March Madness! March 6, 2013

Time I think for some updates on what’s to be expected for March 🙂

Firstly Jano and I have made the decision that dear Davi needs another pup to run the property and play with here! We’ve been searching a lot of shelters both near and far recently in the search for the PERFECT fit. I know that my love of Shepherds is the reason we are looking at that breed in specific, and Jano is adament on getting a boy (being every pet we’ve had together has been female lol). I will definitely be keeping you posted with updates on how that search is going!

I finally did it – opened my own Etsy store to start selling some of my crochet goodies that I post on here all the time! I’ve had a couple sales through that and its corresponding Facebook page already, so things are going well 🙂

Just a quick picture of one of my latest projects, a baby blanket/teddy for a friend who just  had a baby girl! There will be a post coming soon with more of my projects and creative adventures in the near future!

Our church has started a new opportunity to serve our community. They have displayed at the church a list of items needed by local shelters and programs. This ended up presenting me with a perfect way to marry my love of crocheting and helping out… you see one of the items requested was blankets, so I have begun crocheting squares out of all my extra yarns lying around and will put together a couple homemade crocheted blankets to donate 🙂 I will be posting pictures as this continues to progress!

Anyone else out there getting crochet happy? Any fun pet stories to share? I have a good one involving dear Pippen but that’s for another post 😉

A Shoutout to All My Fellow Tea Addicts!!! February 2, 2013

I am a tea addict, I totally admit it! I have a larger selection of teas in my house than probably anything else, and I know I spend more than I probably need to on different flavours of loose leaf teas that catch my attention. There is one thing though that continues to perplex me… no matter how many I purchase the infusers always seem to be missing.

I have tried asking my husband before, but he apparently is never aware of where they went. I’m starting to wonder about the existance of an elf or gnome that gets his little rocks off on stealing my infusers… tonight was no exception.

We’ve had a rough day today, I will save the reason for that for another blog post. All I wanted was to steep a mug of this beautiful Stress Reliever tea that I purchased from a Steeped Tea representative. I had seen posts on Pinterest many times talking about the ways to make DIY tea bags before, but always skipped by not sure I’d ever care to take the time to do that. Why would I when an infuser worked so beautifully? Well here’s why… living in the middle of nowhere with a good drive to get to any store and just wanting a comforting mug of tea I went ahead and gave it a try.

The result? Something we should all know how to do!!!!! All you’ll need is your favourite loose leaf tea, basic round coffee filters, scissors, a stapler and string (optional).

First cut the top and bottom off the coffee filter in order to make it a long rectangular shape.

Take the recommended amount of tea per cup for your favourite loose leaf tea and place it onto the filter, divided into two individual piles.

Fold the bottom third of the filter up over the tea, and the top third of the filter down over the tea to make it into one long tube like shape with the tea enclosed, still in its 2 piles, in the middle.

Placing a single finger in the middle, between the two piles of tea, fold the tube up in half, keeping one pile of tea on each side.

Press it down flat. Focus now on the top where the tube is still open. Fold the top corners down creating a sealed off, pointed end at the top of your newly created tea bag.

Fold this triangular portion over, flat against the tea bag. If you are adding a string to remove it from your cup you would do so now. We didn’t bother. I couldn’t find string in a hurry and figured it would be easier to just fish it out with a spoon than to go running around the house trying to find one. Either with or without your string, staple this in place.

Voila! A completed tea bag! Drop it in your favourite mug, add water and you’re good to go! I’m sure these would also be a great addition to a DIY gift for a friend or family member. Adding string with a little customized tag would be a really cute touch!

Encouraging tea addicts everywhere! Enjoy!

Christmas Crafting! December 18, 2012

Its been awhile since I had a chance to post last – getting ready for the Christmas season seems to be keeping me uber busy both at work and at home!

I have however been getting some fun Christmas crafting done! I baked some adorable cookies and finished off a few Christmas gifts for various people and Secret Santa exchanges.

First the baking…. Melted Snowmen Cookies! Its something I first saw on Pinterest. They are just sugar cookies with Royal Icing for the melted snow, but slightly watered down. Then a marshmallow head (squished slightly), chocolate chip buttons and the rest is done in decorating icing.

 

Now onto the Christmas gifts! I didn’t do as many crocheted gifts as I would have liked this year, but I definitely did get a few done!

I made 2 of these guys for the kids of my exchange partner in a Christmas gift swap I took part in this year.

 

I also did some hat and scarf sets for a couple friends. They are both crocheted. The first is a basic acrylic yarn, in a cabled pattern. The second is 70% alpaca and uber soft.

