"Yarn Letters, you lower my crafty esteem"

This week has felt like a whirlwind. Initially when starting this blog I said I wanted to make sure and post at least once a week (gotta start slow right?). Now that I am almost running out of runway on this week (cue me turning my head and looking back saying "where the hell did this week go?") I figured I needed to get my creative juices flowing and come up with something to add to my sweet little blog. 

First, since I am still so enthralled with my craft ideas of late I will show you my latest and greatest creations. My endeavor last weekend was yarn letters. Let me tell you these little gems are WAY harder than they look!! Heather and I went to Michaels and bought basic wood letters and used scrap yarn that my mom had laying around (her "scrap" yarn collection could create clothing for a small country I think, its crazy!). We started off just winging it, thinking "how hard could this be?" Well we quickly realized we needed our near and dear Pinterest to give us a much needed tutorial. Welllll this didnt help much.... we still cussed and scoffed our way through those letters. I made a smaller pair with the letters D and K and put a little picture frame in the middle with an & (oh so cutesy I know, gag gag) as well as the word JOY. They turned out pretty cute but man were they a lot of work. I thought I might have my first craft disaster with these guys. This week, I decided to try an absurdly cute crochet headband pattern I found on, what else, Pinterest! With VERY little knowledge on crocheting, literally only knowing how to do a chain, I took a few tutorials I found. I quickly learned what sc, dc, sl st, etc were (wahoo look at me go using the crochet code words) and started working away on it. Well this project was a BLAST! It took me about an hour and turned out so stinkin cute, and I cant wait to make another one! Crocheting is much easier than I thought. But don't worry knitting, I wont be abandoning you, just adding another weapon in to my arsenal! :) 

Those were really the only crafts I could manage last weekend/this week since that stupid thing called work takes up so much of my time! However, I was able to have Nelson, Tricia, and Kayla over for dinner Wednesday night and made a delicious recipe I found on Pinterest for Enchilada Pasta. It was a hit when I made it last weekend for the fam, and I think it was a hit again. Definitely one to be put in the recipe book, now if I only had a printer (cue Danielle printing recipes and Michaels coupons on the work printer and sneakily grabbing them off before anyone notices that I am not printing "important work documents"). Tricia made and ABSOLUTELY amazing peanut butter and chocolate pie that I literally could have eaten every meal for the next few days, so thank you Kayla for taking that home with you, my waistline appreciates it! I am going to be getting the recipe from her and making it ASAP! Tonight I am going to work on making crochet flowers and baking some super cute cookies for the cabin! 

Off to the Shambora cabin this weekend for some R&R with Mom, Dad, Christine, Peter, and Kellen. Should be a really good time, I am excited! I have got a few recipes planned and a few crafts to work on (Jamers send me Avery's foot measurements and your headband measurements so I can work on them!) so I will be updating you with results. 

Blue nautical knot crochet headband

Fave new headband!

Red crocheted knot headband

Yarn Letters

HAPPY WEEKEND!

My weekend vs. My office

The clash of my crafting weekend and my office..

During our weekly Monday meeting this week, I was met with quite the peculiar situation. We were casually talking about our weekend and when it came to my turn I suddenly was not sure what I should say. After hearing about crazy parties in the city, backpacking and beer with friends, and a weekend in LA, I felt a little awkward saying I had a fabulous weekend being a part of an infant photo shoot, baking some amazing cookies, and crafting as much as I could. All of a sudden these activities felt light years away from anything my office would vaguely understand let alone appreciate.. After pondering for a moment I said that I had a great time up at home visiting my sister and I left it at that. Feeling a bit ashamed for not giving credit my crafts and baked goods, I asked myself why I felt I couldn’t share those things with folks in my office…? Well for starters most of them are younger than me by a few years which means their weekends still consist of mass beer consumption, sports, and sleep. That is great and all (I will make the appetizers for the football games) but not really what I am in to. The other side of this conundrum is this “corporate America female” ideal. Let me start off by saying I have bucked this ideal as much as possible (hence the pink décor all over my desk) but I still feel the need to keep my love for domestic activities separate from my work life to an extent…sad but true. And that is my quick rant!

But enough about all that boring corporate America crap that I promised not to talk about in this blog, lets get to the good stuff….what I created this weekend~!!

