I finally got a Rattlesnake Plant! I’ve been wanting one for a few months. I even priced them around my birthday back around November at the nursery but didn’t get one. I thought it would be a good gift. But now that the holidays are over, I still want one. I babysat K2s over Christmas and then she took it and I was like — OK, I’ll get one. I had priced them at $25 at the nursery for a 4 inch. I found this 6 inch on Home Depot’s website for the same price! It got here and I’m super happy with it! Look how it’s already opening and closing after two days:
Good day, lamp, I touch you. Good night, lamp, no touch.
The packaging was also probably the best I’ve had on a live plant. It was wrapped in a brown pot bag and there was a ziptie around the stem area to keep the dirt in. Nice. Then it was in another brown pot bag to protect the leaves. And the box was special made for plants. It had a lift off top and handles. And it was super clear which side was up. Not that FedEx gave a single fuck because it was on its side on my porch despite the GLARING “This Side Up” all over the box. All you can do it try.
I also trimmed my Prayer Plant (I think it’s a Lemon Lime) in the kitchen. It was looking super leggy. I want it to be more bushy. So I figured I’d try to root some pieces. I’ll report to a bigger pot and make it 4 stems in the pot. Plus there’s a plant swap coming up and I can sell the others if they root. Still rooting my zig zag cactus cuttings too. So in preparation for the plant swap, I split them into two little terrecotta pots to continue their journey.
Part of the inspiration for this was now that Christmas is put away, the side table is back over by the window. And I’m tired of the kitchen counter looking cluttered with the leggy prayer plant and the zig zag rooting. So I moved it all over to the living room where — not only do I not get annoyed by it, I get to ENJOY them!
Look at me using two of the set-of-four serving trays I got off Vine!
Oh, and I moved the money tree back to the window. Dear god, I hope it’s happy. I moved it with a grow lamp for the Christmas tree and well over half of the leaves just fucking bailed. I think it got spider mites too. So I’ve been treating it and now it’s back by the fucking window. It’s so fucking dramatic. There is new growth though. And then its pot started leaking — no!
Almost all of my plants are watered from below. It just works for me. So the money tree lives in a nursery pot that sits on top of a pile of rocks in a planter pot (with cotton string to wick up water). It has been in there for well over a year. And all the sudden one of the holes I had glued shut decides to leak. Mother fucker. Why?
So I had to clean it out and triage.
Does anyone else have a container of various glues and UV resin? Is it normal for people to have to organize their adhesives? There were just random glues all over the place — in both junk drawers, craft stuff, the garage (OK, actually there’s still four in the garage that are not represented here — wood glue and the glue I use for glass mosaics).
It’s kinda funny cause this basket is one of the three I bought to organize all my surgery supplies when I did the plastic surgeries. I had one for meds, one for bandaging, I forget the other… Here, I found it. One was just hygiene stuff cause I had to live in the chair in the living room. I was super-fucking organized for those surgeries. So it was a human triage basket and now it’s a stuff triage basket.
I went with the Gorilla Glue Construction: Clear. The strongest of the gorilla glue line. Like that shit is insane. I just pumped the holes with it and let it dry overnight. Note: There is “Clear Gorilla Glue” and that is not the same as “Gorilla Construction Glue: Clear.” Like you might think — just use the crazy strong one for everything. But no. The crazy strong one is super thick and you don’t have a lot of control. It’s also not gonna wipe off ANYTHING. That’s way above craft grade. FYI
First, it’s like Christmas, so let’s jump to the end and then go back to the beginning. Here’s where we’re going: LOOK AT THIS MASTERPIECE!
Quacks of Quedlinburg
Ok, so in the beginning, I had an interview. It went well. I was chatting with the interviewer about boardgames after we were done and she asked if I’d ever heard of Quacks of Quedlinburg. I had not. I wrote it down in my very professional interview portfolio to look up later.
