My First Plunge Into the World of Crafting

Hey Bloggosphere - 

I am following up the last post with the project I created for my sister's Christmas present.

Backstory: My sister is pregnant and expecting a girl in February. This has lead to my brother-in-law remodeling a room and creating a nursery and my sister creating the design for the room. She found this nursery   and is using it as the inspiration for the entire room.

Find it on my pinterest here.

I fell in love with the whole idea of the nursery. I love, love, love black and white with pink. Damask print is one of my favorites (I have it on all of my curtains in my apartment - that my mom and I made). 

The lamps were the distinguishing part of the nursery, but the "designer" of the nursery found them at TJ Maxx. So we knew we would never find the exact ones. This is when I got the idea to make my sister a lamp for Christmas. 

The lamps appeared to have a shiny black base with a plain shade that had pink, black and white fabric cut into circles and stacked and sewn onto the shades. This was my project.

I started by going to a secondhand shop and finding a lamp base.

I found this and I liked the simple shape. . .  but NOT the color

I wanted to paint the base black and put silver glitter on top, just to add a girly touch :)

First I had to cover up the hoop and the base so I wouldn't make a mess.

Here is the finished base after painting.

I also ran to Walmart (gross. . . I know but I don't have many options in this small town), and found as many pink, black and white fabrics as I could find. 

The next step was the most time-consuming part. I had to cut circles out of all the fabric. I started by making a circle out of hard card stock paper and placing that on the fabric and using a rotary cutter to cut out the circles. This was not working well. Luckily, when my sis and I were out shopping on Black Friday, I found a circle fabric cutter! And it was half-off :) That little cutter made my fabric-cutting go so much faster! I cut them in a few different sizes so I could stack them like this:

After stacking them I sewed them together.

Once the stacking was over, I wanted to (a) cover up the sewing and (b) add some glitz. So I found some big rhinestones to glue onto the fabric. I grabbed my glue gun for this!

Pretty!

After I had all the circles completed, all I had to do was glue the completed circles on the lamp shade. 

TA-DAH!

 (The lampshade was sitting on top of my floor lamp in my room)

I was super-excited to give it to my sister during our gift-exchange on Christmas Eve! And I do believe she loved it!

My big sis with her adorable baby-bump showing off her new lamp!

There it is! The thing I've wanted to talk about forever but I had to keep secret so I wouldn't ruin the surprise for my big sis :)

I hope you all had the merriest of Christmas' and an amazing New Year!

Kelsey Jean

A Bittersweet Christmas Eve

Hey bloggosphere -

I know it's been forever since I posted, but life has gotten in the way.

I've been working on a project for my Big Sis to give to her as her Christmas present. I won't post what it is until I give it to her (as she reads this so I don't want to give it away). But here's one part of the project.

I had to drape an area in my apartment-style dorm room so I could spray paint something and not make a huge mess.

More information regarding this project to come!


I've also been baking (in my family's Christmas tradition) and I made these delicious Andes Mint Cookies.
Head over to my pinterest to find the recipe.
They were sure easy to make
You mix eggs, oil and Devil's Food Cake mix together.
Make balls and flatten.
Cook for 6 mins.
Then put an Andes Mint on top and let it melt.

Enlist someone to help unwrap all the mints . . . Just be sure they don't eat them!

Finally smear it all around :)

They looked so delicious and hot and minty!

My boyfriend is bringing them to his work for a Christmas party and I'm bringing them to my family's Christmas Eve dinner.

I think they'll be a hit :)

Merry Christmas Eve to all!

Kelsey Jean

Doing Something for the Greater Good

A little backinfo: I am in a program at my College called Character in Leadership. You had to apply for it before your Freshman year. There are only about 22 of us in my class anymore. We have one class each semester with the same group of classmates that is dedicated to leadership. We've learned about leadership theory, ethics, and have completed one local service project.

This year we are doing a global service project. We are working with the organization My Fight. My Fight is a solution to poverty. They give out microloans to people in Honduras currently (they are working on getting in to Ethopia) by selling t-shirts. It's a small organization but I see that what they do works. They get back 98% of their microloans (learn more here about micorfinancing) which is HUGE!

The reason we chose My Fight is because they are a solution. I've worked in a nonprofit business, I had an internship at a local YWCA after my senior year of high school. So when we were researching global nonprofits, I knew the lingo that nonprofits speak. I saw that they have a very small overhead cost, and their one (yes, they only have one paid employee) doesn't make much money off of My Fight. Their operation works. I was impressed.

Our Character in Leadership class is working on raising money for My Fight. We have gone dorm room door-to-dorm room door, sold Halloween-o-grams and now My Fight is coming to our campus. More specifically; Jesse, the founder of My Fight, is coming to our campus. If you are in the Jamestown area, come to Jamestown College Campus sometime between 8 and 10pm on Monday, November 14th and see what My Fight is all about. We'll have a musical guest, coffee, and t-shirts for sale. Visit the facebook event here.

Come learn about one of my passions. If you can't join us on Monday night but want to buy a t-shirt (for every shirt that is sold in the month of November and December, an annonymous donor will double your donation! - I bought 3:)) buy a shirt online.

Hopefully you learned something new today :)

Have a great weekend,

Kelsey Jean

All it takes for evil to take over is for one person to let it pass on by.

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

Hey bloggosphere -

I titled this "When was the last time you did something for the first time?" for a reason. This is new to me. I've always been a journal-er, but I've never taken the time to write a blog. So here goes!

Trying something new. They say you should always be trying to learn something new every day so I'm learning about blogging. This is my first, concrete, out-on-the-internet blog. I'm writing this with the no idea what I will end up doing with it, who I'm going to reach, or how long I'm going to keep it up. But I'm going to work my hardest to keep it up and keep it interesting (if only for me and my family).

Why am I doing this? Writing has always been a form of therapy for me. It's cheap. It's easy. And it never lets you down. I don't know how many times I have written a journal, read it, and tore it up to throw it away. Personal stuff can be hard to share and put into words, but I'm hoping this won't be a failed attempt will be successful.

Who am I to tell my story to the world? I'm not anyone most people know. I am active on my small, liberal arts college campus; so people here tend to know me. I work at a semi-popular restaurant in town, so people recognize me. I've done a few cool things in my short life. But this isn't to brag about my 21-years-short life. This is to just share my ideas, share my problems, share what I learn. Everyone has a story, and I am going to attempt to share mine.

What are you going to do with this? I am going to try to post 2 or 3 blogs a week. Now, I am a college student, so hell week and finals week I make no guarantees. Some may be short. I love to collect quotes and artifact that have some cool saying or meaning behind them, so I may just share that. My sister is pregnant with a girl, so I may post nursery ideas that we find. Or once baby girl comes, my ideas about parenting and being an auntie. I have a somewhat turbulent family life, so that may be talked about. I am sorta in charge of my Residence Hall on campus, so I may write about the hardship of being a peer to people that get into trouble. But most of all, this is my blog, so I'm going to write about whatever is interesting to me that day.

This is going to be an interesting ride, but I'm game for it if you are!
See you all next time.

Kelsey Jean

Live now. Do it now. Take risks.