Crafting 101

So I’m using the next week to gear up for all of March’s blog posts on crochet. It’ll be titled Crochet 2.0 which means I’ll go over the simple things we learned way back when and then show you how to do other things with crochet. It’ll be fun!

Back in June 2008, we learned all about the basics of crochet.  I taught you how to single, double and triple crochet. I showed you tons of neat patterns on using those stitches. March will be even better! I’ll spend the first week of March reviewing the basics. Then I’ll spend two weeks showing you new stitches complete with patterns. In fact, I just made a dishcloth using one of the stitches I’m going to show you and I have another project that I plan on working on that shows you a new stitch. The last week of March will be patterns, patterns and more patterns! I’m going to try and write some new ones if I can (March is so busy for us), but I’m trying to start selling the patterns that I need to have some people testing them. So be ready to make some new things!

April and May are Knitting 2.0 and Sewing 2.0 which is basically the same thing as Crochet 2.0. I am lining up some of my friends who love to sew to write some tutorials up for you guys. I know some great gals that love to sew! Be ready for that! During April, I’m also going to feature a lot of mailing lists that I’m on that if you’re a knitter, you’ve got to be a member of. Not only will they help you with the basics of knitting, they’ll show you these new stitches too that I’ll be teaching you.

So that’s just a preview of the next few months. Like I said, March is busy for us, but is there anyone that’s not busy if you’ve got four kids and a husband? LOL! Well, hope you have a great week! TTFN!

So I found these on the internet and they are too CUTE! At least I think they are! You can purchase them here, but when I saw them, I was like, I can do this! Basically, they are two pillows with hearts on them and a rope between the two hearts showing that you two are linked together with love. See the little black images? Those are the man going across the rope to his woman standing on top of the heart. Isn’t that romantic? I would love to make these for my hubby and I. He’d probably be like, what were you thinking? But I wouldn’t care!

To make these, I’d take two plain white pillow cases. I’d also get some red cotton fabric and cut out two heart shapes. Simply sew the hearts on to the pillows or you can even purchase some of that heat glue tape stuff so you can iron it on. To make the man and woman, you can find some images online you like or use pictures of yourself. Color them in black in a photo program and print them out on fabric paper. Use the heat glue tape stuff since sewing that might be impossible! For the rope, you could use ribbon and sew or glue it on. I’d say you could make these in an afternoon especially if you don’t sew them, but use the glue stuff.

So hope your weekend is going well. Mine has so far! TTFN!

So I know that Valentine’s Day is over, but it’s never too early to start thinking about next year or adapting these ideas for other gifts throughout the year. For example, see this cute picture? It’s a cute Valentine’s card for girls (you can view how to make these here), but I can adapt these to make some shamrock barrettes that are green or Christmas trees at Christmas and you can do little bunnies at Easter. See? It’s that easy! I know my girls would love these!

I wanted to share this website with you: FamilyFun.com. For all the Valentine’s gifts, check them out here.  If you’ve been following me for awhile, you know I’ve found some neat ideas on their website. But I never realized which website I was actually going to. Ever had that happen? You search for items all over the internet and findlinks here and projects there, yet never really pay attention to where you’ve started from and where you’ve ended? I do this a lot! Anyways, while at piano lessons last night, my friend Christy showed me the Family Fun magazine and she was showing me some ideas in there that she wanted to use for an upcoming event at church. I was like, what’s this magazine? So not only does Family Fun have their website, they’ve got a magazine too! I just had to share!

Now, I don’t think that I ever showed you what I got for Valentine’s Day. Well, I actually got them on Friday the 13th, my husband (who doesn’t celebrate the holiday) said these weren’t for Valentine’s Day, they were just flowers because I love you, but they happened to arrive around the holiday. I personally didn’t care, I got flowers which only happens a few times a year so I’m blessed!  I thought they were very pretty and they even came with a balloon that said “I Love You!” which was cute.

So I hope you are doing well. Sorry for missing a few days. The holiday weekend threw me off some! Hope you are enjoying whatever weather you are having. It’s raining/snowing here which makes for a mess if you are out in it! Fortunately, we are warm inside the house! TTFN!

I hope that everyone had a fantastic Valentine’s Day! We had a nice day. I dressed the kids up in matching shirts (well, the girls at least!) and we had a nice dinner out and went to a museum. I then surprised the kids with their gifts! I usually get them candy or a stuffed animal, but I went practical this year and made them the pillows and Jonathan the Mickey Mouse ears. Here are the kids with their pilows and the cute Mickey Mouse ears! Jonathan loves them, but won’t keep them on for very long! I think they turned out cute. I will post a pattern to make them soon. I didn’t write down what I did, but Megan wants some ears, but wants them pink so when I make hers, I’ll write the pattern down. It was super simple.