I pulled it up on Board Game Geek to give it a glance. It had a long list of award nominations and finalist titles and a “few” wins:
2022 Årets Spel Best Family Game Winner
2020 Origins Awards Best Family Game Winner
2019 UK Games Expo Best Board Game (European Style) People’s Choice Winner
2019 Hungarian Board Game Award Winner
2019 Guldbrikken Best Adult Game Winner
2019 American Tabletop Casual Games Winner
2018 Meeples Choice Award Winner
2018 Kennerspiel des Jahres Winner
2018 Golden Geek Best Family Board Game Winner
2018 Cardboard Republic Daredevil Laurel Winner
Yes, those are just the awards it WON. Clearly she wasn’t over-hyping it. I also liked that it can be two player. I recently received a long-awaited Kickstarter game that we have yet to play because we need a minimum of 3 players. So 2 players — fucking-a! I immediately added it to my Amazon Wishlist. Along with a game organizer to go with it.
The Broken Token Game Organizer
I’ve never had a Broken Token game organizer. I know the brand. I know it’s reputable. I’ve just always found them so… ugly. I love me a game organizer — game changer (literally!), but damn. However, I did look at the Amazon reviews and saw this photo of someone’s customization:
For my birthday, my wonderful husband got it for me! Woot! I love a craft project! So I dove in. I spent over a week on this. First, I stained the wood and assembled the boxes with glue. Then I hit a roadblock, which I knew was coming.
When A Hindrance Becomes Your Greatest Asset
The Amazon Review photo had been done with stickers/paper. I did plenty of that in my booknook and that’s why I know we have an amazing black and white printer but a very shitty color printer. The resolution isn’t great and you can see the print lines. So just not gonna work. I could print and paint over it, but I’m not that good at painting small details — I have shaky hands.
So have you ever heard that overcoming obstacles makes a better product? Like in the first Deadpool movie. You know when Deadpool forgets his big bag of guns in the taxi? Well, that wasn’t just any old gag. There was supposed to be a huge scene there with all those weapons. But their budget got axed so they couldn’t afford that scene. So the amazing scene that ended up in the movie replaced it. That’s one example. They had to forgo all the FX budget and do a practical scene. This EPIC case I just made is another perfect example. I couldn’t just print my graphics, I had to make this shit for real.
Aside from the labels, I could do everything else practical. I know I have an excellent black ink printer so I ordered some clear sticky paper to do the typeface. I could paint under it and then just stick the type over my paint. Yay!
Gathering Pieces
Remember when I talked about my nightmare Hobby Lobby trip? Well, during that trip, I looked for things I could use for this project. I really wanted some of those tiny brass label holders that you put on photo boxes. They did not have any. So I got metallic puff paint to make something up. I also found some cute tin corner details in the wood craft section for 99 cents (for the four pack)! Were they black? Yes. Irrelevant. Then I looked through all the charms and jewelry bits. I found a pack of six insanely tacky photo charms. They’re really cheap brassy gold and the fake “diamond” inlays and thin plastic. PERFECT.
So I snipped the charm loops off with some wire cutters and painted all that shit in enamel gold paint — going for a brass accent look. Then I used paint to fill in the center of the photo charms for each player color. In the final photos, you’ll see they look like cabochons. So funny story. I was going through my glue stash and found Mod Podge 3D in there that I had bought for some project and never used. I’m pretty sure I thought it was clear puff paint but it’s not! It’s a liquid to fill bottle caps or pendants to seal things in. What? So I filled up my cheap pendants and daymn — they look amazing! Yall these were six for like $6 and half off. I’m good.
I also picked up some earrings I had hoped to use on the ingredient drawers but they were too small. I ended up using one of them on the black book spine. A bat charm also makes an appearance — I TOTALLY already had that! Again, just snipped the loops off with wire cutters and painted them the brass color.
Layout Time
So at this point in the project, I had decor bits and boxes. I had decisions to make. Do I use the corners as true corners? They look kinda cool sideways. I gotta cover this ugly engraving work too. Do I want to do books like the one I saw? How could I do a potion shelf?
