Back to Beading, Part I

I've gotten back into beading lately, after taking a 10 year break (with some beading projects in between, of course)! In mid-March, I was randomly looking through a book on beadwork and I thought it was time to revisit an old hobby of mine. I started beading again in March and I've been at it every since (now June). I had some beads, but they were all various sizes and not a very big selection of colors to work with. So I got on firemountaingems.com and placed a large order for 11/0 Toho beads, which come in many colors and are fairly uniform in size. By ordering from fmg, I saved probably more that 50% verses buying in the store. Granted, I had to order quite a bit, but I needed all that I ordered! In fact, since that order, I have used up so many beads that had to buy a couple tubes at Michael's a few weeks later. And as I type this, I'm due for another large order since I'm about out of most colors! Here are pictures of some beading projects that I highly enjoyed making, in the months of March and April 2020:

March 24

My very first project was a little amulet necklace for Elisa. She never wears it, but it was fun to make. 

March 26

An amulet I made for myself. I wear it occasionally. 

March 28

Some pretty pearl earrings that I will probably never wear. 

March 30

I was so excited when my box of beads (plus some other things) came! Yay!! Sooo many options now...

April 4

My first project with my new beads. I made a unicorn necklace for Elisa, but she's never worn it, not even once.

April 5th

I made a bracelet for myself. It is prettier in person (most of these items are). It took such a loooong time to make, that I most definitely with never be making anything like this again. 

April 10

I came across a really cool video tutorial (in Turkish) on youtube that I followed to make these awesome bracelets. I made one for Elisa too!

April 11

I saw a tutorial for this star necklace made by the same person that made the YouTube bracelet tutorial (above).  I liked it so I made one for Elisa. And when I say for Elisa, I actually mean for myself because Elisa doesn't wear my beaded stuff and I really like this star necklace so I wear it instead.

April 14-16

My first attempt at bead embroidery in about 10 years. Once I started it, and I could not stop. I don't know why, but bead embroidery is addicting to me. This was free-form bead embroidery, meaning I didn't have any plan nor did I follow any pattern. I just beaded till my heart was content. I intermittently glued sparkly gems as I went. I was finished when I got tired of looking at all that red. I love bead embroidery, it is so forgiving and like I mentioned, addicting. When I was all done, I edged it--my first time edging! Doing the edging was easy enough and I think it turned out well. When I was done, I realized that it resembled a human heart. How cool is that? I had zero intention of it looking like a human heart, but I'm tickled that it did! I made my creation into a magnet because frankly, I had no idea what else it could be. It's almost as big as my hand so it wouldn't work for jewelry or a hairpiece or a pin. I happened to have some magnet buttons that had a sticky back, so it was easy to stick 'em on the back of my project piece and put it up on our magnet board in the front room for all to see!

April 27

I've made lots of fringe earrings since these, but I have to say, this first pair is still my favorite! I copied some girl's earrings off of Etsy (sorry not sorry) because I liked them and decided I wanted them without paying $40 plus shipping. I saw, I wanted, I made. I wear these fairly often because like I said, I really like them. I think I am addicted to making beaded fringe earrings!

April 28

Another copy-cat earrings, but I don't care. I saw, I wanted, I made. I really like them but they are so heavy!  

April 29

Okay, these I did not copy. I made these up all by myself, some little fringe earrings for Elisa. She does actually wear them, surprisingly. I think they are adorable on her.

April 30

Here are some adorable owl earrings that I copied from somewhere off the internet. I used Delica beads for these. Delica beads are square and exactly uniform, but best of all they are light-weight. Which is great for fringe earrings that are fairly large, that way they won't pull on the earring holes because they're not as heavy as Toho beads and the like.  

Random May Happenings, Part II

Here are some pictures of more fun things we did in the month of May! I put Elisa's name in the labels because mostly there are pictures of Elisa!

First of, some pictures of Elisa is stole off of the Activity Day Girl Facebook group. I can't tell you much about them since I don't remember the dates and I'm not 100% sure of what she did but she sure is cute! I'm glad someone took pictures of her!

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Making gratitude journals with her friend Lily. She hasn't touched hers since.

Making a goal journal (I think) with friends Ginger (right) and Eliza (left)

Is she hiding??

