Zentangles???

Okay...so they are only my first attempt...but you really gotta try it. It's actually really relaxing and ANYONE can do this. You can do it with your kids or you can shut the door when your kids are driving you crazy and do it to calm yourself. I'm actually even carrying around a small notebook and pen to do Zentangles when I'm sitting doing nothing (it drives me crazy to sit and do nothing!) You may be doing it now and not even realizing you are. So check out ZENTANGLES and see what you can come up! Till next time, yinz crazy guys.....

I LOVE SPRING!!!

Definately my favorite season of the year and now with our wedding anniversary falling right in the middle of it, all the more reason to get away. A few ladies asked me about our plans and our plans include an enjoyable drive to our favorite state...MICHIGAN!!! We love going there to visit family and in September there will be an extra family member to visit when my stepdaughter and hubby and grandson welcome a little bundle of joy into their family! We're so excited! So our first wedding anniversary will be spent with our "matron of honor, best man, and ringbearer"! (my maid of honor and my escort down the aisle, aka DIL and Son, on that wonderful day will be babysitting the dogs at home!)
So, with that out of the way, I've been in this crafting frenzy and can't wait to show you some stuff.
First off are a couple more cross stitched kisses. Actually the butterfly I showed before but without the backstitching and the new one, sunny kiss (not sure if that's the name) is on the right.

This is the February Cup O'Tea completed but without the buttons. I know I've said it before, but I just love these colors. I'm working on the February Teapot now.

These are some fabrics I "baked and basted" according to a tutorial on the Twisted Stitcher's site. I love these!!!! The left is a Belfast linen and the right is a 28 ct evenweave. After I did the initial dying process, I was sorta bummed that the mottled staining wasn't there....THEN I baked and basted and BAM....it's awesome! But again, I love this look!!

I even started using one of the pieces above on this New England Village by Carriage House Samplings. I fell in love with at 123 Stitch (best prices and shipping rates ever!!).

And this is a teenie tiny more progress on my Village of Hawk Run Hollow. I figured at this rate I should finish by the time I'm 82. Only 30 more years.

Oh....and check out these awesome Q-snap huggers on the piece above and below. Christina at Forever Cowgirl makes these at a great price and she even has a great sale now. She has many different sizes and fabrics to choose from and they are pre-washed and smell so good when she sends them to you. I love these. (I found out the hard way that pre-washing is important...the one hugger I made, not nearly as nice as these, dyed a piece of mine a nice shade of blue in spots)
These are great and holds that extra fabric that is hanging in the back of your piece that is annoying and gets in the way when your stitching.

That's about it for now though I do have to tell you about an April Fools joke that hubby played on me. I've just joined swap-bot and really like it but I'm new to the site and don't know too much about it. To make a long story short, he texted me from some bogus number saying that he was from Swap Bot Central and I just won swapper of the week and go to blah-blah site to collect my prize. I fell for it so much so that when I couldn't get to the site named, I sent an email to the swap-bot administrators telling them this. Needless to say I sent a follow up apologizing for the inconvenience once I found out I'd been fooled! Today I got an email from swap-bot suggesting I join their NEWBIE GROUP....I think they realized I was blonde!!

Oh, well, that's it for now.......hope you're day is as beautiful as ours is here....till next time, yinz crazy guys.

Quickie...

I have some things to show yinz guys, but I have to take pics of them first. In the mean time, check out this site DIG KNITTY. She has a sale going on through tomorrow and has just about any design you can think of to knit on a dishcloth. The sale is "buy 5 patterns and get 5 free" (buy 10 get 10 free, etc. in groups of 5) Her patterns are around $2.00 each and sent via email. I ordered them and received them within a couple hours and started knitting one. Great service, great site...check it out!
Till next time, yinz crazy knitters!!!

HAPPY SPRING, YINZ GUYS!!!

At long last.....for all of you in the southern hemisphere....HAPPY FALL??? Spring is my favorite season...actually later spring when the warm days out number the cold. If you checked my last blog post and decided to do some spring blog cleaning, I hope you enjoyed the post.
So, as promised here are some things I was working on and some I couldn't show you till now...
First off are the Twilight Key Chains I finished up for a couple of young ladies at my church who are Edward and Jacob crazy. My pics aren't the best and that darn black fabric picks up everything, but they loved them and I got two big hugs out of it!

