my new york friends often ask me if i'm bored here in north dakota.

it's a valid question. i would ask the same thing if i was in their position, watching a friend move from a city with three chinatowns to a place with one token chinese restaurant.

the answer is: we don't get bored because we make our own fun.

every grocery store has a canning section and a beer brewing section, everyone has a grandma with stacks of vintage recipes scribbled on notecards that are fun to figure out, we have the time and the wood and the burly midwestern men (read: eggboys) to build anything we want, we have the space to garden and raise animals and dig random holes just because...

and when we see something crafty and cool in a store in new york but don't buy it because we've already spent all of our money on whiskey pickles and jalapeño jam, we make it.

there is a massive d.i.y. and crafting culture here. massive. and i can see why. we have, like, no stores, except for a michael's and a target and a hobby lobby. it's a bad thing for the anthropologie obsessor in me, but it's also kind of nice because i don't feel the pressure to buy other people's things and i can let your imagination run like a wild boar and it's cheap and it's fun.

i am assimilating.

i was so inspired by the wonderful be crafty workshop this weekend in fargo that yesterday i went with eggboy to target, and bought a tree but no ornaments: just some felt, burlap, pillow stuffing, and a hot glue gun. all night long we listened to old christmas songs while we glued together our ornaments in the shape of fortune cookies, sugar beets, shamu...

our tree is so friggen cute.

so to start off what will surely be a bunch of d.i.y. posts, here is the easiest beyond easy thing to make ever. you probably don't even need directions. but humor me.

christmas tree flags

supplies

felt

sharp scissors

a hot glue gun*

string

*i like using a hot glue gun because it dries so quickly. also, my first attempt at this was with fabric glue and it did not stick to the felt at all.

clues

plug in your glue gun.

fold over about two inches of felt, and cut a triangle so that when you unfold it you have a diamond shape.

glue the edges of one side of the diamond, and then fold it over your string and press down to seal.

repeat as many times as you want.

string on your tree or anywhere else!

(if you're real fancy you can stuff the flags with pillow stuffing!)

-yeh!