Halloween is On the Way…

Seeing that it is October, Halloween is going to be here before we know it. I saw a cute project on the Bug Lover Cards blog here and felt inspired to make a version for myself.  

That meant I needed to get that great spider web here and cut it using my Cricut and Make the Cut.

I’ve had the spider web brads since last Halloween. I picked up a Halloween themed package of brads at Hobby Lobby and never used them.  I found the pails at Target in the dollar spot. I liked the ribbon handles. The ribbon is from Michaels and the twine is Doodlebug. The orange paper is from DCWV Halloween themed paper from  last year and I inked the edge with black ink. Oh, I found the neat looking paper straws at Michaels not too long after they put out their Halloween stuff. I haven’t seen the package there since then.

Not sure where they will look best just yet…

I was hoping to get more accomplished than I did today (isn’t that always the way).  But, at least I got something finished, right?

Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope you are having a lovely day.

I’m a Crochet-er, not a Knitter…

I was at Hobby Lobby not too long ago, checking out and looked over at the lady behind me. She had a piece of knitting work-in-progress in her basket and it was camouflage looking. She was making a little jacket or something and was buying the pink version of the camo yarn. I was so taken with the idea of a little camo jacket/sweater for a baby (that teacher we know who is pregnant, specifically) that I bought some of the same yarn and started knitting away all excited. For 3 days or so, I was knitting, knitting, knitting and not getting very far. I started feeling a little frustrated. I finished the back piece of the sweater I was working on and I realized my stitches were awfully loose. Grrrrr….I decided to ditch the knitting and pulled it all out. Humph. A little later that day I was at the library and came across a crochet pattern book for making things for babies. I checked it out and came across a pattern I liked. And I started crocheting. I literally was just about done in one evening. Granted, it’s not a full out sweater, but still…I made something I think is cute with that camo yarn…

And I had enough left over to make a little hat to go with the vest. I love the texture of the stitches, which is alternating single and double crochets.

 

And this is why I say I am a crochet-er and not a knitter. I feel like I’m much more efficient at crocheting. I really like the idea of knitting, it’s the execution of it that bogs me down. LOL Maybe if I kept practicing, but a gift is not a good practice piece.

I’ve been doing a little papercrafting too, but I don’t have anything completed yet to share with you. Maybe soon, though.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope you are having a great start to your week.

Little Holiday Elf and Kid Craftiness

Oh my gosh, I’m back again! Yes, I’ve been a busy little bee the past few weeks. This is another project that has helped those creative juices to flow. Jessica and I were in Michaels one day over the summer  looking for some crafty supplies for her. She had checked out a craft book from the Bookmobile that stopped by her school once a week during summer break, and she wanted to make some of the projects. While we were wandering around we saw a display for holiday projects and they had those “free take one” patterns. It stayed in my purse for a month or so I must admit. But, I did use it! Check it out…

Golly, it’s good when football season starts. I can get some projects done while watching the game(s). *Ü* I did have to do her hat a second time, truth be told. The first time my stitches were too loose and the hat came down to her collar, covering her whole head. Not a good look. And I couldn’t find the right sized  pom pom maker (that we used to make all those Angry Bird pom-poms), so I ended up using my fingers to make the pom-pom. Hopefully we can find a spot for her at holiday time. Here’s  the link if you would like the pattern for her.

And I have to share some of the things Jessica was inspired to make from the book she checked out. The flowers and embroidery floss are what we were shopping for that day in Michaels. Yes, I know I have a plethora of craft supplies, but sometimes even with all that, you need to look for that just right item.

 

These sweet little fairies are hanging over her head in bed. 

And this sweet fairy oversees us in the living room.  Aren’t they lovely? She did a great job!

This next project is the first one she worked on and she really impressed me! It’s a dancing doll (as best we can remember) I just took these pictures a few minutes ago.

 

Can you believe the amount of detail she put into this? I remember her working so patiently on the coloring. And the precision she managed with the cutting.  So impressive.

And I can’t neglect Amy…she wasn’t into the crafty projects this past summer,  but over the weekend she created a little vehicle with Lego pieces and conducted a scientific experiment with it. And she also took pictures of the vehicle. Not too shabby on her part! The black rod with the red end is spring loaded somehow and her experiment had to do with drag affecting the distance the vehicle traveled.

