One aspect of my new year’s resolution is to live out my “Making Something of It” mantra. Like many North Americans, the nooks and crannies of my home are brimming with odds and ends – the perfect starting place for someone who enjoys making things. My first task: making something of all my leftover yarn.

Confession: I have two boxes (like the one pictured here) filled with balls of yarn. Some I have hoarded for years, but some came from my mother’s attic. She’s generous and good at feeding my craft habit, so when we were together for the holidays and she heard my plans to use up yarn, she was delighted to lighten her own load.

Right now my plan is to make crocheted gift bags. I gave a number of these at Christmas, filled with a variety of treats – from lip balm to gift cards, jewelry to handmade gift tags. It was a great way to dress up an otherwise token gift and fun to match each person’s personality with the color and size and style I created. I’ll donate some the new bags I make to a church craft bazaar later this year, use some for gift giving throughout 2013, and maybe put a few on Etsy, just to see what that’s like.

As always, for me, the joy comes in transforming something “left over” into something useful. There is sense of wholeness that comes with making something, especially when the creation involves items that might otherwise have been discarded. It counteracts some of the un-making in my world, evening out my ledger, edging me back into the black, despite all the debits and deficits the world throws at me.

It’s what I preach to my children (and what I should say more often to myself):  Do what you can with what you have. It’s never too late to turn something around – your mood, your day, your project, your path. Mark my words: 2013 is the year I’m making something of it and yarn is just the first in a long list of its.