Button love

I just love buttons! I'm pretty sure I've made that clear on here before, but just in case you're new and didn't know...I love them. I have quite a collection, that is now divided by color into at least 12 jars.  I saw this on pinterest and loved it instantly, button AND aqua?! Yes, please. 

For my first non-sewing button project I decided to go small.  Plus, I had these small canvases from years ago when I still lived in San Marcos and was decorating my own apartment. I've been seeing button art a lot on pinterest but never tried it till now. I thought a little valentines heart would be the perfect beginner project for me, plus I didn't have to buy anything.

I taped off the canvas with painters tape and painted the red lines.  I then removed the tape and groaned at how Messy the edges ended up. I used my super fancy chiseled sponge brush (.49 cents at Michael's) to fix this. The lines are a little wonky, but I'm saying it adds character. 

I then poured out all my Red buttons and started arranging them into a heart shape. Let me say now that whe it comes to crafting I can be a little tiny bit OCD. It took me forever to get the perfect shape and I kept bumping the canvas sending my perfection into disarray. It was a dramatic 10 minutes of me sitting home alone being very anal. 10 minutes equals forever right? Anyways. I didn't have the exact size red button I needed to keep my heart even so I thought a different color could be fun. To make it something I could hang all year and not too valentiney I decided on aqua instead of pink. Plus, I love aqua, duh. 

Once all laid out, I began gluing from the bottom up. Everything shifted slightly but I kept my cool and remembered crafting is fun, and not stressful......mostly. 

To finish everything off I painted a cursive "love" in aqua.  I of course forgot to erase all my pencil lines before I took these pics, but don't worry, they're erased now. 

I will be propping this up on our mantle through valentines day and the probably hanging it in our kitchen somewhere since it matches our color scheme in there. 

Anyone out there making fun things with buttons?

Valentines!

David and I have never been really big on Valentines day, mostly because our dating anniversary is 9 days before. (that means we just passed year 6 of being together!!) Our first valentines date involved shakes at sonic (my mouth was still wired shut so that was all I could have) and The Matador in theaters. It was fun and low key. Since then we've never done much more than some pretty flowers and dinner at home, usually tilapia. 

Since we're married now David thinks we don't need to celebrate our dating anniversary, so I told him he had to celebrate valentines with me :)

 I've enjoyed playing with pink and red yarns.  To decorate I decided to make a simple pom pom garland for our mantle. It includes a pale pink, bubble gum pink, and red with silver sparkles all on an aqua string. I love how it turned out!  While trying to get a good picture I noticed many other critters around in matching yarns so now they're all gathered on our mantle to celebrate love. 

 This area of our apartment is really difficult to photograph because all the direct lighting is from behind. Please excuse the awful last picture, I just wanted to show the full length of garland. 

 

this really is a full month

So to continue from my last post, early February really was packed for my family.

My uncle that I posted about earlier died on my sister's birthday. It was sad but I know he's in a better place now praising God and no longer in pain. It was great to see a lot of family on my mom's side that I hadn't seen in almost 18 years. I love my family.

February 5 is a big day in my life also. First of all it's David's birthday. He just turned 22, woo! It's also our anniversary! We just celebrated our 3 years together :) It's been a great 3 years of trials, rejoicing, love, learning who God is, and learning who I am through David's love. I'm excited about our future years to come.

I made him some fun stuff for his birthday and anniversary. I don't have any good of them yet and I'm only halfway done with his birthday present, ha.

While I'm talking about love I'll show you what I knit for fun over the Valentine's weekend. I've always loved this holiday even if it was created by the greeting card people. My family has had a candlelit pancake dinner on Valentine's since I was in the 3rd grade I think. My dad was doing TDY in Italy (he's retired Air Force) so my mom, sister, and I had pancakes by candlelight. It's been a tradition ever since. This year David and my sister's boy joined us. The holiday reminds me of family more than commercial love.

Anyways, wow I got off track, I knit some cute little hearts up. I thought it'd be cute to give them to people but they're hanging in my room. I knit a purple one too and gave it to my roommate. I was inspired by some patterns I saw on ravelry. I started some but didn't like how they were turning out. I ended up writing my own pattern. I have it mostly written out but I want to make up one more size before I post it on here. My first pattern! Stay tuned for that :)
One last thing for tonight. My mom gave me this mug for Valentine's day and I love it. I had mentioned wanting some fun mugs over Christmas break and she thought I'd like this one from Target. I'm starting to really like red lately, so it's perfect. I drank some yummy hot coco from it earlier tonight.

Ok that's all for tonight. Hopefully more pics and patterns to come soon!