A Happy Loopy St. Patrick's Day

I hope everyone is having a wonderful St. Patrick's Day.  It is rainy and appropriately green and beautiful here today.  In February, I made my husband a Rasta scarf for his birthday.  I had plenty of the awesome green yarn left and decided to make a swirly scarf for myself for today.  The color is more vivid than it is showing here and really, really pretty.

I had some of the yarn left over and saved it until I decided what could be made with it.  Well, yesterday I discovered the Loop stitch and tried it out last night after my girls went to bed.  This morning they had new green jewelry for celebrating our Irish heritage.

Miss O with her Loopy green necklace.

Miss B with her Loopy green bracelet.

I quite adore this stitch.  It's not for everything, of course; but is rather perfect when you want to add an element of fun.  Fortunately, my girls love their new jewelry.  It could have easily gone either way with my little fashionistas.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Day!

Easter Crafting

I love Easter and Spring and every thing about this time of year! For some reason though, I feel like Easter has crept up on me this year.  I can't believe it's only twenty-five days away.  I decided I wanted to create some Spring/Easter items for my daughters and our home.  Quite conveniently, I then discovered that there is to be a Crafty Easter Linky Party at Crea in the City.  Naturally, I want to take part.  Feel free to visit her blog and sign up if this appeals to you, as well.

And now, here is my first attempt at a crocheted Easter egg.  Which, by the way, I found at Julie-k.

I have to say that I wasn't sure about the way this pretty blue egg looked.  Then, Miss O, my beautiful firstborn, asked, "Mommy, why are you making an Easter egg?"

I literally squealed at her question and she looked at me like I'd lost my mind just a bit.  When I explained that I was pleased she could tell it was actually an Easter egg she shrugged and just said, "Okay."

I will definitely be making more of these cute eggs.  I think what they need is more polyfill in order to appear more like an egg to my eyes.  In addition to the eggs, I am going to make Easter baskets for my girls and some pretty Spring time place mats for our kitchen table.  I really dislike our table so I'm hoping the vibrant mats will pretty the table up dramatically.  They will be something to include with the Pretty Crafty Home project, too.

A Rasta Scarf

One of the first things I made when I learned to crochet was a hat for my husband.  He was so nice and gracious about it but it looked like an exploding mushroom.  It really did not look right on him.  Around Christmas time - we were shopping (what a surprise, right?) and we found a Jamaican shop in the outdoor mall close to us.  Well, my husband loves Reggae music and all things Jamaican or Rasta.  There was a cool red, yellow and green Rasta-style scarf in the shop.  He said he'd love something like that and would actually wear it.  Well -- I immediately decided to make one for him for his birthday.

Here it is:

He loves it! And naturally, I love that he loves it! And even more so - I love him!

Nesting

I have been nesting the past couple of days.  No, not the kind we women tend to do before we give birth.  Never say never but I'm fairly certain my husband and I are done with that sort of nesting.  What I mean is, I have really taken a shine for the Pretty Crafty Home project.  I have been concentrating on the tidy, tidy, tidy part of the project.  I must say, I am quite pleased with the results so far.  In an extreme added bonus, my daughters are excited and have been keeping their room picked up and their clothes in their dressers.  Believe me, this is a HUGE thing in our home.  I am heaping praise upon them in the hopes that positive reinforcement will keep them going in the neatness department.

This evening, when I sat down with my husband - he watches television while I do something crafty, but at least we're together - I picked up my crochet and felt zero guilt! This is huge for me because normally I feel a tug-of-war between what I should do and what I want to do - but not-so tonight.  This is so, so wonderful! I am beyond thrilled that I found and joined this project!

Making a Pretty Crafty Home

I have just found a wonderful new (to me) blog and fabulous project to go with it! The blog is called Sandra's Cherry Heart.  Doesn't the name alone just make you smile? The project is called Pretty Crafty Home.  Click here if you wish to take part.

The project is basically about making your home prettier and decluttered by crafting and being frugal.  I feel like this was created with my name on it.  The five ideas toward making a Pretty Crafty Home are:

1.  Tidy, tidy, tidy and clean, clean clean!

2.  If it has to live here, it should be pretty.

3.  If I don't like how it looks, and I can change it, I will.
4.  Thrift, re-use and recycling are my watch words.

5.  Crafting is king!

See, a project that I can so completely relate to and jump on board with! Especially as we live in a rented property and I can't do things like paint and seriously remodel - crafting and re/upcycling are right up my alley.  So, I imagine there will be a lot of crochet going into prettifyong our home.  Plus, I've rea;;y been wanting to learn to sew and this seems like a perfect reason to finally do it! I just have to get over being afraid to actually purchase the seing machine.

