2014 Crafting Recap

2014 may have been a quiet year on the craft blogging front, as I became rather distracted with Doing A Thing, but here's a recap of some of my posts from the past year...

Vintage Measuring Tape Belt

Made using an old measuring tape, a buckle, eyelets and glue.

Paper Sticks of Rock / Beach-Themed Party Favours
Made from paper, card and cellophane.

Easiest Christmas Pine Cone Ornaments
Made with pine cones, pins and ribbon

Wire-Wrapped Beaded Leather Bracelets
Made with leather cord, wire, beads and basic findings
A project to use up some accidentally-bought leather cord.

Pearl & Leather Wrap Bracelet
Made with leather cord, faux pearls, and basic findings.

Cord & Chain Necklace
Made with cord, chain, beads, embroidery thread and basic findings

Upcycled Festive Heart Decorations
Made with an old pillow case, pillow stuffing and embroidery thread

Charity Christmas Window Display
Created from donated, handmade and recycled/upcycled items!

 Well, that's probably about it for this year. I'll post more leather cord crafts as I make them, and some others along the way. Until then, seasons greetings to you all. :)

Folk Tales of the Sea People

Over at Doing A Thing, I've been sharing a writing and painting project, Folk Tales of the Sea People. Since it's a creative endeavour, I realised, "Why haven't I written about it on Unfortunately Oh?"

What is Folk Tales of the Sea People?
An illustrated collection of Grimm-style fairy stories, presented as though collected from people of the sea by Cadogan Browne, a fictitious explorer of yester-year.

What mythical creatures are in the stories?
Mermaids, Siren, Selkie, Nereids, and more. I borrowed from the folklore of various different countries.

Which age group are the stories suitable for?
It depends on the story. Some, like Yam and the Octopus, are suitable for younger children; others are more suited to older children, teens, young adults and adults.

The Stories:

Preface and Introduction
In which a modern-day professor comments on the fact science has proved that mermaids to not exist, and Cadogan Browne introduces his compilation with insistence that they do.

Halwyn, or A Pinch of Salt
A tale of Selkie-folk in a saltless sea, set upon by a terrible creature--and what they do to defeat him.

A Havsrå's Fortune
The tale of a lonely Havsrå, who has the gift of seeing the future, but is cursed that Human men shall never remember her face.

Yam and the Octopus
A simple story about a nosy boy, and a grumpy octopus.

Golden Scales
In which Glyndwr the Vain learns not to be vain, through rather awful means. (Do note the warning at the beginning of this one.)

The Clam Keeper and the Sailor
A story about a Siren and a Human, who meet on the surface of the sea.

A Pearl For Your Daughter
A cautionary tale about a spoilt young Mermaid.

There are further stories to come, including that of a sea monster, a strange gentleman, sunken treasure, draugs and more. I'll post them all on Doing A Thing, so please follow there to see future posts.
Meanwhile, to see all the stories together, use the Folk Tales of the Sea People tag :)


Well, that's it for now. Sorry my posts here have been so few and far between, and so lacking in tutorials. I've not been particularly crafty recently, and when I have been, my crafting has been things that are fairly obvious (like shortening a skirt). So I've nothing to share!
Still, I'm grateful to everyone who takes a moment to read my posts, and hope you continue to enjoy them. :)

Bloglovin'

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Don't forget I run another blog, Doing A Thing, where I post about goals created and completed from a 101/1001 list!

Semi-Hiatus

After posting here frequently and running regular weekly features, you might have noticed a lack of posts over the past couple of weeks.

Basically, I ran out of scheduled posts. For a while I've been making several in advance and setting them up to post at regular intervals. The last lot I set up was at the end of October, with the intention of having enough to see me through November, because I would be busy with National Novel Writing Month.

But along came December, my motivation didn't come back, and this blog fell by the wayside.

I'm not sure if I'll bring back regular features like Pinning Inspiration or Marvellous Monday.
Honestly, I don't like the way Pinterest widgets look now and because of the change in them, my older posts are now imageless!
I know that I could simply save the images, reupload here, and link to the source, but the whole point of Pinning Inspiration is that, should you feel inspired, you can repin directly from this blog, rather than having to go elsewhere. So in a way, those widgets have to stay.

Complaints aside, I am entirely unmotivated, tired and uninspired at the moment. I have some ideas for projects to share on here, but no energy or motivation for doing them.

That being said, I have a post coming up about Wardrobe Revolution, so watch this space.

Might also post some of my design1o1 stuff here, though I created a tumblr for that.

Hopefully regular posting will resume in the new year. Maybe I just need a little break.

Au Revoir

These kind of posts are popping up everywhere so I'll make it brief:

• Google Reader is shutting down on 1st July. Boo!
• If you haven't already, you'll need to change how you follow blogs.
• I've jumped on The Old Reader bandwagon (I just imported my Google Reader subscriptions, easy!)
• ...but keep seeing the name Bloglovin' bandied about too!

This was your brief and friendly reminder that Google Reader is Shutting Down on July 1st. Boooooo.

(Thanks Samatha for pointing out my massive error!)

Happy Holidays

I don't know if I'll update here again before the start of 2013, so here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thank you to all of those that follow and/or have stopped by, pinned, commented, and shared links to my posts. You've given me the motivation to keep this blog going! 

Spam Strikes Again!

After somewhat reluctantly deciding to enable word verification on comments, what should pop into my inbox this morning?

This:

Ugh!

Are genuine human beings taking the time to post these comments?!

Or have the spambots got smarter when it comes to getting around word verification?!

Bah.


Now I am considering whether or not to disable word verification again.


This post was brought to you by Procrastinating on NaNoWriMo Novel. I think I'm writing the next War and Peace

Changes to Commenting

Just recently I've had an influx of spam comments on this blog!

I'd already changed the settings to prevent anonymous commenting - which eradicated a small spam problem I'd had in the past - but lately those spam bots have got cleverer. Bah.

So for now, I've enabled word verification.

I'm sorry that all you real people that read and comment will have to fill out the word verification as I know they're a total pain in the bum! Word verifications on comment forms annoy me but spam is equally annoying and a lot of those spam comments include links to websites that could contain potentially harmful content.

So I apologise for this massive inconvenience!

Have a picture of a disgruntled cat as consolation.

Riley does not like spam either.

Followers and Frenzy!

I popped onto the blog to write about Script Frenzy, but just discovered that Unfortunately Oh now has 100 followers! Hurrah!
I started this blog at the end of 2010, thinking it would be awesome even if I got ten followers, so for the blog to have grown and gained a hundred followers makes me really happy!

Thank you to all of you! Without your readership and kind comments, this blog couldn't have got this far. :)


With regards Script Frenzy, I am now at 79 pages!
I've had a couple of days - like today - where I've been unable to write anything, but with TV script formatting it's actually pretty easy to fill up a page. I had a little trouble at first, unsure of whether what I'm writing is funny, but am getting into the swing of it now.
21 pages to go and I'll have hit the 100-page target. I know how I'm going to end Act II, and what's going to happen in the tag--it's just a case of filling in the gaps in-between with things that will make people laugh.
Here's hoping I can bash out a few more pages tomorrow!