Little Leaf Lane

Baby H

2011-12-23T10:03:00.000-08:00

My bro and sis-in-law are having a wee little girl in January. During Leaflet naps, I managed to crank out a cocoon and hat for my niece.

I used Homespun yarn in a warm brown for the cocoon and hat and in oatmeal for the flower. The button on the flower is from my late grandmother's button collection. Grammie loved to sew. I'm pretty sure she's the reason I love crafty things so much. Boy, did she LOVE Christmas.

The Leaflet is 5 months old now. We've been battling reflux and fighting sleep, but the smiles, coos, and laughs are the bee's knees. He's just plain awesome, and I want him to stay this age. No more growing. He has agreed to this...or at least I think he has.

Hope you all enjoy your holiday season. See you in the new year! It should be a great 2012.

Leaf out.

Tour-ific!

2011-09-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

First, Happy Fall!!!

Nursery tour! I know what you are thinking...finally, the kid is 2 months old, and she's just now posting pics of the nursery. Does this make it any better?

Now, that you've forgiven me, here are the pics.

First, you meet this guy when you come through the door...

For some reason, I want to call him Raccoon Jack so that's what I'll do.

The crib was a closeout item from JCPenney:

(If you look really closely at the crib, you'll see a raccoon behind bars.)

Look, above the crib, it's Owliver!

We got this changing table from Babies R Us, but they don't sell it anymore in this color. I love that it has a built-in hamper.

The quilt hung above it is from the Carter's Forest Friends crib set. I hand-sewed some tabs onto the back of it so we could suspend it from a curtain rod. The curtain rod (from Lowe's) has an acorn on each end. We didn't use the brackets that came with the curtain rod because it would stick out too far from the wall. Instead, I found some bronze-finish hooks at Target that worked perfectly.

The chair and a half nook (where I will be taking monthly photos of our little Leaflet):

There's Aggie! The cats all think this is their room. This picture and the next 2 were taken during our newborn photo shoot by Christine Martin Photography. She did such a great job with all the photos.

These two crafty projects hang above the dresser. The dresser was an abandoned piece of furniture in one of the Gnome's past apartments. It was painted brown and had sticker adhesive on it in several places. The Gnome, after many trips to Lowe's followed by many hours of sanding, refinished it to go with the rest of the furniture. He also removed the wooden bar drawer handles, and we replaced them with some cute knobs we found at Lowe's. It seems that this post is an advertisement for Lowe's. It's a good thing that Lowe's is so close to our house because we go there A LOT. Here's the finished dresser:

Well, that is the end of our tour. Sorry it took me so very long to post pics. If we ever get around to hanging the mobile, I'll post pics of that too.

Leaf out.

He's Here!

2011-09-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

*Photo by Christine Martin Photography

Baby G has arrived! He decided to show up 9 days early (much to the surprise of his parents). Everyone kept telling us that since he was our first that he would assuredly be late. He was 7 pounds 6 ounces and 18.5 inches at birth. We are all doing well and still trying to get into a good routine. Baby G is 7 weeks today...which means I took way too long to update the blog. Oops. Sorry about that. I've been kinda preoccupied though ;) He is now weighing in at 11+ pounds.

I have some pictures from the nursery coming your way. I was actually waiting until the mobile got hung, but that still hasn't happened so I'll just post pictures without it.

I'm trying to come up with a nickname for Baby G on the blog, but haven't settled on anything yet. After all, he won't be "Baby" G forever.

Leaf out.

Finishing Up

2011-07-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

We have been busy bees around this house getting things in order for Baby G. Today, Baby G is considered full term!

We've put together a pack n play (which our orange, fluffy cat Aggie claimed as his own new bed right away), swing (our tabby Tweak tried to jump in and got the rude surprise that it moved), bouncer (no cats have tried to jump in there), and installed a ceiling fan. We still have the car seat to install and the mobile to hang. As soon as we get the mobile hung, I'll take pictures of the nursery and post 'em. I've been working on a knitting project and a crocheting project, but haven't finished them for pics and posting. Hopefully, I'll finish them up here soon because time is running short.

