Pinterest Couldn't Help Me

Hi strangers,

     I feel that I should give you all fair warning that this post is very emotional and personal. Read it at your own risk. This past February, one of our nearest and dearest friends had emergency surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. And then discovered he would probably have to have another surgery, along with additional cancer treatment. He is only 23 years old, single, and living on his own. When it comes to family around here, we're the closest thing he's got. It was such an emotionally draining roller coaster ride.

     He got really, really lucky. He's fine now. He didn't need any further treatment, didn't need to move back home, and only has to have check ups occasionally. Not such a bad deal in the grand scheme of things.

      To make matters worse, this was the friend that I had a coversation with that went something like this: "How do you know how to do all this stuff?!", "Pinterest. Duh.", "I gotta get me one of those!" But Pinterest doesn't have any answers when it comes to what to do when such a personal tragedy strikes. Sure, you can find inspirational quotes for days. But there is not "DIY", or "How To" post when it comes to dealing with something like this. There are lots of "Chemo Survival Kits", "Cancer Sucks Party Ideas", and other articles to help those going through cancer. Our friend ended up not needing any additional treatment.  That's not what this was about. This was our group of friends ranging in age from 19 to 25 that suddenly all had the realization that we aren't going to live forever. Cancer can happen to anyone, including one of our own, even this young.
    
     All of the sudden, we all realized that things like blogs, social media, video games, wasting time doing nothing, etc. are just that, a waste of time. We all learned that we needed to live in the moment. Because even in your twenties, you never know when it's going to be gone. So I'm sorry that this blog has been very neglected. John Bytheway once gave a talk titled "Turn Off the TV and Get a Life," and lately that's what I've been doing. But it hasn't been TV for me. For me, it's about unplugging for a little while and spending time with the ones I love. Hopefully this summer I'll be back at it a little more, but if not, just know that it's because I'm doing something more important.

~Taylor

From Taylor - A Christmas full of Birthdays

This post is about Christmas presents. I'm sorry it's so long after Christmas! I was busy spending time with family and such. And then one of our good friends got me VERY sick. (Darn it Logan!) Anyway, hope you enjoy hearing a little bit about the joyous gifts we were able to give some loved ones. Pinterest is such a great place for homemade Christmas gift ideas.  I came across a few pins that kept popping up over and over. I included all of the ones that really caught my eye. They just made me think of my Grandma. I knew she would love something like this!

I liked all of these. But I also wanted to make it more personal. We used spray chalkboard paint for the bases. I liked this element because then it can say "Happy Birthday _____!" Or "Merry Christmas!" or whatever else you can think of. (Tristan's grandma's will most likely say "Write your own damn happy birthday!" because she's hilarious.) I was really nervous about the spray paint part of this. But I figured it was at least worth a shot. Plus, it was only about $3, which is WAY cheaper than the chalkboard paint at Hobby Lobby.

Rust-oleum Brand from Walmart. Pretty sure it was only $3.29.

Pretty stickers! We chose the gold ones because they were the right size honestly. But both of our grandmas' liked the color so I think we're good.

Then we had to find all of our other materials. Everything else came from Hobby Lobby. We decided stickers were our best bet for making the writing look good. We did use a liquid gold paint marker to write the names and dates on the circles. The rest is all made out of wood. The little circles needed a little bit of prep work. See the pictures below for help on that one. 

We had to hammer through on both sides to get the hole the right size. I bet there's a better way to do this, but we don't have a ton of tools...

They took about two coats on each side for these. The real time commitment here is the holes. I wondered if you could buy these with the holes already in them but I couldn't find any.

 Next came the eyes to hang each month from. The hardest part here was measuring. The first picture below was our failed attempt. As you can see, the latter months are way further apart than the first few. We redid that one and got it right on the second one.

 Then we had to write on all the tags and attach them all. Tristan did the writing. He has prettier writing than I do. (Just ask the bishop that married us. He told Tristan that the decorative certificate he should just have me fill in later with my pretty handwriting. It's hanging on our wall, with Tristan's pretty writing on it.)

An up close of the way the tags are all attached!

Final product! The "Merry Christmas" part is in chalk.

 We used jump rings instead of the S hooks. Since we had to wrap and transport these, I didn't think S hooks were a good idea. The strands would have just fallen apart. And then I got to thinking, if we want this to last, we should find a better solution. We used pretty big jump rings from the Jewelry section. We picked some that were really easy to open and close just using your fingers.  We chose to use picture frame hangers on the back because we really didn't have the tools necessary to add ribbon like I wanted. Plus, this way it hides the nail in the wall.

Have you guys done birthday charts in your families? What are your thoughts? My Grandma has had several over the years but the problem each time has been that when people need to get added, it's difficult. I hate to say this, but sometimes people and anniversaries need to get removed too. Knock on wood that never happens, but it's a reality. And white out will never look good. This way, we can add AND remove easily. We made plenty of extra circles and our hope is that even if we do run out it will be easy to make more.  Tristan's grandma has even more grandkids than mine, and most of them are adults with kids now too so we needed LOTS of room and circles. (November in their family had 10 circles by itself!)

