"This is why you should drop out of college!"

         

          First of all, don't worry...I am not dropping out of college. Second of all, this post has nothing to do with school. The title of this post is what my friend Emma told me when she saw all the crafts I was working on. And that is why I love Emma :).
          So while the past few months have been a little crazy, I decided to keep myself and my mind busy by starting up sewing again and making new crafts. Let me tell you. I am OBSESSED. I took one sewing class seven years ago in middle school and that is where my passion for sewing began. A few years after that my Grandpa Nielsen gave me my Great-Grandma Jones' Bernina sewing machine. However, I've been so busy with school, dance, and life in general the past few years that I haven't had time to pick up the hobby for real until now.
          My first few projects were aprons. I made one for myself, one for my Grandma Galan, and one for my best friend Macy for her birthday. When my mom first suggested starting with aprons, I thought it was going to be super lame. However, once I got to picking out fabric, I enjoyed every second of making those aprons.

                                   Isn't she the cutest lady ever???


              My second project was making a poodle skirt for my little sister Andrea for her end of school dance festival. She wanted to have a unique poodle skirt (i.e., not pink or purple), so we went all out. She looked adorable in it, and she danced very well!

                        The last Nielsen to graduate from Provost Elementary!

               My next project was a wooden spool wreath. I got the idea off of pinterest.com. Click here to see it. Don't judge because theirs was probably made by Martha Stewart's twin or something. Here are photos of the process:

                                               This is the base I used. From Robert's.

            Okay I know this is creepy, but I found this at D.I. and used it for a means of getting wooden spools. Yes, I destroyed it. haha, kinda funny, right?

           The wreath on Pinterest used real spools of thread, but I didn't want to waste real spools. I used nail polish, stickers from real spools of thread, and I also hot glue-gunned thread to some of the spools to make the spools come to life! I had a few real wooden thread spools, but they were old ones that came with my great-grandma's machine, so I didn't want to use those.

            The next project I made was inspired by a craft my cute older sister made back at Halloween. She got the idea from eighteen25.blogspot.com. To see what she did click here :).  This project isn't technically finished because I want to attach ribbon and hang them, but I don't have anywhere to hang them right now. Regardless, here's what I did:

                            I got these four wooden slabs from Wal-Mart for $1 each.

                           I found this book at D.I. for $1.50. The pages looked old, which is the look I was going for. However, if you do this craft, be careful of the book you use. There were MANY bad words in this book. And when I say MANY, I mean MANNNNNNNY. Haha. :)

            I got a 3" circle cutter from Michael's to cut out the circles. After the circles were cut, I wrapped them around a pen to make little clusters. Then I hot glue-gunned them to the wooden squares after I put lace and the black felt letters on them....See?:

      So these will eventually all have one ribbon behind them and hang on one of my walls in this formation. :)
     
        Last week my friend and old roommate Emma (the one with the famous quote of this blog post) came over and I introduced her to crafting. She thoroughly enjoyed herself. Which is why she advised me to drop out of college and continue coming up with fun crafts. We went to Michael's and found some cute things:

           We found these male and female wooden people, and came up with the idea for Emma to make signs like at public restrooms for her bathroom at her house. We got the wooden people $2 each at Michael's, duct tape sheets (yes, they sell duct tape in paper-sized sheets!), and flowers (one for her hair, and one for his suit) and Emma came up with.....

                                              She came up with THESE!!!! So cute, right???

        My most recent project I made last night until 3 a.m. I'm telling you, this craftiness makes
you crazy and very driven. I like to see results. So it's great :). I got this idea from this website. Now, although their products are super cute, they're also SUPER expensive. I mean, $60 for something that I made for $15? Really? So, I made my own. I have been wanting to buy one of the Vintage Hem slips (they are slips with cute trim on the edge that is meant to be seen, and helps your skirts and dresses be long enough), but I just couldn't do it. So last night I went to Wal-Mart and bought a $5 slip, some cheap white cotton fabric to sew the white eyelet lace that I also purchased on. The slip is 20" long, and the lace panel is about 7.5 inches long. I think the next one I make will just be 6" or 6.5" long because most my skirts didn't need that much extra length. Also, I purchased a size up from my regular size in the slip because I don't like them being too tight. However, I don't recommend going up a size because once the trim/lace is added on the bottom, it adds weight, so your slip will slide down and it will ruin the look. This is one of my favorite new projects. :)

                                                                The finished product :)

                                 It looks better on a real person, because it's really just past knee-length.


             As crazy and obsessed as all these projects might make me look (I might not actually deny those claims :), I've actually really learned a lot from them. I have been developing talents that I've been given, which is something my Patriarchal Blessing advises me to do, I have stayed busy and had things to do when normally I might get down if no one is home at my apartment (I used to HATE being home alone...I'm a people person!), and I've realized how excited I am to be a housewife. Do not worry, I'm not getting married; I'm not even dating anyone. However!....These hobbies I've been working on have helped me get in touch with my domestic side, which has reminded me of some of the responsibilities I will have as a wife and mother one day. I am an English language major, and I'm getting minors in editing and contemporary dance as well. Whenever people ask me what I want to do with that, they usually don't expect what I tell them. Although I love what I am studying, it is my dream to just be a stay-at-home wife and mom. I'm so excited to be able to take care of my family, in any and all ways. Right now I've been blessed to have the opportunity and help to go to BYU and get an education, which I believe and know is very important so that I develop my other talents and become prepared for what I may be required to do in the future. However, I hope to one day be able to just be a wife and mother to my future family. And I hope that I can make them happy.

            I absolutely love my life right now. The past six months have been crazy and thrown many curve balls my way, but I've just learned from all of them. I have just started the best job I think I can ever have--I am a SOAR counselor at BYU (I'll blog about this later). I have amazing friends, family, and co-workers. And right now, I'm especially grateful for the talents and the time that I have right now to develop them. I am happy. And that's all.