Another hectic couple weeks, and a couple more to go! I wish I could say that I’m back on track, but there’s so much left to do this year.

From last week where I took a “staycation”, I have been working non-stop on the craft room upstairs. First, I made a note about what sort of things I could replace, things I could re-sort, and things that I needed to bird-proof. I had a ton of things to sort through; most of it was either scrap paper or loose items that didn’t have a proper home. I bought a lot of clear boxes to house the loose stuff, and I converted an old vertical shelf into a side compartment for the clear boxes. I also bought a couple new furniture pieces from IKEA; I bought two Syvde display cabinets and a couple Hyllius shelves for additional storage space.

While I was buying new things and shifting around the craft room, I was also working with my partner to fix up their basement for crafts and general entertainment. I was able to give away one of our gently-used rug, which instantly made the basement cozy; soon after, there were a couple couches, some shelves, wireless connected speakers, and a well-priced Hemnes convertible bed (procured during the Black Friday madness). This basement is now a cuddle trap, filled with very tempting areas for cozy-ing up.

Since alternating between different houses and IKEA, I have been descending into my first-ever shopping spree madness. Within the past couple years, I have become an aunt to a niece and nephew – I felt like I needed to sort of give a little something for everyone this year. I’m also buying lots for my bird-to-be, which kind of gives me less excuse to spend less.

My immediate family also has a tradition of doing a $150.00 pixie; it’s sort of like secret Santa, but you send out a list of things you’d like to get within the budget. For my mom’s side, we do a $35.00 gift exchange game, where you randomly get called to open a gift, then that gift has a couple chances to be ‘stolen’ from the person. For the most part, I’m glad these games exist, because it saves all of us from buying each person a gift and instead reserves money for things that are a bit more worthwhile. That’s probably why I feel pressure to give to my younger cousins and my niece + nephew.

Aside from preparing for Bird and Holiday madness, I want to try using my 2 in 1 laptop for writing my patterns! The main reason why it takes me so long to get to writing a draft is that I first write my rough notes with pen and paper. I’m hoping to bypass this process by downloading an app to use my tablet pen to write directly, then convert to text.

Anyways, hope I can get back to some crocheting soon! Here are most of the plush I made so far this year:

Bonus: