OK, here’s a post from my now-closed previous personal blog. It’s for a worthy cause so I wanted to repeat it here. The Snuggles Project is an effort to create ’snuggles’ for pets in animal shelters. I became involved last year due to my developing fondness for Kiki the Wonder Dog, and so have made 3 of these to date for a local shelter. A snuggle is a little blanket/quilt thing that you make and the animals can snuggle with it instead of sleeping on the cold cement floors found at most animal shelters. Because of this, the animals tend to be more at ease, which makes potential adopters more at ease and so adoption rates increase. 

If you have any sewing talent, or even if not, check out the site and make a snuggle for a pet today!

Looking at all of the wonderful sellers on Etsy, I often remember fondly some of the other crafts I’ve worked on in the past. While I’m not about to bore everyone by discussing them all here, one in particular stands out to me, simply because it shows how long I’ve been obsessed with cherry blossoms!

Keith’s Craftworks Products Circa 2006

As you can see, I used to be in the soap and lotion business under my second shop name, Keith’s Craftworks (Mindless Pursuits was just a personal blog back then). I was obsessed with differing scents and loved making everything from lotions to shampoos to body washes. Experimenting with scents was a lot of fun, but what I enjoyed most was playing around with packaging design. Considering I have a background in graphic design/publishing and am an artist, this should be of no surprise to anyone!

My favorite scent, however as well as my favorite package, was the ‘Cherry Blossom Festival’ line.It smelled wonderful and I loved the stock photography that I found to use as the background. I still use that background on my PC today as an occasional wallpaper! I’m currently working on making a cherry blossom logo to be my brand, but we’ll talk about that in a future post. For now, I just thought some might find a quick glimpse of my crafting past to be of interest!

 Places, everybody! Places! Welcome to Fantasy… wait….wrong location! Welcome to Mindless Pursuits, the official blog of Keith, your humble host and arts and craft fanatic! I am pleased that you have decided to stop by and check out my new blog. That’s correct: I said ‘new’ as I have a previously existing blog that covers all sorts of facets of my life, and not just crafting. That said, my more personal blog tends to be all over the board as to topics and content and I wanted to have a blog that had a tighter focus on just the art and crafting elements of my life. Thus, this Mindless Pursuits blog was born!

In this blog, I am planning to discuss the projects I’ve completed, the projects I’m working on, how my approach towards project ideation and construction occurs for different craft types, and try to provide insight into different techniques and approaches. I am also hoping to provide the occasional view into the lives of my fellow artists and crafters and to provide insight for fledgling entrepreneurs into how to market and sell their creations through my own experiences as I move forward. Mostly though, I hope to provide some fun, entertaining and interesting commentary of the arts and crafts I so deeply love and enjoy working on!

 So how about some quick facts on the handsome guy pictured above? I am 39 years old and the very proud father of two little girls, ages 6 and 9. I’m single and live with my 4-year-old cat Lexi in an apartment in the ever-changing seasonality of Minnesota in the United States of America. While I wish painting and crafting could be my full-time job, I’m far too new at it and so I spend my days working in information technology as a technology architect for a large national retailer.

What artistic endeavors do I undertake? I love to paint. Mostly flowers as they make me happy but I also love to work on landscapes and am occasionally returning to my roots as an abstract painter though I choose not to share much of those creations publicly. I sew and love to make everything from costumes to formal-wear to accessories. I also cross-stitch, crewel embroidery, paint enamels on glass, pottery (though I have no kiln to fire anything in), wood-burning, scrapbooking and knitting! I love to learn new creative skills and so am continually trying to expand my repertoire!

I hope that provides a good introduction to me and where I am planning to take this blog. I plan to update often, so keep an eye on this space!

Welcome to Mindless Pursuits, the official blog of Keith, your humble host and arts and craft fanatic! I am pleased that you have decided to stop by and check out my new blog. That’s correct: I said ‘new’ as I have a previously existing blog that covers all sorts of facets of my life, and not just crafting. That said, my more personal blog tends to be all over the board as to topics and content and I wanted to have a blog that had a tighter focus on just the art and crafting elements of my life. Thus, this Mindless Pursuits blog was born!

In this blog, I am planning to discuss the projects I’ve completed, the projects I’m working on, how my approach towards project ideation and construction occurs for different craft types, and try to provide insight into different techniques and approaches. I am also hoping to provide the occasional view into the lives of my fellow artists and crafters and to provide insight for fledgling entrepreneurs into how to market and sell their creations through my own experiences as I move forward. Mostly though, I hope to provide some fun, entertaining and interesting commentary of the arts and crafts I so deeply love and enjoy working on!

 So how about some quick facts on the handsome guy pictured above? I am 39 years old and the very proud father of two little girls, ages 6 and 9. I’m single and live with my 4-year-old cat Lexi in an apartment in the ever-changing seasonality of Minnesota in the United States of America. While I wish painting and crafting could be my full-time job, I’m far too new at it and so I spend my days working in information technology as a technology architect for a large national retailer.

What artistic endeavors do I undertake? I love to paint. Mostly flowers as they make me happy but I also love to work on landscapes and am occasionally returning to my roots as an abstract painter though I choose not to share much of those creations publicly. I sew and love to make everything from costumes to formal-wear to accessories. I also cross-stitch, crewel embroidery, paint enamels on glass, pottery (though I have no kiln to fire anything in), wood-burning, scrapbooking and knitting! I love to learn new creative skills and so am continually trying to expand my repertoire!