Live.Laugh.Love.Create.

Oh, Heeeeey!!!  Is it me, or has it been forever since I have made a serious craft post?  I know, you are thinking, "Walking through your neighborhood is awesome.  I love trees, nature, bushes... but when can I see what you are working on?  What are you making?"  I understand fully.  I went through a dry spell that lasted about two weeks.  I didn't know what to do. 

I couldn't think of what to make and when I came up with ideas, I didn't know HOW to make it.  So then I went to Pinterest.  Oh goodness!  Pinterest is the Holy Land of Procrastinating, Bullshit, and complete Wasted Time. In the past week or so, I must have made 400 new pins, gotten 100+ new followers, and found hoards of ideas.  But did I make any of the awesome things I found?  Uh, no.  Not really.  Not at first!

Thankfully, I snapped out of it and went back to doing WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY!  I love to be creative. I can pour a day's worth of drama, confusion, exhaustion, disappointment, and unregulated energy into a project.... or projects.

So without further ado, this is what I have been making. Wait!! Please be advised that this is photo-heavy.  If your PC is old, rickety, and slow, come back when you have time for the pictures to load.  If you are impatient and not craft-passionate, you may not want to continue because you will get bored.  If you are extremely craft-passionate, RUN AWAY because this post is loaded with pictures AND links to the tutorials so you can make these things too. BOOM!  That just happened!  Have fun......

I found these bunnies here on Pinterest.  The link to the picture does not work, so there was no pattern.  I put a piece of tracing paper up to the computer screen and used that as a guide.  These are magnets for my Little Darling and Kiki to play with for Easter.  But I forgot that I made them, so they're just getting them today. Ha!  Still cute.  Still loads of fun.  And it gave me a great idea for some games to make in the future.



I saw this awesome tutorial on how to make lace crowns here on Pinterest.  The link is to a great tutorial in a blog, and it's so easy to follow!  So I decided to have a go.  I have to make some adjustments, but it was a quick and fun project.  I will likely make more for my Little Darling and Kiki to play dress up.



I made these for my Little Darling's Easter headband, which turned out AMAZING!  I was really happy with it, considering I had never made a cloth flower before.


The tutorial for the large flower can be found here. The smaller one was just a ribbon that I made into a flower and put an embellishment on. That was purely instinctual.  I had no idea it wouldn't look crazy. 


These are some flowers that I made from this tutorial. They are so easy!  I am going to try my hand at making my own buttons so that I have something to put in the centers of these flowers, so stay tuned for that.  Then, I am putting them on headbands. My Little Darling loves to accessorize with headbands!




And what would life be if I weren't HOOKING??  So, you know I had to try my hand at making a a crochet flower.  This tutorial was so easy.  The yellow flower is the first I made.  I used a fine, baby yarn and an H-8 hook.  I didn't realize that 39 petals would be that huuuuge! It's almost as big as my hand.  I have big man-hands!  The purple one is made with 24 petals and an H-8 hook, but the yarn isn't as fine.  It's not quite worsted weight, but heading in that direction.  The green one is 24 petals, G-7 hook and fine baby yarn.  That was so much information.  I just want to give you an idea of what to expect when you begin to create a flower that looks reasonably small from the pictures in the tutorials. 


As you can see, the flower lies better with more petals.  I am going to try this again this weekend with different hooks and yarns.  It's such  an easy pattern and really quick to make!

I have several other flower tutorials on my board.  I am not sure how it works, when you follow someone on Pinterest, but I think this is the link to my Pinterest profile.  You can follow the crafts board here with some flowers and other fun Makes. Flowers can also be found on my "Hair", and "Crochet Ideas" boards.  I know.  Spread out, but once you learn to make one, the concept is the same for all the projects.  Cut a circle, fold it, sew it.   Or you can just stop by to see what you might like and repin at your leisure.  I hope everyone gets out and tries at least one of these projects!  I love to see different spins on the same ideas, personally.

And what about a blanket??  Yea!  I got one of those going too!  Hahahaha!



I started this two years ago.  I made a handful of squares, with the plan of turning it into a twin-sized quilt for my Little Darling's bed.  I quickly realized that building a blanket that large out of these 4 inch squares wasn't something I would be able to do.  Last spring, I picked the project back up and started again, making more squares with plans to make a baby blanket for a friend.  I got distracted and forgot about it.  In the past few weeks, I have finished all the squares I need for a cute baby blanket.  I need to assemble it and throw a boarder on there.  Wish me luck!  I am in the home stretch.  Just need to cross the finish line.  Do you ever do that?  Start something, lose interest, repurpose, lose interest, finish it?! Now, I have NO purpose for finishing this blanket, other than it's full of spring colors and it brings me happiness to have all this color in my life.

In keeping with the Spring Spirit, I made some spring envies for my pen pals.  Ok, I LOVE LOVE LOVE snail mail!  I love it!  There is nothing better than getting a hand written note in the mail from someone far away.  It makes me feel special and loved.  I love meeting new people and sharing with them.  I also really get tired of seeing bills all the time.  Like, I get it, I owe you all money!  Jeez! 


