Vacay!!

I am leaving tonight for vacation with my 4 Book Club ladies!!
We have been together for 5 years and we decided a trip to Vegas was really the only way to celebrate!!



I'll be back next week with some pics of the shirts I made for us and probably some pics from the trip too! Plus I will of course be bringing some crafting for the airport and plane that I'll have to show you all.
Everyone have a great weekend!!

Embroidery Floss

I used to have a tiny plastic container to store my embroidery floss in. My floss collection eventually outgrew it and I asked for a bigger container for Christmas. I got one but then I forgot I need the little plastic spools to wrap the floss around. I just bought all these new spools and spent a couple hours wrapping up my floss. It's all so nice and pretty and organized now. However, this container is so big it is only half full. I guess I need to buy more =P

Just some gratuitous shots of it all nice and organized, the colors make me so happy!




Now if I could only find a way to organize all my yarn a little better!

More Granny Squares

I've made 12 more Granny Squares for a total of 24 in my 2011 Craft Goal of making myself an afghan. I really like just watching a movie with a mug of hot chocolate or tea and hooking these bad boys up.
Here are some pics of the new ones I finished over the last few days.
I took these pictures during the day thinking that the natural light would show the colors best. Turns out...the purple kept looking really blue in the pictures, kind of annoying!





It is Lion Brand - Vanna's Choice Eggplant. This picture shows the true color of the purple.



My basket is getting so full of granny squares!

Instax 3

Here is Instax number 3 in my 52 Photos in 52 Weeks project.



This is my bear. When I was really little I called him Brownie and I had a white bear that I pretended was her sister and her name was Oatmeal. Somewhere along the line he lost the name Brownie and is now only referred to as My Bear. Is it ridiculous that a 27 year old still sleeps with a teddy bear?! Well I don't care...it's not like I suck my thumb (never did) or wet the bed! I only sleep with him when I'm alone, it's a comfort thing, both emotional and physically. I can jam him right under my head and shoulder and it's so perfect.
Anyway...I somehow just got very defensive about my bear =)
He looks sooo ragged, I can hardly believe it. I've had him my whole life. I got him from my Godfather who I actually don't know.
Story is that when my father and mother lived on the ranch (they trained horses together) my mother and one of the other handlers got into a fight and the guy almost pushed my mother down the stairs when she was pregnant with me. This other guy, who's name I don't even know stepped in and knocked him out. Thus, becoming my Godfather. I guess he got my bear for me too.
Kind of a weird story, but I like it.

Keep Calm and Bake On

My friend Shannon's birthday isn't actually until the 24th but we needed an excuse to have a party and meet some of our other friends' new significant others. Saturday was "The Event". We hung out, drank, played games, the normal shenannigans and had an over all awesome time. I keep seeing this "Keep Calm and Carry On" mantra all over the place, which I don't totally understand. I guess because I'm a spazz. Anyway, I decided to do a little play on words and how perfect is it that I have a ton of this cupcake fabric laying around?!




I really hate what my camera's flash does to thread and how it can wash out fabric. I also hate how just the dim, crappy light in my apartment can make the fabric and thread a little darker looking that it is when the flash isn't on. I really need to make an effort to take pictures during the day using natural light!
On a happier note, I totally freehanded the lettering. I didn't put anything on the fabric first and then trace...I just went with the flow and am so happy with the results!

Instax 2

Here is Instax number 2 in my 52 Photos in 52 Weeks project.



These are my Chucks (Converse, All Stars, Chuck Taylors, etc.). I have quite a few pairs of shoes that I love in their own way but nothing comes close to the love I have for my Chucks.
It all started when I was little, my sister and I practically lived outside. We rode our bikes all day, everyday but we never actually used the brakes. We would just drag our toes to stop the bike. After a while I guess my mom got sick of having to buy us new shoes because we wore through so many of them. She bought us the generic brand chucks because of the rubber toes. As a 6 year old, I had no clue about brand names and what not but when I got older I wanted "real" chucks and that's all I wore for years. There was a brief stint in middle school and the beginning of high school that I sported combat boots (the generic Doc Martin) and Vans. Those Vans were pretty amazing, they were black and I painted them in glitter nail polish and then every few weeks I would paint the rubber around the bottom rainbow colors with my nail polish. Anyway...then there was a rumor that chucks were stopping all their fun colors and designs and they would only be made in red, white, blue and the regular black and white. So of course my friends and I ran down to the mall and bought all the fun colors that we could! I ended up with bright yellow high tops and a pair of plaid low tops, but my plain black and white ones were still my favorite. Somewhere around age twenty I wanted just all black ones and that's all I've worn ever since. It's probably really weird that as soon as I put on these shoes (I'm wearing them as I type!) I feel so comfortable and at home or something. They just make me feel like Me!
It's kind of hilarious to think that at any point we thought chucks were going to stop making all the cool colors and designs when you see all the different ones they have now, it's out of control actually!