It was time for Photoshop. I love making decisions like this with photos so I can see the different options side by side. So I laid out all the boxes I had and put it in Photoshop. I used the clone tool to fill in some missing wood bits. I googled some playing cards to visualize where those would be in the finished product. And I took the Amazon Review guy’s labels to play with just for the visual. This is what I came up with:
Thankfully, the ingredient drawer fronts could be installed backwards so no worrying about that engraving. The flap in the middle (it flips up to reveal a shelf) could also be installed backwards. I was not so lucky with the other two compartments. I’d have to work something out to cover those.
The book compartment was the worst. That had to go. I couldn’t just paint books because it was engraved. Also, a bit of 3D wouldn’t kill anyone. So I made my book spines with sculpty clay! I used a earring on the black notebook. I modeled the fat green book after my own leather happy book where I have lots of Four-Leaf Clovers and cat foot-prints and even butterfly wings. I envision it being a similar book for herb identification. Oh and I totally had some glass skull beads for an upcoming booknook, so I tucked one of those guys in.
Now We Paint
I’ve moved my crafting from the kitchen table to the living room for two reasons. One: I totally mess up the nice table every time I do stuff on there. Two: Louie gets really needy when I’m ignoring him. This way he can sit by me. Kills my back though.
I color matched the ingredients to the corresponding game tokens. I just used good old acrylic paint on the books and labels. You can see I printed out a fancy outline for my puff paint and to show me the rectangle to color in. I did not outline the squares with puff paint because, as you can see on the Rubies box in the final photos, I can’t do straight lines.
I had been hemming and hawing over what to do with the bottom compartment. I considered covering it in leather bias tape I had or maybe red felt? But It was looking very busy with all the colors. I wanted more wood to show so I decided to do a monogram. To cover the engraving, I cut an oval out of the sticky clear paper for the flat surface (all of this is Mod Podged so no worry about the adhesive strength). The Q is the same Q in the games logo. Does the puff paint work on that Q look shitty? Yeah. But I spent over an hour and like 50 Q-Tips trying to get it reasonable. I’m really proud of my puff paint filigree though.
I also had to add handles to the player token drawers. I didn’t install the wood ones so I could use my swanky cabochons. I did leave a small bit of the opening though so I could thread something through. I had thought maybe tassels. However, when I went to grab my skull bead, I realized I have Evil Eyes! How much fun would Evil Eyes be in my alchemy cabinet? So I grabbed those and the copper beads from the Sherlock Booknook and made some little pulls. I LOVE THEM. Holy fuck they’re fantastic!
I also used a lot of stain markers for clean up. More about that in the Lessons Learned section at the end.
THE FINAL BOX
So look! Here’s my alchemist cabinet! I am beyond thrilled with this! Can you believe I would have just printed off graphics if I had a good printer? What? This is AMAZING. I might store the game in its lid like this. Like just put the guide and player boards in the lid and slide this in over it and just put it on my game shelf like this. I think I will.
Lessons Learned
I learned a lot on this crafting journey. I’d like to pass some of that on to you.
Glue Spots. So I glued my boxes together after staining the wood. Well, where any glue spread or I touched it with gluey fingers, there were noticeably shinier spots. That’s why I had to use Mod Podge– I coated everything so it all had the same sheen.
Mod Podge and tolerances. I used “Extra Matte” Mod Podge. I’d have rather used regular, but I didn’t have enough and I was using stuff I had. So it was Extra Matte or Super Gloss. Well, this stuff is thick. And that made the tolerances of the sliding pieces off. UGH. So where the trays slide into cutouts in the wood… well, I had to sand that down. I chose to sand down the cutouts to make them wider where they slid in rather than the trays. It sucked. I’m glad that the Mod Podge adds a coating plus strength in that it’s just more glue — but damn.
