LotR Pillows

I think anyone following me for very long knows that my husband and I are pretty obsessed with The Lord of the Rings and anything else from Tolkien.  We named all our pets (except for Kira) after people or things from Tolkien's works.  My brother and sister-in-law had these cushions made for us for Christmas and we LOVE them!  The downside is that now I'm thinking about ways to make all of the cushions more nerdy.  😁  By the way, you can check out the creator of these cushions by going to: https://www.facebook.com/SewWingsThings-137541996742848/

Laurelin didn't really seem too interested in having her pictures taken and most of the ones I did get, she was blocking the words.  So this is the only good one.

Tarmund on the other hand was hamming it up for the camera!  😂  He is so tiny and sweet!

Samwise Gamgee

Halloween Costumes Day 14: Samwise Gamgee

Happy Halloween!  I wanted to end this series of costumes with another tribute to Tolkien!  Tarcil was Frodo last year, so he chose to be the Samwise Gamgee this year.  Sam is one of my favorite characters from the Lord of the Rings.  In fact, I named my first dog Samwise Gamgee.  He was a great dog and loyal friend to me, and I miss him so much!  Having my 3 month old puppy, Beren, does help comfort me quite a bit!  Anyways, I was seriously so pleased with Tarcil during this photo session!  He just seemed so incredibly happy!  He looks like he was smiling for the pictures!  I know I say this a lot, but I just want to say how much of a blessing Tarcil is to me!  He is seriously so sweet and it makes me sad that he is so old.  I am trying to cherish the time I have with him all the more since I know he is very old.  I feel so blessed to have had this opportunity to share my little Tarcil with you all!  :)

Gandalf the White

Halloween Costumes Day 13: Gandalf the White

I don't ever post on Sundays, but I decided to make an exception so that I could add in a bonus Halloween Costume this year!  I assumed that last year would be my last time doing costumes with Tarcil, but he has blessed me with another chance, and I definitely wanted to make the most of it!  So I think all of you know that I am obsessed with Tolkien's work and everything related to Middle Earth!  My husband and I have started a tradition of naming our pets after characters found in Middle Earth.  This started with Tarcil, and our dog, Beren, is the continuation of that.  Tarcil LOVES dressing up as various characters from Lord of the Rings!  The first year of Halloween costumes, Tarcil represented Rohan and Gondor.  Last year, Tarcil dressed up as Frodo.  Now, he is Gandalf.  Isn't he just so cute??!?!?  :)

Love Letter

If you find yourself too busy to play board games or maybe you find yourself in a waiting room, then this is the perfect game for you!  Love Letter is so quick and easy to play!  And the entire game fits into a little bag that would fit in your purse or a pocket.  By now it shouldn't surprise you that my family bought the Hobbit version of this beloved game.  We love Tolkien!  :)

Lord of the Rings

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, I am sure that by now you realize that my family is a huge fan of everything Tolkien and especially everything Lord of the Rings!  This includes board games too!  I especially love playing cooperative games and this is one!  So my husband and I got this board game, and we have played it a couple times.  We have yet to win the game, but we still enjoy playing it!  I think maybe the key to us winning is to have Tarcil on our team.  :)

Maps

This is a project that my husband and I did together.  It was originally supposed to be a gift for him, but I got too excited and told him about it.  We had so much more fun working on it together!  And now, these beautiful maps are finally ready to be hung!  Tarcil wanted to check them out before they went on the wall.  :)

Frodo

Tarcil's Halloween Costumes Day 11: Frodo

So I don't think there are any words to describe how much I love this costume!  Tarcil always wants to honor the origins of his name, and since last year he dressed in Gondor and Rohan costumes, this year he thought he should represent the Hobbits by being Frodo Baggins.  He really seemed to enjoy Sting, though it was too big for him to wield.  :)  You can't really tell from the pictures, but he even has the Elven brooch clasping his cloak.  :)

Gondor

Day 12

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

This is the final day of Tarcil's costumes.  Once again, I wanted to represent Lord of the Rings, and I thought that this was a good way to do that.  I also wanted to specifically represent Gondor.  For those of you who have read everything up to this point, you already know the connection.  And for those who missed my post from when I named Tarcil, I will give you a quick summary.  Tarcil was a descendant of Isildur and the king of Arnor.  It means "High Man" and was used as a nickname to Aragorn.  :)

Due to the amount of details in this costume, I painted the design on the felt.  I kept putting it off because I didn't think I could do it well, but I was able to find an unbelievably tiny brush which made this possible.

