Red Light, Green Light

Once again, I feel like my goals with Scoutaroo are being put off by things outside of my control. As soon as I feel like I'm on a roll I get a hip check from life that knocks me out of play. I feel like I will never have a routine, like I will never achieve "normal," and every time I take two steps forward I'm pushed one step back.

A few weeks ago, it was a death in the family. This week, an emergency hospital visit. What will tomorrow bring? I can only hope for peace, no more tragedies or near-misses. I feel selfish for wishing that everyone would just stop having problems so I can just be left alone do my thing, and I am. The reality is that sacrifice and loss come with relationships of any kind, and I would be in far worse shape outside of those relationships.

But still, I'm tired of playing red light, green light with my life. My reaction in the past to resistance is to just give up, which is easier and less painful in the short run than all this stopping & starting, but I'm just as tired of the long string of unfinished projects that my life has been. I want this to end well, to succeed or to go down in flames. I want it bad. I just don't seem to have the patience to see it through.

I wish I could make Scoutaroo my top priority, and I feel like I'm failing at everything because I can't do that right now. But the truth is that my only responsibility is to God, my husband, my family and my friends, the PEOPLE in my life. I have to take care of them first. Then I will have my glory day in the hot sun.

♥ Ciara Kay

Zine: The Care & Keeping of Pet Rats

I made a little zine a couple weeks ago for a swap I hosted over on swap-bot.com! I think I'll make this into a series of zines about some of my favorite "exotic" pets and sell them as a bundle... definitely going to do one about hermit crabs, maybe one about betta fish, and probably one about leopard geckos or bearded dragons. I miss my menagerie!!

"The Making Of"

The finished mini-zine!

Going out into the world!

I also carved a stamp of my logo out of an extra eraser we had around. It turned out pretty good!

Incoming Mail

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I've received quite a few letters & swaps since I took these photos... I'll post them in the next batch! ;)

Finally I'm an official member of the Letter Writer's Alliance!

Awesome bundle of goodies from The Snail Mailer!

I just sent out a ton of mail so I'll be posting about that next week!

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In Snail Mail News: January 23 is National Handwriting Day, February is LetterMo, and if you join the LEP before February 1 you get a discounted rate! So much is happening in the Mail Universe!

In Life of Ciara News: I'm still looking for a job! Still waiting on that second interview... on Monday I'm going to submit my resume to a few cafes & bakeries downtown to see if I can get some backup plans rolling. Some Good News: we have a couple of leads on a place to live. The Bad News: we can't move in until February... Being a vagabond is not as fun as you'd think... Though, being on permanent vacation is not so bad.

via

I've been holding out on announcing this because I wanted to be sure I was going to stick with it, so here goes... I'm joining a Roller Derby team! I've taken "Dead Marsha" as my moniker and 379 as my number... ten points to anyone who gets the reference (without having been told by me previously, cheaters!!). Anyway, derby is WAY fun and I am loving it so far! I'm already able to practice with the rest of the team (though I'm pretty slow at some of the footwork drills, and I'm not as in shape as the rest of them) and I can't wait to have a job and money so I can buy my own awesome (purple!) gear.

You can definitely expect to see some derby-themed stationery in the future of Scoutaroo Paper Co.

-- Dead Marsha

Waterfalls and Envelopes

I wanted to share some photos of our recent hiking trip! Last Saturday we went on a 9-mile round trip hike to see the Feather Falls! I had never been before and enjoyed myself immensely (except for the last mile when every step made my feet feel like they were going to fall off, haha). The weather was perfect and the falls were spectacular. Here are a few of my favorite photos of the trail & the falls:

That's Jamie all the way at the top of the trail...

Feather Falls! 600 ft drop...

The Feather River

Over the Falls... we were standing inside a chain-link cage, else I never would have got that close!! Scary!

I also had a great New Year's Eve! This is one of my least favorite holidays, even though I like "starting over" and setting goals. I hate forcing myself to stay up, haha! If I had it my way I would be in asleep by ten and up at 5:30 every day. I'm such an old person. But we had the Twilight Zone marathon playing and enjoyed a few games and new memories with some good friends. We completely forgot to open the champagne at midnight, so my bestie Tanya and I had mimosas in the morning, haha.

As I've mentioned before I am SOOOO happy to have my craft stuff back... I made a few envelopes with my salvaged scraps and some washi tape. The Snail Mailer came up with a brilliantly simple form of envelope making... Just fold & tape! These little lovelies will be going out into the world very soon!

Magazine ad with washi flag embellishments & paper bag labels 

I love hand-drawn maps (the freebie ones are the best)! Sealed with washi, paper bag labels.

Old Calendar Illustration (Vera Bradley). This one I cut & glued into an envelope. Kraft paper labels, hand-drawn.

I have a few more things to share, but I'll save those for later!

-- Ciara Kay

New Year's Penpal Swap & Outgoing Mail

Woo, two posts in a row!

Fun Thing: I'm hosting a penpal swap over at Swap-Bot! The theme is goals for the New Year... if you like to set goals and New Year's Resolutions, and would like a new penpal who will help motivate & encourage you to accomplish those goals, go sign up!

Tomorrow is the deadline to sign up and there are quite a few already on the list. It should be fun! I've been thinking a lot about my goals for the last few weeks... I even made a zine of them, which I'll be sending along to my swap partner and sharing here on New Year's Day! Hopefully I'll spend as much time accomplishing my goals as I've spent planning my goals...

Good news! I got a job interview! It's next Thursday... I'm nervous. I haven't had to interview for a job in like three years. I'm a bit rusty. Anyway, the sooner I get a job, the sooner I can get Scoutaroo Paper Co. officially off the ground! I can't wait!!

Some housekeeping: I now have a Flickr and a Twitter and a Facebook for Scoutaroo... So, pick your poison.

Outgoing Mail

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As promised, some outgoing mail from December 11! As you can see, washi tape & experiments with lettering are my current choice in trends...

Old Beer carrier turned postcard to Derrick of I Still Write.

To a faithful penpal! That woman writes SO much... I don't know how she keeps up!

To a friend from home.

To a shut-in from our church who I like to send holiday cards to.

To another friend from home!

An intro letter to a new penpal (hopefully!)

Up Next: Some upcycled envies and another stationery preview!

-- Ciara Kay