Dec. ST Technique Challenge - Ribbons & Bows

This is for the StoryTellers Club's December Technique Challenge - using ribbons. I used two ribbons for my border across the center of the page. I used a sketch I found from pinterest (http://pinterest.com/pin/44754590018947962/) for this - I don't usually use sketches, but this one was pretty simple and was perfect for my pictures of the kids with Santa.
I used the Winter Frolic Cricut Cartridge for the tag. The papers are from a Christmas SLab from DCWV or PC, I can't remember which. The buttons are from WM.

Mission Layout

I made time to scrapbook today and did a layout for one of the Storytellers monthly challenges. But after I did that, I decided to this layout from my mission. I had the recipe copied and the picture all in with some paper from months ago.  The CS is Recollections & costco, the alpha letters are MM, the lined journaling paper is CM and the cooking utensils are cut from the Everyday Paper Doll Cricut Cartridge.

Christmas Vinyl Window Art

The closest thing to scrapbooking that I did before Christmas...a vinyl cut with my Cricut for the window in our back door. Both cuts were from the Winter Frolic cartridge...the vinyl is on the outside and then I taped a white paper to back it on the inside. Fun, quick little project :)

Merry Christmas

More items added to the "Craft Fair"

Just finished uploading some more items to our online Craft Fair - more crochet and sewing projects that I did, plus wood and ceramic Nativities that my parents made and crocheted items (including some beautiful blankets) that my mom has for sale.  Check them out by clicking on the "Crafts for Sale" tab at the top!  Thanks for visiting!!

Online Craft Fair...

After doing a craft fair this past weekend, my mom and I have quite a bit of hand-crafted stuff left. So I thought I'd put some of it up here - some great gifts available.  Tax is included in all prices and shipping is extra.  Click on the "Crafts for Sale" tab at the top of the blog and enjoy!!  More items will be added over the next day or two.

vintage layout :)



This is a digital layout that I did almost 6 years ago. I'm having to get rid of some pictures on our family blog do to having used up all the photo storage space alloted. So I figured I'd get rid of some of the scrapbook layouts and stuff I've put there over the years. This one was originally with this post



ST Fall Cyber Crop LO (plus a new hat)

This was for the Graveyard Grunge challenge at storytellers club. We had to distress at least 75% of the elements of the LO. So I tore, "sanded" (used an emery board on the edges of all the photos), and inked everything.
The patterned paper is Recollections, the orange cardstock is SEI and the green is Bazzill. The cuttlebug folder I used on the photo mat was from the Give a Hoot Cricut Companion Collection. The alphabet stamps I've had for eons and can't remember where I got them, staples are just staples and I used a green Creative Memories pen for the journaling.
SO happy - this is the first layout I've done since late July!!

 



This was my 4th and final Frankenstein hat!!  This went to Utah for my nephew - his mom's request is what got me started on these to begin with.
I've done three sizes and ended up writing my own pattern based on one I found on pinterest to get the original 3/6 month size hat to fit 6 & 10 year old heads (because once he found out I was making them for his 6 yo brother and  6 yo cousin, my 10 yo wanted one too...and ended up with the first one because it was two big for the younger boys).
I'll post pictures of the other ones later.



Little Froggie (and revised pumpkin head)

I saw a frog hat on pinterest and thought it was so cute - but there was no pattern with it. So, between 3 pictures, 4 patterns and my own idea, I created this cute little froggie hat.
I see hats with these braided ties all over the place so wanted to give one a try. I used Simply Soft Pistachio (I think) for most of it, and then some random white and Red Heart black for the rest of it.
I wrote down most of what I did.
Now I need to finish it and then try it again to see if it works :)
This one is for the craft fair.

Reluctant model again...but I got a couple better pictures of my Pumpkin Head :)
She stretched it out so badly the first time she wore it, that it fell over her face. I asked my crochet expert (my grandma) and she said I could do a single crochet decrease around the bottom and that should make it fit better, and keep her from stretching it so easily.
So, yesterday evening sitting at a soccer game, I did just that - and it fits perfectly now and hasn't stretched out much (even when she used it for a bag to carry Duplo blocks in this evening.) I wrote down this pattern too, but need to do it again to see if I missed anything.
Now, I need to finish the Frankenstein hats that got me started on this...and finish some scrapbook layouts, and do some new layouts, oh yeah, and housework...and write a talk for Church on Sunday...it never ends :)

Pumpkin Head

I've been calling Grace that for ages :) And now she really is one. I adapted a Frankenstein Hat pattern and changed things, etc. and made a jack o'lantern hat. (Frankenstein ones are in progress). I used simply soft pistachio for the stem and red heart pumpkin (left over from Nathaniel's scarf) for the main part of the hat. And then felt cut outs for the facial features (I guess jack o'lanterns have faces). Grace loves it, but I wish I'd taken a picture when I first finished it and put it on her because she stretched it out so badly. Gotta' figure out how to fix that.

Some more scarves

This is some "fun fur" or "fun fiber" or whatever you call it that I've had kicking around for several years. I finally decided I wanted to do something with it and just did this quick double crochet scarf - with a large hook, can't remember what size it was, I think I wrote it down. It's not overly wide and not too long - just a nice fun scarf.

