Hellllooooo! We've been hit with a barrage of unseasonable cool temperatures accompanied by lots and lots of rain so that means I've gotten myself in a grumpy mood where I spend a lot of time and effort criticizing myself for not using all my free time adequately and wasting my summer off, basically beating myself up for not having fun but also not getting a whole lot done.
Awesome, right?
Weather really affects me apparently because this rain is driving me BANANAS. We've gone past the state of "perfect time for cozy indoor activities that I love" and right on into "existential crisis after being confronted with too many of my own Thoughts" territory. I've waylaid this tidal wave of Grumps as much as possible by sneaking out for the occasional walk in between showers and throwing myself into wedding-related crafting to keep myself feeling vaguely productive at the very least. And, as an additional help with keeping the Thoughts at bay, I've gotten into a number of craft-related YouTube channels (as mentioned in my last post) that I will now share with YOU.
Did you think this was the direction the post was going? Probably yes since I'm sure you can already see the rest of this post but I like to think that I kept you on your toes a bit with that intro. Now, without further ado...
Studson Studio - Studson here makes a lot of miniatures, dioramas, and models based on pop culture and video games which already sounds cool but he presents these awesome creations in a well done and always hilarious way- I believe he has a background in video production somehow so you're getting a quality video that will make you laugh out loud. Plus, his fast and loose approach to measuring and prep-work as well as his use of found/inexpensive materials in his builds really speaks to me.
Bill Making Stuff - This English dude makes weird, like, post apocalyptical-type robots and spaceships and things out of straight up trash and I absolutely love it. The style of his creations is super interesting and cohesive (everything he builds belongs to the same "world" if that makes sense) and I appreciate the hypothetically low cost of making those things- crafts that require a high dollar buy-in to start bother me. He has a background in video production so his videos are super high quality as well. As a bonus, he has a dry humor I enjoy and he also does livestreams which are great to throw on as a background to my own crafting.
North of the Border - This dude also makes models and dioramas and things based on games and pop culture... see a bit of a theme here? He's like, a next level model maker though, using more pro materials and less trash but he's an excellent sculptor and his discussions of his sculpting technique have helped me a lot in my recent crafts. Basically, he's the model maker I want to be when I grow up. As a bonus, he has that Canadian accent I feel like everyone from the US assumes every single Canadian has but probably doesn't and I very much enjoy that.
Nerdforge - Nerdforge takes on all sorts of crafty projects, ranging from dragon mural painting, to full cosplay suits of armor construction, to tome book binding. Lots of their creations are out of my league and make use of tools I don't have access to but the builds are amazing and it's super enjoyable to watch. Its run by a couple of young people from Norway which makes me feel old, as you can tell from the fact that I called them "young people" but I would recommend the channel anyway.
Black Magic Craft - This dude focuses mainly on making models and terrain for Dungeons and Dragons and similar table top games and even though that isn't my thing (making snap decisions while being "in character" in front of people, whether they're my friends or not, fills me with anxiety just thinking about it), this channel is filled with a lot of great resources for someone just starting out trying to build models or dioramas or something. I've already referred to his channel several times in the course of making my nerdy wedding centerpieces and have always come away with more confidence in whatever I'm about to attempt.
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So that's it! There's a few others I've been checking out but I figured I'd limit it to my top 5 most watched so as not to overburden you. I'm always on the hunt for more recommendations though so feel free to share your own favorites if you've got them. I'm making an effort to curb mindless spending which means being trapped in my house more since we live in a society that expect you to spend money just for the privilege of taking up space in the world (yikes, deep breath Ashley) so these videos as well as the subsequent trips to the craft store they elicit (because that's spending with purpose) have been basically saving me.
As soon as the sun comes out and stays out, I'm off to the beach. But in the meantime, happy crafting all!
Like I mentioned in my last post, my big birthday plans centered on a museum visit. It ended up being a more laid back day than I was originally planning, but on the day, that's just what we felt like doing. Aside from booking the museum trip, I just didn't feel like making all sorts of plans and having to figure things out so we decided to wing it. Luckily, it turned out to be a great day and an overall nice, relaxing weekend.
The museum I landed on was the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston. I decided to choose something closer to home than my first choice, MASS MoCA, as we thought that it would be more fun to visit when we could make a whole weekend out of it. That left a few other choices but I ultimately wanted to try something new. I'm happy to report that I was not disappointed.
And now for the photo dump...
If you were to google this museum, you'd get hit with a ton of pictures of it's courtyard. It's a large, 3 story tall glass roofed observatory filled with an amazing array of plants that, so the audio tour told us, are swapped out every few weeks- if you look close, you'll notice that the vast majority of the plants are in pots.
