Alright, 2020 has finally come to an end, but who fucking knew that 2021 would be all like “hold my beer” and shit? Certainly not me.

Anyways, before I dive into some crafts for 2021, let me show you how I wrap up all the Christmas and holiday cards that I get every year! It’s one of my favorite projects that was inspired by my boyfriend’s coworker’s wife at a team holiday party.

Here’s everything you’ll need plus the links to the products on Amazon:

• A laminator
• Laminating sheets
• Binder rings
• A hole puncher
• Scissors
• Card stock (optional)
• Metallic and Black Sharpies (optional)

All you need to do is gather all the cards your friends and family mailed you, follow the laminating instructions, and laminate the cards. I can usually fit 2 cards on every 1 laminating sheet. Then I trim them and punch a hole in the top left corner if it’s a portrait-oriented card or if it’s a landscape-oriented card, punch a hole in the top right corner. Last thing you need to do is slip it onto a binder ring, and there you have it!

I’ll hang my previous years’ cards on the mantle along with the stockings when I decorate the house for Christmas, so these usually get packed away with my Christmas decorations once Christmas is over.So if you’re like me and slowly getting Christmas and holiday decorations put away, try this little project out to keep up with all the wonderful cards that were sent your way!

One of my favorite things that I did under Quarantine 2020 was make these placemats. It has all the characteristics I look for when it comes to tabletop linens – personalized, reversible, AND machine washable!

I started with some old fabric that I had already washed, dried, and ironed out. I then cut out (4) 12×18 rectangles for each fabric, watched this video on how to sew placemats, and followed the steps in that video. I wish I had more to say, but someone literally made a video about how to do it yourself, so I’ll leave it up to her to talk you through the technical pieces.

One thing I did do was add my own touch by personalizing it with my last name. I picked a nice font in the Cricut Design App and sized it up to be 2 inches tall, used my Cricut Explore Air 2 to cut out the letters on my iron-on vinyl, then used a heat press to transfer it to the placemats.

I would highly recommend doing this super easy project for yourself or for someone else as a really nice housewarming gift! Doing all 4 placemats probably took me 2-3 hours on a lazy Saturday, so go put on some Netflix, make some tea, and put that sewing machine to work!

I have always been somewhat of a crafter. Growing up, my two favorite classes were art class and English literature, and as long as I was doing something or creating something with my hands, I felt unstoppable.

Over the years, this has manifested itself in many forms:

• Creative writing
• Cooking
• Locker decorations for my high school lacrosse team
• Food photography
• … and most recently, sewing and cricuting

You may have seen my previous posts about starting my t-shirt quilt back in spring 2018 and finishing it in winter 2019. Now I’m tackling another quilting project in the form of a triangle kid’s quilt for my niece. I found this pattern inspiration from just browsing Pinterest, and you should be able to find the fabrics in this post at your local Joann Fabric and Craft store.

I picked 3 solid fabrics and 1 accent pattern for the front of the quilt. After cutting it up into triangles, I spent A LOT of time laying it out so that the quilt looked balanced because well… it would drive me absolutely crazy if it wasn’t well balanced. My next step was sewing the triangles together in rows, then I sewed all the rows together.

The last few steps were getting the batting, backing it with a watercolor patterned fabric, and sewing the border. I thought about taking it to my local quilter to get it finished, but I honestly didn’t feel like spending the money on that (sorry I’m cheap) haha!

Here’s the finished product! I completely forgot to take some pictures before I gave it to my niece, but here’s a screenshot of my post on social.

I was super happy with the way it turned out, and I really can’t wait to start on my next quilt! I’m thinking it will be one for my college t-shirts, but I’ll keep you guys posted on that.

Well well well, here we are 8 months into 2020 and basically 6 months into a pandemic. Recently, I’ve been thinking that I want to find more ways to document how different life is at the moment because one day, my kids might want to hear first-hand how much of a shit show 2020 was. I’d like to have some sort of proof. Until then, all I’ve got for you is my rambling and a post about repurposed fan blades.

To be fully honest, I started this project last year when my boyfriend decided to replace the ugly ass fan we had in our guest bedroom, so this wasn’t a 2020 project. To be fair, I thought the fan was pretty, but it really didn’t get the job done in terms of moving air, keeping you cool, or actually… just turning on in general. We decided it was time to invest in a working fan which left me with 3 old fan blades and a fun idea to pass some time.

So here’s what I did to repurposed these fan blades!

Step 1: Clean dust build up off of fan blades with some soap and water. Let air dry.

Step 2: Paint a base layer. I did white for the palm fronds and red for the UGA piece. Let air dry. Repeat 2 more times.

Step 3: For the palm fronds, I used a stencil I bought from Michael’s a few years ago. For the UGA piece, I freehanded the lettering with a pencil then colored it in with paint.

Step 4: Take some creative liberty and do whatever makes you happy! I gave the palm fronds an ombre feel to it, and for the UGA piece, I added some splashes with some white paint.

Step 5: To finish, I just took some modge podge and covered the whole fan blade to seal everything in.

So there you go! It’s a quick skeleton of what I did, but hey, I’m here to inspire, not to write novels about how to do anything (because quite frankly, I’m no expert in crafting). But I hope you enjoy these pictures of the final products!

Everyone be safe out there and wear a damn mask please!

Tada! After working on this quilt on and off for about 2 years, it’s finally finished. A few years ago, I decided that I was going to make a t-shirt quilt of all my old high school t-shirts as a way to keep the shirts but not have it clutter my closet.

Between then and now, I had a lot of life changes as I mentioned in my 2020 Vision post, and I didn’t necessarily make it a priority to finish this quilt. However, once I moved into my latest place, I decided that I wanted to finish this quilt before winter 2019. So throughout the course of 2019, I finished the top sheet, found a finisher near me, sewed the binding myself, and cut the final loose threads off the edges to be able to completely call it done.

Take a look at the finished product and let me know if you have any questions on how to get started yourself!