 

Gotta say I am proud of my girls.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Circular Afghan for Baby

Thank you so much for the warm welcome back to posting. I appreciate that you still stop by even though it’s been a while.

Here’s a project I worked on that seems to have sparked the flow of creative juices. The teacher that Amy had last year is pregnant. She is the same teacher that Jessica had when she was in 2nd grade. This means we have a pretty good relationship.  Anyway, of course once I heard she was going to have a baby, I wanted to make something for her and the new baby. I decided to make an afghan. Originally I wanted to use teal because that’s one of the colors she said she was using, but I couldn’t find a good teal color, so I opted for yellow instead. And I liked the idea of making a circular afghan. It’s sort of like an oversized doily!

Here’s the finished project:

I’m really happy with the end result. It wasn’t hard to do as it’s mostly double crochets (my favorite stitch). The color is a lovely buttery yellow, so snuggly!

As I was working on this project, I had gone into Michaels for something and they were having a demonstration using some yarn I’ve seen in the stores, but had NO clue as to how to use. The gal showed how to knit the yarn and when you are done you end up with this:

   

Isn’t that neat? On the last picture, you can see what looks sort of like a web. I thought that you had to add that to the yarn, but it’s already there! It’s from Red Heart and it’s called Boutique Sashay. You are basically just working with the top edge of the yarn and as you are doing the stitch it starts to become all curliqued. So neat. I had this done in a couple of evenings(because I had to get the hang of knitting again). Love the colors too, so rich and fall like. You can see what the yarn looks like in the skein to understand why I had no clue until the demonstration.

So, working on these two projects is what sparked the creative juices. Yay for fun projects!

Thanks again for stopping by. Hope your week is off to a great start!

Having Fun with “The Birds”

Long time no see! How the heck are you? Me? I’m doing fine and (shhhh, don’t tell anyone) I’m feeling a teensy bit crafty these days. What an odd feeling. Not used to it any more. But, while it’s here, I thought I’d dust off this ole blog and post. You never know, it might just become habit forming! We’ll see!

We helped celebrate our friend Aaron’s birthday yesterday and a mama bird told me that Aaron really enjoys Angry Birds after Amy’s party. So, I decided to have some fun.

The inspiration for the card came from THIS POST on Devotion to the Dream  and the really neat boxes came from THIS POST on Sharon Langford Designs. I had hoped to make some of the boxes for Amy’s party back in June, but it never happened. The box is from Sweet Tooth Boxes, a Cricut cartridge.

Aaron seemed happy with his gifts. Yay! And they were fun to create, double yay!

I don’t think I ever shared pictures from Amy’s party. It was fun to put together, and the girls had fun helping. Just to give you a taste…

   

It’s been a while, so I don’t have the links to where I found stuff, but if you want to have your own Angry Birds themed party, really, just Google the theme and loads of links will come up. We got the idea to do the pom poms from the Bookmobile at the beginning of summer break. We initially meant to do just one type of bird and it morphed into all of those you see. The Minute to Win It games were kind of thought up at the last minute and we did just a few, but they were a big hit. The cookie one I remember seeing on America’s Home Videos once and it was hysterical. The other one was stacking 5-6 dice on a popsicle stick. I was pleased that the adults got involved in these games. It was a lot of fun. And if you have eagle eyes you can see a bit of the finished kitchen…

And on that note, that’s it from me for now. I have taken some pictures of a couple of other things I’ve been working on, so you may see something from me again soon…if you are interested enough to stick around, I know it’s been a while.

Thanks for reading!

Of Mice and Cards and Schtuff…

True story. On Saturday night, after the girls and I got back from Build-A-Bear (Girl Scout event), where the girls made bunnies (which I think  it’s funny, it’s called Build-A-Bear, not Build-A-Bunny), we were snuggling on the couch watching the end of an episode of Too Cute on Animal Planet. Okay, tangent…this show is so simple in it’s premise, filming kittens and/or puppies from birth to 12 weeks or so, add a fun narration and sit back to go awwwww numerous times. It’s just, well, too cute! Any way, Amy kept slightly turning to look behind her. Which tuned me in to her and I thought I could hear some, well shuffling. Uh-oh…If I ignore it, it will go away, right?? So I snuggled in til it was time for them to go to bed. Then I started looking in the bookshelves behind the couch. And, yes, I did the girly dance and made a girly yelp when it ran out of the bookshelf and then under the couch. Dang…a mouse! ARgggghhhh! WHY?@! I know why, it’s been nice out and certain people in the family (not me, because I know better) keep leaving the door open to the backyard…not just the door, the SCREEN door. That’s how they get in, people!

