Just what I need....more hobbies

A couple of weeks ago I took a card making class.  It was really fun (I went with a friend of mine who makes the most amazing cards for people) but a lot of work.  The cards came out great:

Of course, the woman who leads the class provides all the materials and a mock up for you to work from, which is good, because I couldn't be nearly so creative on my own. 

This hasn't stopped me from going out and purchasing supplies to make my own, although at the moment I'm short on ideas for fantastic cards and will just have to make mediocre ones for the time being.   I mean, look at the detail on this one:

Ok, so it's a little blurry - but it's individual stamps, punches, ribbon, half seed pearls and some shading using an ink pad and a dry piece of sponge.  I bought some magazines dedicated to paper crafting so hopefully I'll get some good ideas.  I've also bought some new.......crafting supplies, such as this:

I like it because it looks like a purse, and was actually less than many of the other embossing/die cutting machines that were on the market.  You slip a piece of cardstock, or part of a card into an embossing press, like this:

......and it embosses the paper.  It's pretty hard to get a good photo of the piece I did.  I justify this new hobby by noting that I already scrapbook (vacations mostly), so I already own many of the products I need to do this.  And I'm sure, like scrapbooking, it will be one of those things I wish I had more time to do. 

Really, what I need are four-day weekends every weekend.

Doesn't it snow all but six weeks a year in New England?

So since I started the other blog on gardening the most common question I get is, "Yes, but what do you do the rest of the year?  (What, besides spend time with my husband, work and volunteer?)  I do a ridiculous amount of crafting and cooking for someone with a full-time, 60-hour-a-week-plus job.  I do it because I enjoy it, and because I'm always, always amused by people's amazement that I have hobbies that are domestic.  Apparently, my personality does not lead people to believe that I would ever consider things like sewing, cooking or knitting fun.  But I do.  Mostly.  This time of year the knitting and sewing is generally directed towards creating holiday gifts, so I'm hyper-focused on timelines and deliverables.  Much like being at work, although at the end of a work project nobody ends up with variegated socks - usually just paper cuts.

A dear friend of mine writes a really great blog on all of her cooking adventures and her family's history surrounding recipes, which is amazing to read but doesn't really work for me because I don't necessarily cook something elaborate or even noteworthy most days.  Also, my family does not have a long and storied history involving recipes.  And because I tend to dabble in a variety of craft mediums, a blog focused on one specific thing (knitting, sewing, scrapbooking) doesn't work either.  So this blog will likely be a mishmash of whatever I'm up to on the home front.