My aunt gave me two doilies that were handmade by a great aunt somewhere in my family and she wanted me to recreate them for her. I've never worked with tiny hooks and yarn before or done anything as intricate so I was pretty intimidated but it turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. It still took quite a while to finish the first one, a couple weeks working a few hours a day, but I was able to figure out the pattern with a bit of guesswork.

I only messed up a little on one of the leaves. I missed a couple stitches so it's a little shorter than the others but at least it's not too noticeable.

Next to the original for comparison. The yarn I used is a tad bigger and it looks a little wonky because it's still kind of stiff. Given time, it will probably straighten out though.

Close up on some of the stitching.

I'm pretty proud of it and it was certainly an interesting exercise. It's certainly made me a lot more confident in my abilities. When I first saw it, I thought I'd never be able to make something like this, but it was a lot simpler once I broke it down into rows.

Next I have to make the other one which is the same type of pattern, just twice as big...

For this year's Akon, me and my husband went as a female Joker and male Harley Quinn.

Both outfits were my design but the hubby got to have input on Harley since he would be wearing it.
On my outfit, I only had to make the skirt and choker from scratch, the rest of it came from thrift stores or a costume shop. On his outfit, I made the shirt and pants as well as the hammer. The diamonds are all painted on with fabric paint.

We also saw a couple people we knew dressed as normal Joker and Harley.

This was my second time cosplaying but the first time I got so much attention. People were stopping us all over the place to take our picture. It was so much fun! But it also made it a little difficult to get anywhere. All that white makeup was kind of a pain too. I'm really proud of how it all turned out though!

I also made myself a secondary cosplay to wear on Friday because I really wanted to be Jane Crocker from Homestuck.

I made the skirt from scratch (and took a little artistic liberty with it) and I stenciled and painted the image on the shirt. The paint job on the shirt came out a lot nicer than I expected it to. I also painted the spoon red, but that was after this picture was taken.

I got a group photo with the rest of the alphas too!
I didn't get any attention while I was in this costume but that's because there are so many Homestuck cosplayers. Probably a third of the cosplayers at Akon were dressed up as someone from Homestuck. It's kind of ridiculous.

All in all, Akon was a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to getting to go to more cons and dressing up.

In order to save a bit of money this year and have less stress in my life, I made all of my Christmas presents.

First off, a Byzantine bracelet for my mom.


This picture didn't come out so good, but it's a bracelet for my brother in Japanese 12-2. The small rings are a gunmetal color mix.


Cross pendants for each of my brothers-in-law.


Two pairs of earrings for each of my sisters-in-law.


Full Persian bracelet for my cousin-in-law.

I recently went through and organized my entire stash of crafting supplies which has never been properly organized before and one of the things I discovered is that I have a lot more beads than I thought I did. Including a bunch of pony beads and letter beads that I probably bought back in middle school. Now I really like the colors and the ones along the sides are pretty and iridescent and I think I could make something really cute with them, but what?

So my question is, have any of you crafty people out there ever seen anything interesting done with pony beads? I've tried looking around and all I can find are those awful bracelets that everyone was wearing back in middle school and high school.

I've been interested in chainmail jewelry for a while so I finally decided to do some research into it and get myself some supplies. I'm really enjoying it so far and I need to stop myself from just going and buying tons of rings. Anyways, this is what I've made so far.

I really love rainbows. Can you tell? The choker is two different sized helm chains and the bracelet is a captive inverted round chain.

This bracelet was my very first completed piece. I had to start over on it because the first time I made it I was putting in two captive rings in each "cage" and it made it so stiff that it couldn't move at all so I had to start over with one ring in each. All in all, I really liked doing this weave and I wanna try doing it again.

I made these last night. Took me about an hour but a lot of that was just me dropping rings all over the place.

Thanks for looking!

I made this dress about two years ago and it's probably the most fun thing I've ever made. I used to work at a fabric store and one day I saw these great Batman panels in the clearance section. Being a Batman fan, I of course snatched up both of them. One of them is still hanging on my wall and the other is now the best dress ever.

I just cut out pieces that I liked as I went along and sewed it to some black fabric I had laying around. I took a pair of stretchy black stockings I had laying around, cut those up and sewed them up the side so I wouldn't have to put in a zipper. The back of the dress is Batman's open hand that you can see in the picture and the bottom of the skirt says "Batman". The skirt ends at my knees and I sewed on a couple big black buttons where the straps meet the top of the dress.

Here's an action shot. I wore it to a party my friend was having that weekend. I had just stolen my boyfriend's hat there.

Well, I guess it was in June, so technically summer, but spring was our theme (if you can call it that).

Welcome to my first ever thread and what better way to kick things off than with possibly the best thing I've ever made. Ever since I learned how to sew I made a decision that I would make my own wedding dress. And make it I did! I was laboring on it up to the night before, but it was all worth it.

A full view of it right after we got married, awkward smiles and all.

Here's the back. There are corset ties down both sides and a bow up at the top. The main body is just white satin and the bodice and other accents are made from a cream colored fabric I found. It has this slightly shiny pattern on it that kinda looks like tree bark. The dress design is all mine and went through many changes throughout the sewing process. And I gotta say, I'm very happy with the result.


Some photos of my dad walking me down the "aisle" and a beautiful picture of the view from the chapel.

My mom picked out and arranged all the flowers for the table centerpieces.

Our cupcake table set up by our amazing caterers and my mom. Being a crafty lady, it was nerve-wracking having to let other people be in charge of setting things up while we got ready. We didn't get to see the reception hall fully set up until everyone was already there but it turned out beautiful!

One last picture of the happy couple. We seemed to always know when to make the most awkward faces.
The wedding turned out better than we could have possibly hoped and everyone is still talking about it. My dress was a huge hit. People were amazed when they heard that I made and designed it and everyone kept asking if I was planning on going into fashion.

Thanks for looking! If anyone wants more pictures of something, just ask!