Hello, stranger.

Where have I been?!?!

Where are pictures of all the fabulous Christmas presents I made?!?!

Am I stepping out of the blogosphere?!?!?!

Nah. Life just keeps getting in my crafty, creative, word loving way. And it ain't over yet!!!

This is just an update to let you all know... If you are still there... that I am here in spirit at the very least. Work...school...kids...preparing for student teaching....it was either do fun projects or blog about them. Since glitter playdough, afghans, and crocheted earrings were on the menu, I had to step away from the computer.

The next few months may be quiet around here and full of student teaching rather than crochet... but just know, I love you. Yes, you. And you. I love that you are emailing me and checking on me and staying with me. I will try to keep up with the Facebook page and could absolutely use some cheering on as I start teaching Monday. Eep.

Missing you. Really. Missing my crochet hooks too. Loves!

PONY (pizza princess) PARTY: the final three

So, as I should have anticipated, the last three ponies were a mad dash rush. School seems to be pouring out homework and exams and papers and certification exams... so I was crocheting around all of that while trying to remember important things like bath time, dinner time, laundry time, and snuggle time. Being a mom is tough! Being a school attending mom of two who is working on her teaching certification and with a compulsion to crochet awesome gifts (and blog about it!) makes for one extremely busy schedule.  So, I'll apologize for my lack of blogging/FB updating/emailing lately. I also can't express how much your well wishes on FB as I was taking the ginormous tests for my teaching certification meant to me. You helped me pass! Really!

Now on to the moment I've been promising.... PONY PARTY EXTRAVAGANZA!

To read about Pony Party Part 1: Rainbow Dash, click here.
To read about Pony Party Part 2: Fluttershy, click here.
To read about Pony Party Part 3, AppleJack, click here.

Pony number four was Twilight Sparkle. This was no regular Twilight Sparkle, she had to be an alicorn. For you non-MLP people (is it alright if I come stay with you for awhile?) that means a pony who is both pegasus and unicorn. It's a big deal. There was much screaming and joy jumping at my house when Twilight Sparkle became an alicorn.

Cute, right? You can't see her wings very well in this picture, but I promise you, they were much appreciated by Lilster.

Pinkie Pie fought me. Every. step. of. the. way. First, the original colors of yarn were not quite right. Found and bought new yarn, didn't realize the weight was off. So Pinkie's a bit smaller than the others. She also looked like a deer without hair. Not even kidding a little bit. I had lost my camera right before I finished Twilight, so I couldn't take any pictures. At least I know I can crochet Bambi if need be.

Despite the Pinkie drama, she turned out to be so sweet and cuddly. Her hair is so much twirly fun!

I need to pause and set the stage here for a moment...Picture this....

It's the night before Lily's birthday party, which was actually the day before her birthday. Constant questions all day long had made their way out of my extremely excited daughter. The one that caused my heart to pound with anxiousness was, "Mom, can you give me your present at my party?" This meant that Pinkie and Rarity had to be completed in less than 24 hours. Less than 24 hours....

I stayed up really late, finished Pinkie, woke up, headed to the local cafe to sit and crochet Rarity.

If you look closely, you'll see Rarity is missing something. Can you tell what it is? Hmm?

If you guessed ears, you'd be right on the money. I was crocheting right up until 11:30 at which point I had to rush home, wrap without getting caught, and away we went to the museum/pizza/squeal-fest that was my daughter's birthday (more on that in another post!) and it wasn't until I was wrapping her that I started using words I don't allow my daughters to use as I realized Rarity was actually incomplete.

Oh well!

Lily L-O-V-E-D these. Best birthday present ever. She won't put them down. I have even had to stop her from taking them to school where they would be confiscated. She picks one each night to sleep with. She talks about how I need to make their cutie marks and their elements of friendship. Oh, and could I please, please please crochet Princess Celestia and Princess Luna and Dr. Whooves and Shining Armor and......

Long, long story short: I'm pretty much the best mom ever. I can drag out this gift forever as I am virtually unlimited in the number of ponies I could make. I'm also exhausted. :) 

Pattern info: visit acrylicsheep on Etsy or Ravelry for the pattern I used to make all of these delightful ponies!

I have linked this post to: Hooking on Hump Day and Craft Frenzy Friday!

It's nerdy blogger dance time!

My watermelon cake was featured in a linky party! Woot!




To see my post about my watermelon all fruit "cake" go here.

Totally made my day. Head over to Homestead Simple and check it out! And a big thanks go out to them, for hosting and featuring!

With that said, I'm thinking...

...that I want to start a weekly linky party here at Jubilant Jessi.

Anyone interested or know what that is?