Then I decided it was time to try something new. I had always wanted to work with Sashay yarn, but for some reason it intimidated me. I decided to bite the bullet. I started off crocheting, decided I was NOT a fan of crocheting with it, but had heard it was kind of fun to knit with. I am very much a novice knitter but decided to give it a try anyway… and LOVE the result! I picked up 3 more balls to make them for friends 🙂

 

So that’s what I have been up to in prep for the holiday season. Anyone else out there still working on some last minute Christmas gifts?

 

Wedding Invitation Ornament! December 6, 2012

The holiday season is here! We are all decorating our houses, putting up our trees, wrapping gifts and singing Christmas carols! Its our first Christmas as a married couple and I decided that I wanted some sort of ornament to mark that occasion… that’s when Pinterest struck again! The Wedding Invitation Ornament!!!

To do this you need an extra wedding invitation, an empty christmas ball (I got mine at Michaels cheap), scissors or a paper cutter and something to help to roll the strips up (read on and you’ll understand, I used a crochet hook).

Begin by cutting our invitation into small strips (this part might hurt a little if you had DIY invitations like I did lol).

After you have your wedding invitation completely cut into strips, you need to roll the up to fit into the Christmas ball. As I said above, I used a crochet hook to help with this as it gave me something to roll the strip around to keep it nice and clean. Place each rolled up strip into the ball. You may also have to use the crochet hook to move the strips around in the ball to fit them all in if you have a 2 page invitation like I did.

 

When you have fit the whole invitation inside replace the top of the Christmas ball with a bit of glue to keep it in place. I then glued a strip of ribbon around the ball and glued a ribbon bow I had made to the front. Use a strip of ribbon to hang it and Voila! This is a perfect Christmas gift for that friend who just got married. Throw it in a gift box with some tissue paper and it looks great!

 

You can also make one for yourself as we did to put on your own tree 🙂 Enjoy!

 

 

Baby Shower Mason Jar Cupcake Favours November 25, 2012

A good friend of mine is having her baby shower today and I volunteered to provide the favours as my contribution (there are 3 of us putting it together). The nursery is green and blue with a nice mix of frogs and monkeys, so that’s what we are running wih for the shower.

I ended up making mason jar cupcakes, filled with green and blue jelly beans, and a sign to display with them that says ‘It’s a Boy’.

Here’s how I did it:

First you need the small 125ml/4oz mason jars and your choice of candy. We hit the local bulk barn for green and blue jelly beans.

Fill all your mason jars with the candy. You can do this step later if you’d like but it doesn’t harm the candy when you’re decorating so if you are going to snack on the extra candy while working doing it now will make sure you have enough….

For the next step you need a couple things: caulking and a caulking gun, and whatever you want on the top of your cupcakes. I used felt animals heads that went with the theme but you could use anything that fits your theme and is the right size including small toys or baby items, bells, etc. If you are doing something like the felt heads I used glue a toothpick on the back of each as it makes it easier to get it to stand on the top.

For each jar you are now going to create the icing. The easiest way I found to do this was first to create a small mound of it in the middle of the lid, then staring at the very edge of the lid begin to create the swirled icing. When you are done put your topper in place so it will dry there and leave it over night.

As you can see in my picture, I actually disliked how a few came out, scraped the caulking off before it dried and tried again. Don’t be afraid to ‘practice’ as it does get A LOT easier as you get used to doing it!

What I also did to make sure the caulking was fully dry is I then took it apart to dry for one more day, taking the two pieces of the lid apart. Be sure to do this on newspaper as the tops will sag a bit and touch the surface but when you add the bottom piece it will push it back up again. When I put them back together I used a few drops of super glue so that the lids will stay stuck together.

Now for your last steps. I tied a couple lengths of ribbon around each jar amd then placed them in a cupcake wrap. My cupcake wraps are just a piece of cardstock but I know there are some awesome printable designs on Etsy for next to nothing! If you are purchasing them somewhere make sure you get them for the large size cupcakes, not the average one or it will be too small for the jar.

You’re done! Easy and cute baby shower favours!

Around the House Crochet Fun

Looking for some fun crochet projects that will add to your home but get your crochet or knitting fix in at the same time?

Recently I made a set of placemats and coasters as part of a gift swap that I was involved in, in the recipients favourite colour. These are 100% cotton and machine washable. What a fun way to personalize the dinner table!

This particular pattern was a little frilly but there are a ton out there. As always I refer you to one of my favourite sites – Ravelry!!

Not looking for something for the dining room? Place one placemat in the middle of a coffee table as a centrepiece and have matching coasters available.

Most importantly – Just have fun with it!!!

Btw that’s Pippen who is apparently really curious lol!

