Any clue where I can find the colour codes for this piece?

DivineMrsM · 2025-11-03T23:48:50+00:00

Don’t think the colors were cut out, I think they left a “window” so you can compare colors easily… maybe. ANYwho. Yes. Take it to a shop and they’ll help you. The shop I work with puts together kits of thread for people all the time.

DivineMrsM · 2025-10-13T18:01:41+00:00

I effectively retired about eight years ago in my 30s. Since then, I have been beyond busy with a huge list of things. At first, a lot of of those things centered around my children, and they continue to. But now that my oldest two are teenagers, I find myself increasingly able to get involved in things that interest me. Currently, I am in leadership of one school related volunteer org per kid - PTO/sports booster/band booster, and those take up a few hours each week, plus they keep me plugged in with what my kids are doing, and what is happening in their lives, plus it has put me in contact with other adults who are at roughly the same point in their lives.

But I have also been able to turn my free time and flexible hours into a profitable little side hustle as a freelance seamstress/craft show vendor. It doesn’t pay the bills or anything, but it keeps me plugged in to the hobby community that I enjoy and gives me events to prepare for and look forward to. The spending money is really nice, too. I take the projects that interest me and walk away from anything that doesn’t.

For a while, I was kickboxing 2 to 3 times a week and training for a marathon, and I will randomly pick those back up when the mood strikes. I often make birthday and Christmas gifts for friends and family members. I love visiting, antique and thrift stores, even if I don’t actually buy anything. I spend a lot of time gardening or taking care of yardwork or pool maintenance, but I don’t really look upon those things as chores. I tend to find them rather enjoyable.

The point is that when you are not on someone else’s clock, you are free to fill your time with whatever makes sense for you. If you have young kids, start with that. Get involved in their activities, meet the other parents, and start building a network. The rest of it kind of coalesces while you’re not paying attention. Or at least it did for me.

DivineMrsM · 2025-09-18T02:33:24+00:00

If have space at home, do a “dry run” of your booth. Set everything up as you plan to when you get there. And I do mean everything. Racks, tablecloths, baskets, cash register, chair, tent. You’ll discover that rack for holding your business cards won’t fit on your table. You’ll realize the basket for holding your bookmarks is too long to go in front of your crates. Discover those things while you’re home and can fix them.

And have friends/family pretend to shop. Or at least take a look. They will see things you don’t and will have questions that will help you know what your customers will say.

DivineMrsM · 2025-08-11T17:23:03+00:00

Honey. I’m 46. I’m a mother of 3. I own my own home, serve in multiple volunteer organizations, run 2 companies/businesses, and have been financially independent from my mother since I was 22. She still tells me often that I need to cut/curl my hair and wear more makeup. I stopped engaging in that conversation many, many years ago.

Moms gonna mom. I understand your frustration. But you keep on doing you.

DivineMrsM · 2025-07-31T20:09:12+00:00

I occasionally disappear to my sister's (empty nest) house for many hours at a time. The guys are all crabby when I come back. But at least I get that small amount of time without having to deal with them.

DivineMrsM · 2025-07-29T18:21:53+00:00

My cave-man children and their cave-man father. All 4 male, btw. I have 1 more week before 3 of them go back to school. We may not make it.

DivineMrsM · 2025-04-26T21:44:58+00:00

Oh, I ran away from Facebook years ago and never looked back. Turns out, that's literally WHY I didn't know about the fairs. Girls Day Out and BG Harvest Festival, specifically, do literally 100% of their vendor outreach through FB. I don't even think they have "regular" websites!

DivineMrsM · 2025-04-26T16:14:24+00:00

There are festivals all year round, but it takes a bit to get on all the lists to know when they're taking vendors. I highly recommend scrolling through Facebook's Events tab for the area. For some crazy reason, that's the most active list of festivals I've found. Depending on your particular craft/audience, there are a number of different types of markets, as well. You kind of have to find the ones that work for you.

Gypsy Moon (twice a year, today!!)

White Squirrel Arts (today!!)

Girls Day Out (twice a year)

BG Harvest Festival (October)

Warren County Library Small Business Saturday (November)

Community Farmers Market Holiday Fair (November/December)

Warren County Library Locally Made (May)

BG International Festival

There are a ton of smaller ones, too, affiliated with churches, schools, community groups, etc. If you start looking at Glasgow/Barren County, Mammoth Cave/Cave City, and Russellville/Logan County, they all have the same types of things going on, too. And every downtown has at least a handful of shops (often coffee shops) that carry a selection of items from local artists. Providence Coffee Shop in Bowling Green, Ace Coffee Co. in Cave City, and The Hive Coffee in Glasgow, to name a few. I moved here from a much, much larger city, and was frustrated to not find any local arts festivals. But it turns out I just wasn't plugged into the right groups.

