Happenstance

I was not aware of just how POPULAR tie dying has become during quarantine! I have several times in the past tie dyed clothes to see if I could do something fun with a shirt that had become a dingy white or a piece of clothing I was no longer wearing because I was bored with it. In the past, this has been a pretty haphazard process with whatever Rit Dye I had around the house (I like dying clothes, so I often have a lot lying around).  I've never gone to summer camp or attended any sweet teenage sleepover tie dye parties (that a thing, I'm sure of it), so mostly I historically bunched up articles of clothing put rubber bands on them and dumped them into a single dye color. Results have greatly varied. However, this time I really wanted to do it right! Daycare stained the tie dye shirt they made with my son last year, one of his favorites, and I wanted to make him a new one with lots of vibrant colors. So I bought a kit online by Tulip for about $20. I recently have seen that ...

Something that always meant a lot to me growing up, and I'm not really sure why, was the homemade  Bucilla Christmas Stockings my mom made for each of us. When Mark and I first started dating, I thought it was time to make one for each of us to hang in our  home.  I even made some for our animals! So once I found out we were having a baby, I knew he would have to have a stocking for his first Christmas. I even went to far as to make new stockings for me and Mark.  We celebrate Christmas at my families home and this means our stocking used to be stored there. Since I wanted some for our home the snowflake ones and our animal ones will stay at our home to start new traditions. Then Mark and my new stockings will be kept at my mom's house and we will use the stocking I grew up with as our sons, when we're celebrating at her house. I already changed the name on my old stocking to his, it was pretty important to me to get it done before his first Christmas.

Mark loved Calvin and Hobbes  growing up (and I'm quite fond of it as well), so I felt the need to make our son a Hobbes of his own. I imagine them getting into so many adventures together. 

It's been a long time since I wrote anything on here. I went trough a lack of personal time and lull in creativity when I started a very stressful and time intensive position as an Event Coordinator. However, I recently find myself with more time on my hands, renewed desire to create, and very unexpected baby boy on the way. Honestly, after a miscarriage, several long discussions with Mark, and just getting older, I was becoming more OK with the idea of not having children. Not to mention, for some reason, I never considered that our child wouldn't be a girl. It's funny how life works out. I have not been enjoying pregnancy... and I still have the entire 3rd trimester and labor to look forward to. It's mostly been a lot of vomiting in the beginning, difficult body changes, headaches, emotions, construction, expense, stress, worry, insomnia, and recently symphysis pubis dysfunction & gestational diabetes. Yet, knowing he is healthy and feeling him move around, is p...

A friend asked me to crochet their kid a Leonardo Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I watched to so much TMNT as a kid and honestly still love them. So I was geeked to use the pattern they provided and start on Leo. This was so much fun and really pretty easy to make, I think I'm going to make the whole gang for myself!

Mark and I went to a craft date night at the Lansing Makers Network for Valentines Day this year. Honestly, it's easily one of the funnest things we've done for Valentines Day.  I haven't made jewelry since I was in High School and I honestly forgot how much fun it could be.  Mark made me a pendant. We were given the opportunity to design a pattern to sandblast onto glasses and then got to actually use a sandblaster to customize our glasses. I loved it! I've soldered when making jewelry, but this was the first time I got a chance to do it while making something electronic. I would absolutely do this again. I really could not recommend this more highly! I would do this every year!

A friend asked me to crochet her daughter a Supergirl doll based on the new Super Hero High School  series. I was super (see what I did there) excited to work on this and decided to make my favorite, Wonder Woman, as well! Obviously, I made Wonder Woman a bit my own - but I think Supergirl turned out pretty spot on. I used the patterns I bought from 53Stitches on Esty as the base of my designs and then altered the clothing and hair to what I wanted.  I don't like the look of bead eyes or giving gifts to children that might choke them (albeit the younger variety), so I generally make my eyes and other facial features out of felt, pen, and/or darning yarn. 

For our second wedding anniversary (cotton), I made Mark a t-shirt quilt out of all the Old Chicago Beer Tour shirts we collected over our years together.  I followed some simple instructions  and felt it turned out pretty well! Some of the difficulties I faced while making this had to do with the shirts' patterns not all being placed in exactly the same place or being all the same size. Other than that, really the most important thing was getting all the interfacing on so that the shirts didn't stretch oddly at any point in future use. 

While Mark and I have been together since 2006, we decided to try to follow the traditional wedding gifts for each year's anniversary.  For our first anniversary I wrote Mark 100 love notes and folded them into origami.  I honestly went into this thinking the hardest part would be folding the paper into something resembling origami. But after about 10 notes, I realized it was impossible for me to write 100 meaningful love notes at one time. In all honesty, some of these are just funny and a few verging on gibberish. 

Looking back on the day of the wedding, there is almost nothing I would change. I was more stressed out (wanting everything to be perfect) than I would like to admit, but once the ceremony started I felt more relaxed. The video projector that was supposed to run a loop of pre-selected pictures did not work as intended... but I need to let that go.  Honestly, we heard from SEVERAL of the coordinators that we worked with at the hotel and zoo that our party was one of the easiest and most fun they had worked with. I'm sure they say that to everyone, but I'm not going to lie - I liked hearing it! Be forewarned, this is a long post! We were able to get ready and take pictures at the zoo before the ceremony, which worked out really well for us. People around the zoo were very accommodating of the bridal party and one little girl said I looked like a princess - so,  I'm free to adopt her at any time! The animal masks worked out spectacularly and were great bridal party gifts! T...