So for the rest of the month, I’m going to get some patternsor projects that would be great for presents for anytime during the year. Sorry I’ve been kind of out of it lately, but being sick for a few days didn’t help! I’ve got a few projects I have found so I’m going to get those ready to go!

So, did anyone make anything that I suggested? If you did, LMK and I’d be happy to share it with my readers and will send them to your blog so everyone benefits! Again, Happy Valentine’s Day and have a great week!

So, what have you purchased for your honey or sweetheart? As far as my hubby and I go, he’s not a fan of Valentine’s Day so we have never celebrated it in our twelve years of marriage or in the three years of dating. I think he might have gotten me an orange carnation from the high school store while we were in high school just because I love carnations and orange is my favorite color and that’s the only time they sell them when they are orange! (Our school colors were orange and white!)

Anyways, even though the DH and I don’t celebrate it with each other, I love doing something sweet for the kids. Well, this year, I didn’t want to purchase yet another stuffed animal since they have so many already and I actually ran out of time to make them anything because I’ve been sick since Monday (and when you are sick, you don’t want to do ANYTHING!) so it was up to finding something at the store today.

So I’m piddling around in the craft department, my most favorite part of the store. I went ahead and grabbed some pink and red acyrlic yarn, you know, the huge Red Heart skeins of yarn. I didn’t know what I wanted to make, but they had those colors and they were on sale so gotta purchase them! But in that section were these neat no-sew pillows with High School Musical and Hannah Montana theme. Back at Christmas time, these things were at least $19.96. Well, I’ve got three girls into these things so I’m like, ain’t gonna happen! Well, today, they were $5 each! Can’t beat that! So under the original price of one, I got three! Now I just have to put them together tomorrow while they are in school and while Kathryn is occupied! But they are no sewing required, shouldn’t take long.

But for the boy. What to do for the boy? Well, he’s suddenly gotten interested in Mickey Mouse. We found him the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on clearance at Wal-Mart for like $17, originally $49.97 and he’s having a ball with it! I thought about making him Mickey Mouse, like crocheting it, but that would take too long. So I decided to make him some ears! You know, the black ears you can get from Disney World, but probably cost $10 or more? Well, I’ve got black yarn and I’m just going to knit him a beanie cap and put two circles for the ears on it and voila! You’ve got ears! I think he’ll like that.

Well, that’s the plan. I do realize that Valentine’s Day is about 24 hours away, about 30-36 if you add the time they will be sleeping to that. I have a playdate tomorrow and I’m going out with the girls Friday night so I just have the afternoon/early evening to get it all done! I might head upstairs and work on the hat tonight, I’ve got the first few rounds finished. I suppose if I crocheted it, it’d be done already, but I really want to knit it. So wish me luck! TTFN!

While I’m not a huge fan of chocolate, it seems to be the thing to give on Valentine’s Day. But, it can get pricey if you have a lot to buy!

So this is what I do. Go to the dollar store and purchase their baking molds in the shape of hearts. They are usually either 50 cents or $1 each. Then head over to the grocery store and buy a box of chocolate squares to melt. You can choose which type of chocolate you want: white, dark, medium, etc. Once you are home, melt the chocolate one cube at a time according to the package (if it doesn’t melt after the first 30 seconds, do it for another 30 seconds. NEVER melt chocolate more than 30 seconds at a time for the fear you’ll burn the chocolate and your bowl!!!) Once it’s melted, place the chocolate in your molds and let them set for about an hour or so, depending on how deep or how big your mold is.

The one in the picture is one I made the other day. I let it sit overnight just to make sure it set and wouldn’t be liquid when I pulled it out. I actually used some foil heart-shaped Jello molds I had on top of the fridge.  I took medium dark chocolate and put that on the bottom to about halfway up the mold. Then I let it set it a little while I melted the white chocolate. I poured it on top of the chocolate and with a little bit of chocolate that I had left, I did some swirls on the top. After it was ready, I wrapped it in plastic and tied it with a red ribbon!

If you have a bunch of small ones, you can put them into a cute Valentine’s bag a deliver them that way. I made some of these at Christmas too, but used snowman shapes and Christmas tree shapes. So don’t be afraid, try it out!

So today, we are visiting Crochet Pattern Central’s sister site, Knitting Pattern Central! Those two go hand-in-hand!