We attended our last baby preparation class last night. It was 2.5 hours on Baby Care Basics. Sitting still in a chair for 3 hours while 8+ months is not fun for your back. It was informative, but I'm glad to have all the baby classes completed.

Here is one pic from the nursery just to hold you over:

Leaf out.

Handmade

2011-06-10T05:33:00.000-07:00

Baby G has had two baby showers thrown in his honor. The first shower was in my hometown with mostly family, and the second shower was in the town where we live with mostly friends.

Several people made us gifts for our little guy so I thought I'd showcase them here. Ready?!

First up is a baby blanket that my Aunt Sandra crocheted in pastel yarn:

My cousin Heather made Baby G this adorable little hat in blue and white:

My friend Alison over at Crafty Weeks made a neat diaper bag with an attached, fold-out changing pad. Here it is with the changing pad folded up and velcroed:

And here it is with the pad folded out:

Love this fabric! She also made a pacifier clip to match...it's sitting on the changing pad, but it's blending in because it's the same fabric. See if you can spot it...

One of the ?L's motorcycle friends (yes, the ?L is in a motorcycle gang) crocheted us a baby blanket in blue, yellow, and white:

My friend B* made us a cozy hooded towel with matching washcloth:

I'm not 100% positive how she made it (I forgot to find out her secrets), but it appears that she took a regular bath towel and sewed a hood made out of a matching hand towel onto it. The washcloth has a cute dinosaur fabric on one side and the matching terry on the other side.

And last, but certainly not least, my friend EG made us this awesome quilt using Moda fabrics:

You can see the reverse side here:

Check out those leafies and mushrooms! The colors are just great. I am always astounded by quilting. I've never attempted it myself. I should really quilt something. Perhaps that will be my next crafty endeavor.

Thanks to all you ladies for such wonderful, crafty gifts!

In non-crafty news, I found out that I don't have gestational diabetes! No pricking my fingers! That was a relief. The due date is getting close now!

Leaf out.

Inspired.

2011-05-20T05:45:00.000-07:00

I don't have a whole lot to share from this week as the days have been filled with childbirth classes and doctor's visits. Don't you just love going to the dentist? I don't detest it like some people do, but I don't exactly look forward to it either. No cavities though! Hooray! I was instructed by my hygienist to either bring baby pics next time I am due for a cleaning OR bring Baby G himself ;) This morning I had to get up bright and early for a 3-hour glucose test (the test for gestational diabetes for those not in the know) because I failed the 1 hour test last week. It wasn't horrible, but getting stuck with a needle 4 times over the course of 3ish hours is not at the top of my list of fun things to do. I don't know my results yet, but hopefully they'll be results I want to hear.

I did however do something fun last week. I drove to Charlotte on Tuesday to hang with my in-laws including my sister-in-law, her husband, and our two adorable nephews. The other reason I went to Charlotte was the Inspired. craft workshop. I was not one of the attendees (mainly due to the event fee), but Mom G and I got to peruse the vendor fair they had at the event. There were maybe 8 vendors so it wasn't very large, but they had some good stuff to check out. The highlight of the workshop was that we got to meet and chat with LOLLYCHOPS! LollyChops was one of the featured designers/instructors, and you can check out her account of the event here (and the super-awesome inspiration piece she made for her class). She's the sweetest, most inspiring, crafty person I know (I guess I can say I know her now that I've met her ;) ). Be sure to check out her blog if you haven't already!

Leaf out.

Nursing Cover

2011-05-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

I couldn't think of a clever title for this post so I just went with the obvious. Pregnancy brain is in full effect.