Next off is the mailart that went to Australia. Some post offices will mail them while others look at you and say, "Are you out of your mind?" Mine said the second but helped me make a cardboard envelope with a see through plastic window and alot of tape. They pre-stamped it and hand post marked it so it looked like it went through the mail. The recipient, Katie, loved it!
It was my first mailart and I really didn't have any pattern so it's pretty simple. Not bad, for a first try I think!

Got another of the Cross Eyed Cricket Kisses done. This one is the Butterfly Kiss! See the wing? I think I'm going to do them all first then put them together for hanging on my wooden dowel tree. Two down...10 to go!

Made some progress on the Just Another Button Cup O'Tea. This is another series I'll put together when they are all done I think. I just love the colors of the over-dyes in these. How do you like the Q-snap Hugger I made? It was a first success after a couple of failures as again I had no pattern. I found someone who sells them and I think I will buy the other sizes. This is an 8 inch Q-snap. The 6-inch Hugger didn't turn out so well. I know I'm doin something wrong. I do like the feel of them and the material...not to mention they keep things neat and tidy and clean.


Oh, and remember the dotees? Well, I'm still working on those too and joined Swap-bot. These goodies were from a swap called the Dotee Scavenger Hunt. You get a list of things like "something round" or "something sparkly" and then go down the list and package them up, send them to your partner so they can use them for making dotee dolls! Jennie (don't have her blog, sorry) sent me this fabo-dotee package!!!! I was like a kid in a candy store looking at all the little goodies....gotta keep them away from the dogs or they will be candy...Dog candy!!

So, I think I gave you enough stuff to chew on for awhile. Probably will spend the weekend crafting and stitching and relaxing with the Sweetie Man...while watching Twilight!!!!

So, till next time, yinz crazy guys......

Hey...

Like my background??? Just a short note that The Cutest Blog On The Blog really has some adorable backgrounds and they are super easy to change without removing anything on your blog. I love it! Just click on the little link with their name in the upper left corner of this page and enjoy!
Have some finishes to show you now that the recipients have received them...so stay tuned you guys...till next time!!!

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY, yinz guys!

Need I say more????

Twinchie????

No...it's not an inchie...it's a TWINCHIE!!! Just wanted to get this post in under the wire.
Oh, yeah...a TWINCHIE is a 2 inch INCHIE!!! There was a doll inchie/twinchie challenge HERE that ended today. New challenge begins on Saturday, the 14th.....check it out! Off to craft more!!!

Till next time, yinz crazy guys.......

What the heck is an INCHIE???

Contrary to popular belief...not THIS....

THIS, however, is an INCHIE!


How cute is this and it's only 1" X 1 ".....It's mini art! I've never heard of these before. Another swap craze going on...or maybe it's been on and I just missed the boat. Check out more of her work HERE.

What an awesome way to use up just about anything little...teenie tiny masterpieces. (not to mention great for kids and their little fingers) My creativity is just hummin' with these....I'm itchin' to inchie! (say that three times!)

Just google "Inchie" under images and you will come up with "yards" of them (get it....inch...yard...never mind!)

Anyway, I do scrap book some and of course I love the Dotees.....now I can make use of all the leftovers from these projects!!! (I love to recycle...ask my niece) Not to mention using old cereal boxes that you've been saving the cardboard for (come on, you know you do that) and magazines that pile up. I just love looking at art of any kind....I think it releases "happy things" in my brain...what's left of it anyway.

To get you started....check out this TUTORIAL tho I'm sure there are quite a few more if you need one. I'm gonna get INCHIN this weekend and I'll let you know what I come up with...plus another Dotee is looming in my mind.

So, get your "feet" going and maybe do it in the "yard" with the warm weekend coming up, if you live in my area, and start "inchin"....till next time yinz crazy guys!

The New BABY!!!

....yes, we have a new addition to the family....a 24 watt Floor Ott Lite with attached magnifier!!! After a exhausting night of trying to make homemade pierogi's that didn't turn out right (anyone have a good recipe with dough that doesn't act like a rubber band!)I was greeted with this lovely light!


Michaels has them on sale for $89.99 this week and I still had money on a gift card from Christmas.....ahhhhhh, life is good! Can't wait to really try it out!
My gift card also bought me this awesome bead case for my newest hobbie...Dotee Doll making. How cool is this case??? Michaels with a coupon only cost me around $10.00 minus all the beads, charms and what-nots of course some of which I had been collecting already. (you know you want one, my dear niece)

Side one.....

