My husband, daughter and I will be marching in theHouston Women’s Sister March this Saturday to support theDC march and stand together to show that love trumps hate. Many of the women in the march on DC will be wearing pink ‘pussyhats’ (more info at the PussyHat Project) to give a strong visual statement and while I support their efforts to make a statement while simultaneously keeping people warm, I won’t be wearing a fleece, knitted or crocheted hat at the 78°F Houston Women’s March. 😉
Instead, I’ve created a SUPER EASY paper pussyhat (crown, really) that can be made in literally five minutes or less, and requires only 4 supplies. Perfect for any warm weather sister marches or last minute hat needs.
I’ll also be attempting to sew a hat out of thin, stretch knit in the next few days so stay tuned for that if you’d like something a little more permanent.
SUPER EASY PAPER #PUSSYHAT
BY: Angelle Conant
Gather supplies: pink construction paper, marker and tape or glue.
Fold construction paper in half lengthwise and draw a pattern for your cat ear crown. Place the ears approximately an inch and a half apart.
3. Cut your pattern out. You should now have 2 identical pieces.
Take the band that will make up the back part of your hat and cut off the ears.
You now have your two pieces and are ready to assemble. Overlap the band approximately half an inch and tape or glue together.
Wrap the hat around your head and see how much you need to overlap the other two sides of the band to make it fit your head properly. Adhere with tape or glue.
Grab your marker and draw a couple of upside down V’s to complete your cat ear look. And you’re done!
I remember being in 1st grade and swearing up and down to my parents that I heard Santa and his reindeer jingle past my room around 2am on Christmas morning.
I also remember waking them up only a couple of hours later at 4am only to be told that I needed to go back to bed until at least 6am.
Clearly, I had caught Christmas fever.
These days, my relationship with Christmas is a little more complicated.
As I got older, and then got married and had a kid, things changed quite a bit. And for some unknown, baffling reason I put an immense amount of pressure on myself during the holiday season. The house had to be spotless. I had to bake – and it had to be delicious. We had to listen to Christmas music while viewing beautiful displays of Christmas lights. We had to drink hot cocoa while we cheerily wrapped presents and decorated our tree. Each giftee had to LOVE their present and I had to buy all of them in one frantic day as I hunched over my computer and searched the internet for hours.
And every single one of these things had to be done joyously and with Christmas cheer.
Well, I say, screw that.
When I was young, Christmas was my absolute favorite holiday, but a few years ago, it started to become my least favorite. It was nothing but a giant ball of stress and pressure followed very closely by New Year’s Eve – another holiday I was stressing over – and then my birthday in early January. I started to dread the entire month of December and a little bit of January.
“Relax and surrender to the magic of the season. Let good enough be good enough. Put your precious energy into enjoying time by yourself and with the people who matter most to your heart….Plans change. People disappoint. Traditions expire. Release your expectations of the holidays and be open to surprise.”
This little message changed my life and opened my eyes to the mountain of expectations I had poured onto myself to make the season ‘magical.’ It’s taken a few years of keeping these words posted in my room every holiday season, but I’m finally starting to heed it’s message and slow down. I even realized that I didn’t have to do all the Christmas shopping by myself and in one day this year!
And you know what? So far, it really has been a magical season.
Wishing you a happy and expectation-free holiday season! 😉
Bella has NO expectations for the holiday season. NONE. And see how relaxed she is?
This 6th installment of myLove Series goes out to a very special group of people: #TheBloggessTribe. I found these amazing nerds viathe Bloggessand they’ve become my wonderful, wacky friends in the online world. One day, I’ll hopefully meet some of them in person too!
So this Love Series post is for internet friends. They’re like peeing in your pants – everyone can see them, but only you can feel their warmth. 😉
Love you Bloggess Tribe! <3
Watercolor and Ink. Damnit. Now I want a purple laptop.
My wonderful husband and I had a date very early on where we visited the beautiful Mecom Fountain. It was lovely and romantic and less than a year later it was also the place he proposed.
Another year later, on the morning after our wedding, we had a lovely breakfast at our hotel’s restaurant and could see the cascading fountain from our table as we sipped coffee and orange juice.
To say that this fountain has played a part in our romance would be an understatement. So when the time came for me to procure a ‘wood’ gift for our 5th Anniversary I decided to paint our beloved fountain on a wooden canvas with the words “I will always say Yes” painted at the bottom. Here was the result:
I mixed glow in the dark paint with the white. Because I’m a grown up. Acrylic on Wood.