Mod Podge looking “Flat.” In some areas where there was too much Mod Podge, they clouded. This happened on my tin corner decorations. It also looked bad on the back of the flap. The wood is rougher on that side and since I installed it backwards to get rid of the engraving, that was out. I fixed this with Stain Pens. They’re made to fix/hide scratches in furniture — so worth having. I also buffed a bit of that gold enamel paint back over the raised metal additions to bring back their luster. This actually makes them look more aged since they’re less shiny in the nooks. Over all though, I’m not down with the Mod Podge I used. It ruined the tolerances so I had to spend hours fixing that with nail files. It messed with the shine. Also, it has a rough feel. I think the “Extra Matte” fucked me over.
Stain Pens are AMAZING. So this is layers of wood. So the stain didn’t go all the way through every layer of wood. This left the center of the wood edges lighter. Stain Pens to the rescue!
Stain Pens are shiny. I also used the stain pens to cover some mistakes. Notice how non-square my paint labels were. Squared those up. I told you I used like 50 Q-Tips getting that monogram right. Well, wiping away metallic paint leaves a bit of a color. Fixed that with Stain Pens. But even going with the grain, it was so obviously different where I used the pen over the Mod Podge in levels of sheen. So basically, I covered the front of everything in stain pen. I mean, it looks fucking awesome — but I only did the fronts. I wouldn’t be able to get into the nooks and crannies with the pens even if I wanted to.
Clear Sticker/Tape over paint — not great. So the paint was obviously not perfectly flat. This led to light refraction and you could see the areas behind the sticker paper I had printed the text on even after I Mod Podged everything to the same sheen. This sucked. I had to solve this by painting over the sticker paper with paint again. Obviously, I couldn’t get right up against the text though. This led to a ghostly sort of shadow around the text. It works, but it was not intended. I’d say it looks awesome on some of them, like “Fortune” and “Ghost’s Breath.” On those it adds to the look. It’s not noticeable at all on the white and grey. It is noticeably bad on the red Toadstool and Rubies though. Oh well. I stand by the printer making me do this all for real being the greatest thing to happen. But I’d totally print those labels and then add the 3D around them.
Puff Paint is for people better than me. I can’t draw a straight line to save my life. Also, a consistent squeeze to get a uniform thickness is impossible. This shit requires skills I don’t have. I’m thrilled with my filigree on the drawers/trays though. It’s abstract so it doesn’t matter that it’s not uniform and perfect. Also it was done by starting by squeexing out a blob and pulling away while releasing the squeeze — this led to nice drop shapes.
Paint this interior of the game box. I’m really glad I realized how much of the box would actually show through. What alchemist cabinet is backed in freaking cardboard? So I painted the inside of the box all black before putting this in there. Pro move. I’m so smart.
Feedback for Broken Token on This Exact Box
I don’t like that the ingredient trays aren’t drawers. That sucks. The player tokens are drawers that slide in and out. The ingredient trays are just trays with a lip that slides about a centimeter into the frame. 1) this looks awkward when using the trays on the table to play because they have those stupid tabs on the sides. 2) I can’t use them as drawers like I want. I’d much prefer these had bottoms like the player token drawers.
It kind sucks that you can’t open the books compartment without removing the Fortune and Rubies tray. This is a super small complaint since you’d have to remove those for play anyway. But it also has the same stupid tab problem of the ingredient trays.
Since the box isn’t rigid and you gave us no drawer slides, the side with the ingredient trays can bow out slightly. This means the ones in the middle can come out of their tabs. Seriously, these should have been drawers. It would have fixed this too. There’s nothing holding that column to width anywhere but the very top and very bottom.
I like the swing out bottom compartment. That’s fun.
The ingredient trays need separators for the different values of the tokens. I’m going to add these with painted cardboard because I really do think you need those to play the game more efficiently. It would let you know at a glance if one item is out and also making grabbing what you want easier.