I found this tutorial online for making a breastfeeding cover. I had purchased some fabric (30% off!) at my LYS a while ago for some unknown project so I decided to use it for this. Here is a close-up of the fabric (please excuse the wrinkles; they refused to leave despite my pleading):

The cover:

The reverse side has a pocket and a rectangle of terry cloth:

Pocket:

Terry cloth:

It was pretty easy to put together with it being just a large rectangle. I started to line it, but didn't have enough of the fabric to do so. I suppose I could have used a different fabric to line it, but in the end, I just decided to follow the tutorial instructions. I've tried it on, but the true test will have to come after Baby G's arrival :)

Leaf out.

Cocoon

2011-05-06T05:21:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday! I hope you have had a fantastic week! This week marks the last week of my second trimester so I'm in the home stretch now. That is a little scary, but also pretty exciting. We're halfway through our childbirth classes. I think we've both really enjoyed going to them and meeting some new people. Baby G has been moving A LOT. I think I experienced his first hiccups yesterday morning :)

Down to crafty business! Back when I found out I was pregnant, I found a pattern for a baby cocoon on Etsy here. I actually made the cocoon a while ago, but kept putting off crocheting up the hat. I can't believe I procrastinated for so long because the hat pattern has 10 rows. That's it! I finished it in about 45 minutes. Here's the set:

I used Lion Brand Homespun yarn in pesto. I have some blue/green yarn too so I might crochet up another one. The big wooden button is from Joann's. I have another pattern for a sleep sack/hat set from Bernat's website. It's a knitting pattern and is striped. I love me some stripes. So that's next in the knitting/crocheting queue.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

Leaf out.

Spring Green

2011-04-29T04:31:00.000-07:00

Alright people, the sweater is finished!!! I worked on the finishing touches last night and blocked it overnight.

I love the color and the buttons :) I think it turned out quite nicely. I might start on another one in a larger size so I don't forget how to knit it up.

I can't wait to get the dresser finished so we can figure out where we are putting all the furniture in Baby G's room. Then, we can hang everything and sit back to wait for his arrival. Well, I guess we need to do a couple of other things like set up the monitor and get the car seat and bases installed.

Have a great weekend everyone! It looks like it's going to be a beautiful one :)

Leaf out.

Tower of Animals

2011-04-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

I had another 11 x 14 canvas from the pack of 2 I bought to make the tree canvas. The Gnome likes animals stacked on top of animals so I figured I could do something along those lines. I started by painting the canvas with tan acrylic paint. Then, I searched my Cricut Give a Hoot cartridge for animals I could use. I cut some shapes out of patterned cardstock, but it looked too busy. So I decided to stick with solid, textured cardstock for our forest friends. I used some dimensional adhesives to pop the animals up off the canvas a bit. After adding some coordinating buttons from my grandmother's collection, I called it done!

Yes, that is Mr. Prickles again :)

I'm still working on the baby hoodie. I'm on the second sleeve though so I should be finishing it pretty soon. I just have to knit up the front bands for the buttons and buttonholes, and then I'll be finished with my very first sweater. Hooray!

Leaf out.

Mobile-ing

2011-04-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

The mobile is complete! Let's meet the characters...

This is Gnomar:

Meet Owliver's mini me:

This is Mr. Prickles:

Hello Toadd Stool:

And finally, Tweet:

We found a relatively straight branch in the backyard so I cut it down and attached the two 14 inch pieces with some green yarn.

Then, I used embroidery thread to string up the woodland critters so they would be facing slightly downwards. They hang about 7-8 inches from the mobile "arms." I added some coordinating felt circles and some stitched felt leaves to tie the whole thing together.

That is the Gnome's hand holding the mobile as still as possible for the picture. I don't know how long the thread to hang the mobile needs to be to hang it from the ceiling so I don't have anything attached to the top yet. And to be quite honest, I'm not really sure how I'm going to do that. Oops. I'm sure the Gnome will help me figure out some method of hanging.

I'm still working on the baby sweater. Hood's done so now I'm working on one of the sleeves.

The nursery is painted. The changing table and crib are assembled. We have a mattress. And childbirth classes start on Monday. We're gettin' ready!