I have many ideas running through my head.  I'll let you know which is the first for our Pretty Crafty Home!

A Crocheted Gift Set

My daughter's were invited to a friend's birthday party.  My oldest daughter - Miss O - asked me to make their friend a crocheted gift set.  So, I found out the girls favorite colors and made this:

 A Purse

 A Scarf

The set together.  I'm happy to say that my daughters loved giving these to their friend.  And their friend loved the set.  So yay - everyone was happy!

Happy Valentine's Day

Oh, how I love tulips! They are, in every single way my absolute facorite flower! Today, please allow me to share this multi-colored field of tulips with you.  Happy Valentine's Day! I hope your day is filled with love and happiness.

One a Day - Tuesday's Tallies

One A Day is hosted by Carole atGingerbread Girl and on Ravelry.


This week I managed to get six squares done for my One a Day project.  I am quite happy with the progress considering the week we had around my house.  Miss O was sick with some nasty flu-like bug.  Anyway, I now have twelve squares complete and fifty-two to go.  I'm happy with the way they're turning out.  I want to arrange them in a random fashion when I start attaching them.  I hope I'm able to do this when the time comes.  While I like being adventurous with my color choices - I get very nervous about random placement.  I don't know why.


And now, for the part I like best, the pictures:

Wordless Wednesday - Caffeinated - Artful Happiness

One A Day - Tuesday's Tallies

I'm late getting to this post today but at least it is still Tuesday.  I didn't make seven Granny squares this past week but I did make five.  My reasoning is that it was my birthday and I had a lot of wonderful family and friend time that kept me busy.

Also, I know I had said last week that I had decided to make a giant Granny square but I changed my mind again and stuck with my original plan.  I'll save the giant GS for another project.  In fact, I know for certain that I am going to make a giant GS afghan for my husband's grandparents.  He and I both think they'd love it.  Here are pictures of the five squares I made this week and all six squares together:

Birthday Artistry

I celebrated my birthday over the weekend.  I am extremely fortunate in that I was able to spend time with family and friends.  On the morning of my birthday, my husband and daughters let me sleep in (a true gift in itself), made me a delicious breakfast.  I would have been thrilled with just this as I adore nothing more than a peaceful day spent with my husband and daughters.  However, they surprised the heck out of me with a gift that they made themselves.  Shall I show you pictures?

Yes, I adore the band Duran Duran! My wonderful husband and sweet daughters made me a jacket celebrating the current incarnation of my favorite band.  As it turns out - the original bits of the idea for this gift were my youngest daughter's.  I love my gift but even more I love my family and their thoughtfulness.  They make getting 'older' so worth it!

Beautiful Girl and the Fish

I am so in love with this photograph and want to share it.  This is a picture of my daughter Miss B at the aquarium.  Neither my husband or I have altered this photo in any way.  I adore the way it looks as if our daughter is holding the fish on the left.

One A Day - Tuesday's Tallies

One A Day is hosted by Carole atGingerbread Girl and on Ravelry.


I just finished making a scarf for my husband's Grandma - our daughters' Great-Grandma - for her 83rd birthday.  We all quite love it and even better - so does she.  In fact, she told our oldest daughter that she plans to wear the scarf whenever she is chilly.  Here are some pictures:

For my new One A Day project - I had decided to make ten inch Granny Squares like the one below.  Which, by the way, is not showing the color well no matter what I do.  The green is the same as in Grandma's scarf above.  Anyway, I had decided on making a bunch of theses squares in different colors and attaching them all together for an afghan.  Then I saw pictures of a giant Granny Square blanket and fell in love with that.  Now I think I want to do the giant Granny blanket more than the series of squares.  Aside from the fact that I love the way it looks - it also means not attaching multiple squares and that so appeals to me.  So, I believe the below square is the start of one giant Granny square blanket.  I figure I'll do a few rows a day until it gets to the point that one row/round will count for the 'one' per day.  Wish me luck!

Now I'm off to get caught up on other lovely One a Day projects.

Current Crochet WIP

With the happy madness of Christmas behind us - I am indulging in a crochet project for myself.  That's right - I am making myself something.  My oldest daughter loves this project, too.  She was a bit bummed that this one is for me but got over it quickly enough when I told her I'd make her one.  For now, here are a few colorful pictures of my WIP: