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!!

Crafty Update

I have finally overcome my laziness of getting on the "slow" computer and downloading all my pictures from the past several months. I just dread getting on this computer because our new laptop is on and going in a snap! This first pic is a crocheted baby blanket that I made a friend who had her baby in July. I finished it the day she was born and delivered it the following day. I'm not that experienced, but I wonder if blocking it would have helped out the waves that occurred as it got larger? Not sure. I made up the pattern, it's a basic granny square with about six rows of double crochet in between the center and the outer edge. I used Lions Brand Homespun in their Tudor colorway. It took two full skeins and turned out SO SOFT!These Gabu's are all saying farewell to the pretty gray Gabu. She was made and sent as a PIF. The other four Gabu's were all made for office coworkers over the past year. There's my first Gabu, the Red Receptionist, Black Velvet Gabu with sparkly eyes, Camo Gabu with a line of black to look like his unibrow, then the green Gabu with a tuft of brown hair and a smile (he was for my son). Gabu was designed by Roxycraft and you can get the free pattern here. They are quick and easy to make, my son loves his!These owls were so fun to make! My sister-in-law came to visit and we decided to each make one, me, her and my toddler. Then I thought we could glue them to a cut branch from the backyard to cluster them all together. It turned out so cute!! We then sent them home with my mother-in-law. I got this idea from BabyCenter in an email they had sent me. You can get your instructions to make them here. It's a great craft to do with little ones since you first have to collect half the pieces. I used the hot glue gun instead of regular glue so that they would stay together faster.These were two of three Gnome Babies that I knitted to donate to our churches craft bazaar. They were another free pattern from a blog I found. You can check the pattern out here. The larger one sold and the other two were still there yesterday when we went to church. They are sitting on the four baby blankets that I sewed last week. I had the sewing machine out all week to get those baby blankets done for the church and my sons dragon costume completed.

This last picture is one I took for fun. I spilled a drop of milk on the counter when I was making my morning coffee. This is how it landed then splatted. I was so amazed I had to take a picture. You can see my feet on the floor wearing pink Smartwools, THE BEST sock your foot can ever wear. We used to get them at REI when my husband worked there, now we only get them for Christmas from family (they are not cheap!).

Well, that's what I've been up to in the crafty department for the past several months....well, really the past week mostly. The rest of it was before baby #2 was born. Enjoy!

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!

No Sew Costumes...

THIS is the CUTEST costume!! I'm not the biggest Martha Stewart fan, however, from another blog I follow, I learned about her no-sew costumes. The tutorial for it is here on Martha's website, it is so easy to make. I would LOVE to make this for my 3 year old, however we just bought our costumes yesterday and he wants to be a dragon (you can view it here at the Target website). I know, I know, I should be sewing his costume like I did for the past two years. Last years Halloween costume is shown here in last years blog and the year prior to that he was an Oompa Loompa from the original Willy Wonka movie. I made both of these costumes. The Oompa Loompa costume was so cute, I even made two others for our friends kids we went trick-or-treating with, so there were three little Oompa Loompas together. This year, time is not really on my side. But I do have to make the hooded head and dragon legs, it's only a partial costume, it was missing pieces so we got it for a great price. I'll have more pictures after the event, until then, I do need to get sewing on the dragon head.

Awesome fabric!

Rae Gun Ramblings is having another awesome fabric giveaway! You can go here to check it out and enter. They are VERY cute fabrics from Japan! Yeay!

Ten Tiny Toes...

You'd think that I would have been able to post sooner, time just flies when you have two kids. My new little guy was 8 days late and now he's 8 weeks old! I think I've adjusted pretty well from working mom to home mom, I've managed to maintain a semi-clean household. However, in doing so, I have had very, VERY little me time. What I mean by me time is craft time. I have spent about 5 hours in the past 8 weeks on crafts and only then was it because I'm forcing myself to get a baby gift completed. My crafting is my stress outlet, is my form of relaxing from a long day, and I have no time for it!!! I will manage. In the mean time, baby is doing great, 3 year old brother is adoring little baby brother, gotta watch him with his love squishes, and the house is cleaner than when I was working and pregnant. :)

Iraqi Bundles of Love

In my patience and boredom in waiting for baby #2 (who still has not arrived), I was surfing the net today and came across this really cool idea from a US soldier currently in Iraq. It's called Iraqi Bundles of Love and it's all about raiding YOUR stash of sewing fabrics and supplies and sending them to this soldier currently in Iraq to distribute to the Iraqi's. Bundle up a bunch of stuff in a larger piece of fabric with ribbon, place it in the large flat rate box from the USPS and mail it to his APO address, which you have to request from him through his blog. Being a military wife (who's husband has been over there once so far) and crafter myself, I REALLY support spreading the love of crafting, even to a country we have had "issues" with, and I REALLY like the idea of thinning out my stash. I know my husband would appreciate it as well since my hobbies take up a whole room upstairs. I encourage all you readers to check out this soldiers site and send your own box of craft goodies. Here's the link again...

IRAQI BUNDLES OF LOVE

or if that doesn't work...

http://ibol.wordpress.com/

He explains everything in case mine doesn't make sense.

Anticipation and Adventure

Well...Thursday was my last day of work as an interior designer. Yesterday was my first day of work as a full-time mommy. Tomorrow is my due date with baby #2. ALL of it is so surreal, nothing has sunk in yet. I'm just going through the motions like it's another three day weekend and Monday I'll be back in to work. Only I won't be. I'm anticipating that once baby arrives, which I hope is Monday or after since doctor is on vacation until then, that everything will sink in and I'll have one big emotional break down. The reality that I will no longer be working will hit me, the loss of one identity and the gain of a new one as full-time mother may be overwhelming. This new one I'm not quite sure how I'll handle, I'm in control of structuring it, not a boss. Thus begins a new journey and adventure in which I'll probably have A LOT to learn. Wish me luck!

Harry Potter and Fabric Giveaway

Well, I went and saw the 6th Harry Potter movie yesterday. I have mixed feelings. I LOVE these books, but the movies...I don't know. I think it's still too soon to have a full idea of how I feel about it yet. Some major parts of the book that I remember were not even mentioned...hhhmmm....I may touch more on this later.

On another note, there is this AWESOME giveaway on RaeGun Ramblings for some super cute Japanese fabric precut into squares. I would love these fabrics!! They would be super quick and easy to sew together for a new baby blankie for baby that's expected to arrive in less than three weeks. Check it out at the link below...

Rae Gun Ramblings: Giveaway: 3.5 inch Japanese Fabric Square Pack