Category Archives: projects

how to pin butterflies

As I briefly mentioned in my recent post: I pinned my first butterfly.

This, of course, quickly turned into me pinning my second butterfly. And my third butterfly. And then I moved on to pinning plenty of moths and other interesting insects…but I’ll save that for another post (because my current collection deserves a whole post of its own).

And just in case y’all don’t know me already, I’ll start this post with a clear disclaimer: I only pin bugs that have already died naturally; I never kill bugs to pin, and I don’t approve of such strange activities ☝🏼🤓

Spicebush Swallowtail (left) and Red-Spotted Purple (right)

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coyote skull art

I’ve been in the process of cleaning my coyote skull since I posted this beautifully witchy photoshoot last autumn. And by “in the process,” I mean mainly letting mother nature do her reliable work, because I stay away from these things until they’re clean enough to not make me wanna gag while in close proximity to them (I’m just a girl with a weird hobby, I’m not a girl with a stomach of steel).

Well, the time finally came last month, after the long, cold winter began to thaw off, and I retrieved this perfect specimen from my…um…specimen bucket.

Yeah, okay, I hear it. And I know how it sounds.

But listen, this was a donation from my grampa who found a dead coyote. So really, I’m just doing the respectable work of appreciating the good lawd’s creatures, even after their death.

the gold accents are truly the chef’s kiss ✨

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february wrap

February was a really happy and fun month for me.

There was a ton of creativity, inspiration, exciting news, and talking to good people.

Although the winter blues have definitely been a problem for me in the past, I’ve thoroughly and completely enjoyed these cold months this year. I don’t think I’m ready for the world to get loud and active again as the weather warms up, but the first little snowdrop greens poking out of the frozen ground have definitely made me excited 🤍

(top left) February 10th, the nearly-full moon; (top right) February 28th, many evenings have been spent sewing and watching old episodes of Sex and The City; (bottom) February 25th, a juvenile hawk hung out in our yard for a while, Riley Mae identified it as a red-shouldered, and also got some photos of her own

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butterfly quilt

Technically I started making this quilt when I started on the fam’s quilts…last spring.

I just finished it a couple weeks ago.

But to be fair, I have definitely not been steadily working on it. In fact the butterfly squares sat antennae-less in a drawer for many months completely untouched (but not forgotten), just waiting for me to pull them out again.

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valentine’s day 2025

Typically I do a themed photoshoot for Valentine’s Day; like for Valentine’s Day 2023 (my bangs era), when I had a gorgeous vanilla/strawberry cake as my prop (shoutout to beet juice for dying the frosting pink).

Or Valentine’s Day 2024, when I went 100% in by cutting out paper hearts and sticking them to my wall, and gluing red confetti onto my cheeks (I did panic for a split second when I took the confetti off and saw that the glue had made them bleed heart-shaped red spots onto my face, but thankfully it washed off…although not before it seeped into my bloodstream and poisoned me, I’m quite certain).

This year I just wasn’t ✨inspired✨ to do a photoshoot, but I was inspired to do a little something different. I celebrated an entire Valentine’s Day Week™ on my YouTube Shorts page by posting a [mostly thrifted] Valentine’s Day outfit every day of the week.

Here are the looks, and the links to each video!

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calendar collages

Last year I was given a pile of old gardening magazines; I didn’t have a plan for what I’d do with them, but I held onto them because I just had a feeling that they’d come in handy at some point.

It took a while, but I was right.

believe it or not, these millions of scraps of paper were somewhat organized

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sock curls

If you’ve found yourself on any girls’ social media pages lately, chances are that you’ve seen someone trying the heatless sock curls — and I finally tried them too.

I’ve seen a million different products being advertised for heatless curls, but I’m not willing to spend money on something that’s such a gamble. (and that looks to be kinda complicated to do by yourself)

I’ve tried my fair share of curling methods over the years; all heatless, of course, because I refuse to kill my hair again after I bleached it to death with hydrogen peroxide when I was 14. My hair was fried, broken, and stretchy when wet (a very weird experience) for a couple of years until I grew it out and cut it off.

Ever since then I’ve been scared to do anything that will cause damage to it. That means no straighteners, curling irons, or curling products.

ft. my support local street cats t-shirt from GOODVIBEQUOTESSHOP on Etsy

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deer skull art

It finally happened: I painted my deer skull, and ‼spoiler alert‼ it came out better than I imagined it would.

I’ve been talking about this project for a hot minute, but it was just too much for me to seriously think about for a while. I was scared to jump into it prematurely and ruin it (it’s not like I have an unlimited amount of skulls here — all of mine are very special and meaningful to me).

the gold detailing really brought the project to life

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wrapping up 2024

We got our first real snow on December 4th. We were only supposed to get an inch or two, but when I woke up and looked out my window it was a winter wonderland! There’s such a specific feeling to going to sleep with no snow and waking up to this beauty, and it cannot be explained. The fact that I have a friend who lives in New Zealand and has never seen snow in his life still boggles my mind.

Of course it was very heavy, wet snow which resulted in us losing power for a few hours, so I went outside and built a little snowman while we were left in the dark. He had a face on both sides: one for us and one for everyone driving by. The faces didn’t end up lasting long (the eyes very quickly started to melt out), but the snowman [incredibly] lasted for days. He defied all logic — and gravity — by bending completely over, while never losing his head. By the time he melted, his head was almost touching the ground, while still remaining firmly attached to his body.

I truly magical snowman.

when you wake up in the night to a snowplow going by your house, you know that you’re going to wake up to something beautiful in the morning

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creative flow

I’ve been giving a lot of energy to my Etsy shop lately, and creativity is going in multiple directions. One day I’m spending hours in front of the sewing machine, the next I have a paintbrush in hand. I’ve also been creating videos to add to many of my listings (adding optional videos to Etsy listings is a fairly new feature on Etsy, but I’ve never used it until now). I feel like my shop looks really good right now, and is successfully reflecting my current creativity.

The hardest part for me when it comes to listing new items in my shop is still setting the prices for them. Does it ever get easier!?

My first reaction is to always think that I’m pricing things too high, because you can pick up things much cheaper from Target, T.J.Maxx, and Walmart (although those are all mass-produced items, unlike everything found in my shop).

But when I deduct the shipping cost (I offer free shipping on everything, so I pay $4 – $12 shipping on each order, depending on the items sold), and the Etsy fees (6.5% of each sale), and the taxes…don’t ask how much I’m left with for the time I put into my work.

Finance can get tight when you run your own business (as they are for me right now!), but this is really all I want to do, so I make it work, and I’m excited to keep branching out!

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