More Auction Items

This is another item I sent to my friend Beth for her amazing work on the charity Ball she is hosting. I made push pins from the stamp set she designed. I sent a set for her to use and a set for her auction basket of homemade items. I hope she loves them. They are made with Stazon stamped onto shrink plastic and glued onto push pins. Easy Peasy.

She also got this cute little cupcake pin cushion for her cupcake basket. It is made out of recycled wool sweaters and a bit of felt. These are so cute it is tempting to make a basket of them and place them somewhere in my house. They just make me smile.

I also donated a set of lampwork beads made in my studio. These are made with Italian glass and have a swirled pattern that gives them more of an organic feel. I donated another set similar to this for my Ukrainian friend and the International Talent Academy she is associated with. I am hoping this will be the end of charity season for a while so I can concentrate on opening an etsy shop with my friend Steph. We both would like to make some money with our crafts so we will see if we can do it or not.

I may add comment moderation soon or a word decoder type thing. I don't want to make it harder for anyone to leave a comment, but it seems as though the spammers have found me and I want them to go away. This seems to be the only reliable way to block them that I know of. My apologies for the inconvenience.

If there is something you think you'd like to see in our etsy shop, or something I make that you think would sell well, please let me know. For those who don't know, etsy is an internet marketplace for hand crafted items. I'll add a link to it (our store site) when it is fully functional.

Shadows Expanded

The boys are both in love with the loom. I haven't woven anything on it yet, at least not by myself. Now I have two shadows waiting in the wings to get their hand son my craft items. Both boys took turns weaving on the first item I cast onto the loom. They look deep in discussion about some trivial aspect of weaving here, don't they? At least they are cooperating.

You can see I have not had a lot of time at the loom, since Seth has taken it over. I left the room and Noah and Seth could not wait to weave the day away. We finished the first practice piece and Noah was dying to make scarves in school colors. I bought some cheap yarn and got the loom ready for him, only to have him weave a few rows and no longer be interested. It is okay, though, the project was not very attractive (Noah picked out the yarns himself) and we learned an important lesson (Cheap yarns i.e. acrylic, stretches too much and isn't good for weaving.) Better to learn on his weaving than mine, I say.

I have an internet friend from my Hanna Stamps days (Beth Silaika) who is hosting a huge charity auction/dinner/dance and asked for handmade items for some silent auction baskets. I was packing up some crafts to send her and I remembered I had previous plans to make a bracelet for her out of a stamp set she designed for Papertrey Ink.

I made the shrink plastic charms using her set,Winter Swirls, but hadn't actually made the bracelet. I finished the bracelet for her this week, and it is on the way to her in New York now. I hope she likes it, as I made it for her to keep and not for the auction. I'll post pics of other items I sent for the auction in my next post.

I think she'll love it.

Fish Bake at 250 for 20 minutes

I was searching Ravelry.com for knitting ideas a week or two ago when the pattern for a Fish Hat came up. Unfortunately Seth was with me and saw the pattern so he immediately exclaimed "Oh, I just have to have one of those!" He was dead serious. He wanted it in blue, so I had to search my scraps till I found the right colors for him.

Thankfully the pattern was pretty easy, since I often can't read patterns written for knitting. I don't know why they don't just use plain English for them. Seth is thrilled with his hat!

One of the eyes looks wobbly here, it's just the way it was laying at the time. You knit and knit for the hat, then I washed it gently to soften it up a bit. Because we aren't patient people, I often dry my items in the oven. I know, it's odd, but even the Yarn Harlot does this. I took my damp hat and baked it at 250 for about 20 minutes. It wasn't completely dry, but close enough that it would be dry by morning and I wouldn't give poor Seth frost bite while he waits for the bus. He adores this hat. He wears it every day. The ladies in my Friday morning knitting group have asked about it, but I can't get it off his head long enough for show and tell.

I baked the hat before I added the buttons, just in case they might melt in the oven. I added circles of white felt for the eyes and blue buttons for eyes, both sewn on with a needle and thread
Oh, the things we do for our kids!

Me and My Shadow

I have a shadow, his name is Seth. Everywhere that I go, my shadow goes. Everything that I do, my shadow does. I sat down today to cut apart sweaters as I (still) have not finished crafting with them, and Seth came to help. When I stood up, he sat in my chair. When I put my scissors down, he took them for his use. See the sweater parts he has his hands on? He took them from me and has plans to create sweater animals from them. This is my new craft:


Making flowers from sweaters. It's a great idea, but it uses up sweater pieces even slower than the mitten making did. I have a neighbor who recently got "gifted" her mother's old jewelry. I begged the clip on earrings from her, and am using them for the inner part flower. I also have some felted fleece pieces for the inner aprt of the flowers, but I had to buy them from Etsy. The clip ons were free, baby, and that is always the right price for me.

