Video-journaling my Bipolar 2 journey

I had a light bulb moment (albeit a slow one, as I had it over a year ago, but it has stayed burning in my brain since then) when I started reading a few books by Dana K.White, called "How To Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind" and "Decluttering At The Speed Of Life", and watching her YouTube channel. She started out by deciding to start a blog called "A Slob Comes Clean", where she kept track of her progress with her struggles, and to kind of hold herself accountable for the changes she was trying to implement in her life. 

It got me thinking that I could do the same with my areas of struggle. So I have started a video-journal, along with this blog, where I will document my Bipolar 2 journey, and how I am trying to use my creativity to cope. If  I am the only one to ever use it to look back on, and track my progress, then that is fine. It's hopefully going to be good therapy. 

If anyone wants to join me, you can subscribe to this blog and I will post my video-journals here. Or you can join me on YouTube or TikTok to stay up to date, as well. 

Here is my first video-journal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMBPO8OV2IA

It's also here, with subtitles: TikTok studiojuliesnow.sjs: Bipolar 2 Disorder & Creativity 

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Start Where You Are

After weeks of feeling depressed and irritated, I finally sat down with my husband and dumped it all out. I have been having nagging thoughts that I needed to do something different in my business. Didn't know what, so I was brainstorming on paper anything that was coming to my mind.

Anytime my brain/ thoughts/ heart is faced with something that needs to change, if I don't take the time to figure out what it is and stop and listen to what it is telling me, I get super cranky and irritable and become more and more frustrated with myself, then that leads to lots of negative self-talk , which adds to my depression. A lot of the loads of my depression are based in thoughts of FAILURE, and not living up to who I think I "should be". That will seriously be the death of me if I let it continue. But I'll get back to that.

We were talking about all of the different things I have done in my business: alterations, bridal, costumes, custom clothing, quilts, pillows and curtains and other home decor items, designing t-shirts, seasonal decorating items, and crafts, you name it, I do it. (Except men's tailoring, that's my least favorite thing to do LOL. I will hem pants and take in a waist or a center back of a jacket, but that's it. No sleeves, no tapering, no shoulders. I just don't like it, and I don't think I have to ,at his point in my life ;) )

I also have a website where I have sold a lot of these creations. It has not been too bad, but I keep thinking that if I'm going to keep up this website, I need to do all of the computer/technology things that go along with it, and I'm just not good at record-keeping and email-listing and recruiting business to my website. I know that's a whole 'nother ball of wax that I just am not very good at, I would rather just be creative and share my work with others in ways that don't require a lot of business savvy. So I went down the rabbit hole of thinking that I should become that business-minded person that I never have been. I do enough of the basics for my business, but not nearly what I could be doing. So I got stuck in this place of "I should be better, I should be different" etc etc etc and that just led me to feeling like crap. So that was one thing I had been ruminating about.

The next thing was something that I have done quite a bit in the past at least 10 years, as the number of things that I do for people in my business has increased, and that is I start to think should I narrow things down and just focus on one thing, or even a couple things at most! And it starts to seem sensible at first, but then I start to think well what would I give up? If I gave up that thing it would make me sad, if I gave up this other thing I know I would miss it.

As I was talking this through with my husband, we discussed the fact that the most important two things about my sewing business are #1 my creative outlet, I'm making others happy with my talents. And #2 if I am making money for what I am worth, that sets our family and future up for success. So after lengthy discussion, I decided that along with working on LOVING MYSELF FOR WHO I AM RIGHT NOW, I am NOT going to eliminate anything in my business that I absolutely love. That feels good.

But the thing that is stressing me out, my website, I felt differently about. And right now I don't love it. I don't think it is worth the monthly fee that I pay to try to upkeep something that I'm not super good at. It is a hard decision for me to completely get rid of it, because of all the work I have put into it so far. But I just don't feel like it's a direction I need to pursue right now, so I will just go back to the regular ways, and honestly I get more business from people just messaging and emailing me and the referrals that I have from my hundreds of clients right now. I thought having a website would help to sell some of the products that I create regularly, but in the grand scheme of things, it hasn't made a TON of difference in my business. And I do know from the research I've done and everything I've read and heard, that I have to put a lot more into it to get a lot more out of it, and I don't know that it's worth my time right now. I'm not trying to build an empire, I'm not trying to hire a lot of employees and become this massive e-commerce site, so I'm just going to stick to what I know best, and what has worked the best for me so far.

