Appreciating Friendships

So.

I'm the butthead that just checked out yesterday from the moment that I woke up and for twenty-four hours after.

Yesterday was Pajama Day at school and that's one of my favorite days of the year and I completely forgot. I was even gushing about it the evening before and still blanked out when I picked out my clothes for the morning. Sigh. So many kids participated and it was adorable. We tied it into the "Love of Reading" week by inviting family members to come in and read with their students in the afternoon all snuggled up with small stuffed animals and their pj's.

Uh, the Pope retired. Didn't know that that was a thing. A state of emergency was declared in Mississippi after huge tornado ripped through and that is so tragic. Closer to home, we have some good news: it's about one month until I get to meet the SO's grandmother and some of this other relatives- in person! There are so many italics going on in this post. There's going to be a lot of media too. I'm trying to make up for yesterday.

Happy Valentine's Day, by the way. Here are two related and sweet pictures:

 

This is a big red velvet cupcake that FMIL got for me. Not the best picture of it, but I'm saving it for the end of the work week tomorrow. There is fine edible glitter sprinkled on top. Yep, it's that pretty.

 This is such a sweet story I saw on FB and shared. Made me tear up and a few of my guy friends too because I have some of the greatest friends.

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Part II of this post is showing you what previous hobby I'm starting to delve into again- friendship bracelets. Yeah, it's been about what... two years now? I brought my collection in for my friends at work to choose from. Nothing like a friendship bracelet to show that I appreciate their friendships on Valentine's Day! :D Well, that was my line of thinking anyways. I have so many crafting hobbies, my coworkers have trouble keeping up.

I want to share my crafty collections on the blog, so here's the first installment! I realized that I never showed how I ended up reorganizing my strings after talking about hunting down the "perfect" storage solution. Cue the V8 smack to the forehead.

 Found this stackable and lockable container at a big box craft store. Was looking for one of those clear tall pails but this has worked out so well for me.

I sort many things by color and stocked up on the floss holders which have been so good to me. There are a ton of pinks because of my Breast Cancer Awareness promotion-line.

 I used to keep a cheat sheet note card in an envelope for each pattern I used to sell in my old Etsy shop.

 I have a bunch of bracelets that I deemed "Unusable" set aside for ones that were an odd length or from when I was figuring out what was the best way to fasten the bracelets.

  Sometimes, I'm determined to break out of a color rut and blindly grab the needed number to see what comes out. Often, it's not my cup of tea, but a customer would just fall in love with the hues.

 I have so many of these because I made a ton as part of a promotion-campaign thing for a previous Valentine's Day. Kind of a pain to make, but they always look so sweet.

One of the newer patterns that I incorporated into my main line.

 This is my favorite pattern. It looks so good from the front and the back.

 I ended up making one for myself using colors that would remind me of the lessons I should focusing on learning this year. I don't know if this was the right color scheme, but am wearing it on my ankle now. The orange and white are my favorite part because it looks like a fox tail. More about that at a later date.

 

Not quite macrame, but I like to use my scraps to make these.

 My two latest additions to the main line. I call the first one Waterfall and the latter Blaze. They require much more forethought and attention to get into the rhythm of making.

 My Awareness Ribbon pattern that included a donation to related causes. *Note* I do not claim that any of these patterns are my own.

This is one of most popular patterns, especially once people see it in person. I've made and remade (once they have fallen off and been lost) so many of these.

 

These are a few patterns that I was testing out. That middle lime one is an outline of a butterfly.

 Older patterns that I had completed from a book but decided not to sell. I'll make them if someone really loves them.

 More patterns that I had considered selling once I stocked up a few.

This is the collection of it all after sorting out the jumbled mess I had ended up with when I shut down my store.

Right after taking that last picture, I sought a better way of keeping the finished bracelets organized. Now, they are all on their respective paper clip and the clips are on a d-ring. Hopefully, it made it easier for the ladies to sort through them all to find one that they liked today.

I can show my colors of embroidery floss in another post, but that collection of colors changes so often. I seek certain shades when requested, but I often just oogle the selection and grab colors that I find are gorgeous at the time. I started getting into seasonal collections and that was tons of fun to shop for. I would love some outside inspiration for new color combinations now that I'm dabbling in this again.

Sigh, someone needs to take some of these off of my hands, lol. As long as they go do a decent home, I don't mind it at all.