If you ever find yourself wanting a template for an envelop, leave me a comment.  I have several templates that I can scan and email to you.  And if you want me to MAKE some for you, leave me a comment :-)  I just might!

And lastly, I just have to add an update on my adventure with transitioning from paper towels to cloth napkins.


Our spring colored set came in about two weeks ago.  I LOVE THEM!  First, I was disappointed about the grey, but then I looked outside this morning.  Although it's a perfectly sunshiney spring day right now, this morning it was gloomy and grey.  So I guess this napkin fits!

The transition has been simple.  I haven't bought paper towels in a month.  We have kitchen towels and rags for cleaning.  We have these for eating and small table spills during dinner.  We saved money and helped the environment.  And it was all so easy to do!!!  I highly recommend it!

Well, I have to get some dinner cooked.  I hope everyone has had a great week and has something fun planned for the weekend.  I love being lazy on the weekends, personally!  Let's find out just how lazy I can be!

Well, I found out last night that the Spring Back Your Body Challenge is actually coming to an end here soon.  For some reason, I thought it was for 12 weeks or something.  That's what happens when I am indecisive about jumping on a bandwagon. Maybe it was just 4 weeks.

This challenge is over for me regardless.  I genuinely enjoy being active.  I love to work out.  I love pushing my body to its limits, building muscle and endurance.  But I don't like being competitive when it comes to my body image.  I don't like feeling under pressure when it comes to working out, like I have deadlines and expectations to meet. 

When I was a kid, growing up, my father would always complain that I would only do what I wanted to.  I didn't do things I didn't want to.  There has to be some sort of personal investment, gain, enjoyment, or I wasn't having it!  Well, Daddy, NOTHING HAS CHANGED!

For about 9 days, my life was: 5am wake up, workout, 6-7:15 gym workout.  Walk at least 2-3 miles at some point in the afternoon with my Little Darling and Kiki.  Eat bland ass, low cal shit all day that left me HANGRY. And grumpily sit around all day because I was exhausted from working out, early rising, late nights, lack of food, and allergies.

Yea... No. In my Whitney Houston voice, "Aww, Hell-to-the-Naw!"

So last night, it all hit me.  Everything became overwhelming and I found myself praying, while on the toilet.  Yes, I am at peace in the bathroom, so that's when I pray, read, and check Instagram.  What can I say?  I'm a Busy Mama!!  Anyway, I prayed for guidance.  Although I saw noticeable changes physically in this past week, I was not feeling every happy.  And when I looked at my life, I realized that I am overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted, and irritable.  I had so little to show for how hard I was working.

Well, I think my prayer was answered in those quiet moments. I have been working hard, but only in one aspect of my life.  I have never been good with balance and creating serenity in the midst of chaos.  I have never been good at throwing a big change in the middle of my routine either.  Getting up before the sun for 2 hours of working out straight off the bat each day and trying to happily function was No Bueno!

My apartment looks like a chaotic, frantic war zone.  Nothing makes sense, as though a bomb exploded and threw everything all over.  I've got equally large piles of clean, dirty, and "to iron" clothes.  I have no clean dishes.  Yea. None.  You wanna eat?  Locate dish, wash, proceed.  In the process of trying to find time to be creative, I have turned our dining room into an explosion of the cluster-fuck variety with seventy-eleven craft happenings.......that just aren't really happening.  We don't eat there.  Hell, I haven't cooked anyway!  We have eaten out so much in the past week, which yes, completely undoes all my efforts in the gym.  But I am hot and tired by nightfall and I don't care anymore.

So today, after really praying about it, I chose to do ONLY things that I want to do and things that make me happy.

I woke up super early, 5am, still. But rather than working out, I took some time to pray and sketch.  I sipped some tea until I was awake enough to get some work done on projects that were hidden under mess.  Then, I woke up my Little Darling and we did some gardening.

 The Hubs and I try to grow our food as much as possible in the summer.  This year, we even tried our hand at making our own planter box, which is cheaper than buying a bunch of pots.

 We have spinach, broccoli, loads of strawberries and tomatoes, sweet peppers, parsley, cilantro, basil, kale and I got some cucumbers last night.

It's true... I shouldn't take pictures of myself, first thing in the morning...with no make up... before the sun is fully shining.  But, what the hell, right?  The gate is for squirrels and birds because we live near a tree and they chomp on our produce all summer!




Since we are not "For Serious" gardeners, so we bought gardening toys.  And they happen to work excellently!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Barbie Princess helped me to plant these cucumbers this morning!  And they are safe for my Little Darling to use as well.

After gardening, we had breakfast and started homeschool lessons.  I worked on cleaning.  I'm shocked at how much more energy I have, when I start an early morning with things that bring me peace of mind rather than a work out.


Then, we took a break and went to the local bakery.  We are friends with everyone who works there.  I am not sure if that's necessarily a good thing, but it is what it is.  They know us and we spend time talking, whenever we go, which I am afraid to admit is usually daily.  Without feeling bad about myself, I ate a giant cookie!  I couldn't eat the second one.  A week with hardly any sweets made that one cookie hard to handle, but I wanted it and I enjoyed it.

