30 for 30 crafting challenge

so for the month of may i worked on the 30 for 30 crafting challenge. i got to finish a couple of projects and got a bunch of work done of other projects. i'm proud of myself to finishing the challenge this year. here's the best pictures of the work that i did.

i read the book 'atlas shrugged' and loved it so much! i had been wanting to make a cross stitch somehow related to it and so i made this cross stitch. it's on a pre-stretched canvas. took me only a day to create the pattern and cross stitch it.

i've been working on this peacock cross stitch for a very long time. those feathers were a pain in my ass! and being color blind did not make it any easier. the only thing i have to do to complete this is a bunch of back stitching. once this is finished it will be going to my sister-in-law. she asked me to make this pattern for her. this is the only project i didn't fully finished during the 30 for 30 challenge. 

i made this pattern for my cousin and her husband for their wedding. the original pattern was for a baby announcement but i changed it for their wedding. 

this pattern came from a book called 'twisted stitches' it's a great book. this is the first pattern i made from the book. i put it on a canvas tote bag that was pre-holed for cross stitching. i gave it to my aunt who lives in mexico. 

30 for 30 Challenge 2016

A couple things before i go into my regular post:
-turns out my last post was my 200th post! Hurray!
-today is Beltane so Happy Beltane everyone!

ok for my post -
May is the 30 for 30 crafting challenge. i had tried to do this last year, but came up short. this year i'm going to do it and complete the whole month! this year i have a good incentive to complete the challenge, for i have a cousin getting married on June 4th that i'm completing a project for. and so i must have it done for the wedding. so i'm going to use the challenge to complete the project. for those who need a reminder of what the 30 for 30 crafting challenge is: the challenge is to craft (specifically cross stitch for me) for 30 days in a row for at least 30 minutes a day. it doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but when you are tired and just don't want to do anything, it can be hard to want to cross stitch. so this challenge will really help me finish my project for my cousins wedding. the only issue is that my cousin follows me on twitter and so the progress pictures i post will probably be super vague. sorry everyone. can't have my cousin seeing her gift before the wedding. i will for sure post the finished project when i am done and after the wedding. i promise!

Thanks to The Crafting Geek for inspiring me to do the challenge. check out her twitter and instagram to see her progress of the challenge. also you should check her out just to see the totally awesome stuff that she has made!

baby bibs

so this past weekend i went and visited my family in AZ and had a great time. while out there i got to see my 3 month old baby niece Nora Rose (she's adorable). before Nora was born i had made two baby bibs for her. she's still too young to be using baby bibs, but while i was out in AZ, i took a picture of her with each of the bibs. i thought i would share with everyone the pictures. i've made a couple baby bibs and this is the first time i've gotten to see the baby with the bib.

the bibs are so huge on her. hehe. but she will get bigger and they will work out perfectly. hehe.

C2E2 2015

so this past weekend i went to C2E2. i had a blast. it was tons of fun to go. i saw so much and did so much i'm just going to list it off in no particular order. hehe. here are my pictures from the weekend.

-saw amanda connor a comic book artist. didn't get her signature, but i got to see her. which is cool.
-saw chad l colman from the walking dead. my cousin got his signature and a photo with him.
-saw tons of costumes. a cool spy vs spy costume. it was a father son duo who did it. saw a cool mystique costume. saw a cool white bandages 5th element constume. saw tons of spiderman, captain america, stormtroopers and others.
-hung out with my two cousins. for one cousin it was her 3 time coming with me. for another cousin it was her 2nd time coming with me.
-got to hang out with two other friends of mine at the convention also. always nice to see more people at the convention.
-i dressed up in my wheel of time green ajah shawl one day and another day i dressed up as captain america.
-brought my spiderman bag with me to hold everything and got some compliments from it. my sister made me the bag and it's perfect for the convention. hehe.
-bought the offical pint glass from C2E2. it had the logo of the beer they had created for the convention. it was called galaxy hero. i didn't drink the beer with the same name, but i made sure i bought the pint glass. hehe. every convention i go to, i always get some kind of cup/shot glass/coffee mug. it's just a tradition i have. sometimes its an offical thing. sometimes it's captain america. hehe.
-i bought a card game called chrononauts. i actually bought an expansion set. i have the original card set already, but i saw an expansion and i had to get it!
-almost got a tattoo but there was a $100 fee and the tattoo i wanted wouldn't cost anywhere close to that if i just went to a local tattoo shop. so i decided not to get one.

overall had a good time. walked tons and tons. my feet hurt like crazy on sunday. hehe. check out my pictures from the weekend. will definitely go again next year. it's a nice local convention to go to. i suggest for all to go.

finished!

i'm all done with the cross stitch i was working on for my mom. i'm just so excited to be done. it took me a little over a year to finish. it's so nice to be finished! here it is.

the wedding dress

so my mom printed out the wedding pictures from my sister Marianne's wedding and the photographer got a picture of the 'something blue' i made for my sister on the wedding dress. so i just wanted to share with everyone the picture. here's the post i did about my sisters 'something blue'. and here's the photo of the 'something blue' on the wedding dress. :)

