Week 8, left it 'til late

Factors working against me:  In the middle of this week I had to catch a plane to the East Coast to visit my cousins in South Carolina.  So: 1. Packing for two weeks of winter outside California (luckily my mom gave me some hand-me-down Cuddl Duds to wear under my insufficiently warm warm clothing).  2. Travel time.  There is no way they'd let me pack many of my craft supplies in my carry-on, much less work with them on the plane.  3.  I was trying to get everyone's Christmas presents done ASAP, preferably in time for Christmas and without spoiling the secret.  4.  I spent most of the week hanging out with my family.  And, um, reading Twilight.  Because my mom got me started on it on the plane (it's all her fault, I swear!).
Factors working for me:  I already knew what I wanted to make.  And, um, that's about it.
Results:  FAILURE.  The Thing was begun at one minute to midnight Saturday (South Carolina time) and abandoned shortly thereafter because the felt I bought for it didn't work out.  So I have bought some polarfleece instead which looks like it will work better but I still don't have much to show.

Week 7 got turned up to eleven

Factors working against me: I wanted to take it to the Sacramento Steampunk Society Meetup on Wednesday, which meant I only had half a week.
Factors working for me:  I was pretty motivated to make the meetup cool since it was the first one and we wanted people to keep coming.
Results:  I made a letterhead for note-taking.  My dad saw it and asked me to do something similar to his sign-in chart, so I did that too.  I had everything printed up by 3:30 Wednesday morning, which makes this the earliest completion yet by far.
Bonus:  The Thing was actually just the note paper, so bonus #1 is the Guestbook pages.  Bonus #2 is something that occurred to me later in the day Wednesday after I woke up: a table sign to let people know where the Steampunks were, in case they couldn't tell by looking for people in costume.  Here's a photo of everything:

We ended up putting the sign in a fancy picture frame (which I had to glue because the back was falling off):

I'm also making some Christmas presents, so I haven't had time to finish the Things from weeks 5 and 6, which are racking up some SERIOUS overtime.

Week 6, cake mix

Factors working against me: I lost track of the days, not realizing how late in the week it was getting until Thursday (which I thought was Friday), then slept through most of the following day.
Factors working for me: Friday night, when I realized I still had a day to work and might actually be able to finish, I no longer felt it wouldn't make much difference if I put it off and got to work.  Thank goodness, because I would have had to implement a truly horrific punishment if I didn't START my Thing of the Week until the next week (hopefully I'll never actually be lazy enough to do that).
Results: FAILURE.  But I made a good start.  I'm still going to have to step it up if I don't want to be a month behind after the holidays.  This is a design I came up with a while ago for a wood bangle bracelet.  However, not having a key to the woodshop, or any wood of my own to work with, I'm making it out of a margarine tub.  This is what it looks like so far:

  (In case you were wondering, the cake is a lie.  I only put that as the title because it was suggested by RhymeZone.)

Week 5, I'm still alive!

No, I haven't forgotten about Steampunk Thing of the Week, I've just been putting off posting.

Factors working against me: It's Thanksgiving week, so my brothers (and my brother's girlfriend) came home from college Wednesday and I spent most of the week hanging out with them.  The first half of the week my mom kept me busy cleaning house in preparation.
Factors working for me:  I had loads of new craft supplies to work with, and I found an inspiring photo early on that was perfect for some of them.  Which means I didn't have to spend much time figuring out what to do.
Results: FAILURE.  It's actually almost finished, it just needs some tweaking to make it hang right.  Here's my inspiration, found in an Avon catalogue:

And here's the one I made:

Week 4 - is there more?

Factors working against me: I had to finish last week's Thing before working on this week's.  Since that took almost six days (okay, I wasn't working on it that whole time.  I went on a shopping spree on Sunday and then I had a kajillion new craft supplies to organize), I basically only had Friday night and Saturday.  And Saturday was my mom's birthday.
Factors working for me: I'd been craving snickerdoodles every night but decided if I was going to make them, I should make them Friday night so my mom would have birthday cookies.  And half the fun of making snickerdoodles is doing fun shapes (the other half is snitching the raw dough, which is not recommended because it contains eggs, but it tastes so good it's impossible to resist).
Results:

One gear-shaped cookie.  (I did try to make another one, but it didn't work.)  Admittedly it's a bit of a cop-out, but at least I finished on time.  Also, it was delicious.  Here's the entire batch:

Here's a closeup of some special birthday shapes.  There's a cake, a candle, and the number 53.

You can also see a crescent moon, a square, and an upside-down heart.

Week 3. . . finally.

I finished last week's Thing only 142 HOURS into overtime! Yay! That punishment is gonna be a doozy (whatever that is). Anyway, here is a photo:

It didn't come out as cool as I'd hoped, but I am SO DONE messing with it.  So yeah, it'll probably go up for sale on etsy eventually, but right now I have to scramble in order to get this week's Thing done in time and get ready for my mom's birthday tomorrow.

Week 3, woe is me

Factors working against me: 1. My own apathy.  I kept putting it off.  2. I was unexpectedly dragged along to a play Saturday night.  3.  When it came to a choice between working on my Steampunk Thing or sleeping, I chose to sleep.
Factors working for me: My parents finally decided to turn on the heat, so at least I didn't freeze this week.
Results: FAILURE.  As of Saturday midnight, this week's Thing of the Week was unfinished.

I think I ought to institute a punishment for every hour past the deadline (something that doesn't take too much time away from the next week's Thing).  Any suggestions?