Fuzzers for Winter!

It's that time of year again! Cold weather brings on the yarn and crochet hooks for me. Della was in need of a cute and warm winter hat, so I got some sock yarn from Joann's and set to work. To get the effect I wanted, I double two different colors of the yarn and used a bigger crochet hook. Like So:

I don't use patterns, I just use heads (my head, my husband's head, Della's head, whoever's head is handy) to gauge the size of it all the way around. All of it is double-crochet until the bottom, where I did a popcorn stitch (4 doubles in the same hole, skip 4, 4 doubles in the same hole etc.) and added the pom-pom and ear flaps afterwards. If anyone wants to know how to do the pom-pom let me know! It's SUPER easy.

Here are a few pics so you can (kind of) get the full effect. 

 Happy Crocheting!

Re-Markable Boxes

Re-Markable boxes are great gift-boxing ideas. All you need are jewelry boxes (of any size) and chalkboard vinyl! Inside the "Baby Love" box is a little 0-3 month ruffle-butt I made for a friend. And the cool thing is that you can just wipe off the writing with a wet towel and write your own message!

Very versatile, very cute. I love that chalkboard vinyl stuff!

So Sheepin' Cute!

Della's sheep costume. She makes a mighty fine little lamb if you ask me! Complete with a little bell that lets me know where she is wandering off to:)

Happy Halloween!

Loves.

I love swings. The breeze, the motion, the subtle thrill... The child-like tendencies and memories that inevitably connote swingsets will forever be housed in this heart of mine.

Similarly, I love trees. The tallest, widest and oldest of them all. Especially in the fall, when they change colors and drop their leaves!

Growing up I used to climb to the tops of pine trees during wind storms and hold to the branches as they swayed back and forth, gently and powerfully, in the most calming, peaceful and indescribable way.The hushing sound of the wind through all the branches, and that complete feeling of freedom was better than candy... Better than money, better than anything tangible I knew! And fear was never an option, never even a thought. Up, up, up through branches, pitch and bark, and through those same branches, down, down, down I had to climb, (and the descent I might add is always more challenging) but not once did I fall, maybe because I never feared falling. You can't at those heights... fear is what hinders your judgement and loosens your grip and makes your feet clumsy. No, I felt at home in a tree, the rough moss was familiar to my touch, and I trusted myself, and however oddly this my occur to you, I always trusted the tree, too. I almost think it was imperative to build a sort of relationship as I climbed, with the trees that lifted me, and never dropped me. I was always grateful, and humbled, as the branches supported me, and grateful to the wind, too, for pushing us along in it's sweet, warm, cold and unceasing breath. And I was always proud of my scrapes, too.

I love lush grass. Walking barefoot in it. Throwing out a blanket over it for an afternoon nap or picnic. I love the lines imprinted in it after it's mowed. I love the smell of it, and sound of it when it's wet under my shoes. I love when flowers pop out of it, even those dastardly dandelions. Grass is the most welcoming and attractive contribution to a home. And what makes a park a park. I take my hat off, and my shoes, too, to every blade of grass I have ever touched. Cheers my jolly green giant friend!

The next love of my life is called a peach. I like the saying "I'm peachy" and I love the taste of ripe peaches sliced up in cream. The smell is sweetly seductive... Like nectar to a hummingbird. There is something romantic about a peach, much like diamonds, they are timeless and tasteful. And the fact I love peaches makes me a lovable person. And that is the power of the peach. And if you're not careful it will cast its spell on you! If it hasn't already.

And then there were pillows. Big, white, fluffy pillows. I believe you already know what I mean... I've always wanted to sleep in a cloud kind of fluffy. Drink a sunset kind of fluffy.

Someday, when I own a nice camera, I will experiment and practice with it because I love good photography. And that way, I will always have a picture for my topic... For every THING I love.

Shoe Closet.

This sturdy little structure is a miracle. For far too long, the closet that Jordan and I share has been outrageously unorganized and overflowing with MY shoes, so I finally got up and did something about it! I drew the design the night before, and for the most part stuck to it pretty closely. Jordan has been storing wood from his glory days working at Boise, and so ultimately, I had most of what I needed. My friend, Hilary helped me tote all of the boards to my brother-in-law's to use his circular saw. I am terrible at cutting strait with that thing. But in the end, I made it work and constructed this blasted thing. Wood screws and Gorilla glue, baby! Oh. And baby Della:) I did do some sanding on it, just in case you were wondering. Before and after it was painted.