Once again, I find this very addictive and just can't stop, despite the pleas from Seth that I finish making the hat I am knitting for him. I just knit him a hat for Christmas, so it isn't like his ears are cold or anything. Plus, I have knitting of my own I'd like to do. Ravelry.com has a pattern for French Press Slippers I am dying to make. I can make a pair with one skein of wool yarn and they are desperately calling my name.

If you still read here, please comment. I have so few commenters that I get seriously lonely.

We Have Returned

Scott likes to go on vacation after Christmas and when he mentioned Florida, I was immediately interested. It means 1) I won't be trapped in the house with the kids with only my wits to keep them entertained and 2) Florida is warm. Well, this year Florida must have known we were coming, because they had a cold front come in. It wasn't horrible for us, but definitely cooler than expected. I have very few beach photos because the beach is always cooler than the land due to the wind. Noah and Scott did get up early one day and see the sunrise and this is a photo of that endeavor.

I kept myself entertained by knitting. These are the cozies I made that go around a cup of coffee, so you don't have to use (and throw away) a cardboard sleeve every time you get some take out coffee. I didn't keep count when I was making them, I just kept knitting. You can see I still have one in progress. I was busily knitting along when Scott started to tell me how great the book he was reading happened to be. When he finished it, I picked it up, and any thoughts I had about knitting quickly subsided. The book is A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and talks hilariously about his attempt at walking the Appalachian Trail. Bill is so funny I want to read every last book he has written.

I got a loom for Christmas and Scott put it together for me, so now I can't wait to work on that. No pictures to show, since there is nothing in progress. Hopefully soon.

The dog is back from the kennell, the guinea pigs will be home soon, laundry is done and dinner is in the oven, so it was a productive day for me. Tomorrow? I get to do it all over again.

Bad Attitude

I know, it's the Christmas season and I should be grateful for the gifts I receive. I should be grateful anyone would want to give me a gift, any gift at all. But instead, I got some gifts that were not to my liking and I feel like a greedy, non appreciative person. But really, see the clock? Why would anyone see this and think of me? Maybe my neighbors whose husband works for a winery would like it.

And this purse? Really? I don't even know what to say. My neighbor brought me these gifts on Christmas Eve. Closely followed by going to my parents house and receiving cartridges for my Cricut. Yes, the cricut I did not want and don't use. My mom picked out some nice floral cartridges for me. So I can add flowers to my sons' scrapbook pages? Pages I haven't worked on in years? Ungrateful ? That is me. My mom said she looked at the books on my Amazon.com wish list and thought they were boring. Well, she wasn't going to be the one reading them!

Christmas hysteria starts at Halloween with my family getting onto each other about gift lists and wish lists and such. And ever year someone pronounces someones lists lame and buys off of the list. Not me. I shop from the list and do my best to make people happy and I would simply appreciate the cooperation of others. It should not so hard to get everyone on the same page.

Christmas was not a total bust, I got a great book from my sister in law and a book from Scott, alog with the weaving loom I wanted. We are leaving for a bit, but i will be busting out the loom as son as I return and can get back into my happy crafting place again.

Homemade Christmas

Once again it was time to celebrate Christmas with my best girlfriends with our annual exchange of homemade presents. I scored the necklace (above) from my friend Rebecca. I also got a dozen tamales and some lip gloss, but don't have photos of either because they were immediately pressed into service. The necklace is made from sculpey, stamped and baked and glossed. I love it. the pattern on it reminds me of something from nature, and fairly African in look. I have got to learn how to do this!

My friend Stephenie P. made me a homemade pillow. I love this, it will match great on our guest bed. It is very fun and funky and has a great style to it.

My friend Stephanie B made felted items for us. I really had no idea what i would get from her, because we were together when we saw felted items we loved. I knew she was working with felt this year, but had no idea what she would come up with. This is already on my table.

A friend of Rebecca's knew we had a homemade exchange and contributed carved wooden pieces for all of us. I got a door stopper but have it on my bookshelves right now. It looks like a beautiful piece of sculptural art to me.

What did I give? Well, of course I don't have a photo to share! I went with an office theme and made everyone a lunch bag made from oil cloth, monogrammed notecards and a frame with flowers on them. I used felt and card making type flowers for decorations on the frame. Next year I'll have to take photos of my own gifts, too.

As for the Lemon Cookie recipe:

1 box Lemon Cake Mix

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs.

Mix together and drop cookies onto a cookie sheet for about 10 minutes. Cooking time varies based on the size of the dough balls. Mine were fairly big so I baked them for 13 minutes. I added a bag of white choc chips to stretch the dough and made a double batch. You can use this recipe with any kind of cake mix. Imagine Red Velvet cookies rolled in powdered sugar before baking. Next for me will be chocolate fudge cookies with butterscotch chips. It is not an original recipe, but one found on the internet. God Bless the internet. I do love it.