St. Patrick's day fun!

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 We got a pool! We debated for a while whether we should build a patio for it and if it would even fit (without getting rid of the trampoline)m but ultimately decided putting it on the patio would be best. We could keep the trampoline, we didn't have to spend the time, energy, and money building a patio, and best of all, the pool would be completely in the sun so we don't ever had to worry about putting sunscreen on every single time we want to get into the pool. Also, the pool wouldn't turn into a hot tub come August when the temperatures outside have been over 110 for a full month. Erik found the largest pool he could that would still fit in the patio space. Our fist choice was sold out, so we ended up ordering a slightly different one, from Walmart.com. The pool came in a huge box that weighed about 200 lbs! Erik had a Walmart employee help stuff it in our van. Ian had to move to the back middle, and we almost had a child war break out because they don't do well shoved close together!
Erik and I set the pool up a few days later. It definitely took work to set up the pool, but overall it wasn't too bad. The kids got in the pool before it was even half full! The kids have enjoyed swimming in the pool almost everyday. Its warmed up since then and has stayed nice and clean thanks to the chlorine, filter, and pump.

May 11

Bringing home the pool while the kids fought in the back seat

May 12

Setting up the pool

May 12

Barely and inch of water in the pool and this boo-boo is already in it!

May 12

I bent by fingernail pulling the bottom of the pool out to make it lay flat.

May 13

This girl swam in the pool as soon as she could!

May 13

My three cuties, all in a row, enjoying their new pool

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May 15

Lemon loaf herbal tea with a little cream and sugar, plus large tapioca balls to make "bubble" tea. I had to add whipped cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg for that extra yumminess! Elisa loved this tea and pretty much drank all of it.

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May 15

Despite most of our camping gear being stolen, and the cancellation of the ward campout due to the Corona, Erik still insisted on going camping. So he ordered more sleeping bags and took the boys. Elisa really wanted to go, and I really didn't want to go, so I convinced her to let the boys go and she could go to dinner and have a sleepover with me in my bed. She reluctantly agreed. So while the boys went camping, we went to The Cracker Barrel. It was good timing too, because the sit-down area of the restaurants had just opened up. It was nice to sit down in a restaurant since we hadn't been in months. There were enough people there to make it not awkward, but few enough that it wasn't at all crowded. I ordered the Friday fish and it was delish! Elisa ordered mac n cheese, but mostly feasted on my biscuits. Ian ate her mac n cheese the next day. For dessert we shared the coca-cola cake. Yum! I also bought Elisa a large lollipop in the Cracker Barrel shop. When we got home, we watched Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and it was just as bad as I remember it being. Then we went to bed, with Eesa in Erik's spot! 

Gabe climbed a tree stump that the boys found on their hike.

The campfire storytelling game tradition continues, even without a campfire.

Ian rolled off of his mattress several times in the night and woke up like this.

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May 19

We went to Sam's club and Elisa saw these macarons and decided she really, really wanted to buy them even thought they were $15 or so. Which wasn't that bad of a deal since it came out to be less than 50 cents per macaron, which is a steal considering Erik pays $3 per macaron at Le Macaron by his work. Luckily she had enough money on her spending card to purchase them. They were about all gone by the next day!

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May 19

A preview of Ian's recital song!

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Random May Happenings, Part I

Here are pictures of the fun things we did, in the first part of the month of May 2020:

First though, the not-fun, and no pictures:

We had our first robbery, as of early morning (probably between 1-4 am) May 1st. What happened was this: There was a bird in the garage, so Erik opened the smaller garage door to let it out and then went to bed without closing the door. I had no idea that he left the garage door open all night. I know that he wanted to bird to get out--and this is a nice, safe neighborhood--but its a little too trusting to leave the garage door open all night long. Too trusting indeed. We found that out a few days later, when Erik asked me where is toolbox was. I said I last saw it in the garage and that maybe the kids took it somewhere? So I went with him out to the garage to show him where I saw it last. And that was when we discovered our sleeping bags, camping chairs, canopy, and plastic Christmas train (that we have go around the tree) were all missing. We put two and two together. Thievery. Not to mention, trespassing. Ugh. So angering, to have someone come on your own property and help themselves to whatever they want. Luckily that was all they took. I'm kinda impressed they took all that stuff without us hearing a thing, because that garage was pretty much an obstacle course with all the bikes and kid stuff scattered all over. There were a series of other robberies around the neighborhood, mostly of outdoor decor. We were the only ones dumb enough to have our garage door open all night. I'm surprised the thieves/thief hasn't gotten caught yet, with all the recent neighborhood robbery. You'd think someone would have caught something on camera by now. 

Now on to the fun stuff:

May 3

I bought Elisa the Frozen II movie, and then her and Ian became obsessed with the movie, and the original Frozen movie as well. Ian found Elisa's old Elsa dress and donned it whilst acting out scenes from the movie. Silly boy!

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Here are lots of pictures from our kitchen facelift, which is still in progress as I write this. It all started with the counter tops. They grossed me out being completely nasty as grout collected dirt as well as thousands of little pock marks in the tile. It was like they were never clean, no matter how much I wiped those countertops. So I wanted them out, and replaced with something smooth and new. So Erik and I went to Lowe's and picked out a quartz countertop that we liked, and it was 20% off to boot. The installation date was put off for a few weeks due to the Covid (not sure why delaying would help prevent the virus, but whatever), but as soon as May came, we got a call asking when to set a date for the countertop install. Two guys came and ripped out the countertops and the backsplash, and put in the new countertops--all in one day. The countertops are so smooth and bright and clean! I love them. We are currently working on the backsplash, and the cabinets--which I'd like to repaint in a rich brown--will have to wait a few months.

Prep work. We had to remove all the junk from the lower cabinets so dust and debris wouldn't get all over it. Erik also covered the floor of the lower cabinets with a plastic dropcloth. 

Out with the old.....

...and in with the new!

We looked at soooo many backsplashes, but the vast majority were two gray. We ended up going with #2, which is a stone, and designed for outdoors (even thought lots of people still use it for backsplash), so Lowe's refused to install it for us so we're installing it ourselves. How annoying that they wouldn't install it. I tried to find a backsplash tile that worked and that was specifically designed to be a backsplash, but I just couldn't find one I liked. And I'm not paying lots of money to redo a kitchen with something I don't even like.  And I really like the stone backsplash. So #2 is our backsplash even though we have to do it ourselves.

Erik and his dad putting the microwave back. The microwave has always been oddly high, so we decided that we should lower it while we were redoing the kitchen. After Grandma and Grandpa left, Erik and I put the microwave up in its new lower spot, after Erik got some really long screws given to us by a guy in our ward, since he couldn't find them at Lowe's.

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May 6

Ian doing his Zoom meeting. 

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This picture has nothing to do with May or even anything we've done. It's at least 5 years old and not even taken by me, but by an acquaintance back in Texas. I stole it from her uploads of Facebook (sorry, not sorry). I'm including this picture because its just such a crazy, cool picture and I don't know where else I'd post it and I want to share it. I *think* this picture was taken in the basement of the Moody Mansion in Galveston, TX--I'm pretty sure but not 100% sure. Anyway, if you haven't spotted it by now...I'll tell you: 

A Ghost!

See it now?

The girl that took this picture had the camera aimed at a mirror, so I'm not sure if this is a reflection or what, but I definitely see a face, and even what looks like an ammo belt across his chest. This is a real picture taken by a real person who I have no reason to believe was looking for attention or lying, which is the main reason I'm so stoked about this picture--I believe this is a genuine picture of an actual apparition!  So awesome.

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May 6

A desert moon. Taken on a bike ride with Elisa, just behind our house.

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May 7

A little somebody crawled into my bed in the morning after Erik left for work, and fell asleep.

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May 7

Some pictures of the desert sunset with Elisa, on another bike ride.

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One of my favorite presents, ever!

May 10

Mother's day! I didn't really ask for anything for mother's day since the kitchen face-lift is enough for me, but Erik surprised me with lots of candy! The kids were drawn to it like flys to crap bees to flowers! I had to hide it/lock it up in my craft room. The candy didn't last long! 

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May 11

Ian got tired of squeezing himself into a too-small girl's princess dress, so instead he dressed himself in light blue, and used a yard of sparkly fabric as a cape. You guess it: he is Elsa!