Warm and Cozy Infinity Scarf

 I made this wonderfully warm and cozy scarf following this pattern that is from Delia Creates.

It was super easy and I finished it in 2 nights, probably about 4-5 hours.  I used Hobby Lobby's 'I Love This Yarn' in graphite, it took about a skein and a half.  It is so soft and comfy.  It looks great doubled up with a coat or even just hanging on once.  The gray is great because it will match almost anything!

Sock Monkey Baby Hat

 

There is nothing I get more excited about then FREE cute crochet patterns!  I recently found a new website that has so many free patterns I will be kept busy for a very long time.  Repeat Crafter Me is the name of this blog and I absolutely love it!  She Crafts, Crochets and Cooks!  It is perfect.  Anyway, as I was browsing her blog and trying to decide which project I should start first I came across this adorable Sock Monkey Hat.  I already had the 3 color yarns at home so it was a quick decision!  I followed this Sock Monkey Hat Pattern exactly (Except my red mouth didn't turn out quite the same, but I liked it well enough).  I used Vanna's Choice Cranberry, Vanna's Choice Barley, and 'I Love This Yarn' Ivory.

 

 

 

This will be the perfect baby gift paired up with one of the baby blankets I have already finished (Chevron Baby Blanket). 

 

I am also selling these hats on Etsy, Check them and my other items out!

Sock Monkey Hat ~ Etsy Shop

Chevron Baby Blankets

I have been looking for a good pattern to use when I am making baby blankets.  I have a slight obsession with chevron and was looking on Pinterest when I found this awesome blog:                    Daisy Cottage Designs. 
She has tons of really great FREE crochet patterns that look wonderful and she also gives advice on how to take pictures of your work if you intend to sell on Etsy (which I am in the process of doing). 
One of her free patterns is for a Ripple Baby Blanket.   I decided to give it a try and I am in love with how it turned out.  I did one with 4 colors (blue, yellow, white, and gray) and did a random pattern with the number of rows.  Here is some pictures of how it turned out:

 

 

 

The colors just went so well together! 

 Now I just have to wait for someone to have a baby boy!

All of the yarn used for this blanket was Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn! (Which I really love!)

I Love This Yarn Buttercup

I Love This Yarn Turquoise

I Love This Yarn White

I Love This Yarn Graphite

 

 

 

 

I also did another blanket using the Rainbow Ripple Pattern that they did on Daisy Cottage Designs. I love this one too!  I think it would work for a baby girl or boy!

 

 I absolutely love the colors!  I used 'I love this yarn!' from Hobby Lobby and Lion's Brand Vanna's Choice for the yarns.  I will update with yarn color names soon!

Blue ~ I Love This Yarn Medium Blue

Yellow ~ I Love This Yarn  

White ~ I Love This Yarn White

Pink ~ I Love This Yarn Pink

Red ~ Vanna's Choice Cranberry

Green ~ Vanna's Choice Lime

 

The reds and greens were hard to find because the others were all light baby colors and I wanted them to match nicely but its hard to find a nice red and green that go well.  I think they ended up working out great!

 

 

I just opened an Etsy Shop and I am selling both of these items!  Please check them out and More!

Rainbow Chevron Baby Blanket

Blue~Yellow~White~Gray Chevron Baby Blanket

 

Autumn Chevron & Burlap Pillows!

 On my latest trip to JoAnn's Fabrics I was a little obsessed with all the great fabrics.  I love this burnt orange chevron with the thin line of gold, and of course the printed burlap is just great!  I was really excited about these two fall fabrics and decided to make envelope pillow covers. 

 

My living room pillow inserts are 18" by 18" so I bought 1/2 yard of fabric for each pillow.  I knew this would make the covers snug.  This size also makes it super easy because no cutting is needed.  Each piece of fabric was 18 in. by 42 in.  First I took  my piece of fabric out and folded in the 18in. edges in about an inch and pressed them with the iron.  The paint on the burlap got hot fast so I used a towel to cover but forgot to take a picture.  

Next I folded them in another inch and pinned them for sewing.

I just love the gold against the burlap!

 



I sewed a 1/4 of an inch from the inner edge, and did both sides.  I used a medium brown color thread that matched the burlap, it wasn't perfect but it was pretty close.

Then I overlapped the edges until it measured 18inches.  Some people will say to make it 19 inches to allow a little room but I like my pillow covers snug so I make them the same size as the pillow. 

Next I pinned the edges with the right sides together, after making sure that it measured 18 inches and that the hem was in the middle of the pillow. 

Next, turn the pillows right side out and add the inserts!  These pillow covers cost me $2.50 each and I can change them up each season!

