Crochet Projects...

Hello There!

Let the great melt off begin! I think we got somewhere around 15-16 inches of snow all totaled. Our average for October is something like 4. The largest snowfall amount they've recorded is 31 inches back in 1969, so it could have been worse. LOL The sun is shining this afternoon and the temps rebounded to the upper 40s. This weekend we'll be in the 50s, so this storm will soon be a memory. Yay! Kathi commented that our snows don't stick around and she's right. That's probably why big storms don't bother me too much. *Ü*

Anyway...while I've not been papercrafting lately, I have been crafting with yarn and I just finished a project today that I wanted to share.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a newsletter from Gourmet Crochet (where I got the Gwendolyn doll pattern). In the newsletter Carolyn shared that she had a project featured in the newest issue of Crochet Today magazine.

When I saw a picture of the project featured, I immediately went on the hunt for the issue. I found it at Joann's and used a 40% off coupon. So for around $3 and use of my personal stash of yarn, I created this...

Gingerbread House!

Isn't this absolutely adorable (if I do say so myself)?!

Seriously, this was NOT difficult to stitch as it's mostly the single crochet stitch, with double crochet stitches used for the "gumballs."

And for reference, I made about 80 of those little puppies. LOL

There are several chains as well, just twisted together to make the sticks and for the window frames and panes.

Oh and lots of hot glue gun sticks were used. *Ü*

You stitch the pieces and make a cardboard frame for the house. You hot glue the pieces to the cardboard base and that's pretty much it.

Doesn't the tree look like something from Dr. Suess' Whoville? LOL

Anyway, I started working on this about a week ago and only sporadically. I just finished gluing it all together this afternoon. It was a fun project, but I probably wouldn't make another one.

Also in this issue was a pattern for crocheted earrings. Actually two patterns. One was a tiny doily and the other a leaf. The sample projects were shown as dangly earrings and I thought it was a neat gift idea, so I tried the pattern. Well, Miss Amy saw what I was making and declared she really wanted a pair of "real" earrings (for pierced ears~which she doesn't have and won't get until she's much older). Oh she was SO dramatic! I told her maybe I could look for clip on earring backs. She was like a dog with a bone then bugging me about it. LOL

So yesterday afternoon, after the snow stopped and the roads weren't so icy, we trekked over to Hobby Lobby for clip on earring backs (which were one sale 50% off...whew).

And this is what I ended up with...

Amy was THRILLED and wore them to school today. She was tired of wearing them after school, so I got Miss Jessica to model one for you.

(by the way, Miss Jessica was all kinds of mad at me last night because she wanted a pair...

right now.)

I was hoping to get a pair made for her while she was at school, but the finishing touches on the gingerbread house took longer than I thought and I received a phone call from a dear friend and we chatted for over an hour (which was really nice as we haven't chatted in a long time).

Thanks so much for stopping by! I sure appreciate your visits.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Do I Really Have To?

This is my second post for today.

Sorry, couldn't resist this!

Do I really have to go out in that???

Oh, okaaaaay...

This is SO not fair!

LOL

Yep, it keeps comin' down!

And it's supposed to do this ALL day long!

Sigh...

Snow Day Dance Worked! (oh joy)

Happy Thursday to you!

I saw on the news last night that the first grade Snow Day Dance was effective as the district called a snow day for today. Lovely. I'll be taking some pictures of the dumping a little later, when it's not quite so dark out. I got a giggle over Buster going out back to do his bizness this morning. He has "low clearance" being a short legged dog, and almost had to "plow" his way out. It was pretty funny.

Jessica just got up and Amy was telling me that her bandage came off last night and that "glue" fell off the owie. Jessica had put the bandage back on but I could see it had been loosened so I asked her to take off the bandage so I could see for myself. Of course, I had to take a few photos.

On this one, you can see how deep the gash was/is. Thankfully, it appears that the "hole" that was initially there isn't any more. It still looks nasty doesn't it? But Jess tells us it doesn't hurt (unless you push on it) and it itches. We keep telling her that's a good thing, because it means it's healing.

She wanted to put another bandage on it and Amy insisted on adding another butterfly.

She slipped a little and got some ink on Jessica's head and a bit of hair, but the moment was too sweet not to capture.

We are supposed to have swim class later today. We'll see if the rec center is even open or how the weather behaves as that will determine if we venture out of the neighborhood today.

Hope you have a good one!

