Life Lately

Life has been a bit stressful in our neck of the woods. If you follow my other blog Adventures with our '76 Layton Trailer you'll quickly see why the stress level here is at sky high levels. We have a looming deadline of June 12 to complete it all by for our trip to the Olympic National Forest! Yikeez! Here's a pic of hubby fiddeling I think with paper.

I spy with my little eye...a 2 yr. old!

At the beginning of May I participated in an online vampire themed Ravelry swap.

Here's my awesome little swap package! I was definitely very spoiled by my swappee. And she included the most delicious homemade Oreo truffles!!

My swap package went to my swap partner in France. I sewed a 16" hex frame knitting bag I found the knitting bag tutorial for it at U-Handblog. It was pretty easy and fun to sew.

Other than this swap package, the trailer has been consuming our time. It is quite a large undertaking. Larger than we originally anticipated. It has put a hault on any puppet making or listing of a new load of vintage goodies in both my Etsy shops. It's been a scary month! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

A Fairy Went A Marketing

Originally uploaded by Ruhammie

I joined A Fairy Went a Marketing swap a month or so ago. It was all due by March 1st. Each person was to create a pixie pouch using MissyFae's tutorial and create ten of the same items that a fairy would like/use/want. Here's one side of my pixie pouch, the other side has two more suede patches with beads and buttons too. All items were from my stash. It's a really cute little bag...I may make more for gifts or something, they are a perfect size for many, many things. I also made ten tiny blue silk market bags that a fairy needs to keep her fairy "cash" in. Each bag included an energy crystal, four Idaho star garnets (yes, real ones actually from Idaho that I dug out of the ground) and a copper key on an ID bracelet to the Rainbow Bank (cuz fairy's keep their gold at the end of the rainbow). As soon as I recieve my pouch that someone else made, with ten different items in it made by ten different people, I'll share with you all. :)

On a technical side note...I CANNOT for the life of me figure out how to get more than one pic from my Flickr page to a blog post. Is this possible?? Is there a way? I linked the pics but I'd rather bring them over to this blog. Anyone have any suggestions?

Ornament exchange package surprises!

Yep, that's right...this was my super creative, awesome idea I came up with ALL on my own... only to research it (after I made some prototypes) and learn that they've been thought of already. :( However, the ones I found on Etsy are not two pieces sewn together like mine. There were all sorts of different kinds using real acorn caps. I like mine the best though. :)

Now that my swap partner has recieved her enchanting package of goodies, I can show you what I made for her...I just COULDN'T RESIST making a couple of cloth diaper covers for her 10 month old. My mom gave me a pattern and instructions, but I didn't like how they were put together, so I changed it. So, Natalie, if there are any issues with these diaper covers, please, PLEASE let me know. I would like to try to perfect how I make them so that I can make a WHOLE BUNCH! I also sent her a few of my favorite teas and a cute little set of notecards I just happened upon while browsing Pier 1.
I made SO MANY of the acorns, in the end I decided to send her the most "Christmas-y" ones. I think the rest will go on Etsy...I'm just debating if I should add the little holly berries and leaves to all of them or just the "Christmas-y" ones. I ended up with several shapes and sizes, I was trying to achieve the pointy tip like the real ones had (in lower left of the photo). Sewing that small was pretty easy, but to get a point like that was a little difficult. Fabric doesn't want to get that pointy when it's that small.

I also recieved Natalie's package for me!!! What perfect timing, we received them the same day! She sent a WHOLE BUNCH of goodies all wrapped in tissue paper and labeled with her recycled labels (I'm gonna do that this year, I've saved my Christmas cards)....just look at it all...There were three ribbon pinecone ornaments, eight felt leaves for decoration (my three year old can't get enough of them, he's constantly wanting to play with them), a pinecone bracelet and one HUGE bar of dark chocolate (my favorite!! and my toddlers favorite too!). We couldn't wait to try the chocolate, I think we opened it before we opened the rest of the tissue covered packages. heehee! It's got a good flavor to it, I can tell it has a different type of sugar than our American chocolates.
I LOVE the colors of the ribbon she used! The green one is AWESOME...She's very good with selecting colors I would say. :)

Isn't this bracelet cool?? I've never seen a bead so pine-coney! It's really neat!

THANK YOU NATALIE! It's all so fun and wonderful!

Ornament Arrival

YEAY!! That's right, my enchanted ornament arrived finally!! It got mixed up at the post office, sent back to the sender before coming my way again! I got two "made with love" and very enchanting ornaments, a pair of super soft and I'm sure toasty warm socks, a tin with some chocolates that the three-year old has already eaten, a stocking with a package of hot cocoa and Erin's favorite chocolate (YUM!! How did she know I like DARK chocolate??), a Santa and a package of small ornaments. Nice!!

I got the CUTEST little owl and gnome ornaments! Doesn't the owl have the cutest expression??

Thank you Erin!! It's all great!

Enchanted Forest Ornamets Completed!

YEAY! I've completed my first swap! Valerie of YarniGras and YarniGras Swapper Spot hosted an Enchanted Forest Ornament Swap that I participated in. Below is the pic of everything I'll be sending off tomorrow. One adorable little hedgehog, two sweet little owlets in their holiday colored nests, lots and LOTS of little chocolates, some friendship tea and a pine scented candle for all the critters to feel at home in the forest when it's lit.

I've bundled them all among a red garland (instead of packing peanuts or bubble wrap) inside the tin with the enchanting tree on the lid. :)

These two little owlets were so fun to make! I think I'm going to make more for Christmas gifts this year. My favorite part of this whole swap was that I got to buy more yarn!! FIVE NEW SKEINS!!! The brown is a super soft alpaca/acrylic blend by Bernat (it's so soft and they had great neutral colors to choose from), I lost the label to the white one but I think it's a Lion's Brand, the orange is Lion Wool (which I'm so excited to possibly use the rest for a hat, I just love the shade of orange it is!) and the red and green are Vanna's Choice. All are nice and lovely yarns to work with.

I originally posted about all of them here which has the links to the oscillating owlets and hedgehog knitting patterns, you know, just in case you'd like to knit them up as well. I'll be mailing all these guys off tomorrow to my secret top secret swap partner. I hope she enjoys them all!

Enchanted Forest Ornament Swap Update

One of the blogs I frequent for inspiration, Little Cotton Rabbits, designed this cute little guy...You can purchase his pdf pattern here.

I've been eyeballing him since she designed him, now I finally had an excuse to purchase his pattern. YEAY!! This little guy will be made up with a Christmas ribbon as well as these little guys...

They were designed by Mochimochi Land and they're another pattern I've been eyeballing since she put them up for sale here. This ornament swap has given me yet another excuse to purchase cute and adorable patterns. I'll be making up the owls in the same brown yarn as the hedgehog yet their nest will be Christmas green with Christmas red ropes to hang on the tree with. Hopefully I can get pics up soon of my WIP!!

Enchanted Forest Ornament Swap

YEAY! I just signed up for my first swap ever! Yarni Gras is hosting an ornament swap with a theme that I just could not resist. She hosts quite a few swaps throughout the year and they are really fun to read about and follow. I've read so many blogs from different bloggers about swaps. As a new mother of now two boys, this one sounded do-able. I'm so excited!! If you are interested, the theme is Enchanted Forest Ornaments and you can go to Yarni Gras swapper blog post here. She explains everything and it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun!