Tag Archives: handmade

What I Learned This Week – 11/3/13

This week I learned that a crunchy peanut butter and Nutella sandwich is delicious. It tastes almost like a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

But in sandwich form!

You can call it lunch!

Crunchy Peanut Butter and Nutella Sandwich

Crunchy Peanut Butter and Nutella Sandwich

And you actually need to spread on very little Nutella to get a big complimentary taste. I am not a big peanut butter fan, but we have accumulated a lot of it in our house. I feel a need to eat it up. I find I prefer crunchy to regular.

This might sound like an odd combination, but you have to realize you are listening to a person who had never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in her life. Peanut butter sandwich-yes. Jelly on toast-yes. The two substances together? That just strikes me as completely disgusting.

This week I also got to wear my Halloween costume that I have been planning for a year, and made a large portion of myself.

Curious? I will give you 3 clues.

1. She is a female.
2. Born in 1976.
3. She is three apples high (but my costume is much bigger).

Hello Kitty!

Hello Kitty costume

Hello Kitty costume

I saw a Hello Kitty outfit at a costume store last year, and that gave me the idea. But the costume looked cheap and flimsy and had like a tutu on it. I was like “I can totally make something better than that!”

Commercial Hello Kitty Costume Photo: SpiritHalloween.com

Commercial Hello Kitty Costume
Photo: SpiritHalloween.com

You should know one of my rules for a Halloween costume is that it be reusable. (I am a Capricorn, I like to get my money’s worth.) One year I invested in a short skirt, short black jacket, and gray velvet tank top. I wore them for YEARS in numerous costumes:

Slutty Witch
Pirate Wench
Slutty Fairy
Juno (I wore the skirt over jeans–I was pregnant that year)

As you might remember, last year I was Jem from Jem & the Holograms. Instead of paying big money for a slutty plastic dress made in China, I bought a pink wrap dress I could reuse on other occasions (also probably made in China). Notice I said “could” reuse. I am anti-dress for most occasions, so I have probably only worn it once since last Halloween.

Now, as you can probably guess I froze my ass off with a lot of these past costumes running around on the streets on October 31 in Michigan. Sometimes I had uncomfortable shoes on as well.

So, this new Hello Kitty costume needed to be both warm and comfortable, in addition to reusable.

I searched online and found the cutest (and reasonably cheap) Hello Kitty winter hat. The face is the most important part, and it is important that it look good. Plus, it was reusable, warm, and comfy.

Hello Kitty wears many different clothes for her many personalities, but the most iconic are her red overalls. I decided to make the overalls out of red fleece, as it does not unravel and would require less sewing. I used some denim overalls I already had as a make-shift pattern. I pinned it up and had my asbestos friend sew up the long leg seams for me. I own a sewing machine, but can’t manage to work it. Then I hand-sewed on the buttons, the button holes, the tail, and the pockets. (The Hello Kitty material I used for the pockets is supposed to help clue in those who may still have trouble figuring out my costume.) It is very warm, very comfy, but resusable? Hell ya! I am planning to use it as pajama pants.

Nice Tail!

Nice Tail!

The only people who really seemed to love it were the little girls, but that is alright. I got to wear it to Trick or Treating at the mall and around town on Halloween. Unfortunately, the weather on Halloween was windy and rainy, and the annual parade and bonfire where canceled. So, I don’t feel like I got as much mileage out of my costume as I would have liked.

Maybe I will not turn it into pajamas so quickly. Maybe I will wash it up and wear it again next year.

…It was just so dang warm!

Wedding Jeans

The gazebo in the park we got married at

As a general rule, I do not wear dresses. Or skirts, for that matter. I don’t wear them on a normal day, to work, or to job interviews. The one exception I make is to wear them to weddings. Other people’s weddings. Not my own. Intrigued? Read on…(And no, I did not get married in the nude!)

My then-boyfriend and I had talked about marriage, but he wasn’t ready to propose to me yet. At twenty-four, he still felt he was too young to get married. But I was still thinking about my wedding, anyway. I was not one of those girls who day dreamed about her wedding for years and what white poofy dress she would wear. Nope. I think about high school age I decided my dream wedding would be to get married in Las Vegas by Elvis. I am still waiting for that wedding. *sigh*

So although my boyfriend hadn’t proposed to me, I was still wondering what I would wear to my own wedding. I knew a big white dress was out. I must have thought “If only I could just wear jeans”. And that is how the “wedding jeans” were born.

Reception


Do you remember how I like unusual sewing projects, such as the pharmacy giraffe, Christmas stockings, and the Werecart? Well, you can add wedding jeans to that list too. I bought all the white patches I could find. Most featured flowers or hearts. I put them on the legs and back pockets of the jeans. Then I bought thin white ribbon and iridescent seed beads. I sewed the ribbon along the tops of the pockets, and down the side seams of both legs. Then I sewed the seed beads on top of the ribbon. By hand. Sewing through a denim seam is no picnic. I bent several needles in the process.

Now, when I started this project, I kept saying I wasn’t really going to wear the jeans for my wedding. But once my future husband saw them being made and how cool they were, he told me I had to wear them. That he would make me. It is a good thing I started them like 6 months before he proposed, because I think I worked on them for a year. I had them ready a few months before we were married. My jeans were a little too big. Which was unfortunate, because I couldn’t try to wash and shrink them now, as it would have ruined the decorations. So I made a white and yellow ribbon braided belt for them. Sort of dorky, but it did the job.

Now, the hard part was finding a shirt to wear with it. I pictured something white and billowy, sort of like a pirate would wear. Not my usual style, but it was for my wedding day. I bought three different white shirts and I was unhappy with all of them. I ended up wearing just a plain white T-shirt. (I am still looking for the perfect shirt to this day. And if I found it I just might buy it.) On my feet I wore my favorite sandals–pretty basic, brown leather. In my hair, I had baby’s breath put into a half a French braid. The bottom of my hair was curled and hung free.

Ta-Da! The Wedding Jeans. (Front View)


On our invitations, we put “Casual Attire Suggested”. We had our wedding and reception outdoors in August, so it was a little warm. It was a sunny day, no rain. My husband wore a gray shirt and black pants. My bridesmaid wore a denim skirt. We got married in a city part that was just a block from our apartment. (We walked to our own wedding.) We had our reception in my mother-in-law’s backyard, with hamburgers and hot dogs. I didn’t have to worry about changing my clothes or “bustling” anything. I didn’t have to worry about wardrobe malfunctions (although I am sure that I probably worried anyway). In our wedding pictures, my husband and I have genuine toothy smiles, not the kind we usually give for pictures where we keep our mouths closed to hide our crooked teeth. All out smiles.

Wedding Jeans (Rear View)…Hey, quit staring at my ass!


My advice to anyone is to have your wedding your way. And ask for lots of help. I tried to do too much on my own. No one ever said a word about my wedding jeans. Which means either everyone liked them or knew how to be polite. What happened to Vegas, you ask? Well, we didn’t have our wedding there because my husband wanted his family to be able to come and they could not have all made it to Vegas. So my plan was that we would go to Vegas to get our vows renewed for our 5 year anniversary. Didn’t happen. But we should definitely go do it for our ten year anniversary–8/23/2013.

HAPPY 9th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TODAY TO MY HUSBAND!

Who doesn’t read my blog, but he supports me writing it, which may be even better.

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