The rest of the museum was filled with an eclectic mix of art from all over the world, collected by Ms Gardner (1840-1924) with the help of various artist friends and experts, including pieces from some old masters as well as work that would be considered modern for her time.
Her occupation is listed as "philanthropist" which is basically a nice way to say she had a lot of time and money on her hands, hence the museum. She seems like she was quite the lady though, doing her own thing and successfully chasing her dream of creating this museum at a time when that was most definitely not something a woman would commonly do.
She was extremely hands-on with the creation of the museum and in her will, left strict instructions to leave it as-is. She specifically wanted it to be a place where you go to feel the art and come to your own conclusions, which is why there are no placards giving info on any of the works. I love this idea in theory but M and I are the kind of people that enjoy taking hours to go through museums reading every little thing- luckily, these an audio tour for people like us.
This is a Raphael (no, not this Raphael). I loved the colors.
The walls here are covered in painted leather panels- the dark parts are tarnished silver. Think about how gloriously shiny that would've been!
This little alcove is a good example of how eclectic her collection was.
This museum initially got on my radar by hearing about the theft of 13 paintings in 1990 (there's going to be a Netflix docuseries about it in April!) and I was interested to find that they kept the empty frames up as a sign of hope for their eventual return. Classical painting isn't my number one favorite but it's hard not to be a little awed seeing some of these and feeling the loss of the stolen work.
Below that painting by Manet, was another piece by him called Chez Tortoni.
That's a self portrait of Rembrandt as a young man, now gazing across the room at the empty frames of some of his later great work.
We topped off our classy museum visit (I even wore a dress, which doesn't often happen) with... good beer and tacos. And games (except I lost)! A good day hits all those important notes- classy, laid back, fun. A successful start to my 32nd year, I'd say.
I've spent the last god knows how long attempting to start of this post with a video I took of my mother's rotating Christmas tree. There clearly is no video, but know that it was glorious, chock-full of super nice blown glass ornaments, and it rotated. This was a new addition to her already impressive Christmas set up. She has a lot of ornaments (like, a lot a lot) but not a lot of space for a big tree so the rotating allows her to display as much as possible. I was impressed.
Anyway, yeah. I went home to North Carolina for Christmas!
Lots of precautions were taken, making sure we got tested before and after, traveling by car (14 hour drive, ugh) and vastly reducing the places we visited while there to limit exposure but it was SO worth it as I got to be there for my nephew's first Christmas and besides, after this year, it was nice to end it with some family time.
I mentioned before that I was doing a lot of making for Christmas and this was one of the handmade gifts. My sister is a big Golden Girls fan and had given me this book of Golden Girls cross stitch patterns so of course I had to make her something for Christmas featuring one of her favorite characters.
The thing I'm most proud of though, is this Christmas stocking for M. My whole family has handmade Christmas stockings so I couldn't let M go without one. My mom made the actual stocking using some pre-quilted material and sewed the binding on the cuff- I just did the cross stitch bit.
I couldn't bear to make him a "normal" one which M, of course, greatly appreciated. Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like a large evil robot destroying a neighborhood with his laser beam eyes, right?
I couldn't let that evil go unchecked on such a special day though so on the back I sewed good ol' Saint Nick defeating the robot with his ornament hand grenades.
It was a fantastic yet all too short trip- we had to get back in time to get tested before returning to work, per regulations. M took it upon himself to drive the entire way back home so I had a lot of chill time (I have a sneaking suspicion that my driving on the way down alarmed him, though I can't imagine why...). My sister got me a JavaSok, one for hot coffee (above) and one for cold. I highly recommend them! ...but maybe not the 7-Eleven coffee. Desperate times and all.
We've been doing a good job keeping busy doing our post-trip quarantine though, partially because my family bought us a Switch! Mike got Zelda Breath of the Wild and I got Super Mario 3D All-Stars and I'm currently working through Super Mario 64. I'm looking into getting Animal Crossing though, and would definitely take more game recommendations!
For New Years Eve, we set up a Zoom party with our friends. We dressed up, chose a cocktail, chatted and played a party game! It was fun and even though we stayed home, it still felt like a celebration. It was also nice to get dressed up. I took the opportunity to don my beautiful silk metallic embroidered hoari (a jacket meant to be worn over a kimono) which I bought on my trip to Japan, along with a long, excellently swooshy and shiny skirt I recently bought at Uniqlo to really round out my Japanese inspired get up. I mostly think I looked like a fancy witch though, but I'm not mad.
