Summer Summer Summer

random pics of my cuties from this summer

Talon's 4th Birthday Fun

We have had lots of fun for Talon's birthday this year. His actual birthday was the last day of our family trip and we went to the Cincinnati Museum before getting on the road to come home. Since then we went to my mom and dad's house to swim and celebrate. My mom is such a good cook! We had ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers, baked potatoes, and cake.

Today we had Talon's birthday party. He wanted a pizza party at a local restaurant. For his cake he wanted a volcano, a waterfall, trees, and dinosaurs. The cake was fun to make. Talon did all the hard work, putting on the chocolate rocks, trees, and dinosaurs :). His daddy blew up helium balloons for all the kids, too.

Hope you enjoy some pics from the party:

Summertime

I know, I know. It won't technically be summer for a couple more weeks, but school is out here, and summer activities are in full swing. We went on an awesome family trip with Jason's mom and brother to the Cincinnati area. Lots of fun.

Then it was Talon's 4th birthday and my 40th. So weird. Not feeling 40. My mom got me a huge gift bag full of yarn. I got myself a couple of what they call afghan crochet hooks to try out tunisian crochet (crochet that kind of looks like knitting...going to leave it at that). I have been fun trying to figure out tunisian crochet, but other than that, I have been camp taxi driver :).

Talon's party will be on the 18th and I still have a lot to do for that. I do know that he wants a cake with trees, dinosaurs, a waterfall, and a volcano. I have some good ideas, so we will see how that turns out :)

We have had some relaxing reading time, sprinkler time, and swimming in Grandma & Grandpa's pool time. I just love this pic of my son, Talon. This was him at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History reading National Geographic magazine on his birthday. I think I like this pic so much because he reminds me of his daddy here. He also got to hold a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach and scratch a chinchilla behind the ears. Eliana absolutely loved the cockroach, too; and Tasha loved the chinchilla. I will have to post more about our trip and pics, etc. later. The Cincinnati Museum where Talon was reading houses 3 museums. It was really cool.

April & May Craft Fun

Happy Mother's Day!!

To my mom and my husband's mom, I love you both very much and am hoping you have a beautiful, wonderful day today. Hugs

More April Flowers

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see pretty plants and flowers in my yard. I love perennials :)



















If anyone knows what these mystery spring flowers are, please let me know. Sometimes I want to cut this thing to the ground, and then I remember the unusual flowers, and I just haven't brought myself to do it.

Health & Beauty Show Highlights

The girls and I had a really good time at a local Health & Beauty Fair. I hope you enjoy this slideshow with highlights. I had a lot of fun in the week before the show crocheting little flowers and butterflies. I will gradually be adding things that did not sell to my etsy site, but if you see something you like (not already listed), send me a message :). A friend got a pink butterfly hair pin for her sweet little girl. A pic of her is in the slideshow. I have added a couple of things to my etsy shop already. I know the pics don't show everything, but there are aprons, diaper bags, headbands, etc made by my awesome friends, Jennifer and Tabitha (send me a message about contacting them if interested). All the crocheted items and the baby quilts are by me :). At the end you can see pics of Natasha & Eliana from the fashion show they were in at the Health & Beauty Fair. They thought dressing up & getting their nails and makeup done was lots of fun :).

Spring Has Sprung

Baby Polka Dots

I had so much fun picking out material and making these blankets for my friend's baby shower. She is having a baby boy, and her nursery theme is blue, green, and brown polka dots.

















For the quilt, I just got 1.5 yards of the brown cotton with blue dots and 1 yard of the soft baby blue fleece. After a little trimming, I just pinned them together, and added the satin border. I did machine quilt the 2 pieces together with diagonal stripes.

I was super happy with the quilt because all the corners ended up square. Double yay!!!! I know this is primitive quilting, but with 3 little ones, I love these fast projects that don't require too much time. I was able to get both of these done in one evening. My kind of project!!!!























For the colorful receciving blanket, I got 1 yard of the soft polka dot flannel and folded right sides together. I sewed around the 3 open sides, leaving a few inches for turning. I trimmed the corners, and turned it, then top-stitched around. Maybe I should have pinned the hole instead of eye-balling it, because that part ended up a wonky. But hey, it was so easy, I know I will be doing it again....and again, so I will have more chances to get it right.

Ecru Purse & Belt

Some pics of a purse and belt/headband I made this week for a Health & Beauty Fair in April. This was my first try at a lined purse and belt. I searched high and low for patterns I liked, and ended up just making it up as I went along :). Thanks to my beautiful model (hard at work even before breakfast). Both purse and belt are designed for adults but she graciously posed with them for me anyway. What a sweetie.

Owl Be Thinking About You, Baby

I had a lot of fun creating some cute owl things for a friend's baby shower recently. I found a cute owl bib pattern at the LionBrand site that I thought was super cute. I decided to make it into a stuffed animal. One thing led to another and pretty soon I had changed my little owl into a marsupial by giving it a pouch and an owlet. I made both into baby rattles, too. It just so happened that I had begun a granny square baby blanket from a Christmas gift Jason and the kids had gotten me, Vanna's Choice: Color it Beautiful Afghans.. (yes....Vanna White...from Wheel of Fortune) :)

I had stopped working on it in January and packed it away because I had run out of gold colored yarn to continue the pattern. It turned out to match the little owl so I decided to add a few rows of colors in the afghan to make it a little bigger. It turned out very well, even without the gold yarn. Here are some pics:


























Owl also be making some more baby gifts very soon....lots and lots of friends and family are expecting babies. What fun!!! Hopefully, owl not be up all night crocheting and sewing :)

To Make a Long Story Long....

Well, I started out wanting to post some pics of things I have been making lately. Naturally, I started looking through my pics to make sure I had some good ones of everything I wanted to post. Then I came across this pic, which brought a big smile to my face:







Oh, yes. I know very well that that is a VERY SILLY hat.


It was a special request from Talon (in a way). He wanted a yellow kitty cat hat (thus the ears).

Earlier in the day (yes, the very same day...it was a Tuesday), Natasha spotted a flyer in the library.

She said, "Mom, you should do this!" It was a flyer for a NEW YARN STORE. In my town. And....they were having a January Hat Challenge to raise money for the American Cancer Society. How exciting! So what did I do? Cleared the afternoon schedule (because of course we were just a couple of days away from the contest deadline) to make a hat. Then comes the "looking through patterns" stage. Online patterns, patterns in my books. I settled on one that looked fairly easy. It was a hat made out of 5 granny squares sewed together.

Well, of course mine ended up looking nothing like the pattern in the book. The original didn't have cat ears, for one thing. Well, wouldn't you know it...Talon absolutely loved it...this thing I created that could be ranked in the top 5 of the ugliest things I have ever made.

So, I have to say I was really, really surprised when I saw this:
an article in the local paper with a pic from the new yarn store, with a pic of my hat (well in a big group of hats, but hey!). See the kitty ears sticking up over there on the right in the back?



I am so excited! (I will have to make another post with all the other exciting things I have been up to). Yay!!