This project is a success in my book. Both Grandmas loved it. And it really wasn't that hard. It did take a time commitment to get the prep work all done, but it was only about 10 hours total. Well worth the glee on Christmas! Also, it was really cost effective. All of the materials were only about $35 total. This gift was definitely a lot more about time than money. Pinterest has another success guys!

*** All of the names are blacked out in the pictures to protect our families. I did leave my name in the last picture so you can see the writing we chose to do on the circles. The big black section above the chalk writing has their last name written in gold stickers.

Peggy's New Years Resolution? Be a Better Blogger!!

Oh Internets. Please do not remind me where the path that is paved with good intentions leads. November rolled around and I was all, "I'm gonna blog all these great Christmas crafts I'm making to give as gifts!" And then I never did because I spent too much time making all the dang Christmas crafts! It's the pit I fall in LITERALLY every Christmas and after every Christmas I swear it'll be different but then a whole year goes by and I forget. This, coincidentally, is why I have three children. After the first, I could NOT comprehend that anyone would ever go through that again on purpose...then a little time passes, the memory fades and I thought "It wasn't THAT bad, right?" Wrong. It was. As was the Great Christmas Craft Debacle of 2014. Oh well. A new year has come and what good is a new year if you can't just leave the past in the past, right? If you can manage reading to the end of this post and I swear I'll make it up to you. 

So a lot of people (me) make these fantastic New Years resolutions. "I'm going to start jogging!" "I'm going to stick to a budget!" "I'm going to stop eating Oreos when Poquito Tito goes down for a nap!" Okay, so these are the resolutions I usually make and then by the time February rolls around, I have 4 Oreos and a glass of milk and a vague sense that maybe I don't want to do what I'm about to do but don't really know why, besides the obvious...am I alone here? (Please say no. I'm baring my heart and soul to you people!)

But I'm a BIG believer in do-overs. I believe--firmly--that every morning is a beautiful do-over. A chance to do better than I did yesterday. I WANT to jog (well, I can't, but that's a story for another day), I WANT to stick to a budget, I WANT to not want Oreos when my preschooler goes down for a nap and I don't have to share...but I forget. I get busy and I forget. For this reason, I was stoked to see this pin: Resolution Bracelets.

Now, I'm a girl who likes to give credit where credit is due (although, once, I was somewhere with my husband and someone complimented the salad we brought and I said "thank you" even though HE is the one who made it. Honestly, I wasn't really paying attention when I was being complimented so the "thank you" was purely automatic but he's never let me forget that I once hogged the credit for his salad. It was a one time thing, I swear! Man I'm tangent-y today!) and while the pin took me to the lifestyle blog Poppytalk (this is the link I used) which then references a website called Room 6, I couldn't find the actual item on either website, just the picture. So I recreated the whole project and I hope that doesn't create the situation I clearly have with The Boy and "the salad." 

When I started this project, I waaaay overcomplicated it..as I am wont to do. I busted out the lobster-clasps and crimping beads and jump rings and this was going to be a whole situation. Then I realized that was dumb and scaled way back. To some string and some pretty silver spacer beads. This is the string I used, although any string would do..baker's twine or embroidery floss...really whatever you have around. 

I eyeballed what seemed like a good length (the circumference of my wrist plus about 4 inches) and cut the string. I found the middle of the string and then tied a knot just to the side of the middle (this REALLY won't matter. You could even tie the knot in the middle and nothing earth-shattering will happen) and strung three beads on. I tied another knot at the end of the third bead to hold those puppies on and voila. It seems really silly to be explaining how I did this. Please don't be offended.

Now, it DID happen that my string frayed a bit and I struggled getting the bead on. When that happened, I just used some superglue on the ends and then the beads went on just fine. Easy peasy. Once I had the beads on, I held the ends of the string together then cut them so they would be even and I had a cute bracelet. 

I love how it turned out. It's simple and pretty..now, if you want something to take on and off you will need to go to clasp route. This is meant to tie on and leave until it falls off. If you'd like, you can go the slip knot route, just make sure your string is longer. 

link

I recreated the little card in Word and printed 4 of them on a sheet. I cut them out, cut a slit on either side to hold the bracelet and Bob's-your-uncle! Done. Pin Win! 

So to show my sincerest regrets that A. I've been a VERY inconsistent blogger and B. This is a really lame post because you don't need a tutorial for this, I'm going to give 4 of these away! So comment below and I'll pick 4 of you (or, the 4 of you who might leave a comment) to get one of these cute little Resolution Reminder Bracelets. Aren't gifts just the BEST? 

I really DO have some fun pins I'm excited to try..you'll be hearing from me again soon! Threat or promise? Only you can answer that question.