So I have decided the best thing to do is to keep my website/ shop still open so I don't lose my domain, and just leave my best-sellers on there, just in case one day I come back to it with more dedication, but it will be a serious downgrade from where I am.

That has brought me a lot of relief, the more I think about it. One thing I have learned about listening to my instincts, is that if I feel an impression to do something, and I go forward as if that is decision has been made, I know that it is the right one if it continues to feel right, if it continues to feel like I am moving in the right direction, then I know that my choice is correct, and the decision is made.

If I look back even further than these past few weeks, I see that I have been struggling for a few months about this subject, it just led to a peak right after Christmas. Reflecting back, I have additionally been struggling with all of the things that I want to accomplish. My list is extremely long, because what happens with me (that I have learned is a big part of my Bipolar 2 Disorder) is I get tons of really good ideas, and I want to do them all right now, all at the same time. I get these major hypomanic phases where the ideas won't stop, and the projects and inspirations keep coming. I get this euphoric feeling, and I feel this wonderful high, and sometimes it's short-lived, but a lot of times it lasts for days and sometimes weeks and months, and I love the excitement as everything is building. I am doing so many things that are so exciting! But there will at some point be a time when I crash and sometimes it's a hard crash and sometimes it's light and gradual. And then I start to mellow out, and then I start to look around me and see all the things that did not get finished. Even though LOTS of things DO get finished, I still remind myself of the failures that I now have and start to ask myself what is wrong with me and who am I anymore? I get really really hard on myself and I get to the point where I can't even talk to people and I don't want to go anywhere or do anything because I feel so awful.

When I look back on my life, this pattern has repeated itself for as long as I can remember. It has led to a lot of negative thought patterns. In the past year, since being diagnosed correctly, I have been identifying them and trying to reframe my negative self-talk and change the cognitive distortions that I have. I learned these fancy words from my therapist, and lots of YouTube therapists that I follow. There's a lot of brilliant people out there that are willing to help those with mental illness - I'm so thankful for them.

One of the things that I was reminded of by my husband, who is my biggest supporter, thank the Lord for him, is that if I can ground myself, and bring myself to the present, and remind myself of every single thing that is good in my life, it helps to change my perspective and it kicks out the ruminating and intrusive thoughts that I let myself get lost in. He is always reminding me to LOVE MYSELF FOR WHO I AM, and that it is important that I accept myself 100%. Just stop beating myself up. Everyone is here on this earth to bring something good to the world, and we need to believe in ourselves, that we can do good things.

So I have decided to really focus on letting myself enjoy who I am, and maybe not everybody will like it but I want to let go of trying to feel like I "should be" something I'm not. I need to stop "shoulding on myself". And it's not that I think others make me believe that I should be something I'm not, it's mostly myself. I need to be more gentle on myself, and just love myself for who I am, and not expect anything more than I am, right now.





So I'm going to start right where I am. I will get my projects done, I will ENJOY THEM because they always are and were inspired, and I will remember all the good things I have done so far.

Resources:
Dr. Tracey Marks
Therapy In A Nutshell
Memes and articles about Bipolar 2 Disorder (my Pinterest Board)

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New Diagnosis: Bipolar 2 Disorder

Umm...what???

I had just sat through 1 1/2 hours of my new psychiatrist appointment, telling her all kinds of things about my life struggles and why I thought I might just need a new medication for my Depression. After all of that time spilling all I could think of, she said Depression was not the whole picture. She said, "No honey you have Bipolar 2 Disorder". Then she explained all the connections she was making with things I thought were unrelated. Then the epiphany light bulbs got brighter and I KNEW in my heart and soul that she had finally put the pieces together for me. It all suddenly made much more sense.

It has been a few months since this new diagnosis and I am processing it all still. I will try to explain and summarize in the best way I can.

