On a Magnifying Glass Pin to Match My Nancy Drew Shirt: A Photo Post

Sometimes one just has to make an impromptu felt pin to match one's shirt...

Vinyl is tricky to sew with, but worth the look!

♥️ 🔍♥

On Being a Rose Bush

Yesterday I became one of the Queen of Heart's rose bushes, a costume that has been coming together for the past few month.  
 

It all started simply enough with the roses about mid-September. After some thoughts about getting a bouquet of fake roses at the store, I ended up deciding that I'd really rather make them out of felt, which then turned into hand-sewing them out of felt--all 15 of them--because if I hot glued them I realized the pin probably wouldn't go through. May I say while it's not too bad to do a few, 15 is a bit much? Then I got over excited about the leaves (didn't count those), but those I could at least do on the machine with the exception of attaching them to the roses. 

While I was going through this process, I still needed to find a sweater, so I made a trip to the swap meet to find one (post on the other finds coming soon!) and managed to find the one I'm wearing in the pic and a thermal green shirt as an additional option both for just a $1. 

So having found the perfect sweater and with the roses being done, I thought "It's the beginning of October and I'm already done, great!"...but being the obsessive Alice's Adventures in Wonderland girl that I am, I kept thinking of new things to add!

Suddenly, it occurred to me that I needed a paint can, which was easy enough to obtain and make a label for (using Lewis Carroll font, I might add!) and once again I thought I was done with the exception of maybe digging around the garage for a paint brush. Then last Friday, after having debated about it off and on for a month, I decided I really did need brown jeans if it was going to look right, so I stopped by a thrift store on my way home. Two pairs of brown pants in my size...one pair fit!!! Having checked that off my list, I was really truly done. You'll will by now caught on to where this is going.

 

It is now October 30th...I wanted a leaf mask! So I happily sat on the living room floor and made my mask while listening to the 1938 radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds". All done, again! Except around 7:30, I started thinking about how I should have a Queen of Hearts playing card dangling from my outfit somewhere and how nice it would have been if I had had time to make a stuffed hedgehog. So I hunt up an image of a Victorian playing card, while still thinking about hedgehogs and then it occurs to me I can make a felt one and pin it on my leg! Some sketching, hand-stitching, and machine stitching later, tada, hedgehog! All done! Except as I'm going to bed, I'm thinking, I really don't like the store bought paint brush...

October 31st, I wake up thinking about paint brushes. I can't hang any of my art paint brushes from my belt loop because there's no place to tie anything on to them. However, I  have two chop-sticks that I didn't end up using for the mask. I hot glue them together, leaving a gap to slip the ribbon through, glue on some yarn, wrap silver wire ribbon around the top of that, and add a little paint to make a fake brush that any playing card would be proud to paint with!  And that really truly concluded the costume making!

The non-Cheshire Cat wanted to know why it wasn't being fed from the "giant tin of cat food"

♥️ ♥️ ♥️

On "A Handful of Happiness": A Book Review

Title: A Handful of Happiness: How a Prickly Creature Softened a Prickly Heart 
Authors: Massimo Vacchetta and Antonella Tomaselli (Translated by Jamie Richards)
Genre: Non-Fic, Biography

About the Book... 
When Italian veterinarian Massimo Vacchetta, who normally works with livestock, crosses paths with a hedgehog his life begins to irrevocably change for the better. Before he knows it he's become devoted to Nina and soon all his time and energy is going towards rescuing these tiny creatures, eventually leading him to find that his calling is opening his own hedgehog sanctuary. 

What I Think...
I really had no expectations when I started this book and was completely drawn to it based on the hedgehog gracing the cover. However, this was one of those books where it was perfectly acceptable to judge the book on the cover.

While this is a biography, it doesn't read like one and is more narrative in nature. It was short and sweet, but not in a rushed way or a in a way that made you feel like you were missing necessary details. Unlike most animal related bios this on, while a little sad here and there, is pretty upbeat and ends happily, which I liked about it. It was also interesting learning about certain hedgehog habits (self-anointing, for example) and the functioning of hedgehog sanctuaries in Italy.

To Sum it All Up...
A lovely and sweet book that is perfect for hedgehog lovers and animal lovers in general.♥️

On a Bat Pin: A Photo Post

Needed a bat pin to go with the craft I was doing at work today, so I made one! (Feel free to sing the Batman theme now with "Bat Pin" being substituted for "Batman" :p)

 

 ♥️ ♥️ ♥️

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