A Butterfly

Hey y'all! Earlier today I found this butterfly outside. And as a lot of you know, I LOVE butterflies! And it was staying so still! So I crept up, laid down on the ground, slowly brought my camera closer to it, thinking it's going to fly away at any moment (Wonder how many times I've done this? Don't ask.), just trying to get one picture...and what happens? He doesn't move.

I take a few pictures, very excited that the butterfly is actually staying still, but then I wonder...why is it not moving? hmm? I tap the ground, hoping to scare it away so that I can know that the poor thing is not dead, and it jumps and rolls over! Okay, I know it sounds weird, like, maybe kind of like a dog...but not that kind of rolling, it like, fell over. After that, it got back up, and just stood there. Looking at it for a while, I saw that one of it's wings was torn, pretty badly too. Poor thing, probably got attacked by a bird but heroically escaped with it's life!

Okay, maybe not. But still, it was obviously hurt, and wasn't going to be moving anytime soon. I don't even know if it could fly. But anyways, since it wasn't going to move, and I don't know how to help butterflies even if there is anything you can do for them, I took pictures of it. And man, I got some cool ones! Here are some (most possibly??? hehe)...

*He was on the green thing first, then when I scared him, he fell off (only about an inch at the most) onto the concrete. Sorry little guy!*

A few hours later, it was still there, so I brought it some sugar water on a plate. I don't know if butterflies would even drink it, or if this one has, but its still out there, and I'll check it in the morning.

In Christ,

Buttercup

P.S. yeah, I know its a lot of pictures...I just couldn't decide which ones to post, so I just posted most of them. :P

Crocheted Hair Scrunchy Tutorial

Hey Y'all!

In the random post that I wrote a few days ago, I mentioned that I figured out how to crochet around a hair rubber band, and said that I'd post a tutorial if anyone was interested. Someone was. :) So here we go! If it doesn't make sense, please just ask questions! I love to hear from y'all, and would love to help you in any way I can!

Step one: gather your supplies.

What you need:

1. yarn. I have used fuzzy, hairy, and soft ones. just have fun!
2. scissors. any will do.
3. hair rubber bands. I got a pack of 36 good ones at Dollar Tree for a buck. not bad!
4. a crochet hook. I used F some of the time and G some of the time. But feel free to experiment!

Step two: start your crochet. put your slip knot on the hook, grab your yarn, and get ready! Hold it like this - with a few fingers holding your rubber band, and the yarn over the band, and the hook under. It's easier than it sounds, trust me.

Step three: Grab the yarn with the hook like you are about to do a chain stitch, and pull it under and through.

Step four: do it again and again and again...

If the yarn is over the hook, go under. If the yarn is under the hook, go over. So that you have yarn going all the way around. The movie should help you. No need for any sound, it doesn't have anything worth hearing. lol. I hope it works, it's not working right now...if it doesn't I'll try to re-post it tomorrow.

Step five: crochet around the entire rubber band, and keep pulling all the stitches closer together until you have it the thickness you like it. Just remember to keep your stitches pretty tight, so they don't come undone!

The finished product!

Questions are welcome! So don't be shy! :)

In Christ alone,

Buttercup

Volleyball Tournament!

Hey y'all, well if you read my little scrolling thing above the posts, then you would have known that I had a volleyball tournament today! We played hard, but, we didn't win the whole thing. :( It was a ton of fun though!!!

Love in Christ,

Project

Hi Y'all! I am going to undertake a big project! I think that God wants me to raise the money for a fully-equipped missionary vehicle for the native missionaries of Asia through Gospel For Asia (GFA). Here is what the site says on what it is,

A fully equipped vehicle—complete with an Indian-made film on the life of Christ, an LCD projector, generator, mobile public address system, Gospel tracts, Bibles and flip charts—is $21,000.

Yeah I know, $21,000. But, if God said do it, I can! So, do you want to help me??? You don't have to. :P Please get the word out! Direct people to my blog, where I will update! I think I will put this button on the sidebar, so you don't have to find the specific post. Since it is so much money, I am going to donate each month, whatever I recieve; so, it will probably not all go to one vehicle, but my goal still is $21,000!

Where? When? How? Why????

Okay y'all, I don't have time to post a Bible Study right now, but I did want to share something with y'all real quick.

