Music and musings

I am officially on a much needed break from school. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Then I start planning projects and books to read. So far I am planning to finish my dress that I started last year (I just need to hem the bottom), make a pair of Pajamas for Damian (they were for Christmas), make everything in my Craftsy Sewing with knits: 5 Wardrobe Essentials (a fleece hoodie which I have fabric for, scoop-neck T-shirt, V-neck T-shirt, yoga shorts, Surplice dress) finish a painting with the boys, work on my crochet squares, finish crochet shrug, and maybe one other thing. Do I have a lot on my platter? Well yes. Why not! These are things I have been putting off and I love to do.  If I do not finish this list this month well I can slow down and work on them later too. I have a secret weapon, lent. As a family we are giving up T.V. for lent. That should free up loads of time. I am really glad to have a reason to step away from all the shows I love and watch. Here is the link to the Craftsy class http://www.craftsy.com/class/sewing-with-knits/114. They have a lot of really wonderful classes here http://www.craftsy.com/classes. Craftsy is really good at putting the classes on sale from time to time.

Now let's move on to a couple of songs. The first one I discovered from a friend of mine (you know who you are). I hope you enjoy the music today.

 

Confession I love this next band. I just discovered them this week.

They have cool hair!

This song and the video do not really go together But I love it.

I love 70's music so it is not a surprise that I am head over heals for this band!

Flashback

This is one of my favorite songs! I may have been born in the wrong decade! Or maybe I was in this decade in a past life? I could have been a groupie. Crazy times man. So anytime I picture myself in a past life I am always a woman never a man, or animal. I could have been an ant at some point. Also I can not imagine being someone important at any other time. A poor peasant yes, a slave sure, A struggling artist that never finds her way, definitely, a poet Always. A dreamer dreams.

I hope that your day is filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

Keeping the wheels turning

I know I have been quite on my blog lately but I promise I have been busy with college, home school, a little house keeping, reading, and well a few other things. . .

This is a duct tape dress form. Turns out this is my good side.

Straight on I look well a little lumpy and

the I have an urge to get on the treadmill.

In theory it will help me make clothes that fit my body.

But I still want to lose 10-20 pounds.

Then I want a less lumpy dress form.

This will one day be a dress in theory.

Notice the lack of planets in the fabric.

It is going to be cute!

maybe.

hopefully

oh, dear.

I have been working on log cabin blankets.

As you can see this one is for Callie.

My friend is desperately waiting her arrival.

I love embroidery but I am a little rusty.

I hope they don't mind that it is a little sloppy

I did by hand free style.

An idea of what the whole blanket looks like.

It is not finished.

 

Callie has a big sister.

This is her blanket.

It is not even close to being finished.

Her Dad will be here in two weeks.

I want him to take them home.

I better get working.

I have school work!

Eek!!

Where the cuting happens.

A box of yarn, I am going to mail this out soon.

This is a shawl.

Oh will be

someday.

It takes a long time

It takes a lot of yarn

It takes the fun out of Crochet.

It is for my Mother-in-Law.

These are the same size

 I do not know why the right looks bigger.

They are baby flip flops

for Callie

Oh, dear...

 That is what I have been up too lately. Not to mention the cooking, I found a lovely recipe for sweetened condensed milk, cream of mushroom soup you add to recipes to make them amazing, and more.

Here is your song of the day

Proud Mary

What is better then Tina Turner?

Nothing.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling on the river

I hope you are having a wonderful day filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

Baby Flip flops

I know I have been quiet around here over the last week. My husband was home for a very long weekend and I was happy to spend the time with him. Also I got distracted by a new pattern I got from http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/crocheting/Accessory/Flip-Flops-for-Baby-Crochet-Pattern/1479.

I have a friend who is going to have a little baby girl. They live on an island. So I wanted to make these sweet flip flops for the baby. I am sure they will be to big for their little one but she will grow into them.

I hope they like these because I kind of want to make another pair or two for the baby.

I hope you are having a wonderful day filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

Hats, Scraves, and earrings

I have been busy crocheting lots of fun stuff. I am really excited to share my finished projects.

I would like to point out that I used the Galilee Scarf pattern from  http://www.etsy.com/shop/mamachee. For the hat I just modified the pattern a little to make it work.

For this hat I used mamachee's Brimley Hat pattern.

The spikes are also a pattern from  http://www.etsy.com/shop/mamachee

The reason why I am telling you where to get the patterns is because her pattern is copyrighted. More than that it is the right thing to do.

This as you guessed is from mamachee.

I have to tell you that Tara (mamachee) is super helpful. I got these patterns the same day I ordered them back in March and a couple of days ago I emailed her a question about the hair on this monster/bug hat. She emailed me within a couple of hours with a link to a video to help me. If you are looking for patterns she a great person to buy from.

Now to my very first pair of earrings. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled on to http://www.craftsy.com. They have classes that you can buy and I got the Crafty Crochet Embellishments class. I love it! It teaches you to add crochet embellishments to fleece to make a nice baby blanket, to towels, to sweaters, and more. That is where I got this idea from

I bought some hoop earrings from Hobby Lobby with the intention to follow along.

Well it turns out you do not need the hoop to make earrings. So I modified and used part of a flower pattern to finish these earrings.

Believe it or not these are not heavy and because it is yarn not bothersome either.

You know it is hard to take a self portrait with the earrings in the picture. I love them.

So this is what I have been up to lately. I also started on a set of matching blankets, quilting not crochet. Yes, I have many hidden talents that involve me avoiding say a college history course that started on Monday. No I am not avoiding it. I was kidding. Seriously. Okay, you got me I am procrastinating a little. So wants a new pair of earrings? Okay I will read three chapters of my world history work tonight. You are so right. I am glad we are friends and you help keep me in line. I am looking for a shawl pattern I think it would be a cool gift for a couple of people I know but I promise not to start on it until my blankets are finished, and maybe a girl bug/monster hat ( I already gave my word).

