Coming soon!

I have a few hats that haven't made it to the shop yet because now that I ordered my mannequin head, I would like to start taking pictures of them on it! So I have to wait till it comes in the ever-so-slow-except-for-bills mail. Here's a sneak peak :)

Cafe Drawing

While I was waiting in a cafe this past weekend, sipping my tea and knitting, a gentleman came over and asked if he could draw me. "Sure" I wasn't about to say no, even if the request had caught me a tad off guard. My friend wasn't to arrive for another hour so the man and I made small talk, he had some books with him which sparked discussion of politics, muses and music. I found out he was a construction worker whose job that day had been rained out so he came to the cafe to relax and draw. Luckily, I was his subject :)

Here is the picture that came from that session:

Friday Feature - SissysArt

I decided to do today's feature on SissysArt. She creates all kinds of artistic works in a variety of mediums and each piece has sentimental value as she is most inspired by things that are going on her life. Read on to find out where she got her start, her dreams, and her hero (and, as always, simply click on the photos to go to the listing in her shop ;)):

1. What is the first craft you remember making?

I remember my grandma teaching me how to make apple dolls just like she used to make when she was a child. We would carve out the faces and then sit them on the window sill to dry. I remember how amazed I was that they looked like little old people the more they dried and shriveled up. Then we would use cotton (she saved the cotton from her vitamin bottles) for the hair and make little stuffed bodies and clothes for them. I had the best time making these!

2.Are you the kind of person who enjoys teaching yourself or taking classes with groups to learn?

I like to do both. I enjoy taking classes for the social aspect, plus I always feel like it is so much easier to learn from someone who has been doing it for a long time. However, I'm mostly a self taught artist simply because I can't find a class for everything I want to learn. I would love to take a soldering class from Sally Jean Alexander but she is a few states away from me, so I've taught myself from books, you tube videos and internet sources.

3. When you are not creating, what can you be found doing?

Housework! It's a never ending battle and I'm never caught up. Seriously though as far as fun things to do, I love working in my flower beds, spending time with my family, going for walks. I live a pretty simple life and I like it that way.

4.If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go?

My husband and I would love to travel to Europe some day. My son went and back packed through Europe with two of his friends a couple of years ago and I just love looking at all of his pictures. Especially the ones from Italy and Greece.

5.Who is your hero?

My Mom without a doubt. She was a creative woman who had such a kind heart and was so giving to others. She always worked hard all of her life and it wasn't always easy, but she still found time to be there for her family.

Thank you SissysArt! Don't forget to check out her blog to keep up with this amazing woman!

Indie Fixx

Lookie! I did a Back to School list on Indie Fixx :D what do you think of my choices?

Red Lace Slouchy Beanie

Recently a friend asked if I could make her a red slouchy version of my Golden Yellow Lace Hat. Here is the finished product! If you would like your own, don't hesitate to contact me, I can make them in any color and style you like :D
*oh and when my blog reaches 100 followers, I am going to do a big giveaway ;)

Winston's Adventure

Remember our very good friend Winston who came to live with me via IckyDogCreations? Well he went on his first vacation this past weekend out to San Diego and had a heck of a time! Want to see some of his vacation pictures?

He woke up early the second day of the trip and helped make some tortillas, he rolled them out

And flash cooked them on an upside-down pan

He also was able to enjoy some fresh macadamia nuts straight from the tree!

Cracking them open was a bit of a challenge for him

But eating them was easy!

He also got to play a lot of Frisbee and became quite the athlete jumping as high as he could to catch the flying disks!

And he even found some rat-sized Tabasco sauce jars J

BerkleyIllustration

If you ever just browse Etsy for the sake of browsing, you’ve probably run across a piece or two from berkleyillustration. Their work is very memorable and identifiable, not to mention unique and fun! As an animal lover I am always drawn to their pieces, quirky “person”-alities topped with the head of some wild creature or another

Giraffe Print

Earth Hat

Rat Print

Praying Mantis

On a picnic the other day Matt and I met quite a crew of little picnic buddies, one of them being a small praying mantis. I hadn’t seen one since I was a little girl, we found a HUGE one in our backyard once! Or, I’m pretty sure it was huge…it was huge to me. Anyway, this little insect captured our attention for quite some time whilst enjoying our lunch and the little muse prompted me to see what kinds of mantis finds Etsy had in store:

Praying mantis from shefeltthebug

Steampunk Sculpture – Prayer Mantis from catherinetterings

Master of Disguise from LMLemons

Mantis 1 inch Button from goobeetsa

Praying Mantis Vase from catherinereece

Praying Mantis from teresaceramics

I apologize for the small size of the photo, I couldn't get it to enlarge and I don't know why...

Birthday Sweater!

My momma had a birthday recently and as her gift, I decided to knit her this sweater:

I really love the yarn, it was very fun to work with, was very soft and defined the stitches perfectly, actually, I critiqued the yarn here. The pattern was found on Ravelry and can be accessed with this link.

Now my for-myself project is one for me in turquoise :)

Tuesday Learn Something New Day - How to put your projects on Ravelry!

