For a Girl's BFF

I'm not an especially girly girl. While I like doing crafty things and cooking, and I try to look nice, the fact of the matter is that I didn't start wearing makeup until I was almost 24. And doing hair? hahahaha, I'm lucky if I can use a curling iron wihtout burning myself. It's only fitting then, that my BFF (not my husband) is also not a girly girl. In fact, she's even less-so than I am. She's very athletic and quite the tomboy. I saw that out od admiration, not to make her look weird or anything. She knows it and embraces it. Which is part of the reason why I love her so much. We were "next door neighbors" in the dorms so when I discovered my 1st semester roommate NEVER showered, I would often go next door and hang out with her. It was a haven for me. Through the college years we never got to live together, but we would hang out regularly and I always admired her. She was smart, awesome, quirky (in a good way) and knew she was her own woman. Yeah, I'm gushing. I can't help it.

Fast forward a few years and it's her birthday and I now have Pinterest in my life. When I saw this pin I got uber excited. KitKat (as I call her) is quite the baseball/softball fan. So I knew I wanted to make this for her birthday gift.

 

Because I am clumsy and not very familiar with baseballs (as Kaycee will attest from our little league days) I just bought the cheapest one I could find (since I would be taking it apart essentially). Bad idea. The ball ended up being a weird plasticy/foamy material. Other than that, I think this craft is pretty good. Here's what I did:

I was stuck at church while J had a meeting so I got out my ball and X-acto knife. It worked like a charm.

Within about 3 minutes I had the ball cut apart appropriately.

I cut the form apart and measured it around my wrist and then cut it to size. I think I cut it too large because it's loose on my wrist and KitKat's thinner than I am. But essentially I loosened the knots and cut off some of the white so that it would be tied.

And yeah, it's a bit too loose. I think I may either cut it smaller and/or go get a better, LEATHER baseball so that it looks nicer.

So is this pin worth it? Heck yeah! I think it's awesome! And for the cost of a baseball? Why not do it for the baseball/softball lover in your life? Oh, and even though she probably doesn't read this: Happy Birthday KitKat!

Happy Valentine's Day

I've recently picked up a new favorite hobby. While I love crocheting, it has now been paired with embroidery. I'm not talking cross-stitch. That's boring. I'm talking "Make it look like whatever you want" embroidery. My favorite website for all-things embroidery is Shiny Happy World with Wendi Gratz. That woman knows her stuff and is an EXCELLENT teacher. I've been learning stitches and how to do all kinds of things and decided I wanted to make something for my husband. But what do you make a guy? More importantly, what can you make him that is embroidered and not lame?

Well, one of the things I love about Wendi is that she creates the templates of what she embroiders and transfers them to fabric in a variety of ways. Most commonly I use the heat transfer pencil method. I draw what I want, flip the plain white paper over and follow the outline on the back. Next you iron the paper onto whatever fabric you want to use. Lastly, you go to town with your needle and thread. Here's what I did.

You can kind of see the marks left from the heat transfer pencil- it's pink.

The almost finished product. I used several different stitches which I love. The one I used on the clouds and sun is my favorite.

Framed. For the record, what it says (in French) is "I love your butt, Valentine". Yes, we're classy. But luckily we both speak French fluently so we can mask it from most people.

Here's a sneak peek of my St. Patrick's day creation...

This was inspired by a video pin that I have. If you want to pick up a fun new hobby, I recommend embroidery. And if you're brand new, I recommend watching all of Wendi's tutorials. She makes it easy peasy to pick up.

52 Things I Love About...

Valentine's Day has gotten me in a very crafty mood. I've made two things for my Valentine and plan on making some lovey-themed items for our abode. One of the gifts I made is based off of the pin I'm sure everyone has seen where you take a deck of cards and list 52 things you love about the person. This is my attempt.

I punched holes in all of the cards

Using my favorite new paper punch (a huge heart shape) I cut out the appropriate number of hearts using a thick cream colored cardstock

Glue cardstock to cards

Because the hearts were pretty large I rotated their positions and such. Some covered holes, some didn't.

I cleaned up the ones that covered holes so that my three rings could go through easily

Arrange them however you choose. I chose to alternate red and black, but you could easily go by suites or numbers or what have you.

I free-handed a shape to use on the cover card which was also one of the spare joker cards. I traced the number and used my stamps for the letters. I never said I was good at stamping. But at the same time, I kind of ike the funky look of this.

Added my little tag to the back. Oh, and S'ghettis is Justin's nickname from me. Nothing weird. I just used to say "Ready sghettis?" a lot and it morphed into his nickname.

Finally, after adding the rings and such,  I began added the reasons why I love him. As wrong as it sounds, this was the hardest part... There are only so many ways you can say "I love your butt." 

And there you have it. It's a little time consuming, but once you get started it goes by pretty quickly and it's a personal and fun gift that I think would work well for anyone at any time. Who doesn't like knowing they are loved and why people love them? One recommendation I would make is to buy a large deck of cards. Not that this deck was an issue, but if you don't want to worry about the positions of the hearts and having to go back and hole punch again, just buy a bigger deck. I recommend it since the only thing I had to buy was the deck of cards ($1).  Here is the pin I was going off of.