I practice my hobbies on saturdays…

Saturdays are my ‘relax’ day. I absolutely love Saturdays. I know this sounds terrible, but I’ve become a fan of doing absolutely nothing.

My week is filled with go, go, go moments, and honestly, I’m not left with much fuel in my tank. This past week I had been particularly stressed; my husband made me promise that when the weekend rolled around I would take some time to myself.

I have to admit: I’m like a two year old child. There’s no way I can sit for hours doing the same thing. I start multiple projects and jump around trying to complete them throughout the day. I love it.

This week I had to challenge myself to do something I really enjoy doing. It’s what the hubs wanted. It’s what I NEEDED. The laundry was to remain unfolded, the dishes dirty, and the floor not vacuumed. After all, dirt can wait until Monday right?

So what did I do with my Saturday?

Right off the bat I pulled out the ‘domestic’ card. I made a craft.

It was a good friend’s birthday party Sunday (ehem…today), and I wanted to make my gift/card personal. I honestly am not sure if I could even find English birthday cards around here. Probably could, with some weird phrase that makes no grammatical sense.

I decided to hand make a birthday card. I honestly cannot tell you were I pulled the inspiration from, probably multiple over-the-top crafting projects I’ve seen on the ‘black hole’ we ladies lovingly call Pinterest.

Luckily we have a couple of great craft stores around here. They are nothing like the good ol’ craft stores back home (Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Joann’s); what I would GIVE to go shop just one time in a store like that! Here, you can find your basic papers, felts, threads (sadly not embroidery…I had to quadruple how many threads I used to get the effect I wanted), pens, inks, and paint, and party favors. Not much to work with, but I make due.

To make my cute little card I used felt, thread, and glue. Yes, cuteness can come cheap! I guess if we factor in the manual labor hours it could get a little spendy.

I drew out the basic pattern lightly on the card with a pencil to get the concept of what I wanted. I was a little fearful that it’d turn out looking like a kindergartner had a little too much fun playing in Mama’s sewing box…but it actually came out pretty cute!

After the ‘smashing success’ with the card-making, I decided to play with my camera for a little bit. I’ve been challenging myself to use it every weekend. The more I play around with it, the cooler it gets…and the more I learn! This week’s challenge? Self-portrait photography.

Before you think I’ve gone nuts…hear me out. Saturday the lighting was perfectly shining in my (absolutely freezing) somewhat-outside balcony. The only thing separating me from the 29 degree weather were four huge windows. These windows were letting in the most beautiful morning light.

Being a woman that seizes every opportunity (ok…maybe just select opportunities…) I decided that I would take the time to dabble in portrait photography, using my amazing…and somewhat impromptu photo studio.

The only problem? I didn’t have a subject. Derik was gone for a few hours, and it WAS only 10:00am. Not even the best of friends would be crazy enough to just walk on over for a quick photo shoot at that hour on a Saturday morning.

That’s when I thought of using myself. My only wish is that I had my ‘photo shoot’ on video. How comedic would it be to watch someone go back and forth, from the back of the camera to the front of the camera…etc, etc. The tricky part was getting the focus right. I did it all manually, and didn’t have a subject to test it out on. It was trial and error trying to get the focus on the right area. Eventually I found ‘the spot’ and was able to take a few pics.

Overall, I’m genuinely happy with the result. I thank the ‘natural light’ for the way these turned out.

What do you do on Saturdays?