The husband had no idea what I was getting him so what do you think he got me? A wooden jack knife easel that he burned our anniversary date and other sweet nothings into. We gave each other complementary anniversary gifts without even realizing it. And in case you’re wondering, yes, yes, we are this lovingly disgusting all the time. 😉
And for those of you looking for a partner to love (not that you need one to be happy or whole or anything in between) here’s some advice I got on my 21st birthday.
“You have to be friends. Somedays you won’t like each other, but you’ll still have to get along.”
This is the fourth installment of the Love Seriesand it centers around something that, without fail, will lift my spirits: a good cuppa. Whether it is coffee or tea, a good cup of hot liquid is something I truly love. So make yourself a hot brew and enjoy!
Watercolor and Ink. And yes, I was drinking a cup of tea while I painted this. 😛
Well, it’s finally here – I’ve published my coloring book! 😀
I started the rough draft when I was pregnant with my daughter and SOMEHOW I’ve managed to finish the rough draft, final draft and publish it while caring for a rambunctious one year old.
There are two ways to procure a copy:
1) On AmazonHERE.
This is the third installment of theLove Series and one that I drew back in 2014 when my husband and I were trying to get pregnant. After we decided we’d like to start a family, I thought things would happen pretty quickly after that – oh how naive I was. Month after month dragged on and still there was no plus sign on my pregnancy test and Aunt Flo was still visiting.
Well, I got mad. Then sad. Then mad again. I was so frustrated and distraught. “Why was this taking so long? Why hadn’t I eaten better? I should have never tried pot that time!”
For months, I tried to somehow fix it. Fix me. This was one of my dreams, to become a mother, and I felt like somehow it was my fault that it was slipping through my fingers. That somehow the choices I had made up until this point in my life were causing all of this. “This is probably happening because of all my stress. I should have worked harder to be less stressed!”
One day, I was feeling so glum and frustrated and realized that I needed to chill out. Let go. I decided it was time to send a little love to the area of my body that I had been not so silently seething at for months. Actually, I started to realize, the fury at my uterus had begun 7 years prior when, almost every month, I’d have debilitating cramps during my period. I decided that whether or not I got pregnant, sending a little love to my uterus would be good for the both of us. And it was.
A few months later, I became pregnant. Months later, during my unmedicated birth, I realized that those “debilitating cramps” I’d been having for years were actually very similar to labor! It was all worth it though because we now have a beautiful little girland I don’t have period cramps anymore. 🙂
#3 in THE LOVE SERIES. Sidenote: This drawing was based on a medical picture, not MY uterus. I have no idea what that thing looks like.
Though thisLove Serieshas been brewing for years, it is the most recent terrorist attacks that have broken my heart and urged me to start this series now. When I read about these attacks in France, I felt dismayed and helpless.
So this is me helping in my own little way. This is me saying, “I’m so sorry, France. My heart breaks with you. I’m here for you.”
This is my act of Love-ism.
#2 in THE LOVE SERIES. Click the image for a clearer, larger picture.
Today begins an idea that has been brewing for literally years. When I was in high school, I was given the assignment of creating a mission statement for my life. Being the over-achieving, perfectionist I was, I agonized over the assignment for days. I fell far down the rabbit hole and had a near existential crisis before realizing that there was only one true answer for me: LOVE. Try as I might to create a more ‘traditional’ mission statement, the only thing that rang true and was all-encompassing enough to satisfy me was simply: LOVE. Love is what makes life bearable (to borrow from Carl Sagan). The teacher printed all of our mission statements out and I still have mine to this day.
Exhibit A. She’s a little worse for the wear, but still kicking nonetheless.
LOVE has been my guidepost ever since. Two years ago, when I began my creative journey in earnest, I thought up an idea for a series of LOVE expressions. That idea has fermented for two long years and is now being brought to life.
This LOVE SERIES will be a collection of art about love. Love that I see. Love that I experience. Love that I feel needs to spread. Any and all iterations of LOVE that I come across and wish to express in an artistic way.
Along the way, if you have an ideas, questions or comments, please feel free to share them with me via my “Contact Me” page or in the comments section. If you’d like to receive new posts in your inbox, please subscribehere or in the sidebar.
It is my sincere hope and wish that these pieces might brighten the world in some way. So it begins…
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“You have to be friends. Somedays you won’t like each other, but you’ll still have to get along.”