(It appears that the underline thingy went away. What's goofy is that usually there's a button to click to do the underline and the button is missing)

Oh and a final note, if you are using Chrome as your browser while reading blogs. I have been getting a red screen that says Google has detected malware on a site associated with the blog I want to comment on. I usually just back away and opt not to leave a comment. I figured it's better to be safe than sorry about inviting malware onto my computer. Well, this morning, when I checked my spyware sweep, I saw that it detected/found malware something or other on my computer and it had quarantined it (thankfully) so it didn't affect my computer. I immediately got rid of it and thought I'd let others know that even if it seems to be a pain, it's a good thing that the bright red screen shows up. It's there to protect your computer after all. I can only suspect that some devious minded people are trying to make fun blogging experiences not quite so fun. It could be something new out there, which is a real bummer.

So, if you find that I'm not leaving comments where I usually do, that could be why. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

Toasting Marshmallows...digi layout!

This is my second post today and proof that I was able to get a fire going just enough to toast a few marshmallows. I decided to create a layout with the photos I took.

We'll just ignore the fact that the fire ended up smoking more than burning after we were done.

At least the girls were able to satisfy their wish for squishy marshmallows. LOL

Credits:

Template: Kay Miller Designs-Collection 6

Page Kit: Nitwitcollections Frost N Flakes

Font: Pea Jeannie Script

Thanks so much for stopping by once again. I've just about got all my digi supplies organized now and will work on getting my photos squared away so I can start digi scrapping more.

(And I don't know why all of a sudden my typing is being underlined. I can't find a way to stop it! LOL It's always something, isn't it?)

It's TOO Early For This!

It's been doing "this" since early this morning and it's supposed to continue doing "this" until tomorrow around 6pm or so. Ugh. It's too early!

The girls' school was supposed to do their Trunk or Treat tonight, but it's been cancelled due to the weather. Mostly it's slushy on the roads right now, but with the temps hovering around 30, give or take a few degrees, that's definitely going to change when it drops tonight. The forecast is for a nice day of 50+ degrees ON Halloween so we should be able to skip the whole snowing/bad weather we usually get then.

The first grade classes did a Snow Day Dance this afternoon in the hopes that the students will get a Snow Day tomorrow. We'll see. Our district rarely closes school due to snow. It just seems so strange to have this happening at the end of October, but we all know how wacky Mother Nature has been this year, so maybe it's par for the course this year!

I just hope this isn't a preview of what our winter will be like!

Hopefully your weather is better than what we are dealing with right now.

And the girls have requested I start a fire, so I'm off to do that and maybe toast some marshmallows, if I am lucky enough to get the fire going.

Thanks for the Blogger tips, apparently my settings defaulted and I didn't notice it. It should be all better now. Although I wish Live Writer would work on my computer...that would be ideal!

Oh well!

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Card by Becky

I'm back again. LOL

I just had to show off this card that Jessica received from our friend, Becky.

She made this card, not me.

Isn't it gorgeous?

She told me it's pretty much lifted from the CTMH idea book, but I haven't seen a new book for a long time, so I don't know the name of the stamp set or papers. I just know it's beautiful and I really appreciate her taking the time to make it for Jessica.

Thanks, Becky!

I have to ask, did Blogger change something recently and I don't know about it? I cannot get my photos to upload the way they used to and I'm not sure why. I'm used to them uploading in the center and they are uploading off to the side and I can't get them to center. Hmm...Oh well.

That's it from me, just had to share this beauty!

Til next time, thanks so much for stopping by!

Jessica's Party

Happy Sunday to you!

We had Jessica's birthday party today and overall it was a lot of fun.

I thought you might like to see some of the event.

Jessica decided (at the last minute) she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake cake. She said like the one I made for her when she turned 5. Prior to this she kept talking about Ming Ming cupcakes (Ming Ming is a Wonder Pet). I was actually relieved she changed her mind. LOL

Anyway, I went on the hunt for ideas (because I wasn't gonna make the same cake I made before) using good old Google and came across a cake with a path and on the path was a Strawberry doll on a Moped. Very cute, I thought, so I went with that and added my own little twist by adding the house and the tree. I found free coloring pages online and printed off smaller versions of the pages I wanted. Then I colored them using my pencils and odorless mineral spirits. (does this count as being crafty???) I found the little doll and it came with a Custard the cat, but no hat for Strawberry, which bummed me out. She doesn't look quite dressed without it. But the doll smells like strawberry...

I can't quite get my photos to line up right, so I'll keep chatting and see how it ends up looking when I post.

The path is graham cracker crumbs with brown sugar mixed in. The grass is coconut colored green. The cake was strawberry flavors with tinted green frosting. (Erin, did you notice I took the cake out of the pan? I did that for you! I took a deep breath and flipped it out and then sighed a deep sigh that the cake didn't break in two). The "stars" around the base are strawberry frosting. I put it in a ziploc baggie, with a corner cut out and a tip inserted...cheap way to decorate, I thought. LOL And in case you can't tell, I taped the images and the doll to popsicle sticks so they would stand up.