M took his inspiration from a Mr. Bean t-shirt I got him for Christmas and the Mr. Bean New Years party episode we watched recently (M is a long time fan. He also does a pretty good impression. I definitely picked a winner 😊). He wore this shirt, a bowtie (he didn't want to hide the shirt with a regular tie) and a blazer. And I of course made him a party hat. We were clearly the best dress couple.
Our signature cocktail was The New Englander- a Moxie-based cocktail made with, of course, Moxie, gin, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and a lime wedge. Moxie is a very polarizing soda- you either love it or hate it. Adding gin and Worcestershire sauce might not sound like it's doing it any favors but I assure you, it's a delicious cocktail and tastes vaguely like NECCO wafers.
For New Year's Day, I decided to break in my new dutch oven. Isn't she a beaut? I've been wanting one for ages and am glad to have one in this pretty blue. I figured I needed to make something extra special what with it being the first day of the year and all so I made some beef bourguignon, Julia Child's recipe no less.
It took about 3 or so hours all told but it was so worth it. It was a hit, though I don't think you could go wrong with some beef simmered in a bottle of wine for a couple hours.
Served with a good chunk of garlicky baguette. Luckily this makes ton so we'll be good to go for a while.
Today I gave myself the sad task of taking down all the Christmas decorations. It's nice to have the house back to normal I suppose, but it's always a bittersweet chore. This time, I decided to take a picture of all my ornaments, partially to share but also I'll be interested to see how my collection grows by next Christmas.
They basically fall into 4 categories as shown above- birds, which I love to have hovering around the top of the tree, fill, which is exactly what it sounds like, sentimental, which I got from my parents house a couple years ago, and fun, which are largely space themed but not necessarily on purpose.
A lot of the sentimental ones were given to me by my grandparents, including the small Hallmark nursery rhyme books (they open and close!) which they gave me from 1993 to 1997. Its nice to have those up and read my grandmother's recognizable scrawl on the side of the boxes.
I'm glad my "fun" category is growing though- if I buy ornaments myself now, they usually fall into that category. A friend of ours was clearing out his Christmas stash and is going to give me some Hallmark Star Trek ship ornaments so it's only going to get better! Aside from those, my goal is to make some for myself next year. I'll have to start early though as I always take on so many projects for other people around the holidays that I never find the time.
Since that was a lot of (kinda sad) work, I intend to get as much done on this No Face cross stitch as possible while lazing on the couch watching murder mysteries. Tomorrow I might do some much needed cleaning... or I'll continue with this. Plenty of time to be productive when vacation is over. Besides, one of my big new years resolutions is to finish what I start so I'm not allowing myself any new projects until this is done.
And lastly, check out my sweet needle minder. It always makes me smile and think of M, my own personal Mr. Bean. That, and I've stopped dropping my needles so much only to find them when I step on them later on...
I hope everyone had a great holiday and has a fantastic new year! It can't be any worse than 2020, right?
Somehow, I let a whole month go by. Aside from that fact that this is just the time of year that goes by at lightning speed, I found myself extremely O V E R W H E L M E D what with starting a new job and all, and some things just naturally fell by the wayside as my panic brain took over and attempted to cope with all the change. Unfortunately blog reading and writing was one of those things. As plant care and house upkeep/random chores also started to slip, I realized I'd crossed over that fine line of "making space to breathe during a stressful time" to "not taking care of business" territory and started the process of dragging myself back to where I function best.
And here I am.
I will fully admit that I'm one to get overwhelmed easily when facing change but as I began my new job, I realized just how... institutionalized I had become at my previous job. We always talked about the kids getting institutionalized, staying too long and getting too comfortable in a rigid yet "safe" environment that the idea of leaving was too terrifying so they'd do all the could to stay, but I never considered that I would be the one unable to cope in the wide open world outside. (reminder: I work at a psychiatric hospital in an inpatient unit for adolescents)
When I began my new job I was given so much leeway to figure out how to go about the tasks at hand- no hour-by-hour schedule, no strict procedures- that I felt lost the whole day and severely questioned my choice to leave my previous job. Here, I need to give a special shout out to M and my friends and family who listened to me complain about it and supported me until I was able to realize that they hired me to be an expert, they hired me because I have a lot of useful experience, and I can do this. There are so many positives to this job and all the negatives were ones that I created for myself.
I am happy to report that I'm getting to a place where I'm trusting myself and enjoying figuring out how best to do my job MY way, and finding out that it is amazing to be able to do that again finally. I'd been on autopilot for far too long but now my brain is waking up again and it's pretty great.
So here we are, at the start of the holiday season (my absolute favorite) and I'm feeling better and better about my job as we go- that means I'm finally at a place where I can appreciate all the things that gave me joy during a rough time and what continues to brighten my spirits each day. Lets play a little "what makes me happy lately" catch up!