I had dated a boy in college that I swear was Harry Connick Jr's lookalike. He was creative and exciting and interesting and attractive and I thought quite wonderful. We had a great month or so, of wonderful, exciting times, and then it was time for a school break - Thanksgiving or something - anyway, when I came back, he had been expelled from the college, and I was totally taken aback. I never totally got the whole story but the bits and pieces were that he had stayed on campus during the break, got sexually involved with someone, and was accused of attempted rape so he was kicked out. Another friend of mine who knew him quite well had confirmed the rumor that he was bipolar, and that this had to do with an "episode". I can't even remember clearly if the word used was "bipolar", I feel like it was "manic depressive" and that the terms we used then were totally different than what is used today. "Bipolar" was the new way of describing the swing from manic episodes to depressed episodes. Manic, to me at the time, was describing a crazy, psychotic, out-of-control state of being. I tell that story to explain the stigma and limited understanding of what Bipolar Disorder was to me then, and what it has come to be now.

Fast forward to me, several months ago, learning I was Bipolar 2. 

My doctor had asked me about my Depression and I had told her I had been diagnosed for the first time with Depression in 2008. Well, I had started on Prozac in 2008, when I was at the end of my pregnancy with my youngest son (6th pregnancy), but I had probably had it since my previous pregnancy's horrible postpartum, in 2005. I think I stayed in a depressed state from that postpartum depression through to when I was close to losing my mind in 2008. My OB/GYN was the one who prescribed it to me and it flatlined me, which was what I wanted. It was what I needed to cope. I stayed on it until my youngest was a few years old, then thought I would try to cope without it. Surely I did not really need medicine anymore.  Then a few years later, my coping kills were garbage and I went back on Prozac and waiting for relief and NOTHING. So I gave that a year, hoping it would soon help, but decided to try Effexor, which is what was currently working for my mom (oh yeah - my mother had been diagnosed with "Chemical Depression" when I was 12, a few years after my youngest sibling was born. She had to be hospitalized for it at the time, it was very traumatic for me, and she has since been up and down - mostly up - with meds and treatments for depression to this day). So I got on that and had some hope but after a while, I thought I am still doing the same crap and not feeling better. It was after many tearful discussions and frustrations about what the hell was wrong with me, that my husband lovingly said the brilliant words that he wasn't sure my medication was the right one for me, and could there be something better for me...? Still took me at least a year to finally reach out to find out, but the events that lead to that are for another story.

During all of these years of suffering from Depression, I would have periods of feeling great, getting a lot done, lots of clarity, lots of great ideas, very creative exciting periods where I would think, "this is the real me". Then I would get so discouraged when I would get depressed and feel unmotivated, sad for no reason, foggy, exhausted, and start loathing myself and tell myself what a failure I had become - what was wrong with me? I would miss what I thought was the "real me". 

My doctor asked if I had ever had times where I felt I did not need sleep. I said, "Oh yeah, let's talk about that" and went off about how when I would get involved in a project and just have so much adrenaline and energy I COULDN'T sleep! But I didn't need it anyway, I was going to accomplish ALL the things! My brain would be so full of ideas I would have to start the projects right then! And write down all the ones that were going to be next! Every play or musical I ever costumed had at least one, if not MANY all-nighters and a good week of only a few hours of sleep a night, if that. It's how I got it all done and I did it all SO WELL! I recalled nights just laying in my bed FULL of ideas and I would turn on my light dozens of times to write down ideas, thinking if I barfed them all out, I could finally sleep. I remembered being a child sitting in my bed, with my boxes and piles of craft stuff all around me, and I stayed up all night "making stuff".  One night I remember as far back as 2nd or 3rd grade, I stayed up the whole night and did every page of my paint-by-number painting book. The rush was real. Throughout high school and college, there were so many projects and assignments and papers (that were often procrastinated) that got finished amazingly last minute!! It was like the floodgates would open and I had extreme inspirations or solutions to whatever needed to be done. And I would excel at those things! I started to look at myself as one who thrived under pressure. I thought that was the "real me".

But even as I told her all that, I figured her sleep question only had to do with what I had researched and learned about depressive sleep habits, and how people with depression did not get enough restorative sleep and spent way too much time in the REM stage, which exhausted them physically and mentally and that's why they had no energy. I had thought maaaaaaayyyybeeee my brain was sometimes avoiding sleep so that I did not have to face being exhausted every morning...? But the puzzle pieces weren't coming together and I still just thought I just needed different medicine for my Depression.