In related baby news, we had an u/s today, and Baby G was not cooperating for pictures. Probably some foreshadowing there. Whenever the u/s techs would try to get me to roll over to get the shot they wanted, Baby G would roll right along with me. Synchronized rolling! And the u/s techs exclaimed at one point and pointed at the screen to show us that Baby G was sucking on the umbilical cord. My response: "stop that!"

Leaf out.

Baby Hoodie

2011-04-08T05:52:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that I am taking a knitting class to make a baby hoodie (pattern: here). I'm halfway through the class. 2 more classes to go! I've finished the body, and the hood is done; I just have to do a three-needle bind-off (whatever that means). The class instructor is going to show me how to do that on Saturday. Then, it's on to the sleeves! The only thing left to do after that is knit a strip for the buttons and button holes on the front. It's a great first sweater pattern since there is no sewing. So here's what it looks like so far:

Front

Back

(that spot is just the button I placed there)

Buttons!

I have been working on the mobile. I have made some woodland creatures, but now I need to put it all together. Maybe I'll have it done by next week!

Leaf out.

Finally! Anniversary Party Pics

2011-04-01T05:45:00.000-07:00

I know I have taken a looooong time to post pictures from my parents' anniversary party last July. It took a while to get the photos from the photographer. Then, it took a while to get the cd from my parents. Then, I procrastinated. So I will get on with the pics!

Here is the best photo I could find that shows most (2/3) of the room:

If you look at the top of the photo, you can see the tissue paper pomander balls I made. Yeah, the room was bigger than I expected so they look very, very wee. Oh well, even though they were a bit small, I like 'em. And I kept them, simply because I spent hours and hours of my life making them :)

We had balloon trees placed throughout the room. My bro, SIB, and sister-in-law J, rented a helium tank, and we inflated a zillion balloons. J read online about how to make a balloon arch so she whipped one up, and we placed it behind the head table.

For the centerpieces, I bought different sizes of jars and candleholders from Goodwill and filled them with royal blue and clear glass pebbles. We scattered confetti and blue gems around the trios placed on each table.

Why hello ?L and Pops! That's a mighty fine cake you have there.

(note the water in the background; the water comes up to just outside the banquet room)

SIB and J did an awesome job putting together pictures both for a slideshow and for a table at the front of the room.

Dancing!

Everyone had a great time. We danced the night away. It was a memorable night for two fantastic people celebrating their 45 years together.

The day it all began...

Leaf out.

Spring Break

2011-03-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

Howdy! I don't have any crafts to post this week as I am in the middle of a couple of projects. So I will be taking a (spring) break from craft sharing to show you some of the blooming things in our yard.

We planted some forsythia bushes last year on the side of our garage. They didn't grow very much over the past year, but we got a variety that's not supposed to grow super fast. Here they are sporting their lovely yellow blooms:

We also planted six green-flowered Hellebores. I love green flowers...they're my favorite :) One of them has kicked the bucket, but we were able to return it to Lowe's and get our money back. Yes, it was only one day before the 1 year warranty was up, but that was because we kept putting off digging it up. Here is a pic of some flowers on one of the 5 remaining plants:

I planted some bulbs in a couple places in our yard last October. Let's see...there were daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, crocus, and grape hyacinths. Here's what the bed looked like a week ago:

Not a whole lot going on, but there's some green poking through the mulch. Here's what the bed looks like today:

Last year, a groundhog decided to take up residence under our cement front steps. He (or she) prepared a tunnel with a hole on each side of the steps. Several people recommended we just shoot the digger, but living adjacent to an elementary school really doesn't make that an acceptable practice. Plus, I wouldn't really be comfortable doing that anyway even though I really don't like Mr. (or Miss) Groundhog at this point. I called a wildlife removal service, and they wanted lots of money and would exterminate him/her after trapping. The Gnome called a couple of wildlife agencies and found out that we could treat the area with fox urine (which is bottled for some application in hunting) to scare him/her off. We obtained said fox urine, sprayed a couple of treatments, and filled in the holes about 24 hours after so the bugger had time to vacate. Then, we rejoiced when there was no more evidence of digging, in or out. After we came home from dinner yesterday, we saw this next to our steps:

The groundhog has returned and has both holes all nice and dug out. Curses. This had to have just happened yesterday because I've been checking out the area every day to look at the pretty flowers. So I'm off to buy more fox urine (and some sort of wire to keep this from happening yet again). Wish me luck.