One of my first pick-me-ups was, surprise surprise, a plant. On a particularly blustery and cold day, I wandered into Lowe's and found this bad boy on the clearance rack for a mere $5. I couldn't say no. When I went to the garden center check out counter, the woman couldn't get it to ring up so she just rang up something else I was buying twice ("it's too cold out here to wait that long for a manager to get here for an overrride"), making this come out to a whopping $3.50. I removed a few brown fronds (they just failed to water it- he was healthy guy overall!) and now it's classing up my bookshelf area.
I also snuck this little dude into the house- a Pilea Glauca, aka Aquamarine. That's my birthstone, how could I not?? The leaves have a subtle sparkle to them, I love it.
I've been doing a lot of making things too- that's what's taken up the vast majority of my free time lately and is always my mental health pick-me-up go-to. Planting myself on the couch and sewing for hours is pretty therapeutic for me (who knew stabbing something hundreds of times would make you feel so much better!). The vast majority of my projects are gifts though, so I don't want to share them yet. I did break out the Bead Horde recently though and made myself a couple of necklaces.
Those wooden beads move around on the necklace. I have a hard time with asymmetry but occasionally I like to give it a shot and I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out. It's like "Asymmetry Lite" so I can deal with it.
I was into the color combo of this in a big way and who doesn't' like a little gradient?
These two projects were fun to make because I went back to some simple stringing. It has similar therapeutic properties as cross stitching I guess- you have a burst of creativity in figuring out the design but the actual execution of it is just repetitively putting beads on a wire. Very calming.
Fun fact: Pete Townshend, guitarist and singer for The Whowindmilled Docs from work shoes to rock shoes as he rose to fame wearing a beat up pair of 1461s on stage.
I have a solid collection of Dr. Marten boots (5 so far!) but have been wanting a pair of the 1461 style shoes for a long time. I just so happen to stumble across these on the Dr. Marten website for $75, in my size, originally priced at $125. Merry early Christmas to me! I particularly love the contrast arrow on the top and the red and blue aglets. These'll be some amazing concert shoes if that ever happens again...
Mental health walks (not yet in those shoes though- we have some breaking in to do), have been pretty vital and I've been trying to take quick 30 minute post work de-stress walks every day, weather permitting. It's extra nice when you see things like this on the side of the trail...
They aren't the only ones to put up a Christmas tree though. I've loaded my apartment with as much Christmas decorations as I could find! Including a 7 ft tall slender tree:
I've been trying to collect more weird ornaments to put on it. Prior to getting this one, M and I only had small 4 ft trees (they're up in different parts of the apartment) so we didn't have a ton of our own ornaments yet. My mom gave me a bunch from when I was a kid (she only puts up her super fancy blown glass ones now anyway) and the past few years I've been picking up a few more to add to the collection here and there. I recently went to a craft store for more gift making supplies and happily picked up my newest additions (50% off too!):
Dinosaurs, robots, and TARDIS! So festive!
Our subtly Christmas-inappropriate tree topper... any Doctor Who fans out there?? I'm thinking about touching this up with some shiny silver paint. I like the topper but it's so dark atop a bright and shiny tree... maybe I'll replace it someday if I stumble across a suitable alternative.
It looks extra nice and glowy at night, doesn't it? I like the red velvet ribbon garland- it fills a lot of space if you don't have a ton of ornaments- but I might replace that at some point too. I like a nice beaded garland, or maybe I'll find a silly one to go with all my weird and random ornaments. I also need to upgrade my tree skirt too, which is just a green/red/white plaid round table cloth, artfully arranged and held together at the back with a binder clip. It's ok though. I see Christmas decorations as things you just slowly amass over your lifetime and I haven't been out on my own for that long, in the grand scheme of things. No rush.
One of my favorite ornaments gifted to me by a friend of mine last year, purchased on Etsy I believe (shop unknown). Make it snow!
Speaking of snow- yesterday, Saturday, it was a gloomy snowy day, the first "real" snow of the season (it wasn't a lot but as you can see, it actually stuck around this time). It was perfect for staying home, being cozy, and doing a little sewing- a wonderful day off. This weekend I've felt more Zen than I have in a long time.
Now all that's left is for me to catch up on all the reading I've missed out on (and, now that I think of it, I should probably clear off my car so I don't have to do it before work tomorrow...). I hope everyone is getting into a festive mood this year despite what a dumpster fire it's been. 2021 can only be better! ,,,right?
If you need a little boost, allow me to drop a holiday classic to get you going. Enjoy!