First Game Play(s)
Husband and I actually gave this three plays on Sunday. Once in the afternoon and twice in the evening. We love it. It really is a good game! It’s fun! This picture is the last game where I was DESTROYED so ignore that. I did get 13 rat tails on that last turn though so fucking-a. I love the rat tail catch up mechanic!
There is a lot of luck here — but also a lot of resource management going on. It’s not coincidence husband won all three games. If the game was longer, you could even it out a bit. Only having 9 rounds means that the BEST your bag will get is 1/3 cherry bombs (8 cherry bombs plus assuming you bought 2 ingredients each of the previous 8 rounds). I wish we could buy more ingredients per round.
So far we’ve only played with the starter set of of books, so I’m sure there will be a lot of changes when we change the ingredient books up. Hawkmoth kinda sucks in only 2 player. I know it will be great in larger games though. It’s still a good game for two player! But Hawkmoth sucks for just two.
This is a great length of game for two players — just about 45 minutes.
Five Stars!
Future Plans
I’m going to make some customized player tokens to go around the score board. I’m cool with the wood discs for the rats and water drops though — don’t see any need to upgrade those. I’m actually going to buy insanely tiny glass vials with cork tops to make color-coded potions for each player!
I HAVE to get the Herbs and Witches expansion. Not too thrilled about the Alchemist expansion, but I really want that Herbs and Witches one. It has a better rating on BGG than the original game! I probably should have got the big box that just had the expansions. But then my organizer wouldn’t fit… so nevermind.
I might put the Evil Eye bead pulls on a nice string or ribbon instead of the seed beads. I’d like them to hang more freely.
I’m going to use cardboard to make separators inside the ingredient trays for the different chip values.
I want to get chip “sleeves.” – plastic to go around the cardboard. Would I ABSOFUCKINGLUTLY LOVE the BGG Geekup acrylic tokens? Fuck yes, I would! But that would be $42 for the base game plus $30 for the expansion. So damn.
I’d like nicer bags, but not any of the ones I’ve found for sale to go with the game. Does anyone sew? Like I like that the bags are black. I don’t want them to be color coded to the player. I want black. I think a nice black crushed velvet would be fucking sweet! With like a silky liner? Chef’s kiss! I wouldn’t mind the silky liner being matched to player color (maybe even the drawstring too). Or even them all having the same color liner on all of them– like maybe a grey? Or purple? They’d have to be the same size cause they gotta fit in my box. But yeah, I’d love a soft nice bag upgrade. But not in garish colors — I like the black bags. I might buy just some velvet bags later that aren’t intended specifically as an upgrade for this game.
Crafts and more crafts… And cards… And decorating…
So, I’ve got a lot going on. Two different craft projects. Plus Christmas decorating. Plus Christmas cards (expensive and so much work. Why do I do these? Like I can’t break the streak. That’s why). And tomorrow I gotta pick up the Thanksgiving ham. So my counter is full.
Speaking of crafts, you know it’s the good shit when there’s a skull and crossbones warning on it.
Actually, that wasn’t the good shit. It fucked me over. It’s supposed to go over the top of EVERYTHING. Including a few layers of sealant. I wish it had specified that. The second I put it on, my enamel paint just dissolved. I found out about the sealant thing when I googled “what the fucking fuck.”
These paw print ornaments are killing me. But I won’t give in. As I told you, the top coat I previously used was old or something and left yellowish bubbles and streaks. Maybe THIS SHIT could have saved it. So I got mineral spirits to try to get it off. After so much elbow grease, I had barely anything off. So we brute-force it: repaint. Now keep in mind, everything I do to these takes two days. One day for front to dry, then another for back. And then actually another for the writing on the back in the paint step.
So I repainted. They look amazing. Time for top coat! FUCK ME it disolved the paint. So repaint the ones I tried and fucked up.
I’m going with something I know this time, bitches. Modpodge. Super gloss Modpodge. Got the back done and second coat on the front now. It says you can do a second coat after an hour (I waited a day) but it takes FOUR MOTHER FUCKING WEEKS TO CURE?! Sweet baby Jesus, are you kidding me?
