more crochet for the bebe

If anyone out there crochets and is looking for a *very* fast and cute project for a little boy, look no further! In just a few short hours (like....2, maybe) I was able to hook up this little crocheted baseball cap!

ADORABLE!

Here's the link to the original pattern and pattern creator (who has much better photos than mine.....even if they are on a kind of creepy doll!) Now I'm off to make another in dark grey!

CROCHET BABY BASEBALL CAP

(very small) home improvements

I wish I had remembered to take a "before" pic for this post but I am a bit too scattered for that these days! Nonetheless, in our hall we have a strange and useful cubby of sorts built into the wall just above the air intake for the HVAC. The man who first built this house and who lived here for about 40 years (!) was kind of a nutcase and also really cool. He was a handyman with OCD and we find little lists and odd things hiding in drawers and cabinets - reminders of Mr. Nelson. Anyway, the space is pretty cool because the inside of the door holds a ton of useful things on hooks: screw drivers, tape, a shoe horn, an extra air filter, lint rollers (a *must* with three dogs), nails, screws, a hammer........ this keeps us from having to run down to the basement where all of the "real" tools are kept every time we want to do something small like hang a picture.

Anyway, the front of this thing was super ugly - basically just a big piece of wood panelling inside a frame... so I painted it with chalkboard paint and left a love letter to my hubby! (Now, I know that chalkboard paint has had it's run on design websites and everyone is completely over it and all, but I love black and white more than just about anything and therefore with my white walls I will heart the matte black of chalkboard paint - AND it's functionality- forever!)

(much improved!)

Next, I embraced another love of mine - succulents! Every year at the beginning of summer I head out to buy a few more of these guys - because it's likely I killed quite a few from the last year by leaving them outside past first frost! I think my dollar store dinosaurs add that little touch of "quirk" that make these extra fun:



I love any small project that brightens up the space with a sense of humor and bring some life to your home - don't you?

finished baby blankie

I finished the blankie last night and I am quite proud of it! I added a round of double crochet to the outer border to make it more substantial. I think Isci likes it too!

tshirt FAIL

I wanted SO badly to make this amazing shirt to mark the progress of my pregnancy like the original creator did over at One Little Minute. I mean, seriously, how cute is that?!

So I gathered up my supplies and got all giddy...

I began marking my numbers with the center column so the overall design would be centered on the shirt:

And I went to town drawing on my numbers while watching tv. BIG MISTAKE! I wasn't paying attention and as I went down the next column of numbers I went in consecutive fashion rather than adding five to each previous number.

That shirt is now a dust rag.

BUT.... I bought more supplies and I hope to attempt it again soon (without the tv to distract me) and that way I'll post a pic of my finished product and my growing (and boy is it growing!) baby bump.

blankie update

I got distracted with other sewing projects for a while this week so the blankie went on hold. I've finally got it pieced together and now all I have to do is the border and threading in the ends! Hopefully by early next week I'll have it all finished :)

HAVE A HAPPY WEEKEND!

travel bibs

I came across this pattern over at B Is For Boy and I just had to make some... and now I'm addicted! They are made with a pocket on the back to hold both utensils and wet wipes to clean up messy baby faces and fingers! They were super easy to make - by the time I got to the third one I had it down to 40mins start to finish... but I think I could do it in 30mins now. I can't wait to give the girly one to my friend that just had a wee girl last week and I think I'll take one of the more boyish ones to my cousin and her 6 month old this weekend.

fronts of bibs:

backs of bibs (with wet wipes and utensils):

all folded up and ready to travel:

baby blanket in progress

Here is an amazing baby blanket I found on Ravelry.com that I am currently in the process of making:

I am using Stitch Nation yarns by Debbie Stoller (available at JoAnn's) in the following colors:

(left to right: Clementine, Little Lamb, Espresso Bean, Honeycomb, Aquamarine, Meadow & Mediterranean)

I love these yarns! The colors are so vibrant and they are a nice quality but aren't too expensive. I hope to finish the "Meadow" (green) stripe this evening and begin joining and finishing the edges soon. Hopefully in a few days I'll have it finished and ready to show off!

recovered cot

Last week I came across a project someone had done where they recovered a cot with cute fabric (now I can't find the blog to save my life - grrr) and I wished that I had an old cot I could do the same with. Well, lo and behold if I didn't go to the thrift store and there sat 3 vintage nursery cots just dying for a makeover :) yippie! I am not as impressed with mine as I was with the one I saw online but here it is.