Side two....

I'm an organization freak....did you notice???
And this is my first attempt at circlular needle knitting. Yep, never done it. It's supposed to be a shawl from the Knit-a-day Calendar. It's super simple but I'm hoping someone will tell me how far I can go on this. You increase one stitch every row but it seems like it's not going to have enough room for the final width of the shawl. Seems like there will be an awful lot of stitches on here but not enough length. It called for a 36 inch circular needle and that's what this is. Hope I'm doing it right. Would love to make a prayer shawl for someone.

So that's about all I got to show...possibly in a couple of days with the addition of my new "Otty" (my nickname for the new baby), I'll have some progress to show you again. Thanks for stoppin' by...till next time, yinz crazy guys!

Goodness Gracious....

I cannot believe it's been a week since I blogged. I was honestly going to try and blog more as I've been really feeling really crafty and wanted to show pics and all and then WHAM...it's a week gone already.
Okay, so enough about my tardiness....this is what I've been doin. First off, I'm sorta on and off reading the Twilight Books but a couple of young ladies at my church are just crazed with them so I found this cute free pattern on Plum Street Samplers with the idea for these sweet fobs from a lady by the name of Michelle. (scroll down far on both sites)

I had a heck of a time taking these pics...kept coming out blurry, but you get the idea. Haven't put them together yet as I'm making two sets. Never worked on 28 ct black over one stitch before....and I probably won't again for a long time to come. Magnifiers don't even help unless you put a white cloth or something on your lap so you can see the holes. I was thinking it was going to be a quick stitch but it is certainly a slow-go!

Next is my progress on the Just Another Button February Cup O'Tea. I'm using the overdyes and it it so so nice.

And two more dottees. Sorry again about the pics. They are all clickable if that helps any.

This one is Kitty Dottee Doll....I just love that little mouse near his mouth.

This next one is Victoria Dottee Doll. I know this pic is really bad....don't know if it's me, the camera or the fact that she is all ivory. Sweetie Man is really good at taking pics but he wasn't around for this one. She has sorta a creepyness to her, don't ya think with that big face. (stamped then colored) She was in my creativity zone and wanted to come out. Her legs are a string of pearls (fake of course) with a couple of hearts at the bottom. She also has two heart earring charms and her hair is all ivory buttons.

That's about it for now. Alot of crafting tonight with the Bachelor Finale (3 hours..woo-hoo!)

So till next time,.....yinz crazy guys!

Yep, it's me again...

I had a couple of finishes that I never posted so I thought I would do that for yinz guys.
This is actually a part of an ornament. I haven't actually finished it as an ornament but it is all stitched. There are two of them exactly the same but with our last name and the other with my son and DIL's last name and 2008 stitched on both. Being as my son and DIL and Sweetie Man and I were both married last year, I thought it was appropriate. I like to make an ornament with the date on it each year for our Christmas tree anyway. It is really nice to look back and see what craft I was into that year. (all pics are clickable for a close-up)


Second, I love the Cross-Eyed Cricket series of Kisses. The first of course was the pepper for the Sweetie Man. I haven't decided if I'm going to stitch them all first then make them into ornaments for my dowel rod tree or do each separately. (probably the first as I'm really into stitching them) I think this one was called HOT KISS! (enough said on that one!) The silver and red are really sparkly and the thread was a "braid" not the filament and was really nice to work with.

This is the next Kiss I'm working on called BUTTERFLY KISS. I'm sorta into butterflies so I'm excited to see this one completed. They are pretty quick to crank out!

I've gotten into the Just Another Button Teapot Series from last year and the Cup'o Tea Series currently coming out. I'm not in order here(long story as to why)but this is the February Cup'o Tea I'm working on. I've done the January 2008 Teapot as an exchange (check out MELISSA'S BLOG HERE for the pic) but I plan on doing one for myself. Now the buttons are rather pricey so my LNS suggested I don't use all the buttons as they aren't all necessary to the piece and spread them out substituting in the other months...make sense? Like maybe the birds used in one are not as necessary as the birds may be to the design of another. So you skip them on one piece and use them on the other. $8.00 to $15.00 for a package of buttons does tend to add up...luckily I haven't bought much.

And in the last post I told you I've gotten a little addicted to the Dotee Dolls....Here are my last two creations. No pattern (which is usually difficult for me as I don't think I'm creative enough) but maybe I underestimated myself as I really like these dollies I made up! First one is Pepper Man Dotee Doll (notice the buttons that read HOT) and the second is Booby Dotee Doll (see the snaps?)

