A Season of Love

It's so interesting to me to watch the tides of life slowly pass by. Everything has it's time. And those times tend to come in waves!

You have the wave of graduation from high school, the wave of graduation from college, a handful of waves of engagements, and then the periodic waves of weddings.

Obviously, there are more waves that follow, but those relate to my life right now. It's another wave of weddings!

This year we have been blessed to attend two weddings of good friends of ours (and more to come!). We also spent a whole week in Chicago to visit friends! (and working remotely)

The first: my awesome roommate from college. We were best buds for three whole years! It's fun to look back on college -- the late nights of homework and studying, too much Netflix, and random conversations when you're too tired to think straight. It was awesome having someone to share all of my classes with, who could never avoid me when I had all sorts of homework questions. ;-)
The wedding was beautiful and fun, and we are so thankful that we got to join in the celebrations!

A week in Chicago with good friends, good food, and a few days of really nice weather. (oh, Chicago) It was awesome to walk around our old college campus and reminisce ... and not have homework to worry about! It's amazing how some things haven't changed a bit.

Then, a sweet friend from InterVarsity in college: one of my bridesmaids. She has always been a thoughtful and faithful friend, and found a sweet and wise husband to stand with her. The ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was like a surprise college reunion! It was fun getting to catch up with so many friends that we did not expect to see on our trip. Overall, it was a blast, and I am so thankful we were able to take the time for the long trip to celebrate with our friends.

Before I forget to add them to this post: here are my wedding gifts to my sweet friends. Hand-crocheted nameplates of their new family names. I love making sweet family heirlooms. Especially for such great friends!

Happy Valentine's Weekend!

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day!
Whether sharing a romantic dinner, hanging out on the couch, or just spending good times with friends, it is so important to set aside special days that just feed your soul.
And holidays can be the perfect reminder!

For me, I chose to use Valentine's gifting for my husband as way to feed my own artistic needs. Thankfully, he is always appreciative of my gifts (even if our walls are already full). It's so much fun to design and make things myself!

Thanks to Pinterest, I decided to try my hand at printing my own designs on fabric! My hands are slowing down, so this is a great substitute for needlework:

We both love how it turned out -- a sweet remembrance of our summer wedding, and our little family. I designed the tree myself, with a mixture of scanned hand-drawings and vector drawing on the computer. I printed it on a simple muslin fabric and stretched it over a 6-inch embroidery hoop.

I chose to put a little heart 'carving' onto the tree design. Just a simple "J+J" is enough to say "We love each other -- forever!".

Printing out the fabric turned out to be the easiest part of this project. I want it to last our lifetime, so I decided to sew the fabric together in the back. That should help prevent 'slipping' of the fabric. However, it didn't look all that great. After some more Pinterest hopping, I added a white felt backing to finish everything off nicely. I'm really please with how it turned out -- and how easy it is to hang!

All in all, it was a wonderful Valentine's Day for me. I got to make some fun art, my sweet husband wrote and recorded a song just for me, and we dined on Giordano's pizza, which my wonderful husband had shipped as a gift to me! The food was delicious, my single red rose rose smelled beautiful and looks great on our dining table, and I got to take the time for a relaxing bubble bath with candles!

I am so beyond blessed. :)

What fun stories do you have for Valentine's Day (and weekend)?

Covering my walls with yarn

Earlier this year, I shared a personal art project that I hung in my living room.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out!

... with the exception of my husband not loving the fabric color on our wall.

So, I undid the whole project (aren't I so loving?!) to remake it with an entirely new fabric color.

At first, I thought I had a marvelous idea:

Why not use felt instead of fabric?! Surely the yarn will stick like those felt boards I enjoyed as a kid!

I bought some white felt, and attached it to the corkboard like I had done with the blue fabric. While it was laying on the ground, I organized the crochet flowers just the way I wanted them. Thinking I was being really smart, I also rubbed them against the felt just a little bit, to try and get that static cling thing working for me.