For starters my niece sawyer had her infant photo shoot Saturday (which was too cute for words and “His Grace Photography” is absolutely amazing!) so of course Heather and I had some accessories that we needed to create prior to it. Heather made an adorable headband using silk scrapbooking flowers, felt, and a piece of white t-shirt. It turned out adorable when paired with the pearls in one of the pictures. I was bound and determined (and a little nervous) to create these t-shirt material sandals that I saw on Pinterest (I know, surprise surprise!). Well lucky for me they turned out absolutely adorable and turned out to be pretty easy! I still need to do some perfecting on the “pattern” but I am going to try and make some more in other colors!

Sunday was my baking and crafting relaxation day. I tried a recipe I had found for Snickerdoodle cookies with pumpkin cream cheese frosting. They turned out delicious!! I was also able to make a really cute crocheted knit headband that I love!! I had crocheted once before but I needed a quick refresh so I Googled a crochet tutorial (thank you YouTube) and got to work. Once I figured it out the project went really fast! I taught Heather how to crochet and she was able to create one too. We have so much spare yarn at my parent’s house so it was easy to find a few fun colors to make the headbands in. All my crafts were successful this weekend, which is amazing!

Here is the evidence…

Here is the adorable headband (and baby) my sister made! :)

The baby sandals!

Delicious cookies!

The headband!

Another shot of the headband!

DIY MANIA

My current obsession is DIY projects! This is partially because of me being obsessed with pinterest and in other part due to my constant desire to “spice” up my adorable apartment with new things. Seeing that I am not rolling in the dough…yet… diy projects are a great way to create cute things without the price tag of buying them. I have a LONG list of DIY projects that I want to attempt but my lack of time and ability to sew is limiting that. Fingers crossed mom can teach Kara and I to sew so that we can become to DIY maniacs we aspire to be :) As for the lack of time because of that annoying thing called work, I am going to attempt to schedule one weekend a month with Kara to have a CRAFT DAY where we can attempt all these wonderful projects! 

Here is my most recent DIY projects..

Tshirt scarf/necklace

light up canvas board...work in progress

tshirt headband (dont mind the dark roots! )

                                 

Really loved doing all of these….next up….Holiday crafts with kara! WAHOOOO

| dannie |

Welcome!!

The mid, quickly approaching late, 20's are such an interesting, fufilling, and sometimes utterly frustrating time in life. Not only are these years supposed to be the most fun of your life (no pressure right!?), but also a decade that you are supposed to start your dream career (in this economy, i think not~!), find your soulmate (or at least someone who can tolerate you), get married (without becoming a statistic), start a family, and take advantage of having a wonderful metabolism (as any woman over 40 would tell you, however, they conveniently forget that your 20s are also a time of beer, pizza, and otherwise fatty food and drink consumption which seems to negate this fast metabolism that every "older" woman dreams about.)

So with all those pressures we are also expected to be able to manage our lives with ease because as any "older" person will tell you.. "you arent supposed to be stressed, your too young!" like for some reason when your in your 20's magically there are no negative emotions and everything is daisies and happiness, haha yeah..where can I sign up for that world?!

Ok so all negativity aside, there are a lot of exciting experiences in your mid-20's as well. I personally have had quite a few major life experiences that have been very influential in my 6 short 20something years. I graduated college, started a business, started a career in corporate America, experienced true love as well as true heartbreak, traveled internationally, and gained incredible perspective about my independence through being on my own. All of these events have helped me realize what I want to do, who I want to be, and what general direction I want to take my life in.

However, sometimes all those positive life experiences can be overshadowed by utterly frustrating day to day stressors. With my career putting my stress at an all time high lately, I decided I needed to make time for a creative outlet...and that my friends is how this sweet little baby blog was born! The plan for it is to showcase some of my favorite things outside of work (dont worry I will not be boring you with my corporate America shenanigans), and any personal struggles or victories along the way!

This blog has been in the making for a long time now. With life hurdling at me about a million miles an hour in the last year, this endeavor had previously taken a back burner on simmer (low heat, dont let burn). However, when my best friend Kara recently told she was going to embark on this blogging journey, I decided that it was time for me to give it a go too!

Please remember this is my first whack at it and practice makes perfect (or at least better!).

I hope you enjoy!!

XO, 

| Danielle |

My beautiful family