TypePad finally let me accept my invite, so here I am! I'm a 25-year-old crafter and I've been living in Portland, Maine for almost 10 months. Basically, I've been crafting since birth. My mother did country type crafts as a profession for many years and I always created things thanks to her encouragement. I like to take an idea and make it into an object using whatever I have around my home like clay, fabric, pipe cleaners, wire, nuts and bolts, paper, you name it! I used to make clothing for my stuffed animals without using any patterns. Now, I try to make things for myself without using patterns and some with patterns. I'm an avid knitter and I've been dabbling in crochet, too. I sew, decopage, scrapbook, make jewelery, journal, and whatever else you throw my way. Here are a few things I'm currently working on. I don't generally do before pictures, but I'll try my best because that's the part I always enjoy when I read other people's posts. Oh, yeah, I joined for the six month pledge and I haven't had any problems following it considering I don't buy new clothes anyway. I'm happy to be a thrifter/refashioner for life! Good luck everyone.
This is my first real attempt at doing something I've never done. I wanted to use a bleach pen to make a butterfly on the back of this boring zip-up sweatshirt and it failed. So then I tried to applique. I'm still in the process of it and you can see it's kind of weird looking. It will eventually be a skull eating a ball of yarn. I might try to embroider or applique some letters on there some where. We shall see.
I have had this beautiful lightning bug fabric for years. I only had a small amount of it, however and just didn't know what to do with it. I finally took apart a pair of old khakis and stole the zipper and used this tutorial to do it. My little pouch didn't turn out all nice and pretty, but I love it anyway. I have plans to do more so I'm trying to reuse all the zippers I can.
This baby blanket is getting sent to a really good friend of mine in Florida. Her baby girl, Mia Ella was born on April 7 this year and she deserves something adorable.
I don't know if you can see the "M" that I machine stitched on the back to keep the batting in place. 
This tiny "m" in the corner was my first real attempt at embroidery. Of course, I didn't have any embroidery floss, so I used regular old thread. I suppose I could have doulbed it up a bit to make it sturidier. Oh, well. I think she'll be happy with the result, none the less. :) So, more to come. Thanks for reading.
Beth**