Leaf out.

P.S. Next week, I think I'll finally post pics from my parents' 45th anniversary from last July. Yes, it's almost July again.

Hoops!

2011-03-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not referring to March Madness (although I am currently leading my NCAA bracket group). I'm talking about embroidery hoops! I bought 3 sizes of unfinished hoops at Michael's and painted them with some Folk Art Plaid paint in dark brown.

I bought some fabrics in coordinating colors and laundered them.

Then, I simply ordered the fabric to jump into the hoops. Fabric and hoops, assemble!

After putting the fabric in the hoops, I just trimmed the edges on the back as close as possible to the hoops so it wouldn't show on the front. They are all ready to hang! If I could just figure out a way for things to hang themselves...perhaps if I wiggle my nose... The Gnome doesn't like to hang things.

We are painting Baby G's room this weekend. I want to go ahead and get that step done because then we can start putting the crib and changing table together.

In related crafts, I had some fabric left over from this project so I whipped up some burp cloths using a pack of cloth diapers and this tutorial. Here's the first one:

That's all for this week!

Leaf out.

Leafy

2011-03-11T06:08:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday!

Remember this?

And this?

Well, I finally decided how to finish this project off. So here it is!

(Thanks for the suggestions EG!)

I didn't have a scalloped edge die so I cut the yellow strip of felt using a scalloped rotary fabric cutter (I have the white Martha Stewart one with interchangeable blades). I cut the letters out using my Cricut Expression and SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot software).

Here's a close-up of the tree top so you can see the dimension:

The tree was put together using two tree cutouts. I attached some of the leaves to the bottom tree cutout and some to the top to add some dimension.

As in my previous posts about this project, I'd like to give a shout-out to LollyChops for the original inspiration and tree .svg. Thanks Lolly!!!

Now, that this project is done, I can move onto working on a mobile. I'm also taking a baby hoodie knitting class at my local yarn shop (pattern here). The yarn I'm using is Berroco Weekend in Matcha.

In personal news, I've spent most of this week on my couch due to the lovely stomach bug I have. We were supposed to go out of town yesterday, but that didn't happen. Lots of Gatorade is being consumed, but not a whole lot else. I'm hoping I'll start feeling better soon.

Have a great weekend!

Leaf out.

Presenting...

2011-03-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

OWLIVER!

And here's his perch:

I haven't hung him up yet because we haven't painted the room (partly because we are still deciding on a color and partly because we're lazy ;) ).

To make Owliver, I just drew an owl body outline and used it as a felt cutting guide. I hand-stitched the front and back together leaving a hole for stuffing and then flipped it inside out. Turning the pointy parts was difficult because the felt was thick and wrinkly. That was also the most difficult place to stuff some stuffing, but I think I managed to get some in there. Then, I stitched up the hole, which is hidden at his bottom. For the wings, feet, and beak, I just drew shapes on paper and used them as pattern pieces. I stuffed the wings with polyfil as I was sewing them up with pale yellow embroidery floss. I cut the "feathers" and eye circles out with my Sizzix dies and Cuttlebug. And presto! Owliver was born.

The wreath perch is a 14" styrofoam wreath I got from Michael's. I used Homespun yarn to double crochet a long skinny strip (like LollyChops did here). I wrapped and pinned the strip in place on the wreath form until it was all covered. At the end, I just used the yarn end to stitch the two ends of the long strip together. I'm going to hang the wreath with the 2-inch wide ribbon you can see in the picture. I don't know whether to tie a bow at the top or do something else to hide the nail. I sure hope our little one likes owls and woodland creatures in general :)

Have a great weekend!