Crockpot Wool Dying – Attempt #1 November 10, 2012

So I have seen many of my friends on sites like Facebook and Ravelry discussing how fun it is dying their own woool for their projects for quite some time now. I had researched it a couple times but the process seemed so long and dragged out compared to what you actually get out of it… isn’t it easier to just go to the store and buy the colour you want!!

Then I stumbled across something that caught my attention – Crockpot wool dying… Really? I already have a serious addiction to my crochet projects AND as obvious on here I LOVE my slow cooker so how could I possibly pass up the opportunity to combine the two!

So here’s a breakdown of how I did it for those that want to give it a try too 🙂

What you need: 100% (or as close as possible) wool. You don’t want to use man made fibres as the colour won’t hold. I used Lion Brand Fishermen’s Wool which I purchased at Michaels (and you can use the Michaels coupons!!). You’ll need a slow cooker, doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Also water, some vinegar and koolaid in your choice of colours.

Start with your slow cooker. Set the heat to medium (or high for those that only have low and high) with nothing in it except water and a little bit of vinegar. The vinegar helps to set the colour properly so that it lasts. Place a skein of the wool into the water and put the lid on. Leave it soaking for approximately 15 minutes or until the lid of the crockpot completely steams up.

Once it has soaked its time to select your first couple colours. You can do any mixture of colours but to keep it simple I started with just 2 per skein so that I could try to keep it simple. My first ball was a mixture of red and purple, the second pink and green. Keep in mind the way the colours will look when they mix as well something that wasn’t as well thought out with the pink/green as there are a couple spots that ended up being a weird brownish colour.

Sprinkle the koolaid onto the ball of wool covering it in the colour you are wanting to use. Cover the slow cooker and allow it to sit long enough for the wool to completely absorb the colour. If it has, when you scoop some of the water up with a spoon it will be completely clear.

Flip the wool over (use a large metal slotted spoon to make this as easy as possible) and repeat this process on the other side. If you are choosing to use 4 colours for example instead of two, use 2 colours on the first side, and then 2 othere colours now when you’ve flipped it. Once again allow this to sit long enough until the wool has absorbed all the colour.

Now using the spoon search your wool for any spots that are still left undyed. Use one of your colours to sprinkle a little bit on each of these spots to ensure proper coverage. Try to be patient at this point… Patience is not one of my strong points so I got fed up and gave up searching. The result is my first ball is actually red and purple with highlights of off white lol!

When you’re comfortable that your yarn is fully dyed, remove it from the crockpot. Squeeze the water out the best you can without twisting it (I don’t know why or what will happen, but all the sites I found describing how to do this were very clear about not twisting lol). You can pat it down wrapped inside a towel to absorb some of the actual moisture and then hang the skein to dry. It took mine a couple days to be completely dry to the touch.

Then all you have to do is wrap the wool up as you like to store it. I personally rolled mine into centre pull balls just so that I can use them right away without having to re-roll them the way I would if left in a skein lol!

Mine didn’t turn out perfect by any means, but pretty good for a first attempt!!!!

I’m sure there will be a second attempt to follow soon, now that I have figured out how to do it!!! The biggest challenge I have found: finding places in this area that carry a selection of different colours of koolaid!!!!

Enjoy trying this out!

Halloween Crochet! October 13, 2012

Its a quiet night tonight in the K house. My husband is out bowling with the guys, enjoying seeing some friends he hasn’t had a chance to see in awhile, and I’m relaxing at home and working on finishing up a few of the crochet projects I have on the go.

I recently signed up to take part in a Halloween themed swap on a crochet group that I belong to on Ravelry. The swap is to include one ball of wool that reminds us of Halloween, and then some trinkets. Generally we make sure to include something homemade as well. After signing up I set out on Ravelry to find some Halloween themed patterns.

Let me stop here for just a second to say anyone reading this that knits or crochets and has NOT heard of Ravelry yet needs to go check it out! Its an awesome page with a HUGE collection of patterns. You can organize your stash of wool, share your favourite projects, track the ones you’re working on, create a queue of patterns to come… So many options!

Back to my Halloween project… I found a tote bag that I was in love with instantly, a Zombie Tote! What better bag to carry around anything you need this Halloween, especially for an exchange partner with little ones in her life!

After that I also came across a smaller and easier pattern just to add a little something extra to the package. Its something that can be used for the whole fall season and not just for Halloween, but totally fits for Halloween at the same time: Pumpkin coasters!

Both of these patterns can be found on Ravelry for anyone interested in making them! It was a fun way to start kicking off the next big holiday coming our way!

Now, as I see frost these last couple mornings, I run off to get a head start on my cold weather gear. I have some great new patterns to try for hats, scarves and gloves!