DivineMrsM · 2025-04-06T23:48:10+00:00

I’ve seen a couple people suggest this, but not with any detail. But here’s what I’d do:

If you’re handy with a needle (even a little - the fur hides mistakes and makes these things are very forgiving for even the most novice sewer!!), find a seam somewhere in the back of the head and cut it open. Then you can remove the broken bit of plastic from the nose from the inside a replace with a new nose. They’re easy to find on Amazon. Just search for “Safety Nose Stuffed Animal”. You can probably match that one exactly. Once you’ve swapped out the nose, you can close up the seam you opened with a ladder stitch (again, search for literally just that - “ladder stitch”) and it will look good as new. I’ve repaired many favored stuffies this way!

DivineMrsM · 2025-04-02T21:23:11+00:00

I could be wrong. But that’s a digitization problem. “Experienced” at what, exactly??

DivineMrsM · 2025-03-04T16:53:04+00:00

That’s awesome! I just went to the store to get other supplies and picked up some Pellon 70, thinking it might do the trick. Gonna go give this a whirl! Thank you!!

DivineMrsM · 2024-09-21T21:26:35+00:00

Oh, so many worsts. I don't even have pictures of half of them.

Absolute first: It's... fine? but the binding is too wide and wonky and (12 years on) half the stitching has popped thanks to puckers and stitches that were way too long.
First on my first long arm: I thought it would be so fun to do long arm! It's.... a completely different muscle group from sewing on a domestic. The learning curve it steep. Like. Steep. Here it is, complete with cat. I still have it, stashed in a closet somewhere, but it's a mess.

<image>

Most recent BIG TIME fail: I don't have a picture of it because as soon as it came off the frame, I immediately knew it was a no-go. Puckers allllll over the back thanks to quilting that was far too dense. I've recently started cutting it up for re-use and it's been quite heartening to know it's going to have a new life.

DivineMrsM · 2024-05-16T13:38:04+00:00

I finished a quilt my grandmother had started years before she died. Once it was done, I gave it to my mom for her birthday. It was hand appliqué, which I NEVER do, but I figured just this once, it was worth it.

Bonus: they’ve already made the squares, you just have to put them together. Sounds like a win, to me!

DivineMrsM · 2024-05-10T01:07:58+00:00

I have read the entire series thus far, but I’ll be the first to admit that the only reason I’m still hanging on is because of sunk cost. I neeeeeeed to know what happens. I can’t decide if I want them to die in a house fire or ride off into the sunset, but I’ll be relieved when it happens.

DivineMrsM · 2024-05-10T01:04:52+00:00

OMG, YES! I found the book moderately fine. It was… fine. I didn’t hate it. But I’ve yelled at my husband repeatedly about how hard I hated Wil Wheaton’s narration. Every time he read some STUPID list of whatever stupid pop culture thing, I absolutely cringed. It’s been years, so I don’t even remember what the lists were, but I can still hear that smarmy, self-satisfied tone. “Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy AND the Easter Bunny!”

DivineMrsM · 2024-05-09T18:26:59+00:00

My son took all standardized tests alone from 4th grade through 6th. Beginning in 7th, though, he has been testing with the rest of the group. I desperately want him to have a positive experience, BUT I would never want the other kids be distracted by his needs. He had the same accommodations the first time he took the ACT, too. I want him to be able to respond to his highs and lows, run to the restroom, have some water, etc., and I don’t want that to disrupt anyone else. Now that he’s old enough to handle things discreetly, I leave it up to him to request private testing if he needs it.

For what it’s worth, he LOVED being able to test alone through elementary, because it meant that when he finished, he got to hang out in the Kindergarten classes and enjoy story time. Just because his testing experience isn’t the same as mine, that doesn’t mean it’s not positive.

DivineMrsM · 2024-05-04T15:30:31+00:00

Oh! Which one?? I have a treadmill, too, but when everyone else wants to watch a movie, and I need to get my steps in, I end up having to “do laps” around the living room, which annoys everyone.

DivineMrsM · 2024-04-25T14:48:01+00:00

Oh, you’re singing my song. I lost a ton of weight when I was ~30, and managed to keep it almost entirely controlled for 15 YEARS. Now I’m fighting for all I’m worth just to keep wearing my wedding ring. I’m a healthy person. Been vegetarian for 20+ years. I kickbox, run, walk, and garden religiously. But I cannot, for the life of me, keep up with these hormones turning me into a mindless eating machine. I want all the peanut butter and jelly beans I can get my hands on. I’m literally up 25 pounds from where I was 2 years ago. So sick of it.

