A few months ago I decided to take on the project of knitting a snake. Alex requested it from a book of stuffed animals and I set off on the task. More or less I just wanted to share some glamour shots of my really awesome snake, but I also learned a lot over those few months that I felt worthy to share.
Knitting is just as easy as it is complicated. The actual process of knitting isn’t terribly hard, but it’s when instructions throw in tons of acronyms you’re just supposed to know that things get tough. Over the course of this project I learned out to do a lot of knitting techniques I didn’t even know existed. Youtube became my best friend as well as asking my neighbor and knitting guru Amy for tutorials.
Knitting this snake also taught me that it’s ok if the project becomes a collaboration. Amy helped me loads on this snake from helping sew it together to figuring out how to make the eyes work when they looked completely wrong. At first I worried that the snake wouldn’t mean as much to me since I had a fair amount of help making it, but as we finished that final eye I couldn’t be more thrilled with what we accomplished. The project made me and Amy closer, made us spend more time together, and ultimately made the snake better. I’m definitely learning that asking and receiving help has its benefits. Just took me nearly 25 years to learn that!
There’s also a lot of spontaneous aspects to knitting which I definitely did not expect. To me knitting is just following instructions, but when the eyes looked seriously messed up, we had to get creative to salvage the whole project. There was a lot of “does this look right?” being thrown around those last few minutes of the project until we finally got them to look like eyes. Phew.
I also didn’t realize how long projects can take. I live in a world where if I’m working on something it’s usually done within the week (I’m looking at you stickers), but this project took literally months because I didn’t want to rush through it and make mistakes. I’m sure I could have finished it sooner, but there was so much I didn’t know about knitting that I wanted to ask questions and learn during the process. And I like that it took a while. Now that it’s finally finished I feel such a huge sense of accomplishment over something I labored over for longer than a week. It’s now on display in one of our guest bedrooms.
I may not knit anything to such a large scale for the next few projects, but I can already tell I’m much more of a knitter of stuffed creatures rather than scarves. Next on the docket will probably be doughnuts because well, why not?
Are you a knitter? What are your favorite things to knit?
I had the fantastic opportunity to work with CleanCult for today’s video. It’s my first sponsored video project so I wanted to make sure it was informative and entertaining at the same time. It’s always scary taking on sponsored work. On the one hand I need to pay the bills, but I also don’t want to lose my genuine style. People always get so turned-up-nose over YouTubers doing sponsored work, but I find that those videos are usually their best content since they’re trying to get over the stigma of sponsored content. I now understand the struggle. I worked hard on this video, and I think that even if it wasn’t sponsored, it would have looked very similar to this. Sponsored content is a tough battle but I think I picked a really great brand for my first project.
So give the video a looksie and a like if you enjoy it. I really appreciate it.
I never plan on growing up. I plan on collect little bits and bobs until I’m old and gray and my walls are covered in trinkets. If you’re like me then you’ve found it hard to part with your childish hobbies as you entered this annoying thing called adulthood. Well there’s a solution.
Recently I’ve started to put all my little collections into glass jars I found at IKEA. And honestly, it looks pretty dang cool. It’s the perfect way to display a collection without letting it take over a shelf space or sprawl out on a table. Upon first glance it can almost look like you bought random, colorful bobbles to fill the jars rather than toys.
It’s definitely my favorite storage solution to date. It keeps everything together, out of the hands of children who might think they’re playthings, all the while making perfectly acceptable decor pieces. It’s a triple win.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve done a rundown of my current planner setup and since I’ve recently changed things up, it seemed like a better time than any. I always like to nosy around other people’s setups, so here’s mine.
I’ve been using a two planner system since the start of 2017, but I recently switched out my vertical layout Erin Condren Life Planner for the hourly layout. This always happens when things get a little hectic day to day and I switched around the same time last year to the hourly so it must be this time of year. Having the times makes me a lot more comfortable and feeling in control of my schedule rather than having free floating events. It’s a lot easier to visualize when things are happening in relation to each other throughout the day and the week as well.
With the hourly comes a solid return to white space planning. I dabbled in no white space planning for a few months but feel like this style of sticker usage is definitely my forte. I love writing on the planner itself and using the white space to break up my days.
For to do lists you already know about my obsession with the Rifle Paper Co Midnight Agenda. It’s the best thing I’ve found to write daily to do lists while being able to see the entire week at once. My love for it knows no bounds and I even designed more skinny labels (coming out this Sunday 4/2) since they’re my favorite sticker to use with it to mark events.
I’m working hard not to over do it. There are so many gorgeous planner supplies out there that it’s easy to get swept up in that aspect of it rather than just finding a simple solution that works for you and sticking with it. Sure my sticker obsession is still going strong, but I haven’t found myself straying from this two-planner setup. It works, and that’s what planning is all about.
Over the weekend my mom and I hosted a beach themed bridal shower for my sister. Naturally I had to bake something for it. Honestly these cupcakes are so easy, they probably don’t need their own blog post. But I was just too dang proud of them that I had to share.
We were in a bit of a time crunch, so I just used boxed cake mix and didn’t fuss over it. I did however make my own buttercream frosting and dyed it the darkest shade of blue my food coloring would allow. We applied a thin layer of frosting and the cupcakes were ready to be decorated.
I used about three or four graham cracker pieces and smashed them into sand-like bits in a small ziplock bag. When sprinkling, make sure you pat the graham cracker sand into the frosting or most of it will fall off if you happen to tilt the cupcake. Seriously pack it on so it looks like sand.
The hardest part about these cupcakes was finding small enough Swedish Fish. A regular bag of them is just too big so luckily I found a couple fun-sized bags at the party store while we were gathering other supplies. Pop one into the ocean and throw on a little umbrella and these babies are done.
They were a huge hit at the party and none were spared. Funfetti cake mix proved to be a bigger crowd favorite than the chocolate. The party was a blast and I can’t believe we’re getting so close to going on the wedding cruise. I definitely could use a vacation…