Hilary and I went to Home Depot to get the trim, a cheap little drawer nob and a few other things. So here is what it looked like when I got to painting it (I just used paint I already had, mixing black and white till I got the shade I preferred).

Here you see the trim more closely. There are TONS to choose from there, but I liked this one a lot. Once the gray paint was dry, I got some totally rad scrapbook paper from Joann's and Mod Podged it onto the drawer and in one of the cubbies. Mod Podge as an adhesive, and Mod Podge as a clear coat. Worked beautifully. Then, I diluted some white paint and put a few words on there like "lovely" and a couple hearts, and then made random paint splatters and drips to boot. The last step was putting those dark metal sheets across the backs of the open cubbies. I had a 4-foot strip of that stuff laying around for over 2 years, so I cut them, drilled holes in the corners and then fastened them to the back of the shelf to

A) Hang heels on and

B) Keep shoes from sliding out the back.

I LOVE that aspect of my shoe shelf.

Like so:

Ye-yeah! This baby totally rocks my socks. It also holds my socks... that's what the drawer is for. I made the black little boxes afterwards, to optimize the shoe storage capacity. Not too shabby. I am just hippety-hoppety-happy that our closet is finally rid of my shoe plague!

Oh yes! I almost forgot! I made little fabric flowers and put them on it, too. I thought that was a fun little twist:) Ok! See ya soon, raccoon!

Truce.

Today I have a confession to make. I am an amateur. That's not my confession though, cuz everyone knows that. The fact is I am ignorant, and in my ignorance I promised something that is pretty much impossible. For me.

Making step-by-step tutorials of everything I make is like writing a 100 point essay the night before it's due. In other words it's your worse nightmare. Especially when you are making it all up as you go. Which is exactly what I do.

In all actuality I pretty much keep my fingers crossed and my bottom lip bit the whole time, just hoping whatever I'm working on turns out. And when it does... That's totally awesome but I don't know how to duplicate it. And when it doesn't... Well then I keep trying till it does. Sometimes I have to change it 4, 5, 15 times! So as you can imagine taking pictures of steps I may eventually have to take out or change is incredibly chaotic. Impossible, really. So here is a more realistic promise for the crowd:

I pledge to make tutorials of all the designs that make sense. Otherwise I will just post pictures of finished products in all their splendorous grandeur in hopes that they may serve as a source of inspiration to anyone with a green thumb for creating.

My last little tid-bit for the day is pretty cool, too. I created this blog to be a means by which I can share my talents with others. It is a blog that encapsulates my passions, which are also my hobbies. I realized last night that the most prominent passion in my life has always been that of writing. As a child it was chicken-scratched biographies of my mother, then it shifted to poetry, short stories, and eventually song writing. Although I don't do it much anymore, writing is a huge part of my life, and I enjoy it emmensely! So some posts, like this one, may not include pictures at all, heck, they may even be as uninteresting as ever! But I will write because I love to. And I really hope you can enjoy my driveling... Or perhaps be amused by it. Or not. But words make for good fillers between lulls in life. They really do. And writing in full sentences makes you smarter. And cooler. And more attractive. Ok that's probably not true, but it at very least gives you a break from Facebook jargon which, if you ask me, totally sucks. Where on earth did intelligent communication go??? For reals people. For reals.

Shake it like an Elephant!

So I learned a lot from this project! I used Prismacolor markers on some scrap fabric to create this fun piece of art. What I did was perfect my design on a large sheet of paper first, and then just traced it onto the fabric. The markers bleed a bit, but not to fear! To clean up the edges and make them look sharp, I used a white chalk marker. After I finished coloring in the elephant, I totally despised how it looked against the WHITE cloth I had used. So, my plan was to dye it tan. But by then this was going through my head, "Aaaawww snap! The chalk marker is washable, that won't work. And who knows if the color will hold up in the wash!" But not to fear again, for Mod Podge came to my rescue. I just put a coat over the the picture (and lettering), let it dry and bang. Preserved. The color did fade a bit, but I like it even better that way! It makes it look authentically worn. And worn is great when you want it... worn. Yup.

You can choose any way to present it, but this particular frame is SUPER heavy. To hold it up I just snipped off the top of an old metal hanger, used pliers to twist the wires through the holes in the back and voila! A hanging elephant for my bare, bare wall.

You can see in this picture below that the chalk marker dyed a bit darker. Again, I like that look.

Prismacolor markers are the shiz by the way! So useful, versatile and EASY to make look good. They are like magic.