Leaf out.

Ah, Nuts!

2011-02-25T06:07:00.000-08:00

So it seems like all I want to do these days is work on things for the baby's room. In related news, I have been through 7 paint samples...all blues and greens. I think it's between the last 2 that I tried so at least there's progress. The nursery theme is forest friends...you know, woodland creatures and such. We got this Carter's crib set. Although the Gnome loves squirrels, there are no squirrels featured in this crib set. To make up for this slight against squirrels, I decided to feature them in one of my crafty projects for the room.

I saw a project in a magazine a while ago that involved cutting out a shape multiple times in different patterned papers or fabrics and then placing them in a framed grid. The project I saw had a grid of teapots with a teacup in the bottom right corner. Enter my Cricut Expression and Give a Hoot cartridge. There are actually several squirrel shapes in this cartridge. I chose some patterned papers from my stash and swiftly ordered my Cricut to cut some squirrels. I got a little squirrel-happy and cut too many out, but that left me with more of a selection so it's okay. There's also an acorn shape on the cartridge so I cut out one of those too for the bottom right corner.

For the grid, I used my Martha Stewart 12 x 12 cutting mat and some scrap yarn. The frame I bought was a 12 x 12 frame so I used a 12 x 12 piece of textured cardstock for the background. I taped down pieces of yarn to outline exactly where each squirrel would be placed. Here's what the grid looked like:

I got out my adhesive roller and started positioning those squirrels. Here's what the page looked like after gluing and grid removal:

And here is the completed project:

Last week, I ended my post with a peep of a project that was still in progress. Well, it's still in progress, but here is a pic of the next step:

I used my Cricut and Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) software to cut out the tree. LollyChops made the tree .svg file, which you can find here (the tutorial for her original project is also in that post). I cut the leaves out of different colors of felt and cardstock. The buttons are from my grandmother's stash. I haven't glued the tree down yet (in fact, the buttons aren't even attached). I can't figure out what to do next. LollyChops put some strips of felt along the bottom with the word "home." Any suggestions?

That's all for now! See you next Friday!

Leaf out.

Happy Friday!

2011-02-18T14:11:00.000-08:00

I don't know how the weather is in your neck of the woods, but it is fantastic here. The thermometer in my car was at 68 degrees this afternoon. Unheard of for February here. In honor of the warm weather, I went with a couple of friends to get a pedicure in my flippie floppies. My toes are so very happy and pink :)

Alright, let's get down to the craft business. I have wanted to knit some fingerless gloves for some time and finally settled on a pattern. Here they are:

The pattern is from Knitty.com and is called Fetching because the cables on each glove twist "fetchingly" toward the thumb. These were my first cabling attempt, and I love it! I think I'll put cables on everything now. The yarn I used is called Ella Rae Bamboo Silk in Apple.

The gloves had a different bind-off technique that I hadn't used before so I got some instruction from my LYS. It's a picot bind-off. Here's a close-up:

So the technique creates these little bumps along the edge. The gloves haven't been blocked yet (and I knitted one more tightly than the other) so after that they'll look a little more uniform and not so curly at the edges.

Nextly, here is the promised photo of the necklace I made for a friend's birthday:

And here is a close-up:

My favorite flower is the one in the center.

I have been working on an art project for our woodland/forest friends-themed nursery, but it's not finished yet. LollyChops made an awesome tree .svg file that she used for her tree artwork. I loved it so much that I'm making one too (thanks Lolly!)! Lolly has a video on UStream for the project here. Here's a peep:

Have a great weekend! See ya next week :)

Leaf out.

3 Months Later

2011-02-11T07:58:00.000-08:00

Hello Again. I haven't posted in 3 months. Yep, it's been that long. I really have no excuse other than the holidays. Well, and there was also finding out my eggo is preggo :) I love the movie Juno.

