[LIFE STUFF] Valentine's Day Challenge

This Valentine’s Day, I feel lucky to have met someone who adds to my life in the way that Scott does. In previous relationships, I feel like I was looking for someone to complete me and fill some hole society said I was meant to have if I didn’t have a significant other. That feeling - looking to complete myself - contributed to a few pretty toxic relationships I should have bowed out of earlier than I did, but felt like I couldn’t out of obligation to… the world? I dunno. It’s pretty weak reasoning when you think about it, but I think we can all agree that societal pressures to wife up the older you get can feel like a huge weight on your shoulders. That’s not to say everyone I dated was terrible; we just weren’t right for each other and I spent way too long forcing things to work so people wouldn’t be disappointed in me than moving on and finding someone like Scott, who made me realize I’m a complete person with or without him, but our role as partners is to bring out the best in each other.

Turns out I’m a sap.

In honor of Valentine’s Day (which, yes, is a BS Hallmark holiday, I get it, but maybe quiet down and let people enjoy things), I thought I’d kick off my new “Life Stuff” section by posting the Valentine’s Day Challenge I saw floating around Facebook this year. Feel free to tell me your story!

Where did you meet: Bumble. We chatted for a week to determine if the other was psycho before meeting.

First date: Impromptu meet up at 313. We didn’t intend to meet that night, but it happened anyway. I was wearing a Father John Misty t-shirt, ripped jean shorts, glasses, and had kind of brushed my hair, and yet for some reason, we’re still here.

How long have you all been together: August 2019

Age difference: 3.5 years (I’m the old hag)

Who was interested first: Technically Scott because we matched when I swiped

Who is taller: He is, until I wear heels, bwahahaha (if we ever go out again)

Who said I love you first: He did

Most impatient: Definitely me. It happens now or hear me scream.

Most sensitive: I don’t really think either of us are sensitive. I guess if we had to pick, it would be me. We kind of just make fun of each other all day, though.

Most stubborn: Me. Again. Usually for no reason.

Loudest: Me. You can hear me coming a mile away. I’m making myself sound like a real catch here.

Falls asleep first: He does because he has to wake up at 4:30. I wake up, too, but then I roll over and fall asleep with the puppies.

Cooks better: He cooks, I bake. Unless it’s schnitzel or spaetzle, then I win.

Better morning person: What is morning? Definitely him.

Better driver: He thinks he is, but I’m a demon in my Mini. And if he thinks I’m a bad driver, he can drive to allllllll our vacation destinations.

Most competitive: Scott scoffed and said me, and that it’s insane that I have him beat because he is both stubborn and competitive. I have literally taken up hobbies just to prove to someone I hate I’m better at it than they are. Not sure if that’s competitive or petty, though.

Funniest: I think we’re both really mean and people think we’re joking.

Where do you eat out most as a couple? Random breweries (so food trucks) and we both really like Indian and Thai. Back before covid, we went to Tavern on Liberty a lot for their Wednesday pizza specials, but that might be it.

Who is more social? We’re both pretty social, but I’m usually texting a lot more to the point of annoyance

Who is the neat freak? Neither of us are good at tidying on the reg, but if someone is going to freak out about clutter, it’ll be me.

Who spends the most? I thought we spend about the same, but then Scott reminded me I just spent $300 on a 10-year-long cross stitch project and bunny wreath supplies and I’m like okay, might be me.

Where was your first kiss? After I woke up one morning post-terrible movie I picked out, probably La Llorona.

Do you get flowers often? When he wants to. It’s not an obligation, but I do love the surprise when he gets them.

How long did it take to get serious? I mean, we basically moved in together in March (after six months of dating).

Plans date night? He does. I plan enough at work all day. Just tell me where to be and when to show up. I’ll let you know if there’s something I wanna do.

Who picks where you go to dinner? Both usually, but mostly me right now since I’m doing Noom, the actual worst weight loss program ever.

Who cries more? I’ve cried in front of Scott maybe once in 1.5 years, so I guess me by default.