This is a ruffle scarf that I made off of a free pattern from Red Heart I picked up at JoAnns over Christmas Vacation. I totally ignored the yarn suggestions, both color and type, and how they did the colors (each "side" a different color - and the colors they used - just didn't look good) I like to play with different kinds of yarns - sometimes the work out and sometimes they don't. This red is a soft warm one, and the white is a lighter, pearly one - kind of pain to work with at times. It turned out so nice!
Brian calls it my "Mrs. Claus" scarf because of the colors.

Both of these are in my craft fair collection to try and sell this winter. I need to make some more if I can get over my thing for hats :) 

Another hat and a couple of layouts

 

I made this hat to go with a sweater my grandma knit for Grace for her birthday. I loved the colors...and I have fabric to make a dress for her that has flecks of of orange in it and will be nice and fallish with this hat and the sweater.

I knew what kind of hat I wanted to go with the sweater, but I had to find a pattern...preferably a free one. I finally found this one on Pinterest. The bow didn't work with what I had in mind, I wanted a pom pom on top (I think I'm going to go back and make a little bigger one though). I ended up making two...i thought this one was just too big for Grace, but the smaller one I made was too small. I looked at the original picture again and saw that it is really designed to pull down over the ears...tried it again and it's a little big, but it works :)

This was a really fun pattern - I love when I learn new stitches or something (I learned how to do two hdc together to decrease and a popcorn stitch...fun!)

The yarn is actually from my great grandmother's stash that my grandma has...old Dazzleaire - soft and fuzzy and fun!

 

These two layouts are for Nathaniel's baby book. I did them in July, but just finally had a chance to get out my Cricut and alphabet stickers and finish them up with titles.

The BROTHER'S KEEPER layout used bazzil CS, costco CS, the Zoo Day Cricut Cart. alphabet, CM journaling block & pen...and i can't remember the plaid paper -I've had it for ages.

DADDY'S BOY is done on some embossed brown CS (can't remember that either), some blue CM CS, the star punch is CM as are the little blue alphabet stickers (which I outlined in brown). The brown alpha stickers are Storyteller's Club.

The fiber is some I've had for awhile too...hopefully in the next week or so I'll get the other LOs I did in July finished up.

Baby blankets and hats

I have two first cousins. They are both younger than I am - around the ages of my two youngest sister. They were both expecting babies this summer - yay more babies in the family!!  One cousin was expecting her 3rd daughter and her sister was expecting her first baby - a little boy!

 

The little girl arrived in early July...this is her blanket. I used a pattern I'd seen in a JoAnns' flyer a year or so ago and had just been waiting to try it out. I made the border on it white instead of the same color of the blanket as the pattern said. I like the contrast much better. I can't even remember if the pattern had a name, but I called it the Heart Blanket because the stitches are a cross over double crochet and that made it look like little hearts :) The yarn was some my grandma had given me years ago and I finally put it to use :)

I've been on a hat kick lately - and with the great niece and nephew that arrived in March, I started doing hats to send with the blankets I make (because I have too many patterns to make them all for Grace, poor girl would have to wear 2 hats a day)
So I decided for my cousin, to make matching hats for her three daughters. At least matching in colors and hat pattern - I made each flower different. The pattern is one that I got from a designer in New Zealand I think (one of my few not free patterns, but it was so worth the $4! I love it!)

A1 - she's 5 years old

A2 - she is 2 years old

A3 - the new baby

All my cousin's girls have names that start with A and they are so cute!!! I've only met A1 in person - when she was two and they came out for my youngest sister's wedding. There are a lot of states between us in California and them in Tennessee, sadly.

 

My other cousin's little boy came into the world in mid-August. Such a cutie!  I had a hard time with his blanket, though. I wanted to use this yarn so much...but every pattern I tried (3 knit ones and 2 crochet ones, I think), just didn't work with this busy Simply Soft yarn. But I was not going to find a different yarn. This was the one I was going to do! Brian kept saying, "Do the same pattern as the pink one, that's a nice one." Well, I wanted to do something different, I have so many patterns that I want to try, I didn't want to do a repeat so soon. Plus, I didn't want to do the same blankets for these new little first cousins. Finally, after a month and a half, I tried that JoAnns' pattern and wow - did I love the results. So glad I thought of that :) And, in this busier multi-colored yarn, the "hearts" don't show up and it looks very masculine and doesn't look like the pink blanket. So I was happy. I think the body of the blanket was done in Driftwood and the border was done in Bone - both Simply Soft by Caron.

And then, of course, the hat. Now this little boy's dad wears hats a lot - it's how we find him when he's on TV with the band he plays with ('cause I know nothing about guitars and couldn't tell what was a bass and what was whatever the others are called for anything). So I knew when I came across this pattern right after we learned my cousin was expecting, that if she had a boy, this was the hat I'd make. I found this pattern on pinterest and online somewhere for free. It was newborn size, but I just used a bigger hook to make it a little larger since he's now almost 2 months old and I just finished it last week.
The tweedy yarn is more stuff that my grandma gave me years back..it split a lot, but it was the perfect color and texture for this little newsie hat. The button was from my scrapbooking stash.
Now, I just need to find a box to put these in and send them off to Tennesse!



