Any recommendations for camp sites that are max 4 hours away from the Chicago area?

I LOVE sleeping bear dunes but I don't want to drive 8 hours by myself. Maximum I want to drive is 4 hours or less. I'm in the Chicago area. Would love somewhere in Wisconsin maybe? Any sites that y'all would recommend solo camping at you've been to before and loved? My cat will be with me. This will be my first time solo camping.

I've been to Starved Rock and the park near it and to Rockford (not solo camped there).

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u/viola_darling β€” 11 days ago

What do you use for dehydrating?

I've read that Cosori isn't what it used to be 20 years ago and that the modern ones die fast even after a few uses which is sad to hear. I heard for most people the company can replace the machine but my dad doesn't want to do that. He wants a machine to last not to keep replacing it.

What do all of you use? How long have you had it for? How often have you used it?

I've even looked into Excalibur which is more pricy but a lot of people have had electrical problems and not great smells coming from it.

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u/viola_darling β€” 15 days ago
β–² 150 r/americangirl

I made a tiny Madeline!

I used one of my extra mini Kits (found her at the thrift). Someone tried dyeing her hair pink or red cause she has a pinkish/reddish mark on her hand that matched part of her hair. I did get it out of her hair but not the hand but that's okay! It doesn't bother me and this came out perfect as she is now wearing gloves!

I dyed her hair using Crayola orange watercolors by literally painting her hair. Her hair after completely being dry is very stiff, but once brushed through it's soft but not the orginial softness. I did add a piece of toilet paper under her hat just in case her hair dyes the yellow hat.

I thrifted Pepito and the Madeline outfit and I looked for the Madeline doll all over the store but to no avail! Then the other day I got the idea omg the outfit will prolly fit a mini ag doll and it does! I'm thrilled 😊

u/viola_darling β€” 1 month ago

Does anybody pick their skin while reading a book?

It doesn't matter what I read or what format the book is in. My hand wanders around my body for skin to pick while the other hand holds the book while I read.

It helped when I ate a popsicle cause my hands were busy and the coldness felt nice in my body but I can't just keep eating popsicles...it's so frustrating. I know my skin picking is linked to my anxiety but idk how to get rid of my anxiety while reading. It's so stupid! I don't even understand why my body is anxious while reading. I'm rereading a series right now and I already know what's going to happen but yet I still skin pick to bleeding points.

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u/viola_darling β€” 1 month ago
β–² 43 r/psych

Just watched the third Psych movie, This is Gus, for the first time!!! 🍍

I thought I've seen this movie mutiple times but I guess I have somehow always missed watching the third one! I don't know how or why but now that I have for sure watched it, I loved it! Might even be my favorite out of the three.

I really hope the fourth movie gets greenlit! I'm so curious to see how the family evolves and what happens to Alan.

I HATE CLIFF HANGERS lol

I NEED TO KNOW. How can peacock do this to us and not greenlit it yet 😭😭😭😭

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u/viola_darling β€” 2 months ago

They are offically done!!!! πŸ₯°

I LOVE HOW THEY TURNED OUT SO MUCH!!

For the patterns I used acrylic markers.

For her tail I used Crayola watercolors and a lot of water. So much water that the yellow started to bleed up her back and up her head and to her eye 😭😭😭 I tried my best to get it out.

If you dye the tail using this method don't flip the cat over at any point! And watch for the color bleeding where you don't want the color going. I had to dap the tail a lot too because I was so scared it would take forever to dry and the color would bleed again. Thankfully it all worked out!

The outfit I made from this stretchy material. I just winged it and did everything by hand. No sewing. I made a skort! And a top 😊 but I guess it's now a dress πŸ˜†

Though technically I made her shorts/underwear and then wrapped more fabric to be like a skirt/skort and added the top and then the straps!

What do you think? πŸ˜ƒ

u/viola_darling β€” 2 months ago
β–² 141 r/psych

Thrift finds!

I sadly didn't get them. Half of the discs in the first season were in bad shape and half the discs in the second season were missing 😭😭😭

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago

I customized a baby now!

I'm obsessed. I love its feets so much! This time around was much more fun! I want to do more πŸ˜†

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago

Just wanted to point out these clothes dye the critters!

The snow leopards come with clothing up to their neck and I noticed a slight dye from the clothing on their necks when I was switching clothes and deciding which one to customize.

One has blue on it's neck and one has a reddish on its neck but the photos don't show the dye that well.

The one that had the dress og is now wearing the red shirt outfit and the one that was wearing the red shirt with pants og is the one I customized into a colorful snow leopard Lisa Frank vibes cause the dye was less visible.

And I think the clothes also made the crease in their neck?

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago

I made another custom! πŸ˜ƒ

Inspired by u/gummykandi who gave me the idea to do something similar and then I used the last two photos as inspiration too.

I really thought I messed up on the face but then I made it work. Then I DID mess up and used white acrylic paint on the one cheek to cover up my mistake and continued using acrylic markers over it. Now I love it! I'm still debating on doing the whole body or not. Right now I only did the parts that would be visible with this wrap dress.

I used acrylic markers. This makes the fur stiff and rough to the touch FYI if you want to do it this way too.

This took incredibly long because I was so particular and I had so much anxiety abt what to do πŸ˜†

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago
β–² 162 r/Sticks

Went on a walk yesterday and look at all the sticks I got

Such good sticks! I couldn't leave them behind! Every time I got a good stick I literally said out loud, "Das a good stick", 🀣 and added it to my pile.