Then she shocked me and said "Bipolar 2". And explained it. And then I researched the hell out of this disorder, you know I did, and learned a lot. So Bipolar disorders have Manic phases and Depressive phases, and some stable phases. Bipolar 1 has the longest manic phases, along with depressive phases. Bipolar 2 has shorter manic phases - called HYPOMANIC - and longer depressive phases. Then there are more classifications of bipolar 2, depending on how often the phases occur and how long they last.  But according to the DSM5 book (the Bible of psychiatrists that tells them what criteria is needed to officially define and diagnose any mental illness), to define Bipolar 2, there have to be at least 4 hypomanic occasions per year, each lasting a minimum of 4 days. Then there can be rapid cycling, ultra-rapid cycling, and ultradian rapid cycling (which is where one can go from hypomanic to depression all within one day), where the phases are closer together, basically swinging back and forth more quickly. There are also mixed states, where they can be both happening at the same time. But I digress a little.

So my Hypomanic phases were the missing pieces of the puzzle, that were finally defined and recognized and given a name and a place in my mental state. Depression was still there, you bet it was, but it was the other swing of the pendulum that is Bipolar 2. The big picture all made more sense to me once I realized those phases, or episodes, were actually part of being Bipolar 2, and I needed a mood stabilizer, to limit the shifting between phases, not just an antidepressant. I am now tracking my mental state every day, with personal journal prompts and a calendar just for moods and emotions, to try to see if I can see a pattern, and how often I cycle, etc. I have a great therapist who is helping me to identify triggers for these episodes and tools to deal with them.

Wellbutrin is now what I am taking, to start. I have noticed a difference for sure, but still paying attention to the side effects and the phase-shifting. I am really documenting everything I can. I have my 2-month med appointment in a few days and I will give an update after that.

But the main thing is that I can FINALLY make sense of the things that have plagued me my whole life. It has a name and a definition. I have joined several support groups, and I am defining my support network. I have found several very informative resources (I will share below) to explain the ins and outs of Bipolar 2. It's a new start on my journey of mental health, and I am grateful for it.

Resources:

Dr. Tracey Marks

Polar Warriors

Memes and articles about Bipolar 2 Disorder (my Pinterest Board)

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Confession: Depression (my personal war)

Ok, where do I start?

There are those of you who already know I have been diagnosed with Depression. I have been actively and passively dealing with it in many different ways since 2005. But it's not over, it will probably never be over, and I need to talk about it.

SO. I have decided to use this blog as a means to do that. Up until now, this blog has been for sharing my CREATIONS, because I feel directed to do so - it's a big part of me! (Also, it's my source of income. LOL.) But I think there is a place on this blog for another part of me that has been quietly hiding, needing a voice. Her name is Depression (mine is a "she/ her" - so I will refer to my Depression as such). Why not combine them in one place? After all, they really do go hand in hand. For me, anyways. We just don't always talk about the other one. Just the word itself is depressing. Are we ashamed? Do we just not want others to know? It's a little awkward, talking about things that bring us JOY in the same sentence as the times we want to crawl in a hole and hide or die.

I can do this, after all, it's my blog. I hope I don't lose people because of it. I guess if I do, I do. 

But maybe if you are thinking of leaving, instead you just stick around for a second because you are curious - how are Depression and Creations related? Did you know that most art is created from someone's pain? The real good stuff usually is. Sometimes the fact that you have ART in front of you is evidence that some "artist" went through something that caused them to create something that ultimately taught them something that they now want to share! 

Or maybe you come to this blog BECAUSE you need to see these connections, and you can benefit from them, either for yourself, or trying to understand someone else who knows Depression.

Or maybe you can gain a little insight into what might work for you personally, in your war against Depression. Maybe we sufferers can bond in a new way, and help each other fight it, together.  

This addition to my blog voice is not meant to bring anyone down, seriously. Why would anyone do that on purpose? But I have a nagging inside me that says IT IS TIME. I need to SHARE, to talk about reasons behind why I do what I do. And to create a place for others to share, maybe...eventually?

I have been medicated, then non-medicated, and now medicated again, I am finally getting a personal therapist, I actively read all the books, I listen to the podcasts, I watch the YouTube channels, I have suffered all the sleep issues, I have found solutions that work for a while, and other solutions that work longer and better. I want to talk about all those things. But I especially want to share how CREATING THINGS has been my most constant therapy, my go-to battle plan for Depression. Honestly, it really has been the thing that has brought me the most joy, my whole life, ever since I was little.