The cot before:

It was a steal... and in the end I bought all three... why?! I don't know.

I decided that I wouldn't waste "good" fabric seeing if this endeavor would work so instead I used an old IKEA beadspread that our dog Scout had nervously chewed holes in when she was a puppy (that's Scouty and the fabric there).

First I ripped the seams of the existing (n-a-s-t-y) fabric and laid it out flat on some butcher paper to trace my template. Then I traced my template onto the new fabric and cut it out and sewed it up.

The hardest part of the whole thing was taking apart the cot to put the new fabric on. The screws were old and tough and it wasn't an easy job to do by myself (there may have been cursing involved. I may have scared Scouty.) but in the end I got it done.

Voila!

BIG NEWS and tiny shoes

I am going to try to get back to blogging now that I have a new reason for crafting and being thrifty.... I'M PREGNANT and we are due to meet our little boy in early October! YAY!

(yes, all of these say positive... and no, this isn't even the tip of the iceberg of how many tests I actually took!)

I'll be honest and say that crafting/sewing for a wee boy seems harder to me than doing the same for a little girl... maybe it's all those vintage flowered sheets that I dreamed of making into crib sheets and dresses for so long. But now I get to search for and buy *new* boyish fabrics and that is fun on a whole new level. :)

Today I've spent the entire day sewing little shoes and a bib to match:

The pattern for the shoes can be found here and I just traced around a bib I already had and free-styled this one by adding a pocket. There will be many more crafts and money savers for this mama-to-be... let's just see if I can keep up the blogging until the wee one comes!

not quite as easy as pie...

the incomparable "miss james" over at bleubird vintage (my new fav blog) made a post about these adorable pies in a jar and i just had to give them a shot. i needed something special for my clients that would be personal and yet easy on the wallet.

for the record, i am terrible in the kitchen. terrible. but i gave it my best shot:

i decided to make mine a mixture of pear and cherries. they didn't turn out as pretty as miss james' so i decided my packaging needed to make up for it. i've been on a pompom kick (as has every other crafty gal on the internet it would appear!) and used some of them to add a special something to my jars:

i also have been using my pompoms to spruce up my gifts! pompoms are the BEST!

i can't figure out why my pics are all going in sideways - ??? any clue? they are normal in the folder i upload them from....

getting back on the horse

i haven't sewn anything in quite some time and decided i better get back to it... only to discover i'd lost my touch. sad. i know i'll get it back after i sew a bit more but this incredibly easy jumper was way more trouble to sew than it should've been!

here's the 80's looking pattern (which is actually from the late 70's):

i thought that if i shortened it and wore it with a tie-neck blouse, white tights and little black mary jane heels it would look less 80's and more 60's.... we'll see!

come on now, show me what cha workin' with

so.... last post i gave you a sneak peek at my shoe closet. it's but a drop in the bucket as far as the makeover i'm DIYing on my downstairs basement room. A LOUSY DROP!

my hubs has been nice enough to give me full use of that nice big room to make half my dressing room and half my office/work room - SO NICE! well, i think before you can fully appreciate my hard work and compliment me on it (*wink*) you need to see the starting point.

please note three things:
1) these pics were taken with my iphone and are of sucky quality - forgive!
2) after our DIY wedding extravaganza i dumped anything and everything in this room and shut.the.door. until i had time to deal with it again... it's very messy but just look past all of my crap to see what i'm really trying to show you here.
3) i do not currently have photoshop or other cool tools that let you write on pics (that i know how to use... dumb) at my disposal so i'm going to get a bit wordy explaining things to you... feel free to just look at the pics.

alrighty! here we go!

so, i keep referring to the room in halves but that's not accurate. when you enter the room from unstairs there is a smaller side to the room on your left -this is the "half" i am turning into my dressing area - and a larger portion of the room lies to the right - this is the "half" i am turning into my office/work area. since i plan on using this post as a teaser for the mini reveal of my dressing room as the week goes on, i'll be focusing on that "half".

just so you can see it for now, this is the larger portion of the room which will be my office.

while it is larger, it only has the one wall of built-ins while my dressing area has two.

here you see it as if you were standing in the smaller portion of the room

THIS is the side i've made into my dressing area.

here you see it as if you were walking into the room after coming from the upstairs slash main living area of the house

here you see it as if you were standing in the larger (office) portion of the room

the door from the upstairs is to the left and the door into the garage/laundry room is to the right