Taste of the Mediterranean - a cross stitch update

so i meant to finish this cross stitch which is named - Taste of the Mediterranean - for my mother for christmas, but that never happened. this is the biggest cross stitch i've ever made and eventually finish. hehe. so i just thought i would give an update on where i was. so here's a picture of where i was the last time i updated you the project. and here's a picture i took yesterday of where i am now on the project. i will finish this sucker! hehe

cross stitch

hey everyone.

i've finished a couple cross stitch projects and just wanted to share. the first is a baby bib i made for my soon to be niece. my brother and sister in law are expecting in march and i made this bib for them.

this second one is a lady bug i made for a friend for her birthday. she is crazy about lady bugs. she has a whole bathroom that is all lady bugs. and her desk at work is decorated with lady bugs. so i made this into a magnet. she has it up at work. hehe. here it is. 

if you want to see more of what i've made here's the website i post all my projects to.

christmas cross stitch work in progress

so i am working on a project for my mom for christmas and this is what i have so far. i've been working on it off an on for the last couple of months. but now that it is the middle of november it's go time. all free time is going to this project. here's what i have so far and then here's a picture of what it will look like at the end.

something blue part two

Wow it's been a long time since I've posted. Sorry about that. I had two weddings in 3 months, things got a little crazy. I will do better about posting more often.

My stepsister and my sister got married this summer/fall. I made both of their 'something blue'. I've already shared breanna's, so here's Marianne's. With Marianne's she wanted something a little different. The two last names are her son's and her husband's (soon to be her last name). Took me just one day to finish it. Ok here it is.

something blue

so my stepsister breanna is getting married in less than a month! i can't believe it! and my part of the wedding is being a bridesmaid (which i'm very honored!). but i also got the honor of making my sisters 'something-blue'. i had told breanna from the start that if she wanted me to make something for her (meaning cross stitch) i would be happy to. breanna stated that she wanted me to cross stitch her 'something-blue'. i was very happy to oblige. so a weekend or two ago, i made it for her. it was of a design that breanna picked out and she wanted everything to be in different shades of blue. the design will be sewed onto the inside of the wedding dress. and then after the wedding, the design will be taken from the dress and i'll frame it. here's it is:

c2e2 2014

why hello! so what i didn't talk about in my last blog entry was that i went to C2E2 this year. was a total blast! i went with my friend melissa and two of my cousins. we had a grand ole time. in no particular order here's some of the stuff that happened.

-saw a bunch of cool costumes. my favorite was the phantom of the opera. there were three of them. one was the phantom, one was christine diane, and one was meg. so very cool.

-for one of my cousins, it was her first time ever going to a convention. so i'm really glad that i got to be part of the first time for her. hehe. she said she had a good time, hopefully that is true. she seemed like she did. and sounded excited about going again next year. 

-at one place in the convention you could pay $5 to go to a reptile conservation and for the 5 bucks you got to take your picture with a huge python. so me and my cousin both paid the money and then took our picture an albino python. a huge albino python. it was awesome!

-i only went one day this year. sadly. i had just started my new job and didn't want to take too many days off. so i wore my captain america costume. which is now complete. i really don't have any additions to make to it (unlike my steampunk costume which still needs a couple of things).

-my friend melissa got some books signed by some authors at the convention. she was really excited about that.

-all in all it was an awesome time. if you want to see my pictures, here you go. 

it's alive!

hey there! i'm really sorry it's been so long since i've written. time just gets away and then i feel like i'm running to catch up. so this post is just going to be an update post. and then i'll get back into the swing of things. sorry about that.
lets see...

family - yesterday was my cousin anna's high school graduation party. i can't believe anna is that old! i remember when she was born! yes i'm that person now. hehe. at least i don't pinched her cheeks or anything. hehe. at the party of bunch of my moms family that i don't see very often was there. cousins of cousins kind of family. so it was nice to catch up with them all.

playwright - well one of the cousin of cousin - my moms cousin lee is an acting teacher in new york at a special high school for the performing arts. and he said they are always looking for new scripts to perform. so he said for me to email my scripts to him and his students might perform them. so that made me very happy! i'm going to send him the first play i ever wrote. which is an adaptation of 'the things they carried' by tim o'brien. i wrote that for my senior one act in high school. and i've always been proud of it. so if it gets performed, i'm just going to have to take a trip to new york and see it performed and see the city! hehe. so i hope it gets performed. if not, i understand. but if it does, that would be amazing!

weddings - my sister marianne is getting married! caleb is the new addition to the family. i've met him over skype. i know not the best way to meet someone but when you live across the country from each other, that's about as best as it's going to get; until you travel there that is. so the wedding will be in october. which of course is two months after my step sisters wedding which is in august. so many weddings, so little time!