Please join me...not only on my design journey, creating beautiful things that bring JOY, but also the journey of discovering how Depression is usually the catalyst behind these Creations, and ultimately the enemy I fight, and how I CAN win in that fight. I don't win every battle, but I think, I have HOPE, that I can win the war.  Please join me...let's create an army, it's not so fun alone.

Julie

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Decorating the Tree Year Round

I have decided this is the year! I bet you are thinking I mean for some type of New Year's Resolution...well, not necessarily - it's more of a challenge for me and a WHY NOT already?? 

Every post-Christmas, I struggle with taking down all the decorations that we have enjoyed for the season and the house "feels so empty". I hate that feeling. I do try to decorate seasonally but Christmas is by far the finale/ big finish decorating moment of the year. Especially the trees...I LOVE the Christmas trees - I love ornaments and ribbons and sparkly balls and picks, and yes - treeskirts! And I love the peaceful nostalgic feeling of the soft glow of those lights at night that say "all is well with the world".

I used to "sort of" joke that I was just going to keep up my tree year-round and just decorate it for every season.  It WOULD be easier than putting it away...also - then I wouldn't have to struggle to put it up every year. Also, that spot in my front entry-way does feel like it was literally built for a big holiday tree - it was meant to live there year-round!

Haha. 

LOL. 

Right...?

Well...why not? Who says I can't? And why do I care if they do, right? 

So this is the year - it's NOT COMING DOWN! 

She's NUTS!...I hear the whispering, it's okay, I say, a lot of things are nuts lately - this is one way I am choosing to cope with it. I am going to do what brings me JOY. 

I know I will have to take it apart a few times and shake it outside to DUST but that's still better than putting it away - AND who am I to take away the destiny of my tree that was born to live in my front entry-way? Not me!

Call me crazy (it won't be the first time, I assure you), but I am guessing there are possibly SOME of you that may even be on board with me and this nutso plan, and will follow my journey, then together we can decide if it was worth it - pros and cons - and was it worth it?! I am excited to find out!

Loves,

Julie

#studiojuliesnow #sjscreations #sjsholidaytrees #lovethisjourneyforme

P.S. I actually have two 12-ft trees at Christmas - I am only keeping one up for the whole year - the family room one is coming down.  For now...

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Senior 2020 T-shirts

Hey SENIORS! And your parents! It has been a nutso end of the year for you all and I feel bad you've been jipped out of a lot! This will be a year you WON'T forget that's for sure...let's commemorate with a T-SHIRT no other senior year will have ;) 🎓. I will design and make it in your school colors, and also taking requests for unique hashtags etc. $20.00

Taking orders right now for these! Message me with questions, and please fill out the form below:

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DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS Video Clips

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Extra CINDERELLA Videos

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CINDERELLA Performance Videos

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My RUSTIC SANTA CLAUS design

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FIRST POST IN TWO YEARS!

WOW.  It has been a WHILE.  I stand before you very sheepish with the last post of mine dating to TWO YEARS AGO!!!

Yep.  I have been busy. Apparently.

So....I had one of my students who had started following me when I first started this blog, tell me sweetly but honestly that things were getting pathetic on here.  Love her!  She even offered to help run it for me.  Honestly, that would be cool but she is going to college and she should not waste her youth on my blog.

BUT!  I have rededicated myself to this blog and to my other social medias.  My facebook page "Studio Julie Snow"  is where I have been updating ALL of my photo albums.  And I changed the name of this blog to unite all of my social media (It used to be called loveitsewmuch, which was cute and catchy but I can only have one brand when it comes down to it).  You can follow me here.

Phew.  It's a lot of work.  But it is fun.  Fun to mark all my progress, and see the hundreds of projects I have created and helped with.

For now, I have a goal of one post per month, while I continue to update all of my files and create my picture stories.  Soooooo many photos...

Anyway, hopefully you have not given up on me and my pathetic blog haha!  Even if you have, I'll never know, right?  Besides, it just started out as therapy for me anyway, so...it will still be.

#goals

So stay tuned...!




















