Twelve Days of Crafting

I have a plan. A challenge for myself that involves some hard work and commitment on my part, but with enough effort I think it will be very gratifying. Adam and I moved in together in January, and this is my first year living away from home (i.e. not under the roof of my mother or grandparents, i.e. being a real live grown up). The thing about having your own place is, you have to start from scratch because the things you always took for granted aren't there from the start. Things like furniture, dishes, appliances, towels, and of course, holiday decorations. I know, shocking, right? You mean my new townhouse doesn't come fully stocked with this crap? Well we pretty much covered the furniture, dishes, appliances and towels in the first couple of weeks, but what we don't have are Christmas things. You know, the things that are supposed to magically appear from a cardboard box in my grandparents' basement? We have no ornaments, garlands, knickknacks, stockings, baubles, tchotkes, or thingamajigs. No doodads! No whatchamacallits! So what's a holiday cheer deprived homemaker to do? Run to K-Mart and fill a cart or two with the entire Martha Stewart holiday collection? I think not my dear friends! It's time to get crafty! So here is my decoration crafting to-do list.

50 ornaments and a tree topper
3 stockings
1 wreath
4 placemats & coasters
2 throw pillows
1 advent calendar + 24 thingamajigs and/or doodads to go in it
an undecided number of soft trees
1 tree skirt

And probably a couple of other odds and ends that I forgot. And I didn't forget about my Handmade Pledge this year, so along with buying a few things from Etsy I am making something for everyone on my list, adding up to about 15-20 individual items, give or take. Doesn't sound too daunting when I have almost a month to get it done, but that's where the challenge comes in. I'm going to do this in 12 days.

Why 12, you ask? Well I don't have any logical explanation other than the fact that I was listening to The Twelve Days of Christmas when I thought of this, and it seemed like a good number that would be challenging but doable. Oh and I'm a masochist.

So starting tomorrow, for the next 12 days I'll be sharing my progress on my blog and probably venting many frustrations and "Why am I doing this to myself?!"s along the way. I'm glad I have this blog because posting about it will help keep me on track. There's a certain accountability that comes with challenging yourself publicly. It's one thing to just set a personal goal for yourself and forget about it, but when you make it public you're more driven to follow through. I think this will be a lot of fun in a frequently stressful, oh-lord-what-was-I-thinking sort of way, so I'll be checking in tomorrow as soon as I finish my first project.

P.S. Before I forget (well, I did forget, and came back to edit this in) I wanted to share this idea I found on Craftster with you all because I think it's so adorable and easy to do if you don't have a lot of time (or crafty skills) this holiday season. It's a photo advent calendar with family pictures behind each numbered window. You can just print out the PDF and add your photos and presto! Instant cuteness.