Birthday scrapping

Last week, for my birthday, I got some free time to scrapbook. I'm trying to work on Nathaniel's baby pictures since 1) I haven't done many 2) he'll be six next month and 3) I forget what he looked like as a baby :(

I got 2 layouts completed and 1 more almost done - just waiting for journaling.

The double page layout was done using a kit from Miss Elizabeth (dollar store) that my sister gave me several years ago - when N was a year old or less. The vellum quotes I used on them are older than that - I got them when I did Joshua's baby album (when he was 3) 7 years ago.

The one page layout used a piece of Basic Gray paper that someone gave me - and the vellum quote was also in a box of stuff that the same nice person sent me. All the cardstock on both is Bazzill. On the one pager I also used my cool tab punch that I don't use nearly as often as I should because I love it!

Almost forgot about this one...I did this the week before. I just had to scrapbook one day...I needed my therapy :) I've had this picture printed out since December or January and just haven't gotten around to doing my annual "kids in front of the tree" page. So I trimmed it up, but left enough white for a border to look like I matted it :), found some paper I liked to go with it (a DCWV or PC Christmas stack - circa 2006 or 2007), some twine (from Storytellers - circa 2005) and gold alphabet stickers that I bought at Staples (probably 2004, maybe 2005).  Took me hardly any time at all, but felt great to get it done.  And I'm liking using up old stuff that's been kicking around for years.

Vinyl fun...

I've been wanting to do vinyl wall quotes for ages. Finally, I took the time to do it. It was part of Brian's Father's Day. He wanted this:


I used the Design studio program for all of these.  I welded "you" and "pray" using the program.
I used Cherry Limeade, Once Upon a Princess and Alphalicious for these letters.

I'd made these little swirly things to go at either end of the prayer quote, but decided I didn't like them. I like them here very well...they were on the Storybook cartridge. I may add something more -not sure yet.

This is one the kids asked for. My tan vinyl didn't show up as well as I'd hoped, but we know it's there. I used the Home Décor cartridge for the word "love" and Lyrical Letters for "is spoken here". This was my first wall vinyl attempt. The contact paper I was using as transfer tape was too tacky or something and things did not go well (probably being as it was pushing 1130 at night and I was balancing on the arm rest of the futon didn't help either). I used extra wide masking tape as my transfer tape the next day on all the rest and had no problems at all.

When we were at Brian's sister's last week, I loved how they had "Welcome" in vinyl on their front door.
So this is one I wanted :) I used Alphalicious and Bloom cartridges.

This was a quote I found on line because I wanted something in the kitchen :)
I used the Winter Frolic cartridge (for Season - I cut off the trees that were attached), Botanicals (capital letters) and Home Décor (love and hearts) 



More butterfly hats...

This one turned out infant size...I did it with the same size hook as I did the white one (G or H, I can't remember now) but it's a finer yarn. Going to try this with a different stitch for the body of the hat above the butterfly.

I did a little variation on this one..I did a cross-over or twist stitch on the body of the hat above the butterfly (you can kind of see it in the picture) and then used a contrasting color for the last row and the center of the butterfly. This one would probably fit Grace, but if I tried it on her she'd decide it was hers and it's really for the craft fair/gift/sell bag.

I've been wanting to see if this looked nice in just plain white, and it does. Again, this is probably the same size as the purple one, but I can't have Grace model it until she understands that not every hat is hers :)

MSD...

Well, I didn't really get much done for MSD this year. Just so many other things going on this month. This is one that I did for "Italy" a few weeks back. I never got it posted on the Storytellers site because I never had time to take a picture of it until yesterday.

Joshua - two years ago - with a lemonade stand to raise money for our library to help with costs so it didn't close. He raised over $100. I used a Storytellers kit for this, but I'm not sure what year it was from. loved the bright summery colors :)

Another hat...

Here's another hat...this one was going to be for the craft fair collection, but Grace decided differently. She likes the flower :)

I made it from this http://www.etsy.com/listing/62815194/crochet-hat-pattern-flower-power-cap

pattern.

My flower looked like I had sewn it on higher on the hat at first, but when I got finished I realized that it had slipped...but she doesn't care a bit :)

I made two more of the butterfly hats in the past few days...used the same size hook for both of them, but different weight/size yarn and one is about Grace's size and the other is infant size.

I'm enjoying making hats!

Flat Stanley...

In kindergarten here, they read Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown and the make Flat Stanleys and mail them around the world to friends and family.

So far,these are the only that we know he's received. Hopefully in the backlog pile that his teacher has, she'll find some others of his. His almost twin (they're a month apart) cousin Geddy received a visit from Flat Stanley/Nathaniel and he showed FSN a good time in Payson, UT.

Then he and his mom emailed us the pictures, which I printed out and made this layout with.

Nathaniel loved the layout! And someday wants to go visit Geddy and his cool playground :)

Another old layout

Another old layout of Nathaniel...November 2007 in our front yard "raking" leaves.