crochet experts, help?!

Does anyone have an easy border idea that would work when this is done? I want to frame it with a solid color, but the idea of adding a border intimidates me. I mean, I haven't ventured to any new patterns yet!

The accidental pillow

The day I made the taggies & Bitsy's diaper bag, I attempted to make her a doll blanket out of scrap fabric. I've never been good at patchwork & discovered early on that I didn't have enough material to make a blanket big enough to wrap up her babies. Then I had a brilliant idea for making a blanket binding that would make it just the right size...but since I am neither an engineer nor someone who can visualize a finished project easily, my brilliant idea turned the blanket into a boxy pillow.

In the end it won't matter. Bitsy's only 18 months old. She'd be thrilled if I gave her a paper sack full of fabric scraps for Christmas. A pillow of her very own might make her explode from excitement.

Monkey Cake

Here is the cake I made for my daughter's 3rd birthday.

Even more taggies & another diaper bag

I know I'm turning into a one trick pony around here, but I can't help myself. I love making these things. I think after the first of the year I may make a few & try to sell them on Etsy. These are actually for my Grandmother's two tea cup poodle puppies (they weigh in at 2 1/2 and 5 pounds each). She noticed they love to drag stuffed toys around by their tags & asked me to make them one. I found two different dog themed fabrics in my scrap basket, so each pup is getting their own.

The bag is Bitsy's Christmas gift. It's a baby doll diaper bag very similar to the one I made for her sister a year & a half ago. She's already tried to take it away from me, but I spirited it away to be wrapped.

election day blanket

I finished this baby blanket for my friend's newborn son yesterday, Election Day. Does the fact that it's crooked have any political significance? j/k

I really need to learn some more stitches, but I'm doing well to make something usable with the little crochet that I can do.

With fall here, perhaps some of you other "hookers" and "knitters" have projects to share?

mermaid cake continued

I just had to share a pic that showed what the cake looked like before it faded in the car.

So the main differences between the pattern from the site I listed in the previous post's comments and mine are that I used a 6" pan for the head instead of 8". And I used fondant for the scales instead of necco wafers. (I also used fondant for the waves, bubbles, flowers, facial features, etc. and that's brown sugar at teh bottom to look like sand).

Hannah's Mermaid cake

I kept waiting for my sis to post this herself, but since she hasn't yet, I have to share it with you.
She made my daughter a mermaid cake for her 3rd birthday.

monkeying around

I've begun planning for Juliana's Halloween costume. She's going to be Curious George and we're going to try to get Brett to be the Man in the Yellow Hat. I'm pretty cheap, so I've been thinking of cost-effective ways to turn Juliana into a monkey. I got her brown leggings (which she will wear under skirts in the fall anyway), and a brown shirt (also usable at other times besides the 1 day). Today I made her monkey ears out of felt and hair clips. I clipped them onto a headband so that they would be in front of our existing ears. I think I'm going to get some beige felt to put inside them too, but our little town didn't have any. She will also carry around a banana... I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a fake one. I bet they probably have one at Hobby Lobby or something. Anyhoo, here are the monkey ears (pardon J's bedhead... she just woke up. She'll be wearing loopy pigtails with her outfit.)

more cake...

... I'm pretty caked out. I had some leftover supplies from the church cake and tomorrow our church is serving lunch for the teachers at a local elementary school during inservice. So I decided to decorate a small cake for the teachers to use up my supplies. (I already had the cake itself in the freezer). It won't be enough to feed them all, but I didn't officially sign up to bring anything. So it will just be a pleasant surprise in addition to whatever other people bring I guess.

Happy BIRTH-DAy dear chu-uuuurch...

It's not really the church's birthday. Sunday is Homecoming at our church and I made a cake for it... a cake that is supposed to look like our church is on it. When Juliana saw the cake, she started singing happy birthday to the church :) Apparently, cakes are specifically for birthdays.