And after minutes of careful attempts to hang it back up on the wall above my desk (it was not an easy task. I should have waited for my husband to come home, in all honesty), I took one step back to admire my work ... and three of the flowers fell off onto my computer.

To make life a little easier on myself, I decided to leave the corkboard hanging while I reattached each flower with thumb tacks. I had bought some clear ones to mix in with the bight green, so I used those on the mostly blue flowers.

Unfortunately for me, our 'mostly white' walls are actually on the yellow side of white, and the white felt over blue fabric is on the blue side of white. So, the corkboard came off of the wall once more!

And went back up over the fireplace.

Finally, I am satisfied with my artistic creation! (and so is my husband!)

Now to decide what to make for a headboard ...

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What custom art projects have you made for your home?

Delightful Little Owls

Update -- Scroll to the bottom to see the newest photo! (super cute!)

-- You can find these cute owls on Etsy!

© Jessica Van Eaton

Sometimes I have a lot of trouble designing new products. Most of the time, it's because I have so many ideas bouncing through my head that I can't land on just one! Other times my perfectionism gets in the way, and all I can see are the 'perceived flaws' and little fixes that I can't quite figure out.

This time, I had too many variations running through my head!

So, I decided to make my favorite two.
(just so you know, they measure about 3.5'' tall. They are too cute!)

Which one is your favorite little owl?

© Jessica Van Eaton

© Jessica Van Eaton

© Jessica Van Eaton

If I get enough feedback, I can have one of these cute little owls in my shop by next Friday!

Your thoughts:   How do you make decisions when there are too many options?

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Update:  June 26, 2013 1:30 PM

My cousin had a graduation party this last weekend, and I decided to give her an adorable owl as a gift. I love how this little graduation cap turned out! Don't you?

© Jessica Van Eaton

Also, check back soon for an update (and direct link) on where to buy these cute owls!

I hope you are having a blessed day!

Sneak Peak

Here's a little preview of a project I am working on!

I hope to have more adorable (and complete) pictures for you by the end of this week. Don't miss out!

© Jessica Van Eaton

Colors in season

This past week, my local grocery store has been selling strawberries that have been absolutely delicious! (and not too expensive, either)

I'm rather excited by that, since strawberries are one of my favorite fruits!

Not only that, but I can finally try out this new recipe I created! (created with the help of a variety of recipes online, and some tips from friends who are into healthy eating and getting vegetables into your diet)

© Jessica Van Eaton

A delicious pink smoothie, filled with lots of strawberries and other fruits and veggies!

One of my favorite things about this smoothie is that you can hardly taste the vegetables that are in it. I'd recommend trying it first as-is, but feel free to tweak this recipe into something that you love!

Ingredients:

• 7 Strawberries, quartered
• 20 Blueberries
• 8 chunks of Pineapple, 1/2" cubes approx.
  (I cut mine fresh in bulk and then froze them, but a can of pineapple chunks should work)
• Greek Yogurt (honey and strawberry flavor)
• 1/2 stalk of Celery, thinly sliced
• 2 Cucumber slices, thinly diced
• 4 baby Carrots, sliced thinly
• 8 baby Spinach leaves, roughly chopped
• 1 Lemon wedge, rind and seeds removed, roughly chopped
• 1/2 California Mandarin Orange (or other orange), rind removed
• V8 V-Fusion, Tropical Orange flavor
• V8 V-Fusion, Acai Mixed Berry flavor

Instructions: 

1. Put the Strawberries, Blueberries and three large scoops of Greek Yogurt into a blender

© Jessica Van Eaton

 2. Add the Celery, Pineapple, Cucumber, Carrots, Orange, Spinach, and Lemon

© Jessica Van Eaton

© Jessica Van Eaton

© Jessica Van Eaton

© Jessica Van Eaton

© Jessica Van Eaton

3. Pour in 1/3 cup of Acai Mixed Berry V8 V-Fusion

4. Pour in 1/4 cup of Tropical Orange V8 V-Fusion

5. Blend the mixture until smooth

© Jessica Van Eaton

6. Drink and enjoy!

I hope you find this smoothie to be absolutely delightful! I have certainly enjoyed making it for myself. :-)

Here is a simpler list of the instructions, all in one place:

1.  Measure out the following into a blender: 1/3 cup of Acai Mixed Berry V8 V-Fusion, 1/4 cup of Tropical Orange V8 V-Fusion, three full scoops of Greek Yogurt.