In my searching for ideas, I came across a blog post where the author had a very very on theme SS party. She shared some chocolate covered marshmallows and I thought it was a neat idea, so here's my take on the idea. I used some chocolates I had, which were orange, but they worked well with the strawberry marshmallows. Then the girls added the sprinkles. Those were a hit!

We played several games. I liked this when I saw it in the store (except for the $6.99 price tag) and we pulled together our own version. Cost nothing since we had the jar and clothespins at home. If you look carefully, you can see Jessica's clothespin falling.

We played a game where the kids had balloons tied to their leg and they had to try to pop other people's balloons. It didn't work quite as I thought, but it was a lot of fun and the kids ran off some energy. One guest had the balloon cover his foot when his popped and I hadn't ever seen that before. Amy designated herself "party director" and person in charge of the prizes, which made for a few not so fun moments, but overall she did a good job. She led the bingo game. And she played the music for musical pillows (think musical chairs only on pillows).

Jessica had a great time as you can see and got some great gifts, too!

(Amy drew a butterfly on Jessica's bandage...cute, huh?)

Thanks for indulging me while I shared the party. As I am typing this, the girls are busily playing with Jessica's new Barbie (shown above) and some new Pollys. That's a good thing!

Hope you have a great week!

Barbie is a Great "Cure-all"...

Jessica had a tough first full day as a 7 year old, poor thing.

We had swim lessons this afternoon and some good friends we've met at our lessons gave Jessica a birthday present today since they will be out of town this weekend when we have Jessica's birthday party. The present is a Barbie Beach Cruiser and Summer Barbie doll. Jessica was so excited because it was the very car she wanted.

She and her friend started their lesson, but her friend had to leave a little early. Jessica was at the end of her lesson and was getting out of the pool, when apparently, someone fell on her causing her to hit her head on the pool or the deck (I'm not sure which since I didn't see this happen). She hit her head hard enough to cause a pretty good gash about an inch long. The middle part of it looked rather deep. She was understandably extremely upset. I knew we needed to see someone to have it looked at and she was more upset about this than the "owie." She didn't want to see a doctor and she definitely didn't want stitches.

We left immediately (poor Amy had to skip her lesson entirely) and went straight to Urgent , where they numbed the area topically (no needles), cleaned out the wound and "glued" the gash together with Dermabond. Now she gets to sport a lovely bandage until it heals.

As she was starting to calm down while we were waiting for the doctor, she wanted her blankie. Of course, it was at home. Amy had Georgiana (the crocheted giraffe) and she gave her to Jessica to hold, which was very sweet of her. It helped a lot to comfort Jessica. Once she calmed down, she was such a trooper. I was very proud of how brave she was and how concerned Amy was about her. An hour and a half later, we were on our way home.

About halfway through the waiting time, Jessica started talking about how she wanted to go home so she could play with her new car. Steve got home from work before us and cooked dinner, which was Tuna Helper (Jessica loves the stuff). She ate well and was giggly and happy again (whew) and she immediately went to her new Barbie goods and started playing.

Thank goodness for Barbie to distract her!

Oh and during our waiting time I was asking

Jessica if her mouth hurt (just in case she bit her tongue or cheek) and she informed me that she thought one of her teeth got loose when she was kicked in the mouth. HUH? Apparently at school today the foot of one of her classmates nailed her on the side of her mouth. There's no mark, so it wasn't that bad, but I felt so bad for her, having such a tough first day of being seven.

Her owie is hurting right now and she wants to snuggle, so I'm going to do that.

Let's hope being seven will be less painful from here on out!

Happy Birthday, Jessica!

Seven years ago today, Jessica was born, weighing in at 7 lbs 15 oz.

She was delivered via a scheduled c-section, which turned out to be a very good plan

as Jessica was born with an actual, true knot in her umbilical cord, unbeknownst to us until her delivery. The doctor made it sound sort of cool during the procedure, but afterwards they let us know how lucky we were that nothing bad happened in-utero. Whew!

Sixteen month (almost...shy about 4 days) old Amy was ever curious about her new sister and quite fascinated with her nose.

Daddy called her peanut and that nick name has stuck ever since.

Maybe because she's just a little thing who at times needs help doing things

She is very caring and generous. Sensitive, emotional and strong.

She has a wonderful sense of humor and loves to giggle.

Yesterday morning she informed me it was the last morning she would be six. The lump in my throat caught me by surprise. My "baby" is growing up to be a beautiful young lady, one who makes me so proud to be her mom.

Happy 7th Birthday, Jessica!