Ta-Da: Cailee's purse

My first attempt at a purse, made following Lucy's pattern.  I did a small-scale version as this was for a 6 year old.  I really want to make a nice, big colorful bag for myself like Lucy did. I chose hot pink & black to match the Hello Kitty theme of the party.  I did add some flowers, at the last minute, so I didn't get a picture of the final version with flowers... but here's a look at the purse.

Halloween, Part I

All dressed up and ready to party at The Little Gym!

Friday's Flashback

One of my favorite blankets I've ever made (for myself). It was pretty time consuming to make, since it's a dc pattern/waffle type stitch and then you weave in every strand to get the plaid look. I made this back around when I got married- or the year before that- so we're talking 5-6 years.  I also made a few others. Spent a lot of time crocheting and weaving and cutting strings.  Well worth it though, after all this time, I still love the look of this blanket.

Things I'm Loving Thursday

I'm not usually one to like photos of myself, but I really love the way my red flower broach/pin looked with my grey sweater dress at my sister-in-law's shower.  Get this: The flower was originally intended for Victoria's flower girl dress for my friends wedding, but was removable and my friend does not like roses nor does she like the color red. It was removed - to be forgotten about and reborn as my new accessory.

And I love this silly girl and how photogenic she is!

And I'm really loving PhotoScape to edit my pictures!

WIP Wednesday: Attempt foiled!

I was planning on showing my current WIP tonight: Cailee's Birthday Purse. However, in the middle of pumpkin carving (a family night photo op) my camera battery was completely drained.  So, not photos for tonight for my current WIP.

Status of the WIP:

• Purse body complete: hot pink & black to match the Hello Kitty bracelet it is being created to hold.
• One handle finished, the other nearly 2/3 finished.
• Still waiting: small flower embellishments to attach where the handle meets the purse.

Stay tuned and I hope to show the Ta-Da moment by Friday or Saturday!

Favorite hour of the week

I just have to say that I love Tuesdays from 5:45-6:45pm.  During that hour, I (or we) take Victoria to the Little Gym for her Funny Bugs gymnastics class.  I love watching her interact with the other kids and seeing the joy on her face as she does the things she loves.  She's getting so good at going on the high beam all by herself and can even pull herself up on the bars - soon she'll be swinging around without any help.


One of these days, I'll take my camera along again and add some action shots.

Monday's Featured Blogs

I thought I'd start a new thing: Monday's Featured Blogs.


Each Monday I'm going feature some of my favorite blogs. To begin, I'm going to feature one of my favorite "Established" blogs and one of my favorite "Developing" blogs. I hope that you'll check them out and see how awesome they really are. If you have a favorite new or established blog or want me to add you to my list of blogs, please leave a comment with the info.


Featured Established Blog: Attic 24
Lucy is such a cheerful soul that provides wonderfully colorful inspiration to me and many, many others with her crocheted creations. In fact, I'm making a purse following her pattern and Ben's Granny Stripe blanket was made from one of her designs as well. I love reading her blog and being able to feel the happy vibes that she produces in her writing.


Featured Developing Blog: ....work in progress... Jennifer is talented and witty. If you're a reader, you'll want to check out her reviews and lists of books she's read or currently reading- she's read an impressive 20+ books this year and she's still going. She creates fabulous things and she's even doing a giveaway for a beautiful bag that ends today - so go check it out!

Ta-Da: Brayden's Rectangle

Okay, so I swore this blanket was not going to be "big". But I just kept going and going. I actually stopped it sooner than I was going to because I spread it out and realized just how big it was getting. Ideally I wanted to finish with a full round (6 rounds/rows) of blue, but after finish the 3 white I thought it would be best to just go to a blue border or else this blanket was just going to be huge- not that being huge is bad, but I wanted to get this blanket to Brayden and start on some more projects that are in my queue.


I'm really pleased with how it turned out - even after not being so sure about it after doing the first stripe set. Adding the border row of solid dc made it all wonky so it's not as "rectangular" since it's stretchy/wavy around and I've never blocked anything and I really wanted to be able to send the blanket home with my husband's parents this weekend so it is what it is. It's for a toddler, so I know it'll get dragged around and rolled into a ball and tugged and pulled - so I'm not sweating it.
Putting Ben on the blanket was just intended to show the size of it - he's currently about 28" long at 6 months... I think this blanket is pretty big!

Baby Shower Crafting

As promised, I'm going to share some of the crafty goodness I've been creating for my sister-in-law's baby shower!

