Crafting 101

My apologies for neglecting my blog! Life has been absolutely crazy during August and the first part of September. We are going through another deployment so we are trying to get into a routine and all that and of course, school has started! I have been busy busy and have made loads of things lately that I will need to get put up here. I hope that you are still hanging around and will check out my blog in the next few days. Happy September!!

Oh my goodness, I can’t believe that June is here! It seems that this year just started, but here we are halfway through it! Sorry for the lack of posts lately, it’s the end of the school year which means softball is in full swing and ending, ballet just ended with our recital and everything that goes on with school is going on!

But I have been sewing, yes, sewing a lot! I have so much to show you! The girls have been to a lot of birthday parties recently so I made bags for all the kids (luckily, they were all girls!) and I realized that I never posted a neat birthday gift I made for a little boy. It’s totally recyclable which I know everyone likes these days. So be looking for posts soon with everything I’ve been making.

Today my plan is to spend the day sewing. I got a lot of fabric on sale when our Wal-Mart (snif, snif) got rid of their fabric department so while I got some good stuff at a good price, now my only option is JoAnn’s which is a thirty minute drive or Hancock’s which is just down the street from JoAnn’s. I don’t mind those stores (especially our new JoAnn’s which is AWESOME!) but they are more expensive than Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart was less than five minutes away, JoAnn’s are about thirty. That might not be far for some of you, but around here, I have to have a good reason for going that way since it’s so far out!

Anyways, I thought I’d post! Check back to see what else I’ve been making and hopefully I’ll have several bags for you to see from what I’ve done today! TTFN!

So right now, my life is absolutely crazy and I’m doing all I can to earn a few extra bucks in an effort to keep our heads above water. So I’m revamping my Crafting 101 schedule since I don’t have time to spend the next few months creating the videos I want to and make them look nice. So for right now, so I know I’ll be able to post something daily, I’m going to be posting any and everything to do with crafts. I’ve done a lot of crocheting lately and some sewing and I want/need to do more so I can get some things sold and deplete my overflowing stash of fabric and yarn. So I figure I’d just do like a hodge-podge over the next few months and when life slows down, maybe I can spend an entire month over one specific subject. I do hope to spend a month on sewing and have some guest artists contribute so I plan on working on that. I hope everyone is cool with the change, if you have any ideas or suggestions or if you come across a cool website that I can feature. I’ll post things like that to spread the word.

Starting tomorrow I’ll have some posts showing what I’ve done over the past few weeks. I’ve already shown you some things, but I have more that I want to show you. I’ve become pretty crafty at some new things and my friend Amanda has helped me get some things done and taught me some new trips that I have loved learning how to do. So I hope you’ll join me here at Crafting 101!

So I’m not happy that my videos are still not ready, I want to show them to you guys! I hope you’ve had a chance to see the coaster pattern and hopefully you’ve been able to try it out. I think it looks neat and works up quick. I am crocheting a few things and should have them done tomorrow for you to see. My girls and I are going to a lock-in this weekend so I’m making us backpacks to wear to keep our things in. I hope they look good!

So since we had some neat winter photos, I made them into a short slideshow that I’d love for you to see. It’s just a few pictures, but they are some of the best! Check it out!

Winter Wonderland
Snow hardly falls in Central Virginia, but March roared in with snow blanketing tree limbs causing a beautiful landscape outside our windows. The sun slowly finds it way through the clouds to produce a fitting backdrop to the unexpected day.
http://www.associatedcontent.comslideshow/13112/winter_wonderland.html

So I hope that those of you who already know how to crochet are making something. I’d love to see the things you are making!  And if you don’t know how to crochet, stick around because I will have videos for you, I promise! I hope that you are doing well. We are warming up here and the snow is about gone. It’s sad as I love the snow and how pretty it looks undisturbed. But it never lasts unless I lived in the Arctic! Well, TTFN and tune in tomorrow!

Here are today.com, they like for us to host videos on their servers instead of linking them from some place else. I have uploaded my videos, but I am currently waiting for them to be approved before I am able to post them on here. So my posts on learning the stitches will be delayed by a day, hopefully not any longer than that!

So instead of not learning anything or not posting anything today, I wanted to get something up here for you. So I went searching for stuff! We are going to be learning the basic stitches of crochet this week and one website that I came across is called Crochet Patterns Only and the patterns listed here use all the stitches that we’ll be using this week.  What I love about her patterns are they are quick and easy so if you want to practice your stitches, there are several small projects to make.

One pattern that I liked on her site (well, I liked all of them, but this is one I think I will try and make tonight) is for a little wrist bag. I go out with my friends a lot and this is a cute thing to bring so I don’t have to bring my purse out when we go to eat. I have plenty of yarn to make it, but it also uses single crochet stitches so you can practice them once you see the video tomorrow.

She also has a cute pattern for squid and octopus finger puppets and  a baby sock laundry bag which I would have loved years ago, but I think I’ll work one of those up really quick. I might make four of them, actually six so I can put all of our socks in their own bag! Maybe it’ll keep the dryer monster from eating one of the socks in a pair! LOL! Check out her pattern for a scrap trap . Basically, it holds your scraps of yarn that you cut off the ends of projects so you have them all in one place to throw away. You have to check out her blog to see the pics!

So tune in tomorrow to see the videos. Hopefully they will be ready! If not, I’ll come up with something else to teach you! Have a great day and keep warm or keep cool!

Here in central Virginia, we don’t get much snow. So for it to snow seven inches overnight, we were having some fun! No school today or tomorrow so my girls are enjoying the unexpected time off. I snapped a photo of my kids on the sidewalk in front of our townhome. My youngest was not excited about the snow or the cold and for the life of us we could not find matching gloves for anyone! The only one with a snowsuit is Kathryn, my three year old and that’s because it’s from when Megan, my now seven-year-old was two! But that’s life when you live in a place that doesn’t see much snow!

Our family takes loads of photos so as of this post, we’ve taken over 100 in about a 24 hour period. You can see them all here. I have decided that I need to make me some gloves or fingerless mittens since it’s so cold right now and it’s MARCH! But it’s suppose to be in the seventies come this weekend. Weird weather!

Now to get away from the subject and talk about some crocheting! I am excited because I have made some videos to show the basic stitches in crochet. I had hoped to edit them last night, but with the excitement of snow and school cancellations and my husband having to call those beneath him constantly to report time changes for when they had to arrive, the evening came and went! The dishes didn’t even get washed! Anyways, I have spent the afternoon making and editing the videos and will be posting the first two in tomorrow’s post with the other two the following day. I hope that they will help you out. I appreciate any comments you have so that I can make them even better for you the viewer and learner here at Crafting 101! TTFN!

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!

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!

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!