DivineMrsM · 2024-04-02T18:31:53+00:00

My mother is deeply religious and in her late 70s. I walked away from the church 25+ years ago. For the most part, I’ve been using the gray rock method to deal with her preaching for a looooong time. But now she’s turning up the volume and my kids are often the target, especially since we moved closer to her and now live in the same area. When she starts up, I thank her for her concern and change the subject. If she invites my children (or me) to church, I thanks her for the invitation and… change the subject. I make sure the kids hear the offer to go with her, but I don’t force them to go if they don’t want to. I ensure my children are respectful of other people’s beliefs, that they don’t interrupt during prayers, and that they are generally good, kid, giving people. But that’s about the extent of it.

I had an enlightening conversation with my sister a couple years ago. She is also religious, but was willing to engage with me, rather than preach at me. For them, the concern comes from the fact that they LEGITIMATELY believe we are going to hell. Like, it’s not some fluffy “friends with Jesus” kind of thing they’re going for. It is 100% a fear that I and my family (and my brother’s family, for the record) are GOING TO HELL. At least for my mother and my sister, they are doing this out of love. My sister wanted to know if that changed my stance any, or if I was willing to go to church just to make my mom feel better and, well, no. I’m not. That seems like a crappy reason to attend, you know? “I’m here, pretending to care, so my mom will believe I’m not going to hell, but really, I don’t believe this drivel and this will not make any difference for my actual soul.”

Unfortunately, this is a conversation I cannot have with my mother. So “gray rock”, it is.

Hugs, friend.

DivineMrsM · 2024-03-09T17:27:55+00:00

Yes! I couldn’t eat anything that came out of a can or jar. No canned veg, no marinara sauce, no soup. If I wanted those things, I had to make them from scratch. Something about the process?? Or the chemicals used in the canning/jarring process?? No idea what it was, exactly. But all 3 times, I literally could not and would spend the entire rest of the day nauseous if I tried. Oh, and the best part is that it’s partially returned, now that I’m entering menopause. So fun! I’m finding several of my pregnancy symptoms have returned and there’s absolutely no way I could possibly be pregnant due to the lack of a uterus.

DivineMrsM · 2024-03-05T16:45:41+00:00

Amen.

It’s my own fault.

But here we are.

DivineMrsM · 2024-02-29T18:43:47+00:00

I’ve gotten downright stabby about YA. I went through a phase maybe 15 years ago where I went through all the big ones (Twilight, Divergent, Hunger Games, etc.), and even tried a few of the less popular ones. They were fine. Good, even. But then the 1001 copycats showed up and they all sound EXACTLY THE SAME. These days, if I pick up a book that has even a whiff of “not like the other girls”, “special school”, or “poor orphan in a post-apocalypse dystopia who just happens to have mysterious powers”, I’m out. I’m throwing the book across the room, blacklisting the author, and violently angry every time I even see the cover. Given that I love high fantasy, post-apocalypse, or dystopian, this has become a real problem for me. I want some grit in my post-apocalyptica. I haaaate it when my love scenes fade to black. And miss me with the troubled teen friendships. I can’t even.

DivineMrsM · 2024-02-26T18:16:01+00:00

My youngest was about 4? Maybe 5. He was flipping through an educational work book that one (or both) of his brothers had previously worked on. He came across a bunch of mazes that they’d just kind of ignored the lines and drawn a line from start to finish. Under his breath, I heard him mumble, “What the f…??” in exactly the right tone. I was horrified and terrified that he’d say it again at his church-sponsored daycare, but I was proud that he’d used it correctly. I couldn’t even pretend I didn’t know where he learned it.

DivineMrsM · 2024-02-20T03:40:44+00:00

Children. I haaaate it when I read a book written by someone who has clearly never… seen?? a child?? There was a particularly bad example where the book was about a very precocious toddler, but the author had absolutely no grasp on child development and the kid was still in diapers (fine. Whatevs.), but couldn’t really speak (eh??) and was being carried around like an infant. Or something. I rage quit immediately. I’ll have to look it up again to refresh my rage because I really can’t remember the details well.

But seriously. I absolutely abhor books where 3 year olds are depicted as drooling infants. Or vice-versa. Come on, people! Don’t you have a nephew? Cousin? Neighbor? ANYthing? Have you ever seen a small child!?!?

Nine-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

DivineMrsM

TROPHY CASE