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THE CRUCIBLE

So our dress rehearsals start this week, and I am getting excited!  These students are very talented and they have put together some really cool publicity shots.  And some teaser videos.  And a news interview!!  I wanted to share them and give a sneak peek of the costumes:

The girls

Abigail Williams

Reverend Hale

Abigail Williams

Elizabeth Proctor

Reverend Parris

John Proctor

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TWO SHOWS...

Yep.  Two.  

It has been quite the busy past two months.  

On the one hand, the high school I am the Costume Director for has me creating costumes for 21cast members in the chilling historical play by Arthur Miller.  The Crucible.  A story of the Salem witch hunts of 1692 and the scales of justice.  My director gave me a large color palette to work with:  black & white.  I begged him for greyscale.  He agreed that the story could not be told in only black and white, and he gave me greyscale - then my world opened up.  Mr. Keat's set is VERY cool, set up like a balance scale with different levels off a center tree, with the actors only occupying certain parts of the stage depending on their character's motivations and obstacles.  What a challenging and thought-provoking way to tell this intense story.  I was limited, and simplified.  And VERY satisfied with the results.  To see publicity photos and video trailers, go here.

If you can attend this show, please do so.

On the other hand, I am costuming another show basically at the same time for another director friend who has since moved from Colorado to UT.  He is having me design and coordinate the costumes for his show.  Seussical Jr.  109 students, double cast.  (Btw, the only way to do this is to have a parent volunteer in charge of everything on the other end, and to have a friend haul 5 huge trash bags full of costumes to her so she can coordinate all of the fittings and such.  And to email like 5 times every day...) 

Polar opposite shows, you say?  Well maybe at first glance.  But if you know the story of Horton Hears a Who, which is the main theme of Seussical Jr., you will know he endured rather a witch hunt of his own.  I mean, the story of a sensitive misunderstood elephant who hears a Who on a speck of dust and cares for them while ridiculed by all the jungle bullies, then told by the judge that he is crazy and the dust speck must be boiled??  Heart-wrenching, yet set to awesome music and choregraphy...

If you are in American Fork UT at the junior high in November 15-22, go see it.  And take some pictures for me.  Or a video.  And say hi to Mr. Reynolds for me.  He is awesome.

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Getting ready for Guys & Dolls

This is me right now.      Eating.   Sleeping.    Breathing.    Loving it!

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Chewy Gingersnaps

I want to share a few of my favorite things about Christmas.  Some of them do not even have to do with sewing...

And one of them is my favorite gingersnap cookie.  I got this recipe from my dear high school/ college/ forever friend whose mother fed me and taught me quite a lot.  We used to make these all the time and she may not even know how many times I have made them since being able to regularly see her.  I think of her every time.  Love you Lynette and Myrna!  

As the recipe card says:  "Chewy, the very best".  It is truly the best chewy gingersnap recipe on the planet.   For reals. 

I beat the softened butter and sugar first.
Then throw in the eggs, keep beating, then the molasses, keep beating.
Then I scrape the bowl.
Next, add the dry ingredients and beat until a nice sticky dough forms.
But not too sticky that I cannot roll balls without a gooey mess.
If it is too sticky, I add a little flour.

Then I put it in the fridge for a good hour or longer (overnight is good).

Then I roll it onto balls with my hand palms.  Or if I am feeling lazy or in a hurry, I use my small Pampered Chef scoop (with the spring release) and just make balls that way.  Either way, the balls go into granulated sugar.  They are covered and placed on my Silpat/ cookie sheet.

Bake exactly 10 minutes in 350* convection oven.  The flatten a little and crackle just right.  And they stay soft for a good week.  If they stick around that long...

Try the recipe, hope you love it!

Also, try another of my favorite recipes for Eggnog Cookies.  Ooh, I need to make those this year, too...

Hope you are enjoying the season, take a break from your holiday sewing and bake up a bit of love!

OH!  Here's a sneak peek at another favorite thing I made last year and finished this year:

How did I make this Mickey Mouse wreath?  Stay tuned for an upcoming post...

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STUDENT SHOWCASE ~ October - November 2013

We had fun these last few months making some beautiful projects.   

This is my Zippy Pouch that I teach.  My students can easily customize the size to their liking.