So, Steve decides it’s a good idea to move the bookshelves, with the stuff still ON the shelves to see behind them. After getting conked in the head by a falling object, he determines, yep there’s a mouse back there. Sigh…It’s been so beautifully long since we’ve had a mouse I actually haven’t stocked up on traps in a while, but some old ones were hanging out on the bottom shelves. Loaded them up with peanut butter. Then Steve sets up his humane mouse trap, the tubes hanging over the edge of the shelf and over a tall plastic trash can/tub. No luck on Sunday.

But, I decided it was as good a time as any on Sunday to do something I’ve been meaning to for a long time. Watch a Waltons marathon while straightening up my yarn mess. I enjoyed the shows, got my kids to kind of watch it, and made it through half the yarn stash, but didn’t catch a mouse. Darn.

Woke up this morning, darn, the traps are still set and sat down to check out email/blogs. My computer desk is right by the couch/bookshelves. And I hear it. Dang thing is messing around in my shelves and I refuse to get up to go after it. The dog is flipping sitting on the couch, hears it shuffling and does nothing. Useless canine! My toes are up off the floor and I try to ignore the noise until Steve gets done getting ready for work. He comes out and I tell him the rodent is messing around. He comes over and looks and says, Dang, this thing is foolproof. The da*% mouse is IN the tub! The stupid thing by-passed the tube apparently and somehow, someway fell into the tub. I was hearing him try to get out!  Argghhhh, but Yay! Got it! I drove it over to the dog park, said buh bye and good luck and hopped back into the van and went home. When I told Amy this morning, she said that should tell those mice not to mess with us! Really! Wish they’d listen. And I truly hope he hadn’t invited any friends to join him in our house. Time will tell, I guess.

 

Did you miss me? *Ü*

 

Here are my cuties with their new besties…

 

Goodness, aren’t those gingham shoes to die for? And look behind Jessica, those are small fries…Friends for the bears/bunnies you build. What a racket (thank goodness Amy didn’t really notice the giraffes…)

Amy chose glasses for her bunny. Oh yeah, Amy recently got glasses, too! Surprise! She’s nearsighted, like her dad and mom.

And I made some cards…

 

I was inspired by this card and then forgot the banner part…oops. Still, I like what I came up with…

And here’s what inspired the card above…

These first two cards are made using paper from DCWV’s new paper pack called Spring Fling. I like the vintage feel of the paper. Especially because it’s not a scratchy vintage. Meaning they didn’t mess up the prints with lines to make it look beat up. I don’t know how to describe it right, hopefully you get the idea.

When I need guy cards, the Green Tea stack from DCWV seems to work well.  Here’s the card that I was inspired by.

I think I’ve yammered long enough. Today is the first day of Spring Break here. Better get some breakfast so I’m fortified for whatever the girls feel like doing today.

Thanks ever so much for continuing to stop by, especially because I’m not the best blogger these days. I appreciate your patience!

Hope to see you again, soon.

Jeanne

Another Sweet Cakes Birthday Card

Well, what do you know? I’m posting twice in one day! After Jessica’s open gym thing, and Amy’s basketball game (they won, yay!) I found myself looking for something to do. So, I snuck into my crafty corner and came up with another  birthday card using Doodlebug’s Sweet Cakes paper and the same cupcake.  I really liked this card from Cathy Martin on Card-Blanc.

 

It was a bit more work than I originally thought to get the holes to line up on all the layers. Maybe there is an easy way to do it, but I was fumbling around trying to figure it out and the card probably took longer than it needed to to create. Ah well. I like the end result and hope you do, too. You should check out Kathy’s blog if you like Doodlebug Designs. She does great work!

The sun is shining, but it’s still well below freezing out there. Hopefully, it’ll warm up a bit tomorrow. I can’t complain, since we’ve had such a mild winter this year.

Hopefully you are enjoying your weekend! I’m off to work on a crochet project…Thanks again for stopping by!

Jeanne