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.
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!
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
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
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
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
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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I didn’t have the idea to make any Halloween items for my shop until super recently, so yes, it’s too late to actually have any of them for this year’s holiday. But I figured that the real Halloween stans wouldn’t care.
I keep my Christmas lights up ’til March, so I’m not here to judge other people’s favorite holidays, or how long you choose to celebrate them for ✌🏼
I haven’t made any pillows in a few months, ever since I listed the first ones in my shop, but I’m back in the zone and I have a million ideas (winter/Christmas ones are next, but I also want to do some more non-seasonal ones: dogs, cats, seashells, mushrooms, etc.).
The newest additions to my shop are extra festive — two Santa Claus sweaters have been added, and they’re super warm, heavy, and cozy for all the cold days heading our way!
Both of them are sewn from thrifted cotton blankets and they have a true classic Christmas™ vibe to them.
The first one is super vintage-y with this doll-like Santa, holly down the front, and gold/black/white fringe.
Click here to view the listing!
To say that my creativity has been flowing lately would be an understatement — I’ve been having so much fun making things for my own enjoyment (Christmas quilts for me and my family!), and for my shop.
I’ve started to add a few new items to my shop (with more to come), some of which are quilted throw pillows (using my new favorite FPP sewing technique!).
every color on the butterflies — including all the small black lines — is an individual piece of fabric that is sewn together to create them!
art by jordan rae 