Who has more tattoos? Me because Scott is super straight edge and I was a rebel back in college with my ugly tribal heart tramp stamp.

Who sings better? Me #firstsoprano and he’s mad I answered it that fast

Hogs the remote? He does, unless he’s reading, and then I get all my YouTube Amberlynn Reid drama while I craft.

[FINISHED] Valentine's Day Hot Chocolate Bombs

Remember the last time I made hot chocolate bombs and stomped my feet while crying that I’d never look at a silicone mold again?

Well, it turns out I’m more stubborn than smart.

A few weeks ago, Scott’s sister reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in picking up some extra cash if I made 20 bombs for her to hand out for Valentine’s Day. Although spending the weekend hunched over my double boiler wasn’t my first idea of a good time, it did present an opportunity to get better at making them. Plus, “perfection” is one of my major flaws, so of course I said yes.

I guess I learned something the last four times I made these because this round was relatively painless. In fact, I have the process down and spent my Saturday night alternating between reading The Sanatorium (this month’s Reese’s Book Club pick) and melting/refrigerating chocolate molds. Two months ago, I’d have been babysitting the stove and liquefying the chocolate with my tears. Instead, after three hours and many book chapters, I had 40 halves and no patience (considering I had to fix more than a handful of cracked chocolate edges), so I went to bed around midnight, dreading Part 2: piecing them all together and pipe on the decorations.

But even that worked out. I prefer melting the edges on a hot plate and sticking them together, as that’s worked best in the past, but I’ve had varying levels of success. This time, I figured out I’m a walking user error and wasn’t pressing the halves together hard enough for the edges to truly stick. YouTube makes it look like you can just gently drop the top half on the bottom half and they’ll attach like magnets. YouTube is wrong. These guys need a little push to melt and stick together.

I also nixed the piping bag, which made a giant mess last time, and went with my trusty sandwich bag to get the chocolate drizzle applied, making four bombs at a time so the chocolate didn’t have a chance to dry (pro-tip: because the chocolate has to be at room temperature so as not to melt the bombs, it dries quickly once exposed to air, especially in my cold kitchen because I don’t think Scott knows what heat is).

Also notice the severe lack of white chocolate. That stuff is the devil.

That said, I really want to try making white chocolate RumChata bombs, and a friend of mine just ordered 10 more bombs that I promised to make this weekend, so it looks like I’ll get to experiment with the white stuff again soon. If this past experience has proven anything, it’s that I can learn to make these and will eventually make them well. It’s also proven I’ll always have some type of side gig.

For packaging, Scott’s sister got these cute Valentine’s Day bags that I topped off with heart ribbon I bought off Amazon. I think they turned out really cute and make for great gifts, so I’m assuming I’ve been pigeon-holed into this undertaking for every winter holiday until I die.

So hey, if anyone wants custom hot chocolate bombs and like doesn’t care what they do with their expendable income, let me know because I’ve surpassed wanting to have a life outside of work and making things.

[FINISHED] Hot Chocolate Bombs

I’d like to welcome you to my personal Odyssey, a journey on which I hope to never again embark.

Hot chocolate bombs are all the rage this year (in fact, a friend of mine referred to them as the Tickle Me Elmo of 2020). I’m not sure where it started, but I blame Pinterest and Instagram “influencers” who needed something weird to take pictures of the the holidays. I make fun of that stuff… and I’m also a sucker for it. The same way I work in marketing and am attracted to end cap displays in Target like a moth to a flame. I know a winner when I see it.

It goes without saying, then, that I decided to torture myself with making 20+ (yikes) of these for Christmas gifts.

My process was a bit trial and error because I couldn’t find just one tutorial that worked the way I wanted it to. My final product ended up being a mashup of several blogs and still isn’t perfect, but I’m not entirely mad with the results.