Baby Crafting

It's been forever since I've gotten around to posting in here. But it is high time.
I'll confess, most of my crafting comes about because I'm cheap.
I'll look at something and think "well, I could do that for less than what they want for it". Like pacifier clips for instance. In the store they are a couple of bucks and most have characters on them. If you go on ebay or elsewhere online there are custom ones but they are also charging several bucks for just one paci-clip. So instead of purchasing one, I looked at the picture, bought some supplies and now have enough to make 10 for the price of about 3. I figure I have enough friends who are expecting right now, that I can happily share the wealth.

Here's my first Paci-clip on one of Lil-bit's outfits




I also made some wall art for her nursery. Someone - long ago posted a link to a webpage that gave instructions for making a clock out of a book. I loved the idea. Made one out of Dr.Seuss book for another friend's little girl last year. So this year I used one of my faves as inspiration for the nursery. I have my good copies of the book in the book shelf, but bought this copy used from half.com for less than 2 bucks. It was even hardback :D. I took pages out of it and framed some of the artwork. And then drilled my hole for the cover and inserted my clock works.

my 1st scarves

Well, technically, they're not mine. And they're my 2nd. But the 1st came out kind of "ribbony"... the yarn worked up thicker than I expected. When we got to my SIL's house, my niece saw what I had almost completed during the 6 hour road trip, retrieved some yarn they had around the house... and the rest is history. I did mix it with some extra white I had because midwestern winters call for extra warmth. But who's thinking about winter this time of year?

Then, of course I had to make one for the other niece. So SIL hit the craft dept. at Meijer. I should have learned from my 1st (unpictured) scarf that it would not be necessary to double the yarn. And somehow it seemed to grow. I left the scarf unfinished, missing just the fringe... SIL can finish that part.

As you can see, the kitten liked them!

baby boy crochet blanket

basic pattern the same as i used for previously posted blanket.
i started this one first, but finished it tonight.
good think little guy didn't decide to come REALLY early.

materials used: 2 skeins worsted weight yarn (7 oz skeins, i think), NOT doubled like i did with the two different yarns in previous blanket.
size K hook (or 10 1/2 or 6.5 mm, depending on which sizing system you are used to)
i lost track of how many hours i spent, but it was far more than the 3 hours the pattern creator said it takes her.

finally learning to crochet

Some of you have seen this on my blog, but I thought this blog needed some action:

a present for Zann's baby

I'm still working on the first blanket I started, which is going to be for my little guy. Zann is due first, so I put mine aside. Now I have to get to the post office. :)

The pattern I modified is here.
I chained 100 stitches to begin and used a smaller hook, so it took more yarn and time.

Socks

Just a little summer sock knitting. Additional details here.

National Scrapbook Day

During the 1st weekend in May, scrapbookers around the world celebrate their hobby by participating in National Scrapbook Day. Phin and I went to an all day crop from 10-8 at our local scrapbook store, Picture Me Perfect. They had demos and gave away prizes throughout the day. In the 10 hours we were there, I created these 7 pages.

Springtime Cake

This weekend in town there is a benefit for a 9 year old girl in our community. She has a rare for of cancer called Ewing's Carcinoma. this is the second time she has had it. As part of the benefit they will be having a bake sale and a cake walk. I decided to make a fun cake for them to use however they want. Here are some pics:

Bow Holder

The 3 ribbons I had hanging on the back of Juliana's door were overflowing with her 70ish bows, so I decided to make a bow holder. At first I was going to use a wooden letter J, but it just wouldn't hold enough ribbons for the number of bows she has. (she wears bows all the time... always has). So this is what I came up with. I'm not really pleased with how the letters turned out, but I wasn't displeased enough to paint over them and start again.

For what it's worth, there are 13 bows doubled (to 26) for pigtails.
And I didn't go broke on them... 26 were hand made and most of the rest of them were purchased using gift money for birthdays and whatnot (and several were purchased on clearance). I just wanted to clarify that before anyone started doing the math and assumed I spent hundreds of dollars on bows. No way :) If I could afford to spend that much on bows I would have just purchased a bow holder rather than making my own for about $3 :)

Juliana's thank you card

It's Taggy Madness

Once I got started, I just couldn't stop!! I really should make one for my own child....1