I love sticks. These are high quality sticks!

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago
β–² 28 r/cottagecore

Was on a walk collecting sticks and when I went behind a tree and got up I saw this

IT'S SO PRETTY. So peaceful and calming imo.

My sticks in the last photo! They are such good sticks. Every time I picked up a good one, I said "das that's a good stick", out loud πŸ˜†

It was a good stick day.

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago

I made my childhood pet rabbit into a sylvanian!

I'm shocked black bunnies aren't a thing in the slyvanian world but also happy becaude I got to dye this bunny! I wanna say they used to be gray lol idr anymore and I was too excited to take a before picture πŸ˜†

Meet Lilly! She was my second pet rabbit as a child. She was all black and was very soft. She had such nice fur. So sleek!

She was the wife to Zack, my first rabbit.

*TRIGGER WARNING* blood*

Zack thought my fingertip was a carrot and chewed on it. I was with my friend at the time showing her the rabbit in my backyard and I stupidly put my finger through the cage to pet Zack and I let him sniff my finger. WHELP. Then he wouldn't let go so I panicked and screamed and somehow opened the cage with my left hand to smack his face to let go of my finger. I think I might have even closed and locked the cage after too. I ran home inside leaving a trail of blood behind me with my friend running behind me. I still have the scar from it! It healed a lot over time and now it's super tiny but I totally see it lol

Lilly was much more tame and home trained! But they both lived outside in cages my dad made high above the ground. They had 5 babies together. One died because I couldn't wait to see the babies and I touched one 😭 the next day it was dead. 4 babies remained and I named one Zack after the dad lol (I was obsessed with Saved by the Bell and loved Zack, from the show, not the rabbit who chewed my finger lol). They also had twins, 2 rabbits I couldn't tell apart at all. Idr what I named the rest of the bunnies but I don't think I really petted Zack a lot after that. I fed both of them a lot of carrots and leafy greens though! My favorite thing was when their teeth would turn orange from the carrots. Idky but I loved it.

I also dyed two kitty in my pocket kitties black! I abs love how they turned out! One I made for a friend whose black cat passed away. I hope she likes it!

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago
β–² 51 r/cottagecore

I abs devastated

We had a bad severe thunderstorm and my dad's beautiful tall sunflower broke 😭😩πŸ₯Ί

Last picture is what it looked like before

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago

I MADE BATS!!!!!

And I love them so much!!!! The fangs are toothpicks.

I dyed the fennec foxes and one newborn kangaroo that was in rough shape, and also dyed all the clothing as well. I love how the mom's outfit came out so much!!!

I tried painting the stroller and nothing was satisfying so I washed and rubbed the paint off as best I could. Now it looks really old and messed up πŸ˜† which I guess kind of works?

I'm so happy I have a castle too! I was thinking I would need to make a haunted house for them but then I remembered I have this castle and it's perfect!!

So happy with these! πŸ₯° What do you think?

The last photo is everything I dyed.

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago

My favorite area on my bookcase

Spiderwick is one of my favorite book series and I get so excited when I come across something Spiderwick related that I haven't seen before or own! I recently added a different book Tony wrote in this section and had to move around some things to make it fit. I love staring at all the pieces here!

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago
β–² 110 r/cottagecore

Look how TALL my dad's sunflower is! It's like a magical garden of sunflowers!

There's more on the left that my stepmother didn't capture in the photo. BUT LOOK HOW TALL. I've never seen any this tall before in real life!

The stalk is THICK

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago

I'M SO EXCITED

I've been wanting to making bats since the first custom bat I have come across online years ago and have been hunting for fennec foxes ever since but I've never come across them second-hand 😭 (I didn't want to buy them brand new).

I asked my dad to get me the foxes from Europe (since they're cheaper) when he went and I'm so glad he got them because since I'm in the U.S. we don't have the newborns anymore. BUT NOW I CAN MAKE A BAT NEWBORN. I'm so excited!!!

I had a newborn kangaroo that was in rough shape my friend gave me and an off brand fennec fox toddler that I got from aliexpress. I decided to start the dye with them and then I moved on to their clothes, the fennec fox mom, one of the fennec fox newborns, and THEN I got my bag of critters that I don't really want but keep anyway, and took out a rough shape brown bear to make black and an old gray bunny with it's flock coming off to make into a black bunny. And a dress that has a visible stain to turn black as well! Once I started I wanted to dye everything and had to restraint myself from doing so πŸ˜†

I'm so excited for all these things to dry. When dry I plan to give everyone some details and to dress them as well.

Stay tuned!

BTW, I used the Rit Dye Graphite for synthetic ms that someone recommended to me on a fb group I'm in.

Oh! I also dyed two white Kitty in My Pocket kitties.

u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago

Those of you who have painted a sylvanian family house, what did you use to seal it?

I painted one of the houses with acrylic paint and want to seal it so the paint doesn't come off when playing. I read to use a sealant for acrylic paintings but this isn't a canvas but plastic and I'm worried abt the reaction to the plastic. Mod podge in my experience fuses plastic together and I don't want the furniture sticking to the floor and having a melting reaction 😩

I painted the outside and the inside of the house. Floors and walls.

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u/viola_darling β€” 3 months ago