If you’re interested in trying these for yourself, here are my tips:

• The double boiler is your friend. All these recipes are like, “Oh, just use a microwave. It’s fine.” No. It’s easy to burn and hardens too quickly, especially when making bombs in bulk. Invest in a double boiler and get happy. Mine is from Pampered Chef, back in the days when I didn’t know MLMs were evil, but I’m sure other good quality ones exist. I use it way more than I thought I would and your chocolate WILL NOT BURN as long as the water underneath doesn’t boil off. Seriously. INVEST.

• Use literally any other color than brown for your molds. The only molds that Amazon had left were brown, which posed problems I’m sure you can easily imagine. I had to add more chocolate to plug a few holes more than once.

• Always put them in the fridge to cool for at least 30 minutes. It makes popping them out of the silicone super easy.

• When making your bomb, use cupcake wrappers to hold them so the chocolate doesn’t melt in your hands, causing ugly chocolate fingerprints. Keep them in a festive wrapper to prevent them from rolling around, too (form and function, people!)

• Placing the edges on the a hot plate to melt the chocolate works really well, but don’t go too hog wild with it or else your bombs will be more oval than round.

• White chocolate is the actual worst, so just don’t

• You can fit more hot chocolate mix in these than you think

Of course, everyone knows the best part of a gift is the presentation, and I’m the type of person to stress myself about wrapping until I cry and throw my back out. Originally, we were going to display these in cute little boxes I bought off Amazon, but we’d also bought mugs to hand out and I had an entire roll of cellophane left over from gift baskets I’d made, so it just sort of happened that I wrapped each bomb individually and handed them out in a coordinating mug. Tie it off with a Tiffany bow and call it a day - I actually had to tell people I’d made them, which is the biggest compliment.

It also helps that I found cute sprinkles from Simply Sucre on Etsy to make them look more Christmasy. You really need to check out what’s offered there just because - you’ll never go back to store-bought sprinkles again. In fact, these sprinkles make commercial brands look downright ugly. They’re cost-effective for being unique and you can choose how much you want to buy, which I thought was great because they won’t sit in my cabinet forgotten about until next holiday season, at which point they’d get thrown in the trash. I’m really trying to cut down on buying too much of things I don’t need (note: this does not apply to Mill Hill holiday-themed cross stitch kits, so don’t @ me when I share everything I bought over the holidays)

Let me know if you’ve tried to make these and if you had any success. Overall, I found them easy to make, although the decorating didn’t really go well because - and I repeat - white chocolate is not worth it, and I didn’t have the immediate success of “gluing” them together like Pinterest promised (I put chocolate in a pastry bag and piped around the edges and added the sprinkles to ensure they stayed together in transit). Still, I’m happy with them and think they’re a fun holiday treat to make for friends and family.

[FINISHED] Lotion Bars with Beeswax

And now, for something completely different, I bring you: handmade lotion bars.

It’s no secret that Pinterest will be my undoing, and yet I continue to browse, torturing myself with ideas that’ll never see the light of day. My yarn stash will long outlast my life expectancy and my cross stitch collection is headed in that direction, as well. My only hope is that someone else can do something with it once Scott dumps me in front of Shady Pines in 30 years.

That’s how I stumbled on a recipe for three-ingredient lotion bars and had the novel idea of making them for Christmas gifts that I can give to our families and my girlfriends. The recipe seemed simple enough and, once distributed across multiple bars for multiple people, a cost-effective way to show someone I care without getting voluntold to knit something.

As usual, I was right. The easy-to-find ingredients are equal parts beeswax, shea butter, and coconut oil (for 12 bars in the molds I used, I needed one cup each).

The recipe (see the “3 Ingredient Lotion Bar” here) recommended putting the filled molds in the fridge if you want them to harden quickly, but I didn’t really care, so I initially ignored this step. While that’s not the worst thing you can do, I don’t recommend skipping this step, and not because it makes the bars cool quickly. I found that, in general, they hardened more evenly and were easier to pop out of the molds than letting them dry all day outside the fridge. I also feel like there’s a less oily feel and they’re more waxy. They’re shinier, too, and overall look more professional if you put them in the fridge to cool.