I believe God is calling me into mission work. But I don't know where, when, why, or how. All I know right now is, well, nothing really. But I really want to know! I want to know where God is calling me, when I shall go, how it's all going to happen, and mostly, why He wants me. I am at a split in the road, that I haven't traveled very far on, and I don't know where to go. So, if y'all could pray for me that would be awesome. And, if y'all see any clear directions or some encouragement in our great road map/instruction manual (the Bible) that might help me, by all means, please tell me! I know our Heavenly guide is there to help us through, so I pray that I will listen to Him and follow His instruction.

Thanks for reading y'all, for those who know me personally, you know I would never be able to say this out loud, to anyone, and, well, I haven't.

In Him,
Buttercup :)

Current Drawing Project

My current drawing project is on a canvas bag. I am drawing a scene of butterflies and flowers(since that's about all I can draw). I started it yesterday. I will keep updating on how it is going, but this is what I have right now. These are my supplies, I am later going to (hopefully) be coloring it in with sharp-tipped fabric markers. Any better ideas for what to color it in with would be appreciated!

The flower:

The beginnings of a Common Buckeye butterfly, on a flower:

This is a picture of a Common Buckeye, that I took, that I am partly going off of for some of the bag. If you look close you can see it's tongue!!!

Finally got a picture of a Buttercup!!!!!!!!

Sorry this one is a bit blurry..... :(

The wind was really blowing, so this was my only good one of the full buttercup.

I LOVE this one!!!!!!!

No, I did not take my "name" from the flower "buttercup," but I do love the flower! I actually took the name from the main actor in Princess Bride, her name in the movie is Princess Buttercup. :D

Strawberry picking!

Yesterday we went strawberry picking! It was so much fun!!! The place we went to, not only has strawberry picking, but also blackberries, tomatoes, potatoes, and pumpkins! Only the strawberries were in season though. And, yes, I took a BUNCH of macro pics! Here are some of them:

Some were already bad and rotten, but most were nice and ripe!

My jalapeno strawberry! Lol

To see more pictures please go to me and my sister's photography blog. :D

More Pics

Hey Y'all! Here are some pictures of the dress in process...

These two are of the straps that I sewed onto the back, to thread the string through, to tie it.

Not done yet...

Pinning the main parts of the dress together.

Masquerade Ball dress

We went to a Elizabethan Masquerade Ball on Tuesday night with some of our Grandparents. It was so much fun!!! My sister and I made our own dresses out of a kind of satin fabric. Mine is blue and hers is a nice, lime green. Our Mom did our hair for us, as well as directing us and doing part of our dresses. Thanks Mommy!!! The back is laced up and then tied at the bottom in a bow.



Our Grandma found us some nice cord to be the belt, if you can't tell, it is gold and white twisted stripes.

It was both a lot of work and a lot of fun!

Not-So-Secret Service

Not-So-Secret Service, the co-op class I am taking, is about "serving the Lord through intercommunication." So on the first week, we did a personality test. It was set up with 40 sections, in each section it had 4 words. You had to pick the one word in each section that described you most. I thought it was pretty cool. This Friday we were talking about how to read someones feelings through their body language. Like, different things people do with their face, to show that they are angry, happy, embarrassed, sad, joyful, etc. Or how you can show someone that you are listening by leaning forward. It is a really fun class, and I hope I learn a lot of useful things out of it.

2nd Homeschool Co-op Starts

Our 2nd homeschool co-op started on Monday, and it was so much fun! My classes are: 1st period: Tae Kwon Do, 2nd period: Microscope Biology, 3rd period: Volleyball. So, this semester I have two sport type classes and one study type class. I am so glad that I got those classes, those were my first choices. Now I will describe each class to you like I did on Friday.

Tae Kwon Do is basically a type of karate. I did it last semester too, so I am already a gold belt. I was really sore on Tuesday since I had not practiced or done the stretching like that all summer. This semester I am going to try to test for my Orange belt.

Microscope Biology is going to be really fun I think. My teacher has a few really good microscopes for us to use, which I think is really cool. I did not think that I would like it very much, but I love it and it is very interesting. I am taking the class with one of my sisters.

This is the second semester I have taken Volleyball, 'cause I loved it! My Mom played Volleyball when she was little, so I thought that I should try it too.

Doing two co-ops a week sometimes gets hard, but I love it because I get to be with my friends that don't go to the same church as me. A plus to being homeschooled is that you are not under the influences of other kids, that don't share your same beliefs, and I think that is so important. The Bible tells us not to be "yoked together with unbelievers." Or in other words, don't hang out with people that don't believe in God. They are bad influences. I will update you on co-op as much as I can. I hope you enjoy reading about it!

