Valentine's Day

A lot of people think Valentine's Day is a holiday created by Hallmark and other stores to reel in big money.  I actually agree.  Some of those people still fall into that trap and end up spending way too much to prove they love and care about someone.  Proving your love for someone, in my opinion, shouldn't be about how much you spend on them.  I believe you show it through your actions and words.  

This reminds of a book by Gary Chapman that my sister in law B showed me a few years ago.  It's called The 5 Love Languages.  The book was originally intended as a sort of marriage self-help book, but I think it can serve in any type of relationship.  It discusses how people speak love in different languages either through words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, or physical touch.  It's your way of communicating emotionally to someone.  He says each person has their own language of how they best give and receive love.  So your heart might be filled with love from hearing someone compliment you, or maybe you don't really need that to feel loved.  You feel it more so by spending quality time with that someone.  By properly identifying which language you primarily speak, you can better communicate with someone which actions make you feel more happy and confident.  I highly recommend reading his book as a learning tool for either just you, or you and your significant other. 

I learned my primary love languages are words of affirmation and quality time.  This explains why on Valentine's Day, I would much rather do something low key and spend time with J, rather than go out and spend a bunch of money on something that doesn't even really matter.  For this V-Day, we ended up getting 18-22in of snow which made staying in even more fun.  Josh picked me up early in the morning, so we could spend the day together without driving in worse conditions.  We spent our snowy V-day playing in the snow, watching movies, baking cookies, and making home-made pizza.  He even surprised me with my favorite candy (peanut M&Ms) and these beautiful roses and infinity knot.

 Here are some of the cookies we made:

 

And here's his back porch in the almost 2 feet of snow:

And our snow angels:

So Many Cookie Cutters...

I've been itching to find more sewing projects I can work on.  I've had a lot of good ideas, but they were more so things I didn't really need.  I wanted to make something I need, something that would either be useful or help me organize all the stuff I've been hoarding around.  

I had a day off in the middle of the week and decided to get off my behind and spring clean my kitchen.  I realized I have cookie cutters out the whazoo.  AND I don't even keep them all in one place.  That is unlike me.  I like things organized.  When I want to use something, I like knowing where to find it, and I like having the comfort of knowing everything is together.  That day, I just decided I would put all the cookie cutters together in a gallon ziploc bag.  That bag was so full I couldn't even zip it shut!  Ugh.  I put the bag away in disgust since it wasn't really the way I wanted it.  It just looked ugly on my shelf like that.  Then I thought DUH! I can finally make something cute and useful to hold all these things and keep them from getting dusty (since I couldn't close that gallon bag).  So began my trek to JoAnn's.

Before I went, I looked online for ideas.  I found this tutorial showing how to make a simple drawstring bag.  Perfect.  It was easy to do and would hold all my cookie cutters.  I went to JoAnn's to pick out fabric and what not.  I was in there forever!  I kept going back and forth on different patterns trying to figure out which I liked better.  If you know me, you know I can be indecisive sometimes.  And, this was definitely an indecisive moment.  After about probably an hour I settled on a faded dark red cotton fabric for the inside and a kitchen tool patterned fabric for the outside.  Then I chose a khaki colored thread and drawstring.  

Here's what it came out looking like:

And here's what it looks like filled with cookie cutters:

In retrospect, I should have made the drawstring longer.  I measured and cut it at 18", like the tutorial said.  However, I found afterwards it wasn't quite long enough.  It could have just been the type of material I used.  I'm not sure.  But, either way it's cuter than that gallon ziploc, AND it holds everything in one place.  Such relief.  It's the little things, people.