Oh the great wide world of Ravelry. You’ve gotten accepted, made your account and tried to learn how to use it by clicking various tabs and drooling over all the amazing projects you adding to your mental list of things to do.

But how do you show the Ravelry world your finished projects when they finally come to life? This can be a confusing aspect of the site and I’ve written this tutorial to help guide you through the process

First things first, click on the “my notebook” tab in the upper left hand corner

This should take you directly to your “projects” page. Once here click on the button that says “Add Project”

On this page fill out the title of your project, whether it is knitting, crochet, weaving or something else and where you found it (for this project, like many of my others, I choose the last bubble because I make the patterns myself). After this is filled out, click the button that says “Continue”

You will come to the Project Details page. Again, fill out as many of the blank spaces as you can, who you made it for, what size needles you used, what yarn you used and don’t forget that information in the little blue square in the upper right corner, saying that the project is complete and how much you enjoyed it :) Before continuing, don’t forget to hit “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page or you will lose all your hard work!

After saving, click on the button that says “edit photos”

From here you can choose how to upload your photos. Are they on flickr already? Photobucket? Etsy or somewhere else on the web? Or still on your computer? In this case, I used the photos on my computer.

Find the picture you want and click “upload”

After you have uploaded all the pictures you want, go ahead and click the button circled in blue “details” to go back to the previous page. If you are part of a group, add the project to the group so everyone can see it!

Now go ahead and add all those projects you have completed and show off your talent! If you'd like to be friends or see what all I have made that I haven't posted right here on my blog, you find me here. I really should update my projects too...they're not all up there yet...well, now you know what I'll be doing the rest of the evening ;)

Day Planners

Its that time again, classes are starting back up and I'm getting to be insanely busy (what you didn't notice no new blog posts yesterday?) I use a super heavy-duty day planner to make sure I get where I need to be when I need to be there and keep track of all my assignments, work schedules, blog postings, etc. Do you need a new one too?

Allium Day Planner from lmoss

Golden Woods Weekly Calendar from TheAyBeeCees

Personalized Weekly Calendar from muchadoaboutyou

Released!

We got word yesterday that the dove we rescued a while back was safely released into the wild. I am so glad that he made it and has rejoined his peers :)

Friday Feature - IckyDogCreations!

Just yesterday I received in the mail my new friend Winston. I had entered a giveaway on IckyDogCreation's Blog and was the lucky winner! It definitely made my otherwise not-so-great day. He sat right next to me and dutifully protected my laptop whilst at work typing away.

IckyDogCreations is a shop stocked with icky, creepy, awesome plushies of the vermin variety and a watch sculpture here and there. The owner is an RN in her other life working in my favorite state in the world. She is also a wife and mother and creator of many different mediums. Check out her shop, follow her on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, stalk this shop!

Ice Cream

I've had a sweet tooth craving for a coupla days now and despite my most valiant efforts could not satiate it. I decided it was time to bring out the big guns. Thats right. The Ben & Jerry's Guns. I rode Daisy (our moped) to the store and found the most delicious and full looking pint of Coffee Heath Crunch I could find, and proceeded to blaze home at super sonic speeds to consume my trophy.

It was only after the devastation dust had settled that I realized I spilled some on my shirt. I asked Matt if the fact that I had spilled ice cream in my excitement made me a fat kid. His response? "Well it sure doesn't make you a skinny kid"

Who else likes to engage their sweet tooth every once in a while with a nice heaping bowl? Perhaps some whipped cream? Salted Peanuts? A cherry?

Here are some amazing ice cream finds I found browsing Etsy to help you along with your quest to procure the end-all be-all of ice cream tooth cravings:

Vintage Sundae Parfait Dishes from Kitchensof1956

I Heart You Ice Cweam Moleskin Cahier from Cofy

Ice Cream Soap from LoveLeeSoap

Old Fashioned by squidart

Ice Cream Calavera from MisNopalesArt

Sharing by rkdsign88

Little Tree

My little tree from sevenacrewoods sprouted! It sprouted! There's a little sprout! Lookie lookie!

Isn't it so exciting? I haven't killed it yet! I planted it in a leftover planter we had that had previously served as a coffin for some tomato sprouts and now it sits proudly on one of our two stools near the window. Who needs to sit comfortably when there is a plant to grow?

I'd really like to upgrade it to a beautiful pot from Etsy, but until I can afford it (and the tree gets a little bigger) I'll just have to drool over these I found browsing and daydreaming about the day my little tree gives fruit:

Large Cypress Woodstained Planter Box from compulsivecollection
LARGE Tenmoku Crock from MisspotteryLotus Bowl from jwhite2

Yarn and Glue and a New Blog Banner

So this morning I was finally getting around to decorating the cover of my sketch and idea book.

I had this idea a few days ago and I finally had some time to get around to it! The hardest part about the whole thing was finding a glue stick...should probably keep some non-dried out ones on hand.

Anyways, here is the finished product! Or finished-ish. I will probably go in and either clean it up, add more or take some stuff off. But what do you think?