1st Homeschool Co-op Starts

Today was the first day of Co-op! It was so much fun! These are my classes: 1st period-Southern Hospitality, 2nd period-Not-So-Secret Service, 3rd Period-Drama. And those were all of the classes that I wanted, so I am so happy. I am now going to give you a description of what the classes are about.

Southern Hospitality is basically a cooking class. Today we decorated our aprons, wrote down a recipe in our personal cookbooks, and made four dozen muffins! In one hour! We sold them to the families in co-op. And we sold almost every muffin, we had one left over. We were selling them for fifty cents each. Over the next 7 weeks we will be learning things like cake decorating and baking. It is a really fun class!

In Not-So-Secret Service today we really did not do very much, because our teacher had a sick child, so I can give you a better description next week.

Drama was really a lot of fun today! This is my second semester to be in this drama class so I already had been taught the things she talked about today, but we got to play a few improv. games, and that is always really fun. I love Co-op!

Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is one of my most favorite things to do! I probably could not live without it! I love scrapbooking because: I love crafts, it is a fun and cute way to preserve memories, and it so much fun! You don't have to have experience to be able to scrapbook, but I admit that is does look better when you have had some practice:) Scrapbooking is a hobby of mine, so I do it just whenever I want to. Like yesterday, we have not started school yet, and I was really bored, so I did some scrapbooking, I did two and a half pages.

You can get scrapbooking supplies at most craft stores, I get most of mine at Hobby Lobby, they always have great sales on scrapbooks, paper, stickers, and other page elements. For my birthday a friend gave me a scrapbook with about fifteen pages, I think, and I have already filled it up! So next time we go to Hobby Lobby I am going to get a pack of refill pages. There are different kinds and sizes of scrapbooks, so you can't just get any scrapbook refill pages, you have to know what kind of scrapbook you have(the different scrapbooks are bound differently) so all you have to do is take your scrapbook and lift the flap that holds the pages in and see : #1 how many holes there are , #2 see what shape your holes are. It is really easy:)

Scrapbooking is so much fun! I hope that if you have never scrapbooked that you will try it, and if you have I hope that I did not bore you too much! :)

Interior Design

Interior Design has been just a "cool thing", now it is becoming a interest and hopefully a hobby of mine. Today I did some interior designing to my bedroom, now keep in mind that I share this room with two sisters, so I could not do exactly what I wanted to do with it because they did not like me changing the room very much. But I did do a little.

My sisters and I have Polly Pocket dolls that we make cardboard houses for, it is really fun to design each bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, etc. I use scrapbook paper to paper the walls, and sometimes the floor. We also sew our own mini blankets , pillows, couches, etc. Designing these mini rooms is really fun, and it does not cost much at all! If anyone has any ideas on where I can learn more about interior design, please comment on this post:)

Crochet

Crocheting is one of my most favorite things to do! I first learned to crochet at a craft day last summer when a homeschooling mom offered to teach me how. And she taught me the first stitch, but I was so anxious to learn the rest( the next time I was going to see her was the next week) that I borrowed a how to crochet book from the library. And I learned the next few stitches from that. There are a ton of different stitches in crochet( slip stitch, single crochet, double crochet, half double crochet, chain, etc.) so I am still learning new stitches. Other tools I used to learn new stitches are the Internet, movies and DVDs, and other crocheters.

Crocheting is done with a hook on the end of a long skinny rod and some yarn, you can find crochet supplies at craft stores, such as Hobby Lobby, or at main "all around" stores, such as Wal-Mart. There are different kinds of yarn, there are acrylic yarns, they are the most common and are used most anything and everything. Then there are cotton yarns and they are used for making dish cloths and towels. There are also wool yarns that are very soft, and they are used for making winter coats and accessories. Of coarse you can always try different things with different yarns. That is part of the fun of it!

You can find patterns for almost anything you want to make and more, at the library or on the Internet are where I find most of my patterns. But I really don't like following patterns, I like to make my own! I have made patterns for purses, hats, headbands, bracelets, and more. After you know the basic stitches you can start crocheting, and if you get stopped by a stitch you don't know how to do, then learn it! By doing this over and over again you will really increase your knowledge of stitches!

I love crocheting! It is so much fun and you can made really cute things out of just a small knowledge of stitches, such as baby booties, hats, then after a little practice you might be able to make a whole baby or baby doll outfit! I don't always just crochet for fun, I make things for gifts, for charities, etc. I think crochet is a worth while skill to learn for anybody!