 

I've been featured on:

 

Fall Decorating

 

 

So I pulled out my fall decorations and started going to town on transforming my house into a comfy cozy fall atmosphere :).  First thing I had to do was to take down my Easter flag still hanging outside. :/  (Whoops..it's not like I walk by it EVERY time I enter my home)  Anyway after I got out all of our decorations I decided I wanted some new rustic decorations to add to the mix.  I didn't want to buy anything so I pulled out some mason jars and went to raid my candle stash.  I found some votives to put in the mason jars, now I just needed a vase filler.  I had half a bag of popcorn seeds in the cupboard so I dumped them in and added a little raffia.  I am pretty pleased with these cute little candle holders!  

 

 

Next I started looking on Pinterest for Fall DIY decorations.  I can across a blog called The 36th Avenue which had a great list of 15 different pumpkin decorating ideas: http://www.the36thavenue.com/15-diy-pumpkin-tutorials/

One of the links led me to another great blog, Today's Fabulous Finds where she had the complete tutorial on her awesome rustic 2 by 4 pumpkins:

Today's Fabulous Finds 2 by 4 Pumpkin Tutorial

 

I followed her tutorial step by step and absolutely love how they turned out!  I didn't cut a slab of wood to attach them all to simply because I didn't have one available to me.  I had the fabric scraps left over from another project so everything here was free!  :) My favorite part is when you distress the wood, it just makes such a difference! 

 

 

I decided to try one more pumpkin craft and found this DIY Pumpkin tutorial http://anightowlblog.com/2014/09/painted-wood-slice-pumpkins.html/

Here I did have to buy the slabs of wood but other than that they were free!  Love them as well!

As you can see I used popcorn here too! :)

 

My last fall project was to make new fall pillow covers!  That will be my next post!

 

Spooky Old Tree

I got a picture of this Spooky Old Tree at my parents house just in time for Halloween.  It reminds me of the children's book The Ghost Eye Tree By Bill Martin and John Archambault, illustrated by Ted Rand

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/ghost-eye-tree

DIY Scrabble Letters Wall Art

 

I needed something different to hang on the wall in our living room.  I didn't want more pictures but didn't want to spend a fortune on some big piece of art.  That's when I came across this tutorial on Something Turquoise: http://somethingturquoise.com/2012/10/19/diy-giant-scrabble-tile-table-numbers/

It is DIY scrabble letters and she includes all the printable templates for the letters.  A-Z.  The only change I made was to make my blocks smaller.  When I printed them I fit 2 to a page which made them 4 in letters.  I then took a 1x6 board and made 12 cuts it at 5.5 in.  making twelve square slabs that are 5.5 inches by 5.5 inches ( A 1x6 board isn't actually 1x6 in case you were wondering, weird huh). 

 

 

Also in the tutorial on Something Turquoise by Jen she used a pencil to rub on the backside of the printed template and then traced the letter on the front of the template to leave an outline on the wood.  I just used painters tape to attach the template to the wood and used a fine tip black sharpie to trace around the edges of the letters.  I went slow enough to give it time to bleed through the paper.  Then I painted with a good narrow paintbrush.  I think it is important to use a good paintbrush.  Saves you a lot of time. 

Finally I went to the garage and stained the blocks using Early American Minwax stain and hung them with Command's Picture-Hanging Strips.  If you have never used these before they are great! I also just used them to hang 4 - 11x14 frames in my living room and they hold up great!

 

Anyway I love the finished product! :)

Giant Hoho (Swiss Cake Roll)

So my dad has always been a big fan of devil dogs and Swiss Cake Rolls so my mom had the great idea to make him a giant Hoho this year for his birthday.  After looking up ideas in cookbooks I decided to jump on Pinterest and found this wonderful step by step recipe. 

http://www.cookingbymoonlight.com/2012/04/chocolate-cream-swiss-roll.html

Cooking by Moonlight ( I love the name of this blog!)
She gives great instructions and extra tips that helped our giant Hoho turn out perfect!  It was delicious!

 

I forgot to get a picture of the inside until it was almost gone, but it was a beautiful swirl!

 

Beautiful Day for some flowers!

 

Love this lavender that I put in my garden this year.  Has bloomed for months and is still beautiful in October.  I may have to dry some soon!

Love the contrast of the wood and the flowers!

 

Cut from my front flower garden.  I have to figure out what type of flower this is.

 

Michaux State Park

Here are some great pictures we got today at a state park closeby.  It was a beautiful fall day and a perfect day for a little outdoors. 

 
Ohh..How I wish we had our canoe with us so we could have gone out on the water. 

I was hoping for some pretty fall pictures but it was still to early.  Here were some left over summer blooms!

 

 

Such clear water!

 

The leaves are changing!  Yay, my favorite time of year!

 

Beautiful colors.

 

It was such a nice way to spend a Sunny Sunday outdoors! :)