I also used it to help make a new banner for the blog, what do you think of that? Yes, no? Here's the old ones I was using:

Please let me know which ones you like best :)

Another Swap! Swap Q&A

Ok, here we go again! I so loved the swap I took part in last time that I have been scouring the Ravelry Swap Section ever since waiting for a similar swap to come about. And just the other day I saw that the very same moderators had decided to throw another one! Same deal, three months, three packages, one super secret swappee and one super secret swapper. This is going to be fun!

Anyways, here are the answers to the Swap Questionnaire:

Do you knit or crochet, or both? How long have you been at the craft?

I can do both but I prefer knitting, I crochet typically only for embellishments and such. I have been knitting since I was about 9 or 10, so about 10ish years.

Do you spin?

I do spin, I have a drop spindle right now and plan on getting a wheel when I a) have more moolah and b) am more permanently established somewhere.

What yarns/fibers are your favorites?

I don't think I have a favorite, I try and use a little bit of everything so that I can try as many different varieties of fiber as I can.

What yarns/fibers do you not like?

I'm not a huge fan of chenille...but that's about it.

What yarns/fibers would you like to try but haven’t?

I haven't yet gotten to try many luxury fibers (cashmere, etc) or vegetable and plant fibers, I'd like to try some of those if given the chance.

What are your favorite colors? Colors that you don’t like?

Yellow is my ultimate favorite color and while I love all the colors of the rainbow, I tend to stay away from pink.

What are your favorite types of projects to knit/crochet?

Again, don't really have a favorite, I do a little bit of everything; hats, scarves, sweaters, pullovers, cardigans, booties, slippers, socks, bags, the list goes on.

What are you currently working on?

Right this very moment? I am knitting up a Tee and writing the pattern for it. I also have Cabled by Hinke on needles and am always knitting up various beanies.

What is your favorite FO? (Please post a picture if you have one.)

Again with these favorites, I don't really have any! I am quite proud of this beanie I made for my honey though, and he wears it all the time which means he likes it :)

Are there any techniques that you want to learn?

I'm always up for learning new stitches and techniques. I've tried to learn how to double-knit and for whatever reason it hasn't clicked yet, but I'm working on it.

Do you have a yarn winder and/or swift?

I don't have either, sadly. As with the spinning wheel though, these will have to wait till I have more moolah and a permanent establishment.

How do you store your needles/hooks?

I store my straight needles in a needle case from lenabrowndesigns and my circular needles are currently well organized (sarcasm) in one large plastic ziplock bag.

Do you collect anything?

Not "officially" but I do have a rather large amount of elephant paraphernalia and my tea cabinet is always overflowing.

Do you like sweets?

Sweets are quite possibly my lifeblood. I have one tooth in my mouth and it is definitely a sweet tooth (ok, ok, so I have more, but my sweet tooth is the biggest one).

What are your favorite scents?

I burn a lot of incense and its mostly sandalwood, patchouli and similar scents.

Are you having a birthday during this swap?

That depends on when this swap "technically" starts. My birthday is in early September.

Do you have any online wish lists? (Amazon, Loopy Ewe, etc.) Please include a link for your pal.

I have a Wist you're welcome to visit but I surely need to update it some. Other than that, my favorites on my Etsy profile I suppose

What is your living situation (Are you married? Do you have kids, pets, or both?)

I currently live in a itty bitty apartment with my boyfriend, Matt, my hamster, Delilah, and a homeless cat, Punumbra.

Are you allergic to anything?

Not allergic to anything as far as I know.

Is there anything else that you would like your pal to know?

Umm...I'm a Junior at New Mexico Tech, majoring in Management? Is that important?

Moss

While on our walk that I mentioned yesterday with these dew drops, we were exploring a cabin nearby and look at this little treasure spot (pun appreciated) I found.

Moss. Growing in only one of the three holes! I thought it was so cool, utterly peaceful and very cute. Now, I know terrariums are all the rage these days. And rightfully so, too. I have often found myself meandering through pages and pages of the Etsy Terrariums. They are so calming and intriguing. Here are a few I fell in love with while browsing this morning:

As I sit here sipping my tea, this terrarium embodies all that is a calm morning. green tea with lichen from weegreenspot

I have always been an animal lover and while I could not find a terrarium with an elephant in it (niche warning!) I did find this one, African Daydream from Slackarities

And for those of us who cannot seem to keep anything alive, this Plush Terrarium from WeirdBugLady would do the trick :)

Sunburn

While on vacation, it is always imperative that you get yourself at least one sunburn.

Unfortunately I did this the wrong way and sunburned the entire front half of my body whilst tubing down the river that flows through the center of town.

The worst part? I had sunscreen on my raft the entire time. I kept saying to myself "I'll put it on later, I'll put it on later" And well, later never came and I am paying the price. Luckily, one of the friends who met us there had been a lifeguard and told us a few remedies to take the burn away a little quicker and I am not doing nearly as bad as I should be with this kind of burn. Vinegar, people. White vinegar. And loads of fresh aloe (which was impossible to find, so I found some other stuff that has just a little bit of aloe).

These items from Etsy sellers would also probably have helped out some:

Handmade Organic Chamomile Sunburn Lotion Burn Salve from cherisorganics

Loving Naturals SPF 30 Sunscreen from LovingNaturals