Bloglovin'?

So I saw that I have some follwers from Bloglovin'. I keep seeing it around blogland and thought I would check it out. Apparently I have to post this code to claim my own blog over there...which seems weird to me but we'll see what comes of this.

Follow my blog with bloglovin

Craftster Made My Day

So I was having a particularly crummy morning, nothing important...just work related stuff annoying me. I decided to go check Craftster because let's face it, nothing cheers me up like swooning over a fellow crafters work.
There are 3 boards I always check, in this order...
Crochet
Needlework
Clothing

I click on Crochet and what do I see?!



The Owl I made for Shannon is a Hot New Project in the Crochet board!! I've said it before and I will say it again, I love Craftster. I discovered it over 4 years ago and it has completely changed my life. The community of Craftster is amazing, so positive and inspiring. I owe all my crafting abilites, obsession, inspiration and love to Craftster.
There is nothing in the world quite like being recognized at doing something well as the recognition coming from those you admire.

Thank you Craftster for making my day better!

Working on my 2011 Goals

So instead of doing what I should be doing (Vegas Shirts and a Birthday Present), I have been hooking up these adorable Granny Squares. One of my 2011 Craft Goals is to make myself a Granny Square Afghan. Friday Jeremy had surgery so he spent most of the weekend at my house recooperating. We just laid around and watched movies and Arrested Development (love) on Netflix. Since he was in pain, he wasn't up for much snuggling which gave me lots of time to craft! I have a little Caron brand Afghan booklet, you know the ones they have in the little racks hanging off the yarn sections in Joanns? There is the perfect granny square afghan in there so I decided that is the one I will make! I'm using almost the exact same color scheme too just because I love it so much! I only had the red, yellow, green and black yarn on hand so I've been making those ones. I want to incoorperate some blue and purple too.
I need 88 squares total so this is definitely going to take a while. I'm such a crazy person about lists that I even have a giant list of all the color schemes of each square and how many I'll need, etc. There's nothing like checking something off a list!

Some gratuitous granny square shots...





My step mom put all my Christmas presents in this basket and before we left I asked if she wanted it back. She said I could keep it because I "like baskets". I'm not entirely sure what that means, I don't even own any baskets but I couldn't tell her I didn't want it. So I took it home and it has been sitting, empty next to my TV stand. I had nowhere else to put it or store it or anything. THEN! As I was trying to decide where to keep all my granny squares I saw it there, all alone and empty in the corner...BOOM! I shall fill it with my granny squares!!

Instax 1

Here is the first photo I took for my 52 Photos in 52 Weeks project.
This is Jeremy, the love of my life! I took this picture Thursday night just before he was leaving. Every Thursday almost since we've been together, we have dinner together. Sometimes we go out, other times we just order in. We've also started watching movies, etc. I mean we eat dinner together and go out other days but Thursday is set in stone. It's kind of a date night, it's my favrite day of the week.
I also kind of love that his eyes are closed in this picture <3

Earwarmer for Myself!

I made this earwarmer for Liz for Christmas. While I was taking the pictures wearing it, Jeremy was over and said I looked cute in it and that I should make my own. I finished this bad boy up a couple days ago but the batteries in my camera died so I couldn't take pictures. (I really need to get rechargable ones!) It snowed here today which was the perfect opporunity to wear it out!! I even wore it around my apt last night and it kept me toasty warm.





Gaah please don't mind my crazy hair. It was in a pony tail all day and I haven't dyed it in almost 2 weeks!

52 Photos in 52 Weeks

Since the New Year, I've been seeing a bunch of 365 Projects sprouting up around blogland. I really love the idea of taking a picture everyday for an entire year but I think I would get really overwhelmed and not actually enjoy the project. I had a hard enough time with the two journal classes I did everyday for a few months (I didn't even finish the I Heart Fall class!) Over on The Dainty Squid, Kaylah inspired me to take 52 Photos in 52 Weeks. My Mom got me an Instax Mini 7S for Christmas and I've been itching to use it. I think this will be the perfect opportunity!
I've decided that I want to have a theme throughout the pictures but I don't want it to be something that will get repetitive and probably boring. I am going to take a picture every week of What I Love. It's that simple...anyone, any place or anything I love!
Oh and all the pictures will be using my Instax (if I didn't make that clear already) and I think I am going to try to find a little photo album or make my own to keep them all in. I already took a few pictures with the camera and I love the way they look!! (These are not my pictures below, obviously...I don't have a dog!)