One of my adult students made this for her niece attending Duke University - isn't it cool?  You could obvs do this with other college prints and send them to your favorite college students.  She also made a tote bag to match.

It is fully lined (sorry no picture of that - but it is solid blue).  But I really wanted to show off her BE-YOO-TIFUL zipper ends!  These are very hard to do to make them look nice and I have finally mastered the technique to teach it!  She nailed it!  And there are even little "D"s, on purpose, at each zipper end.  Awesome or what?  And the bottom boxed corners are perfect as well!  Great job!!

This little student was making her first Basic Skirt.  She chose this cute print just in time for Halloween.  Elastic waistband casing.  She could hem it right here and be done.  Simple.  Basic. Easy.

Here she is proud to show it to her mother.

BUT she needed to learn gathers and what better way than as a ruffle at the bottom of the skirt?

What an accomplishment!  Great job, sweetie!  It is so exciting to complete a project and have skills for future projects!

Now, these two sweet girls are (were - one of them had to move away) in a group sewing class together.  They are best friends.  So when we started our apron project, they wanted to make something to remember their friendship.  Best Friend aprons!  They chose an embroidery design and chose their fabrics and colors.  After the embroidery was done, they sewed them up.  They are reversible, too, and have ribbons for ties.

I did the embroidery, just as requested, on the apron piece before they sewed it.

Here is a better close-up.

Then, they also made matching doll aprons, for their "best friend" dolls!  (These doll aprons are also reversible, sharing their fabrics.  As best friends do).  Great job girls!

Would you like to learn to sew?

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VIRTUAL PAMPERED CHEF PARTY!

Hey everyone!

I am having a virtual Pampered Chef party tonight at 8pm MST!  If you are interested at all on Pampered Chef products, they make great Christmas gifts (or for yourself)!!  You are invited to join us!

It just dawned on me to invite my bloggy friends, too!

And no, there will be food served through your computers (the one downside) BUT more on the upside is that more of you can join me!  I guess this is new thing they are doing and they would really like feedback too. So even if you don't want to order a darn thing, just watch the party and give your feedback.  My sweet consultant Kiley would really appreciate it :)

So click on the 1st link below and get to my party facebook page, and the direct link will be at the top of the page OR click the 2nd link below and go straight to the party!

Remember it's at 8pm tonight MST!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1377667862481940/

https://meet.fm/kileyferons

Hope many of you can join me there!

~ Julie 



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SWEENEY TODD is coming...

Ok, I have finally figured out and am prepared to state what has become the obvious: the two weeks before Halloween are by far my busiest of the year!  Usually it is just Halloween costumes that I am working on, but for the past few years, I have added costuming for a musical to my busy October playlist.  This year, the high school I work for bravely decided to do "Sweeney Todd, High School Edition", and open on Halloween weekend!!!  It has been a blast.  I love these students and parents and directors I get to collaborate with.  It was an awesome experience.  

This musical came out in 1979 on Broadway, and the 2007 movie starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter (directed by Tim Burton) has made it the cult classic it is today.  Did you know Johnny Depp took singing lessons to do this film?  

This musical stretched everyone's skillset and I believe it was done quite well!  I wish all of you could see it.  And if revenge and barbershop murders are not your cup of tea, then just to appreciate the set, the music, the choreography and the costumes.

My latest show - we are opening tomorrow night (Halloween weekend) and will show for two weekends!!

This wonderful piece of art was created by one of the cast members, Peyton Fleming, (who was also one of my costume crew for Singin' In The Rain) and I really feel like she captured all of my designs quite nicely. The talent in these kids is so amazing.  

One of the Ponderosa Theatre students and cast member as well (Joe Zahorik), has put together this trailer for our production of Sweeney Todd, High School Edition.

After opening night (sometime, after I recover from dress rehearsals and get a few winks of sleep), I will share pictures!!!!!   Here's a small taste...

Here is a sneak peek of one of Mrs. Lovett's costumes.  The is the back of a skirt.

Mrs. Lovett (Emily Marrs), Sweeney Todd (Jackson Winn)  and I.

More students (designed by another costume crew girl) created these sweet "locker tags" for every cast member, crew member and all the directors.  Aren't they awesome?  I will keep it forever!  It is currently hanging on my studio door at home.

Stay tuned for more pictures!  And if you are in the area - please come see our show!



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