who are excited to share their adventures in not only sewing and crafting, but in life. Be it stories about raising kids or running a race in mud. It is so inspiring to me to read about what they are capable of and think that I might be capable of a little bit more. It helps that so many are moms that have the same struggles on time and energy that I have. So many people seem to find ways not only to share what they have done, but how they have done it. I hope they know how much I love those tutorials and how thankful I am that they take the time to share.
I would not be me if all this thankfulness did not come with a twinge of remorse (and I didn't share it with you). Many years ago I had a lot of free time. Before kids came along I was living in Germany with my husband, two dogs, and no job. I had hopes before I moved of taking that time to learn to cook. But let's face it: A girl who does not really like to eat will never be a great cook. I just never found the interest. I so wish that I had had this other world to inspire me during that time of my life. I also wish I had been more like Julia Child (yes, I did just watch Julie and Julia) and fought to find something that did hold my interest. I would have loved to have found sewing during that time.
Today, however, is not about remorse. It is about how thankful I am for what I have learned this year. It has been a surprisingly productive one considering Amelia just turned one. I was thinking of that the other day while trying to get the inspiration to write our annual Christmas letter. We have sent out a letter most of the years that we've been married, but this year I did not know how to share the joys of our lives with our friends. We had missed last year due to Amelia's birth, so I didn't want to miss two years in a row.
I had given up on Christmas cards when one night I was surfing through the blogosphrere checking out other sewers' reading lists. I like to do that since you can stumble upon a lot of good ideas that way and I STUMBLED!! I found this blog that had some cute pictures on it and the blogger had written how she had made her family's Christmas card this year. She even provided the link to the You Tube video that helped her. And that is when I found love for You Tube. Yes, I had used it in the past to watch tutorials, but never truly appreciated it until the man walked me through a simple edit in Photoshop. The true joy of the blogosphere though is not just copying what others do, it's making something yours. In this instance, I combined these tips with the collage maker in Picasa that I had stumbled upon earlier this year on yet another blog (that I can not link to here because I can not find it.)
So, with the help of these people that I don't know, I was able to make a Christmas card that captured, at least for me, the joys of this year. Some people will not realize what they have when they see it, but in that picture is a love for family, for sewing, for blogs. It is excitement for what is to come. There are more blogs to discover and inspiration to find!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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