work - i've been at my new job for 3 months now. i really like it there. the people are very nice and fun to work with. it's a laid back job but at the same time they are demanding of my time. it's an very good balance of working hard and having fun at work. like the other day we all were given little pots with flower seeds to grow while we were at work. like we were doing a 3rd grade science project. but it was totally fun. it took about 30 minutes out of our day, which was a nice little break in the work day.

letterboxing - now that the weather is nice again i've been going out letterboxing. it's so nice to go out and do it again. i've been going just about every monday. since i have the days off, it's a nice way to spend my time. and there are so many by me that i haven't found! it's like pokemon, i must catch them all! hehe. me and a friend are talking about taking a road trip just for letterboxing. which i think would be totally awesome! we haven't picked where to yet. but i've very excited for the idea of a road trip just for letterboxing!

photos - check out my flickr account and instagram account for pictures from the last couple of months. too many to post on this. hehe.

well that's all for now. i will update much more now. sorry about that. until next time!

Breanna's Wedding Weekend

So this past weekend I was at my dad's and the whole weekend was about getting things done for my stepsister's (breanna) wedding. My sister (marianne) is going to be making Breanna's wedding dress so most of the weekend was about getting the things for that. But we also got the bridesmaid dresses. Breanna's dress it going to be a strapless heart shaped dress. Its going to be beautiful! Marianne is an amazing dress maker so she'll do an awesome job. And Breanna is beautiful so she will look great all on her own. The bridesmaid dresses are going to be purple and us bridesmaids will look great. The wedding isn't until August but I'm starting to get excited. Here are some pictures from the weekend. The first picture is of Marianne and I in the bridesmaid dresses. The next two photos are of Marianne working on the dress. I'm not going to post Breanna in the dress for I don't want to give anything away. :)

happy little fish

so i made a new cross stitch project. i made this for my cousin's baby Cheyenne for her baptism. here it is.

Dad

Today is my dad's birthday. So happy birthday to a marine, a sports fan, photographer and family man. Love you dad.

family good news

i have two things with my family that is wonderful news. first my brother got promoted with his job! woot woot for him. he is now a VP. second is that my stepsister recently got engaged to her bf. i'm super excited for the both of them. so i've already picked out the cross stitch projects i'm going to make for both siblings in celebration. hehe. how else would i celebrate their good news?! hehe.

Mom

Just wanted to say happy birthday to my mom. She's amazingly nuts and awesome at the same time. And that's why I love her. Happy birthday mom.

Dragoncon 2012 scrapbook

So I finally finished the scrapbook I was making for dragoncon 2012. I'm very pleased with the finished product. I like that its not perfect. I'm happy with how it turned out. For the cover and pages I used an old book. I just cut the covering off of the book and ripped the pages out of the book. I then punched holes into everything and bound it all together with two binder rings. Here are some pictures of the final product.

c2e2

this past weekend was the chicago comic entertainment expo (C2E2). i went friday and saturday. friday i went by myself. that's right i took off work to go to this. hehe. saturday i went with my cousin. for my cousin it was her first convention so it was cool to show her what they are all about. i hope she enjoyed it and will want to go to more. i know i love going to them! hehe. over all i had a great time. makes me super excited for dragon con this year! hehe. for pictures of my weekend, go to my flickr and instagram.

here's a random breakdown of the weekend. in no particular order:
-this year i dressed up in costume for the first time. friday i dressed up as captain america. it was cool for it was the first time people stopped me and asked for my picture. which is always a compliment. means the hard work that went into the costume paid off. saturday i wore my steampunk costume. my sister made the harness i wear for that, so i was excited to display it for the first time. my sister can sew that is for sure! hehe. no one asked for my photo in my steampunk costume, but i did get some compliments about it.
-got to see my friend jimmy. he was my boss when i worked at a comic shop, so it was cool to see him.
-got to meet some of the people that work for challenger comics. i have been chatting with them on twitter, so it was nice to put a face to the group. all of them were very nice.
-the swag i got this year was: captain america piggy bank - which really it's just a nice cheap bust of captain america. captain america/red skull salt and pepper shakers. a signed poster from cbldf of lil depressed boy. a captain america travel mug. i'm very excited to take that to work. no one will confuse my drink for theirs. hehe. a really sweet necklace. a comic that jae lee did the cover for. i love his art work, he is amazing! a replica river song journal. i'm going to use it as my own journal.
-i got robert atkins signature. he's known for his g.i. joe stuff. but he also has done some marvel work. he drew a really cool cover for spiderman.
-saw some really cool costumes. harley quinn, the joker, batman, iron man, steampunk, dr who, captain america and so many more.
-i saw one of the dr's i work for there. it was cool to see him outside of work. you never think of the dr's as 'normal people' but really they are. hehe.
-the 501st legion: vader's fist were there. they are always at dragon con so it was cool to see them at c2e2. they are people who dress up in exact replica's of star wars empire troopers. their costumes are always pretty sweet.

so over all i had a great time. i was on my feet all weekend and now i'm ready to just lay down for many many hours. hehe.