Diaper cake - this was quite a task as I really couldn't find the perfect topper. Sometimes I think I'm too much of a perfectionist, but nothing ever turns out perfect. So, I decided to leave it plain on top, though some people thought the turtle dishcloth was the perfect accent. I really enjoyed how the flower matched the ribbon so well.

Turtle dishcloth: I got this fabulous idea while sitting in a meeting at work... a little bored I guess. I tried it out and I thought it was cute. Of course, I see where it can be improved, but not so bad for an idea without a pattern.

Chocolate Pretzel drops: These are an easy favorite... thanks to my wonderful husband for slowly gathering brown, blue & green M&Ms from the bulk bins at Giant while I shopped. Quite a daunting task! These aren't anything amazingly stunning, but I was happy with how they matched the color theme so nicely.

I'm back in Blogland again

I've taken a bit of a break from blogging lately. It's been more than a week since my last post. It's quite unintentional I assure you - life has simply gotten in the way!


Last week was a bit hectic as we packed up and left home early Thursday morning en route to our hometown for my friend's wedding. Both the little princess and I had the honor of being a part of the whole celebration and I think we were both beyond excited for the event. I was so proud of my little flower girl and how well she did with it all.


Here she is modelling her freshly curled hair at the salon:


And waiting for the beautiful bride to make her way down the aisle. Victoria did a great job at walking down the aisle herself, too, which was a big relief for me!Here she is playing with my flowers after the ceremony: Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the two of us together, nor did I get any of just me and the bride or me and my husband. I was quite sad when I realized it, but we were too busy making sure things were going right that I didn't grab the camera enough.

I did manage to get Derek to take a picture of my college friends when my old roomie requested we pose for a shot. There's me- third from the left. Can I tell you how much I LOVED my hair and wish I could do it like that myself... particularly for my sister in law's shower this weekend?

On Sunday, we returned home... just in time to try to finish up the preparation for my sister-in-law's baby shower this coming Saturday. After that, I'll finally have a chance to stop and take a breath!

Stay tuned though - I promise crafty pictures coming soon! I made a fun shaped dishcloth last night that I can't wait to photograph and share - I thought it up all by myself!! And I am loving the look of the diaper cake I am creating as well.

WIP updates!

My blog has been a bit drab lately without any photos. Here's a quick update on my current WIP: Brayden's blanket. I'm enjoying it now that it's further along. It fits the width of a crib/toddler bed mattress (covers the top only) but it's quite as long. I figure once it's long enough, it'll drape over the sized in width so it'll be nice for the B-Man's toddler bed. I'm hoping to end on a blue group or to at least do a nice border in blue. It's getting closer to being done!

And now I've officially started my first knitting project. I'm making a camo neckwarmer for Derek - hopefully in time for hunting season, the week after Thanksgiving. I've played around with the circular needles and needed to restart about 5 times, but I've finally got it. It kind of looks like a little curled up snake right now - but up close you can see the knit-look and it's so cool.

Saving money makes me happy!

This weekend was a bit busy. The mister worked on Friday evening and 3:30 until 10pm on Saturday as well. We had signed up to do the Harvest Days (community yard sale) on Saturday from 9a-1p too. Luckily, Victoria went to visit her grandparents with my sister-in-law this weekend to make things easier.

We did pretty well at the yard sale, though we were practically giving things away- like Victoria's baby bedding for $25 (including the entire bedding set, rug, lamp, window valances and diaper stacker) and an old, yet working, digital camera. Ben did great the whole time, he even took a nice, long nap while we were there. After the sale was over, Ben & I walked home and stopped by the deli to pick up lunch while Derek drove home and unloaded. After Derek left for work, Ben and I went out shopping.

I took a trip to AC Moore to pick up some yarn and look at a few other things for my sister-in-law's baby shower. I ended up picking up a few things for Victoria for Christmas because I couldn't pass up the sale. They had Crayola products on a buy one, get one free - so I got Victoria a reusable coloring set that looked pretty cool. It was Princess & the Frog and once you color it (with washable markers) you use the sponge it comes with to clean it off and once you let it dry you can color all over again. Since I was getting that, I got a Color Wonder Car set for FREE :) The car set was pretty cool, it's a clipboard container - so you can store your books and markers inside and then clip them onto the clipboard so you have something to color on for long trips. $26 dollars worth of stuff for $13.