I love knitting dishcloths (if you ever came over and saw my stash, you’d know I like them!) so I always think it’s neat to make them to be able to give away at anytime of the year. So one of today’s patterns is a knitted dishcloth with hearts on it! The pattern can be found here at KnitsbyRachel.com. I love how it has five hearts on it like a card! I plan on making some of these!

Now if you’ve read any of my blogs, you know I have three girls. And my three girls love socks! Yes, they do! So when I saw these, I was like, I must make these! Now, since i’m not very fast with socks, I’m not sure when I’d have these done, but I can sure try! Thanks to Minna Productions for the pattern!

The final small little cute knitted item that I found were these cute little hearts! These are from MochiMochi Blog and I think they are super cute! They don’t seem to take much yarn, be sure it’s wool because you will be felting these little guys! I think these would be neat for everyone. You can change their expressions too depending on how you make them.

So I hope that you’ve enjoyed these few cute Valentine’s Day items. I need to get cracking with some stuff for the kid’s teachers and for my own kids! TTFN!

I’m still on the crocheting kick today! LOL! I’m hoping that you’ll enjoy what I found today. Have you ever heard of Crochet Pattern Central? If not, they are the coolest place to find all sorts of free patterns to crochet. I love them because everything is separated into categories so you can easily find what you are looking for.

Today I looked under their Valentine’s category. There are over twenty different patterns to choose from depending on what you are looking for. The first one that caught my eye was this Beaded Valentine Bag. The pattern was posted on Suzie’s Stuff blog. I think it is super cute! I am thinking of making these for my girl’s teachers to put them a nice goodie bag together.

The second one that caught my eye was this cute “I Heart U” pillow. Isn’t that adorable? You can check out the pattern here. I think I’ve decided that this is what the kids are getting this year. I’m tired of buying stuffed animals when they have a ton so I think they will like this one. Now I just gotta get busy!

The third one is this cute little Valentine’s candy basket . It’s just so cute and tiny! Perfect for a few pieces of candy and that’s about all.   I know my girls would like that. Plus all their friends and you know, I have so much red and white yarn, I doubt I’d have to go buy any at all to do all these projects!

That’s one thing that I love about small projects. They don’t require the use of much yarn so you can use up the scraps that you have lying around and you don’t feel guilty about buying more yarn!

So I hope that you are enjoying a few new patterns that if you start this week, they’ll be done before V-Day! I am going to get cracking in the midst of all the other things I must get done! TTFN!

In my search for Valentine-themed craft items, I came across this one item that would make a great gift for your daughter, a niece, your grandmother or make it for a teacher gift.

What I found was a crochet pattern for a heart bookmark. This took me like less than an hour to make. I’m not sure how long it took me since I had to cook dinner while making it! But it was really quick. I like it because you can use the red and white or use pink and white, pink and red, even throw in some purple or yellow.

You can find the pattern here. I would imagine that you’d need to iron the heart to make it nice and flat which I will probably do since I think I’m going to give each of their teachers one with a new book plus make one for my two older girls.  Like I said, you can get creative and if someone likes other colors, then use those. Also, if you make one, I’d love to see a photo of it and I’ll write about it here. TTFN!

Yep, it’s the first day of February and it’s also the day the Super Bowl is on the television! So how are you celebrating this day? We are at home, having cheese dip, wings and other finger type foods while watching the game. I’m also tying my quilt. Whew! I’m hoping to get much of it done while the game is on. I can see why groups of ladies meet together to tie quilts!

Since it is February, it’s time to think Valentine’s Day! If you have children, then you know they exchange Valentine’s on the 14th or whenever their party is at school or daycare. My older two exchange them at school, my younger two at playgroup and then they all exchange them at church.

Now, I know that everyone loves heading to the store and buying premade Valentine’s cards with popular characters on them. Well, in our house, we make all of ours. It takes several evenings to do this, so we usually start two weeks before Valentine’s Day (that’s why I’m posting about this today!). It’s quite simple!

You don’t need many materials, but here’s a sampling of what you can use. First, you need pink, white and red paper. This could be construction paper or cardstock depending on what you are making. You might need scissors and glue as well. Gather heart stickers, Valentine’s stickers, whatever pretty or neat stickers you want to use. You can also get the foam stickers from the craft stores that are peel and stick.

Now, gather your kids at the kitchen table and spend the next few hours or days making cards. I don’t bother with envelopes, I make sure they write the person’s name on the front. I also make a list of who all the Valentine’s need to go to so we don’t make too many! And don’t forget to have them make them for Mom and Dad or the grandparents! Have fun!