I do have some crafty projects to share. Unfortunately, I repeatedly forget to take pictures of my finished projects. I'm going to have to get better about that. Before Thanksgiving, I made a bib necklace for a good friend's birthday. I went a little crazy crocheting and knitting flowers and leaves in some of her favorite colors. Just for some added texture, I threw in some felt flowers and leaves. Here is the disassembled necklace:

I am going to post a picture of the finished necklace soon. I promise. I also crocheted a flower and tie to dress up the wrapped package:

The other project of which I forgot to take a picture was the shawl I made for the ?L for Christmas. Remember this yarn?

That's the yarn I used to knit the shawl. I was supposed to get a picture of the ?L in it after she opened it on Christmas, but the giant snowstorm that arrived made us depart on very short notice. I'm still waiting on a picture from my parents to share.

I was looking for some new techniques for making cards so I decided to try embroidering cards. Here's one that I made:

I cut out the "birthday" using Sure Cuts a Lot (SCAL) software and my Cricut. I haven't played around with SCAL very much, but it's going to be a very useful tool. You can use any font on your computer to cut out words in one piece.

I have a bunch of projects lined up for the nursery so I'll be posting pics along the way.

Glad to be back!

Leaf out.

Autumn Fun

2010-11-08T08:48:00.001-08:00

Autumn in the mountains was beautiful...the reason I say "was" even though it's technically still autumn is that it has been super chilly here for a couple of weeks now. It's supposed to be "warmer" today, but it's still kinda chilly due to the wind. Most of the trees aren't letting go of their leaves just yet, but I'm sure with these cooler temperatures and windy conditions, they can't hold onto them for long.

In the spirit of fall, here are some of the pics from our day at our local fall festival/pumpkin patch.

This is the hayride that takes pumpkin seekers out to the pumpkin patch:

I didn't get any pictures of the pumpkin patch because we were diligently searching for the perfect pumpkins. This particular farm has both a pumpkin shooter and corn "cannon." We were able to shoot some corn cobs (really, really fun), but the farm was about to close and the line was too long to get to shoot a pumpkin out of their launcher dubbed "Dorothy." I love that the launcher has a name :) Here are some folks launching mini pumpkins with Dorothy:

And here is the corn cannon:

The Gnome would really love to have goats so of course he was excited to see that they had goats at the farm. The goats weren't horribly interested in us so they stayed at a distance, but check out the contraption they have for the goats to climb:

The farm also had a corn maze. It was the most complicated one I've ever experienced. The maze had two phases. We only made it through one phase before moving on to the next activity. We got stuck (for quite some time) in phase 1 in a section for which there was only one way out. At least we weren't the only ones...we kept seeing the same groups of people over and over again. There was a bridge you had to cross to get to the rest of the path. I stopped and got some great pics of the surroundings:

Isn't that view magnificent?! (all of that corn at the bottom of the photo is part of the maze) And because I haven't shown any pictures of pumpkins, here is the toddler pumpkin maze they have set up:

Now, for crafty news...I've been working on several projects, but sadly, some are presents so no revealing yet. (Sorry!)

I've mainly been knitting and crocheting all kinds of goodies. I've been making flowers from two different books: 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet by Lesley Stanfield and Crochet Bouquet by Suzann Thompson. So far I'm liking the 100 Flowers book better. It is much more organized, and I love organization! 100 Flowers has the patterns divided into knitting and crocheting sections. The patterns are also organized by degree of difficulty within those sections. The main reason I prefer 100 Flowers is that each pattern has a picture of the flower directly below it. Crochet Bouquet has the patterns listed all together with a group of flowers pictured at the side so you have to guess which pattern goes with which flower. Both books have patterns for leaves so they both earn bonus points for that :) I find myself wanting to attach flowers to everything, EVERYTHING. Look out! Aahhhhhh giant flower!!!!

I stumbled upon a 100 Flower Scarf here. So I decided to try it! Here's what I have so far:

I haven't been able to make any amendments to my Flower Vine Scarf from this post because the lady that was helping me at my LYS is out of town.