I hope you are having a wonderful creative day filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

New thoughts on old ideas

I am sure you noticed that I stopped doing the photo of the day. I ran out of steam on day 23 which was technology, day 24 something new and so on. I just did not find the creativity in these days plus I miss updating about my garden, crafts, cooking and schooling. The picture of the day is fun but it gets to be a little overwhelming towards the end. So I think I will lay off trying to be so consistent  on one single topic. This month I have found my love all thing homemade including ketchup, and crackers. I have made two sets of matching hats and scarves with at least one more coming in the next week. I starting making a log cabin quilt for a dear friend's children (one is still cooking. So I am waiting to get the news on where to add pink or add monsters). Honestly I want to try and focus on me, me, me. Well on the things that I am interested in. I want to be able to give you new ideas to try out or just share my new ideas. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed taking pictures and I had some fun working on the picture of the day. I just feel like it is time to move on. I hope you will continue to read along on this crazy jumble of words and thoughts that I call life. I enjoy sharing the pieces of me with you friends.

Today I am planing a BBQ to celebrate Memorial Day hamburgers, macaroni salad / pasta salad, baked beans, grilled corn salad, and a blackberry cobbler. I am just waiting on some replies to my guests. I found some flavored water that sounds yummy, and just now I want a lemon drop martini in a mason jar. Summer is coming which is always exciting but now that I live near the sun (I mean south Texas) summer takes on a whole new meaning of heat. Fortunately for us the pool is finally open so we all will be getting more exercise by way of walking to and from the pool in the mornings.

Here are a couple of summer songs to get you in the mood.

What is better then John Travolta? Well as long as you don't read the tabloids . . .

Hello Kieth Urban. "We should be together. . . Singing along with the radio."

You know you love to slow down for a minute and slow dance with your partner or child.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend filled with love, laughter, and music. Be well my friends.

Halloween

Another Halloween has come and gone. My husband loves to carve pumpkins with the boys so before we get to the costumes we start with pumpkins.

 Eew Gross pumpkin guts!



 My yellow kitchen also turns everyone and everything a strange yellow in the pumpkin lab.

 The boys are proud of their Dad's carving abilities.

 He looks like the Jack-O-Lantern

 Spooky! No not really but the kids had fun screaming and running away from them.

The boys looked up pictures of Jack-O-Lanterns and Rob drew them on and cut them out. It is more fun this way. Better then taping a pattern on and poking little hole to follow along.

This year the boys wanted to be a mummy and a ghost. Easy to make right? I looked up the mummy and watch many youtube videos and read many ways to wrap up a mummy. Well it is always easy to read about. It took me two hours to wrap my little mummy all the way up. With in five minutes it was coming unraveled. The videos never mentioned this! So I wrapped him up with packaging tape. And it held up almost to the end. When it did come unraveled it looked like a mummy coming undone. 

 I love how his face looked. I think it made the total costume.

 Angry eyes, scary eyes. I love his eyes

 The mummy and a little ghost.

The ghost costume caused problems because the ghost's eyes kept moving around. I tried to pin the material to the back of his shirt, I tried to tape it to his head, I tried to make him wear a hat and pinned the material to the hat. The tie was the only thing that even came close to staying on and keeping the face looking forward. Still all night I had to fix his costume every two steps.

Here you can see his beautiful big brown eyes.



Here if you look at the ghost instead of eyes you see a nose. He loved being a ghost. I think that both of them had a really great time and really that is all that matters. I can't wait to try to make next years costumes. Maybe I will not take for granted that it sounds easy. I have learned my lesson.

I hope you had a wonderful Halloween and that your week is filled with Love and Laughter. Be well my friends

Ideas for November

Today between trying to convince a three year old that learning to read is both fun, and important, convince a seven year old that finishing his "school" work early leaves him the rest of the day for playing, and reading, I am printing out next months unit studies we are going to do two A Thankful Thanksgiving and 25 Days of Thanksgiving lapbook, I am reading Sakuntala and Indian play, I am making dinner crock-pot potato soup, and finally I am looking for some great ideas for a whole month of Giving Thanks. It is a lot more multitasking then I can really handle so as long as you don't look into the fact that cleaning is not on the list for today I think we will be fine on this little adventure. Besides it is all of November school work for both boys, so everything works out nicely.

 I found a neat craft here http://thecraftingchicks.com/2010/10/thankful-tree.html called the Thankful tree. You gather some pretty branches and put them into a vase decorated or not (I am going to buy some pretty autumn leaves from hobby lobby, and maybe some ribbon. Maybe I will buy some pretty ribbon and tell the boys in my life That Moms are girls and we like pretty things to look at.) then you print out leaves, or buy some already printed leaves and have the whole family write what they are thankful for on a leaf and tie it on the the branch with ribbon or tape or maybe just glue it. I love the idea that the whole family does this together. I will take pictures when I get everything together. Maybe I can be Thankful for the Whole month of November.

The units studies and lapbooks, I am excited to start these. Everyday is a bible verse about being thankful, and everyday the boys will get to think of things that they are thankful for for 25 days. This is the lapbook. The unit study is about pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to doing both of these with the boys. Here is the link to where you can find them http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=43106&it=1&filters=0_30558_0_0_0_0_0
http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=25801&it=1&filters=0_30558_0_0_0_0_0
Right now Currclick is having a trunk or treat sell where you can find deals for up to 75% off on a lot of wonderful unit studies and lapbooks. http://www.currclick.com/index.php

Back to Sakuntala for me. I hope you have a wonderful week filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.