**please note that behind that big chalk board leaning against the wall are the two doors that open into what is now my shoe closet - you can kind of see the doors if you look closely. the shoe closet is about chest height and about 3.5 feet deep. **

and this is just to show you the paint color and the fulgy outlets and outlet covers i've been working on replacing!

the man who had this house built in 1955 was a handy-man kind of guy himself and he apparently built this room in the basement himself... AND all of the awesome built-in shelves and drawers which now house my clothes. in all of the upper storage areas there were adjustable shelves and then below that super deep drawers... that smelled and looked like someone had been raising ferrets in them since the 1950's - vomit.

the first thing on my agenda was to clear out all of my crap and paint the walls white so that the room would be lighter and more airy... and to match the upstairs which i've painted white as well. (i'm having a prolonged scandinavian moment.)

then, i got to work on cleaning out those storage areas. i scrubbed and cursed and held my breath, but i finally got the drawers aired out and clean enough that i felt i could safely store my folding clothes in them without smelling like a homeless person. my jeans, pants, sweaters, tees, tights, socks and undergarments live there now!

in order to have hanging space for my other clothes i took out the shelves in two of the upper compartments and hung clothes rails. these now hold my shirts and skirts.

lastly, i cleaned and painted the inside of the small closet to hold my dresses and purchased a rolling rack to divide the space (dressing room designated from office) and to give me a bit more privacy when dressing.... although i'm the only one down there and no one can see in, it still feels weird to strip down in the middle of a (pretty much) big empty room. the rolling rack now holds my jackets and belts. (real coats are stored in the coat closet upstairs.... yes, i have enough jackets to fill a rolling rack... yes, it's crazy.)

i was unable to change out the sockets for white ones seeing as how i do not do electrical work but i plan on doing that sometime soon. until then, i just replaced all of the outlet covers with white ones to match the walls and blend in.

i've already drafted the post with the mini reveal of the dressing room so check back tomorrow to see :)

freaking out, part one (of a million more to come)

so the madness has begun and i've started looking at other dresses and now my head is all turned around because there are a million different ways to go... country, mod, boho, hippie, classic, ethereal... who knows?! 

the real kicker is that the dress i want most at this moment is this one from fleur wood: 

and it's sold out. 

so this morning i bought this dress from etsy (click to enlarge):

now if only i were a tall gorgeous dark skinned woman with an amazing fro....

 i really wanted this one from shripton couture because it's daisy-like but dressier... but, wouldn't ya know it, it too is sold out:

(this one has amazing details so if you have time click the link to see the other pics of it)

i am thinking that i could do a bit more of a yellow color scheme and that the daisy dress can be both country AND mod if done right.... i'm thinking of super cute pics on my vespa and standing outside a barn...  and if i don't wear it for the big day i know i'll wear it sometime cause it's just so damn cute! TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the first i know, but that's because i can be any kind of gal on any given day so i like all of these styles. how will i ever choose?!

i've been obessed with a mountain bride and snipet and ink these days. amazing sources of inspiration! it's like amazing stylish women did all the legwork for me and found all the best stuff on the internet :)

in good news:

last night p and i went to his mom's to begin making our invite list and it is not as bad as i originally thought. it looks like maybe we can invite everyone we really wanted to without going coo-coo-crazy. she was great about everything. 

AND.... 

one of my clients has a farm about an hour and a half south of us that she has offered for us to use for free for the big day!!!! AND... it has a chapel built in 1890 on the property!!!! we are going to drive down there to check it out this saturday so cross your fingers that it is just what we are looking for so we can get the locale nailed down. once we do, it will then determine a lot more about the # of invites, the theme/feel of the day and even the food and decorating decisions. oh gee, i hope it's what i'm imagining... or at least workable! 

and lastly, i have gone berzerk at the thrift.

this is just the very tip of a very large iceberg.

i stocked up on jars a plenty to make lanterns out of.

and glass canisters to serve vintage style candies in.

and an old school desk so i can totally rip off this idea:

and vintage sheets to use as the backdrops for photos or for tablecloths!

my sweet ellie was kind enough to soak all of the jars, peel off all the thrift store stickers, AND wash them all by hand!

she is a gift from the heavens i tell ya! :) THANKS E! YOU RULE BY MAKING MY LIFE SO MUCH EASIER!