I love photographs and taking them but sometimes I hate how with a digital you can really edit what you've taken or take about 100 pictures in no time at all to make sure you get the perfect one. My favorite pictures are from when I was a little kid and you took one picture and that was it. Out of focus, someone blinking or making a funny face, it doesn't matter, that picture goes in the photo album! I'm very excited and I already know what my first picture is going to be of!

Is anyone else doing a 365 or 52 Project or something that is going to run all year?!

Shannon's Owl

Our friends do a Secret Santa every year because otherwise it'd get a little expensive to get presents for everyone between the 5 of us. This year I got Shannon and was so happy because I have been seeing this Rupert the Owl pattern from Irene Strange for a while and really wanted to make him!
Shannon loves owls just as much as I do so I whipped this guy up for her. The pattern was very easy to follow and it was kind of nice crocheting a doll not in the normal amigurumi style with rounds. I don't crochet much where you "turn" at the end of a row so it was good practice. I love that the body is kind of like the granny square style and that I could pick a ton of colors or just a few. I decided to stick with only 3 colors. Mostly white for the body and closed eyes, red for the stripe on the body, the top of his head, his eyes and nose and then I used a darker red around the outside of his head. When Jeremy saw him he kept saying "Why is he wearing a hat?" "Did you attach the hat to that owl?" It was difficult to explain to him that it wasn't a freaking hat!
Anyway...here he is!




At some point I want to make a Rupert of my own!

A few crocheted presents for Liz

A couple weeks ago I showed you a little sneek peak of something I made for Liz.
Now that we have exchanged gifts I can show you what that was, it was actually two little manatees!! Liz loves manatees, we swam with them a few years ago in Florida so I can see why she would. They're pretty darn cute!
Meet Manny and Mary Jo Manatee.





I made Manny (the darker grey one) with a hook one size larger than Mary Jo just so he could be a little bigger. Then I added a little bow on Mary Jo so you would know she's a girl!
I got the pattern from NeedleNoodles. It was a quick pattern and very easy to follow.

Liz also likes to wear those earwarmer/headband things. She has started to like certain shades of yellow too so when I saw someone made one of these on Craftster I decided I wanted to make one for her! Turns out I look pretty cute in it too, so I might make myself one (not in yellow though!)





I found this pattern from JTEastCoast. It worked up ridiculously fast, it says to make 3 flowers but there was no way to fit 3 on there! (I could have if I used a smaller hook but pssh, I like it with just two.) I didn't take a picture of the button holding it together in the back but it was so pretty, silvery with flowers and vines.

I'm officially addicted to crocheting!!

2011 Craft Goals

I've never made a New Year's Resolution. I know myself too well and that I would never stick to something for a whole year. I'm lucky if I stick to something for a week!

I have however, decided that there are a few specific things that I have wanted to make myself for a while but just haven't gotten around to.

1. I would love my own crocheted granny square afghan.







I have no idea about the color scheme or if I even want one or if it will be random colors but I do know I would like it to just be a classic granny square (there are a million fancy granny square motiffs out there). I don't want a giant one for the bed, I would like one to go over the back of the couch and use while lounging around.

2. A crocheted cardigan.







I love cardigans, I wear them almost everyday. I see them as my "grown up hoodie". I pretty much lived in hoodies as a teenager and in my early twenties (holy shit, I feel old saying "early twenties") I love t-shirts and tank tops but when it's cold out I need something to wear over them. So cardigans are a new staple item in my wardrobe. I would really love to make my own. I think this will be a little more difficult since I've never crocheted an article of clothing and the whole "blocking" thing is kind of intimidating. But I really would like to have at least one that I've made myself.

3. I would like my own "Hoop Love" wall.







I am going to try to join one or more of the Craftster swaps so that I can incorporate embroidery hoops from fellow crafters. I also really want to use some of the patterns in the folk art cross stitch book I got at the VNA Sale.

I'm sure I'll be making a bunch of other things for myself throughout the year but those are the 3 major things that I have been thinking about and would really like to try to complete.

Wish me luck! (isn't it so rude when someone tells you to wish them luck?! I mean what if you don't want to?!)