2.  Add all other ingredients to the blender. Blend until smooth.

Try this recipe out for yourself, and let me know your thoughts, tips and tricks in the comments below!

A Simple Update

It's funny how life can change directions in the blink of an eye.

Sometimes, it is as though you weren't paying enough attention and had to do a 'double-take' to really understand how you ended up here.

This past year has had quite the variety of life's experiences for me. Maybe not as varied as some, but it has been a little all over the place.

In March, I learned that I have a higher pain tolerance than I ever thought was possible.

I learned that my 'close to the edge' feeling of unbearable pain really wasn't all that 'unbearable', it just felt really horrible and was constantly distracting. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you wish to see it), I learned that I was not yet anywhere near 'the edge' (Those of you with chronic pain will understand what I mean). I'd have to endure a lot more pain to get to that point.

Which, to be frank, is not something I want to have to endure.
But that might just be a part of the plan for my life...

Here's how I learned those things: I tried a wide variety of prescription drugs (one at a time, over the course of six months) in a desperate attempt to mitigate my muscular and nerve pain. I put these poisons (that's what they are, in many ways) into my body, and all that happened involved a nice long list of side-effects, including more nerve pain.

Even more pain than I already had. Mind you, I didn't even consider these prescription drugs to be an option until I thought I couldn't possibly manage without them.

Apparently I was wrong.

Apparently I can go a lot further 'down' while still 'managing' to maintain my life in the midst of this pain.
I don't really think I do that great of a job at managing (I have trouble doing simple tasks: I have to choose between washing dishes or making dinner because I can't do both; I managed to get a job in the area of childcare but in all honesty my body simply can't handle it), but I'm apparently doing well enough because I can still hold a conversation for a decent amount of time before everything starts getting a little, well, iffy. It's hard to explain. But pain is incredibly distracting, even subconsciously. Things tend to get a little jumbled.

So, in the midst of my long-suffering, I have decided to turn to my 'strong-suits' and those things which inspire me most. (You know, the things you get excited talking about, and actually put a smile on your face no matter what is going on around you)

In case you don't know me very well or haven't been following along, for me those things are:

• Crocheting
• Helping Others
• Singing
• Things related to God

For the longest time, I have tried having an Etsy shop dedicated to selling crocheted goods almost purely for the sake of charity.
That's what this blog was originally linked to and titled under! (In case you were confused by the name change -- Yes, this was HelpfulBlankets!)

I'm switching it all up now.

My life tends to throw me curve-balls regardless of what is going on, so I may as well be the cause of the chaos this time.

I'm closing my HelpfulBlankets Etsy shop sometime this month, and will be merging it with my ColorMeCrochet shop. It's a one stop shop! :-)

But the side of giving will be (almost) completely separate. (most likely any of my profits will go directly to materials and shipping for the sake of giving...I can just see that happening!)

I'm going to be starting a tiny ministry of prayer, and I hope you will join me. When it's all set up, I will invite you to email me the names of men, women, children and families whom you want to receive prayer (and a prayer shawl or blanket), in addition to any prayer requests you have for them.

I am going to spend the rest of my life helping others.

And since my body isn't so great at doing that, I am going to finally start realizing (and intentionally living out) that the greatest thing I could ever do for someone else is to pray for them. God is bigger and more able than any able-bodied person ever will be, so I'm going to give it all to him ... over and over again, for myself and on behalf of others.

It's not an easy thing to have a disability.

It's even harder to feel dis-abled.

But my God is constrained by no physical bounds.
And I am going to spend my life singing His praise and living as a servant through prayer.