For mine, that’s fine. They’re dry to the touch so I can hang them. But I gotta mail my brother-in-law his! What if the packaging leaves dents? Or sticks to it for some reason? FUCK.
And I thought Pottery Barn was smoking crack.
As seen here in my text messages, Pottery Barn prices are insane.
Is that a hilarious National Lampoons Christmas Vacation pillow? Fuck yes it is! Do I want it? Oh hell yes. Is it $70? Also yes. Who are you catering to, Pottery Barn? Who?
Well, this weekend, I needed craft supplies (enamel paint in red). It’s cheapest at Hobby Lobby. I know that is insane, but it’s true. $7.99 online or $2.39 at Hobby Lobby. It was also half off Christmas and I needed lights for our tree.
Y’all, I’ve never seen Hobby Lobby so chaotic and full. FULL. The giant ass parking lot was full. You could barely move in there. The longest string of lights they had was 100 count, so fuck it, I got a ton of those.
I saw these cute blowmold Christmas Trees at the front. Would possibly be cute to have. And half off! I had to find one with a price tag though. Holy Mary mother of god! FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS EACH.
Who are y’all marketing to? Who? A fucking blowmold? Seriously? What the fuck is happening? Tariffs haven’t kicked in yet, y’all!
Plants!
My plants are doing well. Look at my Thanksgiving Cactus of Friendship blooming right on time! I love how the red turns to magenta on the tips of the petals! Stunning. Today the second layer opened up!
Also, husband helped me put up the main Christmas tree because my anxiety was killing me. So I had to move plants around. Plus the end table. And I’m over wintering some things (I haven’t even brought in the lemongrass from the garage yet). So Louie is now… JUNGLE CAT.
Aging without any grace whatsoever
How’s menopause (perimenopause)? I’m glad you asked. Terrible. I’m not having nightly panic attacks anymore. I need to remind myself they were nightly. But I do still have them around once a week. Also, I’m moody and I’m hot.
We went to the Venardos Circus for my birthday. It was going to be 50s and down into 40s when it let out (fahrenheit). So maybe long sleeves? I wore a thin long sleeve hoodie. Big mistake. The second I got in Ks heated car I was like, I have made a terrible decision. Even inside the tent. I switched seats with husband because K2s commentary is honest to god, half the joy of the circus. But when I switched and realized the seat beside him was open, it was heaven! I wasn’t between two hot people!
Where can I get Christmas tank tops? Not joking. Want.
Also, I’ve reached the age of “I have to pee.”. Like, I used to be able to hold my bladder for hours. Gotta pee? It’s fine, I’ll go when I get home. No more. Now my body gives me like one “I gotta pee.” Then, if I ignore it, all the following “I have to pee” signals will be accompanied by a small bit of pee. Too much information? WELL ITS MY LIFE. So at the circus, my brain was like “I gotta pee.” I’m not allowed to ignore it anymore so I had to use a freaking porta potty! The shame!
I thought Gods punishment to Eve eating the apple of knowledge was painful child birth. The Bible don’t say shit about menopause. Of course neither did anyone else in my life.
Fuck getting old. I’m supposed to be happy and child free with money. Not peeing a little, moody, sweating all night and waking up to panic attacks.
It is a crochet Brontosaurus. I used Benet Baby Velvet yarn. It is VERY soft. The pattern is from Palana Design on Etsy. It’s the No Sew Mamenchisaurus. I wouldn’t say it was easy. That might have been my yarn choice though. This velvet is crazy hard to see your stitches in. She has videos that are much needed. Especially when I realized she was crocheting in a different direction than myself. That matters. I think the pattern could have been helped by naming where you were (“like 8 stitches around the leg” or “decreases should be on top of the tail”). So my body was a big attempt at me mathing it even so the legs were spaced appropriately. My stitch counts pretty much never matched up, so there was a lot of winging it.