Then I made another stop at Target to pick up the Strawberry Shortcake RC Cruiser that Victoria has been showing interest in. Normally $19.99 on sale for $18.99 and I had a $10 off coupon from Hasbro, which gave me a total savings of $11, paying only $8.99. I was so excited. Our little stash of presents has been growing for Victoria and now I just really need to order the Art table for the kids and we'll be in good shape... then I can figure out what I'm getting for Ben other than some board books & clothes.

In the Queue

I have the terrible habit of making a list of projects I want to complete while trying to work on finishing up one. It's almost like that excitement of looking ahead is so wonderful that my mind constantly wanders. I think it's heightened now that I've found so many wonderful, creative blogs and have gotten inspired by so many different people.



I was looking again at Lucy's crocheted bag and realized that it would be such a wonderful gift for Victoria, if made at a smaller scale. The pattern works up similarly to a hat, so I'll have no problems there... and I just think she would be so tickled by the idea of having her own little purse that I made for her. After seeing her excitement over her hat & scarf, I know it'll be just perfect. I'm putting on my list of "To-makes" and hoping to get it done in time for Christmas as a special gift from Mommy.



Another BIG project on my list is to continue trying to learn to knit. I bought myself a pair of circular needles, so that I can start knitting in the round - which is my #1 goal for knitting. I want to make cute hats! I thought the perfect way to practice knitting in the round would be to make a new camouflage neckwarmer for my hunting hubby - in hope of getting it done by Thanksgiving so that he can use it this year for hunting! Plus, it's camo - so no one would notice the flaws- right?

I'm in the middle of Brayden's blanket... contemplating more of my mystery WIP... then hoping to start Teddy's blanket. I want to make a few more hats for Victoria (at her request) and I really want to knit! The list is long, and it keeps on growing!!

It has been decided!

I've been trying to decide on colors/patterns for my newest nephew's blanket so I asked my sister-in-law for some input to see if there's anything she'd like to have. Well, she said I should make a star. I kind of laughed because the only other star blanket I have ever made was for Tillie, my sister-in-law's turtle. Yes, that's right - I made a blanket for a turtle. I'll have to get a picture of it to add on here so you can see it. It was pretty much a doll sized blanket for Tillie's bed. This turtle acts like a cat or dog, she follows you if you call her name and things that you'd never imagine a turtle could do.

So, she said a blue with either brown or black would be cool. I was hoping to do a ripple or granny stripe with all shades of blues & greens with tan/white/yellow mixed in but the star is a cool idea. She said that her husband's grandmothers will probably knit or crochet stuff too, so this would give something different and a blanket that they could display/hang up too. I already saw yarn I'd like to try for this one - Bernat Satin. They have a powder blue and black and it's so soft. We shall see!

Hopefully it'll be done by the time he's born or very soon after!

That's my girl!

Yesterday I took the kids to AC Moore with me since Derek had work and I really wanted to pick up a pair of circular knitting needles while I had a 50% off coupon. I also had to look at a few things for my sister-in-law's shower so I thought this was a perfect small trip to get us out of the house.

Well, Tori loved it. She was so interested in all the fun stuff they had. But the best was when we got to the needlework area and she ran over to the Bernat display with the special edition pink yarns they have for Breast Cancer Awareness month. She ran over to me so excited and said "The is so beautiful Mommy. Please can you make me a hat?". How do you say no to that? You don't - or at least I didn't.

We got home and she watched a movie and played with her new things- some velvet coloring posters and Beauty & the Beast sticker on scrapbook paper that she was cutting with her new "kids" scissors. She asked if I could make her hat, so I got started on it. It was cute, it's three shades of pink with white. It's cotton yarn, so it's not exactly my top choice for a hat, but she was so excited watching me start it. I finished it after she went to bed last night and surprised her with it when she woke up. Of course, she had to wear it today - at least this morning it was cool enough for a kid to wear a hat. (And, I matched her outfit to the hat - love her cute pink & black shirt)

When she realized I had more yarn left, she asked if I could make a scarf, so of course that's on my hook right now - just a basic dc scarf, nothing fancy. Maybe a fringe when I'm done if she wants it. She was so impatient about it, I caught her trying to crochet while I was cleaning!

5 years ago today...

I walked down the aisle and married a wonderful man. I would have never guessed that 5 years later, we'd still be so happy and in love. I also would have never guess that we'd already be a family of four!

Hoping for many, many more years of love and happiness.