I made my own holiday cards!

I cannot tell you how much fun I had doing this and how delighted I was when I was finished. They’re not stunning pieces of art by any means, but I enjoyed making each one. And now I don’t have to buy them.

Since quitting my desk job, I actually have been really busy. But “busy” is all relative. In general, I just have more time available to me now, and it’s really nice.

I wrote up a quick post last night about how I tend to spend my time now, just running through a typical Monday, for example, and I’ll post that later in the week. But writing it made me really take a close look at how often I’m able to fit the things that are really important to me into each day. Sure, it’s still sometimes challenging to get everything done, but it’s infinitely easier than it was when I spent 11 hours of every day (9 office hours and 2 commuting hours) working for someone else.

I was able to sit on my couch on Sunday night – NOT so exhausted from a weekend of trying to fit everything in that I felt drained, NOT dreading waking up and going to work the next morning – and make a dozen or so holiday cards with a bunch of markers, stickers and crayons. Doing stuff like this is a lovely new part of my lifestyle.

When we cleaned the apartment on Sunday, I ended up emptying out an old (cherished) desk that now sits in our bedroom. It was being used to store a bunch of crap, but I decided on Sunday to use the drawers to store Fanny & Jane shipping supplies (the new “Shipping Center,” as Kevin referred to it) so I had to either toss or reorganize the rest of the stuff that was in there.

It’s unreal how much JUNK lived in that desk that I haven’t used – or even thought about – for years. Old cell phones, old cords that belong to nothing, tons of packs of playing cards, modeling clay, a sewing pattern. (I do not sew). I had collected some random stuff. So I went through all of it and after I purged most of it, I found places to store the rest.

An old bathroom caddy (that now lives on a shelf in the newly arranged closet!) ended up being the perfect place to store a bunch of markers, crayons, and colored pencils that I found in that old desk but didn’t want to throw away. Never know when you’ll need to break out some craft supplies.

Sooo, I was sitting on my couch on Sunday night, patting myself on the back for all the healthy reorganization we’d done that day and then I remembered my new/old box of craft supplies. An hour later: holiday cards.

I’ve had a box of stickers for years and I’m not even sure where they came from. Maybe some office supply job I worked during a summer off from college? I love the little penguins.

I really wanted to use these pretty glitters, which I bought last year to write our names on our Christmas stockings, but I decided it would be a bit too messy to do while sitting on the couch.

Aren’t they pretty?

It was a fun and relaxing way to spend an evening.