I would also note, this might be considered yarn art and not straight crochet. That’s because I went back on the tail and neck and heavily altered them with stitches after I was done. I made the neck thinner, chiseled the chin, and made the tail taper a lot more. The neck suffered from my stitch count problem. So it was narrower at the base than at the head. So I tightened it up to match the base width. The yarn is so hard to see stitches in that I can get away with it.
That said, I would totally make it again. I would stress less and I would watch more of the videos because yall, she’s not crocheting in the same direction as me and that matters on some parts. I feel like the directions are so confusing because there are so many increases and decreases per row with no indication of where you are in the row. So If I do it again, I’m winging most of it. Now that I know the basic happening, I could wing the body and tail and neck. And if I was focusing on winging it to make it look good and not following the pattern exactly, maybe his head wouldn’t be turning just a little. It doesn’t look bad at all, but that wasn’t something I was aiming for.
This took about 5 sessions. I did the feet with K and K2 while watching a Christmas movie. Then I did the body which picks the feet up (no sew). I did the tail one night. I did the neck and head last night. Then this morning, I shaped it up a bit and highlighted under the eyes.
I love it. He’s may happy purple dinosaur.
Oh and no knocking the pattern! I didn’t design this or figure out how to do the shapes. I love the hump on the back, I love the clever neck hole situation. It’s adorable as fuck. Theirs looks way better than mine! I bet if I didn’t use such a hard yarn, it would have been better. But damn this velvet is so soft.
I would also say that since this is no sew — meaning everything is fully crocheted together, this would be an indestructible kids toy. There are no seems to be torn. Of course you would need to stitch the eyes and not use the plastic ones. But yeah, without the plastic eyes, I’d hand this to a baby no problem.
So Lumalee is my next project. He has two mushrooms with him. I bought Premiere Parfait Chunky Yarn ($4 US) for these Nintendo projects. And I special ordered the green from Istanbul. Why? Well, it’s damn hard to find baby blanket yarn in bright colors. So I asked the lady I bought the Mario and Luigi patterns from what green she used for her Luigi. Well, in Europe, Himalaya Dolphin Baby is the big cheap chenille yarn. USA doesn’t seem to have it. We have the Premiere Parfait. But we don’t have a bright green! So yes, I ordered this from Europe. It was $2 (US) a skein but shipping was going to be $50 for all the colors I needed. I was like, I can’t pay more for shipping than for the yarn! The seller said they just charge by the gram, sorry. So I ONLY ordered 4 skeins of this “grass green.”
They arrive vacuum packed which was funny. I wasn’t sure what the package was and thought my yarn hadn’t been delivered. Look at this:
This shit compacts. They also threw in some evil eyes. Thanks?
So yeah. I needed to see what crochet hook to use. Some people say 5mm and some say 4mm. I did this mushroom in a 5mm. I’m gonna go with that.
I will also note, the Himalaya Dolphin is WAY BETTER than the Chunky Parfait. They look the same, but working with them is very different. The Dolphin barely sheds at all. Only when cutting. The Parfait sheds a lot and you have to be very careful frogging and stitching is a pain. Shedding all over. LAME. I was easily able to do my magic circle in the Himalaya Dolphin, didn’t even question it. It was IMPOSSIBLE in the Parfait. I had to get out another yarn and do my 6 stitches on that yarn and then tie it tight to make the circle. Cause Chunky was NOT going to do it.
So someone start selling this shit for cheap in the US. Here’s what those 4 cost me. I better get Luigi plus a few 1 Ups. Maybe I should have ordered more? But no, because the shipping went up with every single one. Ugh. Glad I got the 4 though.
Item Total $10.60
Shipping $17.92
Sales Tax $0.85
Order Total $29.37
He very cute. OH, I got the pattern for Lumalee plus two mushrooms from AzeliaCrochet on Etsy. The pattern is well written with lots of pictures.
