Day 14: Total Waste or Using Waste in Haste? You decide!

Today was a full day.  I spent some time with a friend, helping out, and just resting there so I didn't have to be alone at home today.  I think it is funny how we, as people, find it pretty easy to extend a helping hand to those we love and even to those we don't know in charity, but it seems nearly impossible to ask for help when it is needed...even if it is little help, like company, or spirit, or crock pot meal, or a ride, or an errand, or whatever.  When Robert and I lived in Pittsburgh, before moving back here to Minnesota, we lived near his aunt and uncle.  They were wonderful people who I still miss very often.  When they needed to move a headboard from the upstairs bedroom to the basement (it was heavy, and had to be taken out the window, lowered by a rope, and brought in through the bottom entrance), they called us, and we helped.  When we moved into our first house, they came (along with Robert's parents from halfway around the world) to help us move, and paint most of the rooms in our new home.  None of us thought anything of it, and it was more fun to do it all together than to strip wallpaper or install flooring alone.  At any rate, we commonly agree that it takes a village to raise children, but we don't extend the same relationships toward remaining healthy and happy and joy-filled adults too.  I think we should, and I am personally going to work on asking for help more and spending what energy I have investing in my friends and family.

Now that that is off of my brain, onto crafting for the day.  I started this little project about 9:00, as I was finishing up going through some crafting magazines and catalogs that I had saved.  I like to take these sorts of things, cut out pictures of great ideas or projects, and then I glue them into "idea" books that I look through later when I get stumped with creativity.  I then recycle the magazines and don't give the rejected ideas another thought.  Today, I took a pre-Christmas advertisement from Archiver's and cut the booklet into strips (the whole thing was cut easily into as stack using my running cutter thing....a Fiskars product, I think) and I then had a quick pile of all the same size strips.  They made quick and colorful paper beads.  I will make more here and there, and then string a collection of them together.  I made some straight strips which just made logs that weren't very interesting, but the triangular strips were cool.  I am sure there are other variations which could add interest as well.  I sealed them with diamond glaze around little toothpicks.  Easy, but now my fingers are caked with diamond glaze as well.  Now tonight, before I go to bed, I am going to flip through my idea books and see if I can't get some fresh inspiration for tomorrow's project.

So, paper beads.....total waste or hastily used waste?  Cute and quick.....but still fitting in a little time for just me in this joy-filled day.