And then we just walked around, checking out what new nature has been sprouting in this late spring season.  I cannot wrap my head around the fact that May is quickly approaching and we can barely break the 50s in the mornings here.  The evenings are far more pleasant in temperature, but I am extremely grateful for the SUN and the NATURE regardless of the temp.

I love being outside.  I love witnessing the miracles of spring.  I mean, everything wilts, loses it's leaves, and freezes over each year.  It's a miracle to me that every spring we can be reassured that all this beauty returns.  I can't bring myself to ever take it for granted.

I love the leaves that are just now coming in on the trees...


I love the baby pine cones that are coming in.  For some reason, each spring I find a new reason to be amazed.  I have never noticed baby pinecones before.

 The flowers...  The unusual, tree flowers.  I love the ones that can only be enjoyed for some time before they all wilt away and we're left with nothing but leaves the most.  These flowers are beautiful here.

And lastly, I am excited to see the Evergreen trees rejuvenating and sprouting new leaves as well.  Simply beautiful!  Green is my favorite color!



I haven't given up on my fitness goals, but I have given up on being hard on myself.  The world is such a judgmental place.  The very least we can do is Love Ourselves.  I am still an active person, but I am not focusing on weight loss for the moment.  I am focusing on establishing a routine that keeps me happy, my family's needs for my attention well met, and allows for me to have the things I WANT::  Prayer, Peace, Art, Nature, Love. 

Happy Wednesday to you!

Wow!  It has been quite a few weeks since I have made a post.  It's not that I haven't been working on projects.  I have.  It's not that I haven't wanted to post.  I have.  I haven't exactly been lazy.  Or have I?  Maybe it's all of this and none of it at the same time, you know?

Last Monday, I did my usual:  Breakfast with Blog Reading.  And it seemed like all I read was blog after blog of all these women who were somehow unsatisfied.  These talented, creative, intelligent, beautiful women were unapologetically opening their hearts and blogging about some sort of dissatisfaction or longing they were currently experiencing.  I thought to myself:  Here's your shot!  Get on the bandwagon and do the same thing, girl!  Own your feelings! ... Well, clearly that shit didn't happen!  I am never comfortable with communicating my feelings.  I typically just come across as bored, annoyed, or angry.  Sometimes it's an eclectic and frightening mix of all three.  Before I know it, I am apologizing, arguing, and defending myself.  You know, since my feelings aren't valid, and all.

Where is all this coming from?  Well, a couple things have happened...

One, I had my 31st birthday.  No, I don't think 31 is old.  No, I don't feel old.  It's not one of those things.  I just had this long list of things to accomplish by the time I was 30.  Clearly, NONE of those things have happened...  And I knew that from the beginning of the year.  And I was OK with it, up until about three weeks before my birthday.  Then, I fell into a fit of depression.  I stopped doing anything and everything, except for the absolute bare minimum.  My birthday was two weeks ago, and I am just now coming back into my normal state of mind.

Believe it or not, my barely-there dad really pulled me out of my funk last week, when he took me birthday shopping.  My dad has never taken me birthday shopping.  Ever. For years, he actually would always (pretend to) forget my birthday.  It never bothered me, and if he hadn't made an effort for this year, it wouldn't have bothered me either.  He insisted, however.

While we were out shopping, my dad was his usual completely crazy self, cracking jokes, having small breaks from reality, and passing on random bits of wisdom about the craziest shit that only MY DAD would say.... hermaphrodites... leggings aren't pants... how he, at 51, would make the best damn security guard and JC Penny (which was robbed as we pulled into the mall-- we witnessed the action) would not have been a victim of thievery... how he has special skills to detect when someone is an innocent, old man, and when they are a perp...  and my personal favorite:  how single moms dig his work uniform and find him sexy. Yes, "That's just gross, Daddy" was my response to that last one! Ha!

Anyway, I just needed to feel important and noticed for ONE SMALL MOMENT!  I am not saying that I am ignored and treated badly, but it makes such a big difference when someone insists on spoiling you. When they take time out of their day to do something sweet for you and it's all about you, only.  I kind of felt like a kid again.  With no thoughts and no worries. It reminds me of this time, when I was 5 or 6 in Berlin, Germany.  I had ridden my bike all over the military base all day long because that was the first day I learned to ride without my training wheels. Well, I was happy and proud of myself, but my muscles were so tired.  For some reason, my mom wasn't around, and I was really upset about the pain.  My dad carried me and my bike home and then took me out for ice cream, just so I would "feel better".  Such a small gesture.  So many years ago.  And thinking of it still warms my heart.

So now that I feel a "revived" so to speak, I have some plans for things I just want to get done...  No timeline!  But I am very eager to get to work, however.

I also learned something today, while walking through my neighborhood with my Little Darling:  You have to search for happiness.  When you find yourself in a rut or a dark spot, you have to seek out the light.  I have been really bummed out about this never-ending pattern of freezing cold winter storms we seem to be unable to escape. Yesterday was nice, but my brain and body didn't comprehend the change in weather, and I stayed indoors all day. But today, I went out on a mission to find spring and a little inspiration while I was out. 

This is what I found :-)