Adding to the professional look are inexpensive tins I ordered to house them. I knew I needed decent packaging so people could carry them around in their bags, and tissue paper wouldn’t suffice because the oil would definitely leak through, so finding the right container was important. These containers were an obvious solution and I found them in the perfect size for my molds (in retrospect, I should have worked backwards instead of lucking out, but I’m a Gemini, so you get what you get).

Supplies I Used:

Disclaimer: Yeah, these are referral links from Amazon, so I’ll get a kickback if you actually buy something from them. Can’t blame a girl for trying.

• 2 Ounce Metal Tin Cans Round Empty Container Cans with Clear Top for Kitchen, Office, Candles, Candies (12 Packs)

• Beesworks Beeswax Pellets, Yellow, 1lb-Cosmetic Grade-Triple Filtered Beeswax

• 2Pcs 6-Cavity Bee Honeycomb Soap Mold, AIFUDA Round Honeybee Muffin Silicone Molds for Handmade Soaps, Cupcake Baking, Chocolate, Dessert, Lotion Bar, Resin Craft (Gray, Pink)

• NOW Solutions, Shea Butter, Skin Emollient, Seals in Moisture for Dry Rough Skin, 16-Ounce

• Coco Road Organic & Fair Trade Virgin Coconut Oil (15 Fl Oz)

These are going in cute little gift boxes I found, along with hot chocolate bombs (I’ll regale you with that woeful tale in another post), but to be honest, I couldn’t be happier. Buying these things on their own were out of my budget because I really hate going into debt over Christmas, especially when you can make things like I can, so it was nice to find simple, make-at-home solutions.

I suppose I should get back to finishing the… *counts on fingers*… six projects I have left to literally wrap up before the holidays, half of which aren’t even started, and oh by the way, I’m moving out of and selling a house during a pandemic and before 1/1/21, so someone send me like three bottles of eggnog before I snap.

[FINISHED] Crochet Turkey Baby Hat

Hello, and welcome to “the cutest baby hat I’ve made in years.”

In all seriousness, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve made any baby stuff, specifically photo props. I detest the things because they’re so fiddly to make and remind me of my hatred for amigurumi and other toys (which, to be fair, I still make because I want the toys, not because I enjoy the process).

But when my bestie sent me a photo of turkey hat inspiration that she wanted for her son, I couldn’t resist.

I didn’t use a pattern, so it’s based entirely off the photo and required fiddling around with shapes until I figured out what looked right. Thankfully, I’ve made enough of these props in the past that it didn’t take much to figure it out, and I think the entire hat took just under three hours to whip up - including the dreaded tassels (I despise tassels).

The original hat was very obviously made out of Lion Brand Homespun (or something like it), so I made sure to migrate what was left of my Homespun collection to the new house when I moved my supplies. Like tassels, I’m also not a fan of Homespun, and my skein was low enough that I had to untangle more than a few knots from what’s already not my favorite yarn. Imagine my glee.

BUT, as always, it was worth it in the end. These hats are always adorable when they come together and, all things considered, it’s over and done with quickly because, ya know, baby heads. I’d probably actually sob if an adult asked for one of these. Spoiler: Scott has asked for one of these.

There’s a big chance I might not blog again before the upcoming holiday, so with that, I’ll wish you all a happy and - more importantly - safe Thanksgiving. I hope all my readers are choosing to celebrate with only their own households considering COVID-19 is running rampant across all states. I suppose this should be my daily reminder that even if covid is “only” as deadly as the flu, it’s far more contagious, the general death rate this year is statistically higher than previous years (meaning more people are dying from it than we know), and its long-term effects can last a lifetime (google POTS). I’m not going to keep my blog a safe space from covid because it’s a matter of life and death and, frankly, if you don’t view it that way, I don’t want you in my circle. I simply care about my fellow fiber artists and want you all to take care of yourselves.

Except any rat-licking conspiracy theorists. Y’all can go balls out with the holiday. Just enjoy your ventilator away from the general public.