If you are wondering what is in the background of this picture, it is my three LOTR books with a set of Nazgul in front of them.  The Nazgul came from a board game that my husband recently bought.  We still haven't had a chance to play it so I can't give a review of it yet.  :)

I seriously can't get enough of that cute face and little nose!  I hope you have enjoyed looking through the costumes I made for Tarcil!  And I hope you have a safe and fun Halloween!  :)

Rohan

Day 11

This is my second to last costume in this project and I couldn't help but throw in at least one Lord of the Rings reference.  :)  I decided that I wanted to make one that resembled the flag and the shield of Rohan.  Therefore, this costume was much different than the others because of the amount of details that needed to be in it.  I knew that cutting everything out of the felt would not work.  I spent some time thinking about how to make this work when I finally thought of using paint.  I am not much of a painter so I wasn't sure if I could make this look good enough to be recognizable.  I think it turned out really well, but I guess you all would have to be the judges of that.  :)

Tomorrow is Halloween!  Make sure you check out Tarcil's final costume!!

Naming My Hamster

As you know, I have had my new furry friend for a couple days now and I hadn't given him a name yet.  This has been bothering and so I have decided to research names and provide a list to present to my husband.  If you didn't know, I am very fond of the Lord of the Rings triology and am currently re-reading the books.  I am about halfway done with The Return of the King.  I actually love anything relating to Middle Earth in any form, including Peter Jackson's movies.  (Side note, I am SO excited to see The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies!!)  My husband shares this love with me which is why he originally suggested Tauriel for the other hamster.  Last night, when I was telling him that I want to find a really good name for this new hamster, he suggested that I look through the LOTR Appendixes as well as search online at the LOTR wiki site for names that aren't as popular.  I didn't hesitate at all this morning to start looking at names.  I wanted to find a name that was similar to Tauriel as a way to keep the memory of her alive.  So I searched through all the names that started with "T".  There was quite a list.  I got rid of quite a few names just because I didn't like them.  I started writing down the names I did like as well as any information that I found interesting to go with the name such as the race, other titles, meanings, and background info on the people.  By tracking all this extra info to go with the names, I was realizing that I was interested in a specific type of person to name my little guy after.  I was drawn to the elven names for the kingly quality and elegant beauty of elven men.  This hamster is a golden creme color and his hair will grow long, so I thought such a name would be fitting.  I got my list narrowed down to five names that weren't all elven but were still quite fitting.

I am terrible at making decisions no matter how big or small, but I was able to decide that I want my husband's input on the final name.  When he got home from work today, I presented him my list of five names and we discussed each of them.  It helped to say them out loud and hear how they sound.  We were able to narrow that list down to two or three.  (I kept going back to one that he didn't like much.)  He told me that he liked the idea of having a name that would be fairly unknown.  I agreed that this sounded like a good idea.  It occured to me that since this little guy is gonna be a star, I wanted to make sure that if his name were searched, that it would lead to finding this blog or something related to LOTR and not something super obscure or inappropriate.  I did a quick google search on each of the two names we were down to and the choice became pretty clear to me at once.

So, after all the waiting, searching, and debate, I decided on Tarcil.  According to LOTR wiki, Tarcil was a man born in TA 280 to Arantar and his unnamed wife.  As a descendant of Isildur, he ascended the throne of Arnor in TA 435 on the death of his father.  His reign was without event for eighty years and he died in TA 515 and was succeeded by his son Tarondor.  He was two-hundred and thirty-three years of age.  The name Tarcil also appears in The History of The Lord of the Rings as another nickname for Aragorn: its meaning is apparently "High Man", a synonym for Dúnadan.  I didn't end up picking an elven name, but I love the background and meaning that surrounds this name.  So that is the story of how I named my hamster, Tarcil.  :)

Tarcil is waving "Hi!"