HoodieGate's Happy Ending

Did I ever tell you that my cool-ass BFF Dax has an Etsy store?  It's true!  Most of her stuff centers around the more perky side of life... bibs & adorable stuff for babies of all genders, which she's really good at making; she's also got some wheels turning for other cute things in the future.  (I may even be able to make a case for catering to the darkling demographic!)  Dax has an eye for the kawaii-est fabrics on Earth, and her search for them has spanned several continents!  (Well, two continents -- but still, she came back with some good stuff.)  I did talk her into making a sleep mask that said "FUCK OFF", as I saw one on Shameless, fell in looooove with it, and I just know other people will want one!  The one that she made was a sparkly pretty pink instead of a bad-ass black... with the words in a fancy cursive, which somehow made it even cooler.  I love the idea of an offensive text written in script on something pink and girly!  She and I have different styles, but there are lots of places where our interests overlap.  I think that makes a much more interesting friendship!

However... not all differences between friends are going to turn out great.  For example:  A few months ago, my friend Fluffy was popping some laundry into my washing machine, and instead of hanging my magical hoodie to dry, he scrunched it up and put it on my "nest," which caused an apartment-wide hunt for the missing hoodie.  When it didn't turn up (because everything in my apartment is black, making it a very challenging search!), I was pretty effing devastated.  It's hard to find a summer-weight hoodie that's at least 30 inches long.  If a big girl is wearing stretchy yoga pants (or leggings!), then trust me, you want a CTB (Camel Toe Barrier) at the ready!  And with all of the bustle and activity that I have planned for these warm sunny months -- visits to my adopted local family, physical therapy, doctor's appointments, and possibly pool-based workouts on the reg at the Y, I am going to NEED a lighter hoodie to see me through all of these trips out of the house.

Everyone tried to console my broken heart, and believe me, it was BROKEN!  Fluffy placed an order to Junonia in an effort to help me move on with my life, but alas, it wasn't the same!  Dax combed the final-days clearance rack at Fashion Bug (home of the original hoodie), but alas, lime green was all they had in stock!  Even my man, Fuzz, combed the internet, searching valiantly for a good replacement.  What we found was this -- the "tag-free hooded lounger" from Woman Within...  It is long enough to go down to my ankles, but still nice and roomy for all my layers... he thought maybe we can have it redone.   "Let's try it," Fuzz said, reassuringly.  "We'll get the old ladies to fix it up good!"  (His tailors are old ladies... he calls them "the old ladies.")  The nightie came in the mail, and it does look like it can easily be converted.  We can cut it up, slice the middle, and plant the zipper.  Plus, I got an enormous one, so it will be nice and big.  What we'll do with the leftover fabric, I've yet to determine!

I was telling Dax about my idea, and she offered to help in order to give it a personal touch that the old ladies could not.  She suggested that I buy a YKK zipper, since they're the best.  And it's true... those are the kind you see on jeans and higher-quality garments.  Fun fact:  When I was a kid, I thought it said "KKK," but it actually doesn't.  My old hoodie measured about 30 inches, but since I'm having it my way like Burger King, I'm going to try to get something maybe 33' or 34'.  I want that thing down to my knees!

It's hard to find YKK zippers in very special lengths, I've found.  The ones I've seen are like $12 dollars or more for a metal-teethed one -- which isn't too bad, considering I'll be having this thing for years! But I want to make sure it's going to work out.  I just found this one on Amazon for $6something, plus shipping, which sounds all right to me.  I think 32" will work out fine.  I'm super excited!

By the way, you know you're (a) loved, (b) feared, or (c) owed a ton of favors... when you have that many people trying to soothe your broken heart over a hoodie. I like to think it's a combination of all 3. ;)  It's true that I have some weird connections to my clothes, but it's really nice that people are so understanding about it!  I'll be letting you know how the new one turns out!

What to Do With Leftover Roses & Petals

My birthday was this week, and a friend gave me a dozen stunning red roses that morning.  They looked gorgeous and smelled divine, but after a few days, I wondered (as I often do) how I can utilize them in the best possible way.

Some people say that if you want to preserve them, you can hang them upside down to preserve the color while they dry.  I've tried that before.  While the color of the petals does fade into a more dead-looking color, it's usually a deep pretty brownish-purple.  However, the leaves all stuck right up and looked stupid whenever I did it.  So next time I decide to try that, I'll figure out a way to keep those leaves from looking like they got stuck in an electrical socket.

One of my favorite things to do with roses is to make homemade potpourri, and of course, I love using my homemade incense recipe.   But this time... I have a few other tricks up my sleeves, so keep coming back and checking up on my developments. ;)

With this batch so far, I've begun preparing the roses for use in crafts.  First, I took off the rubber bands and saved them for another use.  Floral rubber bands are awesome, by the way; they're very strong, and usually you get a couple of different sizes in each bouquet.

My next step was to separate the roses from their petals.  I put the petals of eleven roses into my metal mixing bowl, and pressed the petals from the twelfth rose into the pages of an absolutely terrible hardback book (Here Kitty Kitty by Jardine Libaire).  Some of the random leaves were pressed into Make Your Own Luck: 12 Practical Steps to Taking Smarter Risks in Business.

I'm going to be washing the petals in the bowl.  They need to be as clean as possible for a cooking project that I'll be doing.  And the stuff in the book will probably be used to accent something that I want to frame, so we'll see how it goes!

Making Homemade Incense

Lately, I've been rather enamored of the idea of making my very own incense. I've long loved the resin-based style incense (i.e. dragon's blood, frankincense, copal, styrax, etc.). A few years ago, however, my husband bought me some really delicious church incense from the Holy Rood Guild; two cannisters of the most amazing floral- and wood-based scents in the world, Laudete and Jubilus. (I had wanted to try their third scent, Cantica, but it appears that the monks have stopped selling it to the general public. Darn!)

For my birthday, my husband bought me some lovely "Melchior" resin, and a powder-based rose & frankincense from Scents of Earth. He also got me some beautiful red roses. Each time I get flowers from someone, I have a tendency to let them dry out with the intention of making potpourri. (Whether or not I actually follow through with potpourri is another story!) This time, though, I thought it would be really awesome to try making my very own incense.

The first thing I did was to take the parts of the bouquet that I wanted to turn into incense. I removed all of the red petals and placed them in a small plastic tray; then I snipped away some of the leaves of the roses, as well as some of the bits of fern "garnish" that came with the bouquet. Then I took a few pieces of the baby's breath and added them whole, figuring that they'd all be crumbled to bits after everything dried. At that point, I was unsure about whether or not to use the bud remnants for the incense, so I decided to trim them from the stems and set them aside and put them in a glass nearby. I could always add them in later if I wanted.




It took about a week for the petal-leaf mixture to dry. I didn't do anything special to help them along, just left them in my little plastic tray. I would toss the mixture around in the tray once each day while I waited for it to dry. From time to time, I also gently mixed the glass of buds, but not quite as often. They're really delicate. They also took longer to dry than the petals. (Later, I decided not to use the buds for this project; instead, I saved them for a similar but related mini-project.)

Of course, the petals didn't smell as good dried as they did when they were fresh, so I knew I'd have to add some yummy scent to the mix. First, though, I crushed all of the petals, leaves, and baby's breath into a fine consistency. (It's more coarse than powder. Just a bunch of little bits.) Then, I added some Egyptian Rose essential oil, and a few drops of clove oil for a little extra dimension. I mixed it up really well, and then tried it out on my burning charcoal. It was awesome! I've already got ideas for the next batch of incense!! :)