So with that I shall be on my way! I've been feeling really crafty lately, so lets see what I can come up with next....till next time, yinz crazy guys....

I know...I know... I know....

I haven't been a very good blogger lately but I've been busy being creative. I can't always post things as most of the things I make are for someone and I have to wait till they get it.
So, on that note, I'm posting some things I've made for my adorable great nephew, Owen. I had a pattern for the sock monkey but I also had a book that had the sock tiger in it. (also had a sock elephant but he was a little creepy looking...possibly when Owen gets a little older and enjoys creepy things)

Then I crochet this really cute hat for him from this year's Crochet-a-Day calendar. Super easy!

And I couldn't forget his mom and dad....I love crocheting these slippers. Pattern is HERE. I've made a bunch of these...notice the men's Steeler colored ones!!!

And last...but not least...my newest obsession....DOTEE DOLLS. Whipped this one up during the Bachelor last night. So incredibly easy and fun!! I've already started a second. Have no clue what I will do with them, but I do enjoy making dolls along with all the other things I do so maybe I'll just keep them for myself or start a collection or something. They are only about 4-5 inches long depending on how you make it. Just Google Dotee Dolls and you'll come up with a bunch of stuff. If I understand correctly, they were created by Dot Christian and became big on swap-bot last year....so I'm a bit late on things. But I love them!!

So, that's about it for now....as I create, so shall I post! Till next time, yinz crazy guys....

only 5 more days.....

Saw this over at GOOD YARNS....couldn't pass it up....

Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me"

A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out. Your heart is open to where ever love takes you! Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking What turns you off: fighting and conflict Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

I'm wearin' mine...are you???

I'm one of those women who needs to take good care of my heart...high blood pressure, high cholesterol and strokes run on my dad's side of the family. My brother and dad both passed away from heart related problems and unfortunately my genes run in that direction. So I follow my doctor's orders with medicines and healthy eating (most of the time) tho I'm a little lax on the exercise part and weight control. But days like this, and wearing my red, serve as a reminder to me that all of it is important to live a long and healthy life......so I can annoy the heck out of my son when I'm old and gray...tee hee!!!
Till next time....GO RED yinz crazy guys....

Do ya really think????

....THAT I WAS GONNA GIVE YOU PICS OF ANYTHING ELSE BUT SUPER BOWL PARTIES??? WHEN YOU'RE IN STEELER COUNTRY.....YOU WILL KNOW IT!!!

So let's get this party started with pics from the work Tailgate Party....

First off are some of my fellow crazy workers....(my boss is the one with his mouth open!!)

We told him not to wear Super Bowl stuff cause when he does, we lose!

Second is the Sweetie Man and I. He picked up the pizza so we let him stay and eat!


This was our little spread which we picked on all afternoon...while working (uh-um!)

And no party in the 'burgh is complete without Smilie Cookies from the Eat-n-Park Restarant!

They are actually closing their restaurants early Sunday for the employees to watch the game!

The second Tailgate Party was at church...your read correctly! The Pastor's sermon was on "Why I Love The Super Bowl". Only our Pastor (a hugh Steeler fan!) can draw connections between The Super Bowl and God! And believe it or not, it was great!!!

Our church is currently house in a beautiful building in the City orginally built way back as a hotel of sorts for out of town employees of the Alcoa Company to stay. It's an awesome building.

Anyway, we were invited to come down and help decorate and bring some stuff so of course we brought Ben as the current player for the Steelers and Jerome as the past player. (live size of course)

This is our Pastor in preaching mode....check out all the outfits!

This was our band accompanied by the Kids Quest group singing a Steeler Fight song at the start of the service.

Oh, and that's Sweetie Man who sat at the entrance way scaring everyone...or so he thought!

The Audio/Video booth where I sit (working the Power Point slides) was decorated with Terrible Towels!

This was the stage in church before the service started.

Two Steeler Trees were on either side of the Sanctuary...they were beautiful.

And of course....MORE FOOD!!!!

It was a fun and awesome time at both parties.....but now, I'm off to take an afternoon nap so I can go to the THIRD party at a good friends house to actually watch the game with some fun folks and eat more!!!!

So, hope you enjoyed the pics and the 'burgh!!!!! GO STEELERS....let's get one for the OTHER THUMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!