A linky party is a great way to connect bloggers. You link up a post of what you have been up to and can look at all all the other posts left by lovely bloggers such as yourself. If you have noticed when I do something remotely creative, I put several buttons of places I have linked that post to.. that's a linky party. I'm probably not explaining this the best way I could, but hey, that's what google is for. If you're confused, chances are you can find someone out there who explains it better. Haha.

Anyway, I always love surfing link parties. All of my favorite blogs have been found through them. It's where I get my major dose of inspiration (next to pinterest) each week. I think it would be fun, but I am worried about the time constraints with school coming up in a month (gag, snort, die. Not ready for school yet).

Anyway, something to ponder and stew on for a bit. Let me know if you're interested and/or would like to join in.

Also, show Homestead Simple some love for featuring me and hosting a great party! :) :) :)

Inspiration Station

So after a wonderful weekend with the mother-in-law (who was kind enough to buy us a shiny, new air conditioner!!!!) and my sister, and my other sister's baby shower (new baby!!!!!) .... I am exhausted.

At least my sunburn is from actual sunshine this time.

I haven't had much crafty creative time, but I sure found some great ideas to try! So I am going to annoy you with commentary on each idea. :)

I have been working on this post for two days and I keep getting sidetracked. The internet had too many arty crafty fun blogs and ideas! My brain wants to implode!

So welcome to Inspiration Station... I'll be your tour guide through some happy fun today!

First up, we have a fun kiddo craft that is happening at my house as soon as the Idaho weather decides to cooperate. Key words there are "Idaho weather" so it could be August. It's Bubble Prints!

Side note: this is hands down one of the best kid art blogs I have ever seen. The blog is run by a K-6 art teacher and there are HUNDREDS of ideas. If you need something to do with your kiddo, go here. I spent an hour looking around and still didn't get bored. I want to try about 15 other things with Lily including a summer memory quilt idea that was inspired by this blog.

Next up, we have pure genius. If you are on pinterest, chances are you've seen this, but it is so amazing that I have to share it. Addicted 2 Decorating has made this amazing mirror out of.... SPOONS!

I love everything about this. It's from spoons. It has a gorgeous color fade. It's pretty. I have seen other spoon mirrors out there, but this one takes the cake. It is full of win and I can only hope some nice family member will take my children for a day sometime in the future so I can make this. It would look awesome in yellow or maybe purple.

Moving on... is an adorable headband from Love Stitched. I actually made a bracelet using this knot the other day, but I want to do a headband for each of us three girls in the house. It took five minutes to learn the knot. Plus, t-shirt recycling, always a favorite of mine. 

If you're more attached to your glue gun than your sewing machine, this is a crafty must do for you! I think I personally would sew the ends together, but that's just cause I want to use my sewing machine as often as I can get my sticky, grubby mom hands on it. I love the two-tone bands she has done as well.

And finally, for the knock-off win of the century, Besserina takes home the gold. I fell in LOVE with the Georgina duvet cover from Anthropologie.  I tried for several months to figure out how to afford a duvet that was worth as much as several months rent. I still have the picture of it. This is the original:

Isn't it stunning? Gah! Love love love it. Well, Besserina has a wonderful tutorial on how to make my own. It might take me a few years to get all the flowers done, but I am DOING this some day. She does her's for a toddler bed size...so very adorable.

It may say something about me, but I think a good knock off is even better than the original. It takes some pretty fine talent to create something from a picture and make it as good (or better) than the original. I love this in white, but it would last about 2.5 seconds at my house before getting stained, so I would have to make it colorful. 

Well, this was super fun, so I'll have to do it again. Hope you find some time to get lost in Blog land and find some lovely adventures to undertake!

Jubilant, Joyful, Jaunty Jess

Hello and Welcome!

Do you know how hard it is to come up with a blog name? Jeez, this Jessi is just jumbled. :) Ok, enough alliteration!

I have a creative nature, and a curious one. I'm pretty much one of those hippie types...free spirit and all that. So as I was googling how to blog (yes, I know how that sounds) it spoke of "blog niches" and how that's important for a blog to be successful. I would have been better off just signing up and starting to type. Alas, I didn't, and now I've been sitting here for the past day or two hesitating to begin because I don't know my what my niche is! Although, I must say, I do so love that niche is a word being used so widely. It's such a pretty word.

So I've been a'pondering this whole niche business. I want to talk about the crafts and upcycling that I do. I want to talk about how we're revamping our house to make it more a home. That means clutter, decorating, and finding fun things to put on the walls. I want to talk about my interests: books, minimalism, being ecologically responsible, my thoughts on non-traditional parenting, my experiences as a somewhat older college student, my family, my dogs, and perhaps any other random thing that jumps into my head. So I came up with my niche. *beams*
My niche is a simple one, yet it can be engagingly complicated. What's my niche?

Life.

I do so hope you'll enjoy reading.