Leaf out.

P.S. I went with some friends to an Indigo Girls concert on Saturday night. We had a fantastic time and even got autographs after the show (we camped out on the street with a small crowd and waited for them to come out). It was a great show and a great crowd :) Now, I can't stop singing..."How long till my soul gets it right..."

Straight Off the Vine

2010-10-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

Last week I was working on a Flower Vine Scarf from a pattern in this book:

The pattern calls for bulky weight wool (size 10 needles). The yarn I ended up using is Ella Rae Bamboo Silk (size 7 needles) in Apple (The pink is for the flowers, but I can't remember the color name). I really like knitting with it. It's super-soft and smooth. My LYS suggested I use size 8 needles and increase the number of cast on stitches by 100 to make sure it would be long enough.

Here's the scarf at the 300-stitch stage:

A close-up:

It's starting to curl already! Then, I had to increase at each stitch (600 stitches). And then, increase at every stitch again. That's 1200 stitches people. This is what 1200 stitches looks like:

There's just a wee bit of my needles peeking out of all those stitches. The pattern only has 6 rows, but it sure took me a long time to knit a row with 1200 stitches.

Here is what the scarf is supposed to look like:

And here is what mine looked like after binding off:

It spiraled pretty nicely for about the first 50 or so stitches bound off, but then it started forming something more like V-shapes rather than spirals. I probably should have used a bulkier weight yarn, but I'm hoping I can change the pattern somehow to make it look better. I'm going to take it to my LYS tomorrow. I'm guessing there's definitely going to be some frogging involved :( especially since it ended up being about 10 feet long instead of the 5.5 feet in the original pattern. I'm thinking I need to start over and use the prescribed number of cast-on stitches and maybe increase the number of rows to make it more bulky so it will curve instead of bending into a sharp angle. I haven't tried knitting the flowers yet, but they are made from the same pattern with fewer stitches cast on.

In household news, our dryer started making some crazy noises yesterday, prompting the Gnome to turn it off and take it apart completely. Nothing appeared to be wrong with it. Once it was back together, we started it up, and it sounded fine until we put clothes in it. Spooky noises again. Then, as mysteriously as they began, they stopped. I have a load drying right now. Sounds fine. Maybe we have a haunted dryer :) Just in case, we have been researching front-loading washers and dryers. Anybody have any front-loading recommendations?

Stay tuned for pictures from our local pumpkin festival :) The weather has been lovely here...until today. It's really overcast and rain's a'comin'.

Leaf out.

Casting on

2010-10-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

I've been working on several things since my surgery. Some things for gifts, some things for me, and some for the shop.

My mom's (?L) birthday was yesterday, and she requested that I make her a wristlet purse. ?L chose the larger flower print above. It's called Blooms Main Floral, and I got it at Joann's. I found the coordinating Blooms Medallions pattern for the lining of the purse. Here's the finished product:

I also whipped up a card for the ?L covered in cardstock dragonflies I punched out with a Martha Stewart punch you can find here:

I've been working on two knitting projects. One is a spirally scarf embellished with 3 knitted rosettes called Flower Vine Scarf (I can't find a picture online and only have the picture from the pattern book I'm using). I have to cast on 300! stitches, increase to 600 stitches, and then increase to 1200!!!! stitches. Luckily, there's only 6 rows. That should be interesting. At this point, I'm still casting on.

And lastly, I've been knitting something up with this lovely yarn:

But that's a secret to be revealed later ;) The yarn knits like butta. I love it.

Have a great week everybody!

Leaf out.

Helmar Halloween Howler Hop

2010-10-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Sunday everyone!

Helmar is hosting a blog hop today with 17 hop stops and 15 projects. There is a guest designer blog stop (hint: she happens to be my favorite blogger(chops) tee...hee). Hop along and check out some of the great projects. Start here!

Check back tomorrow for my latest projects!

Leaf out.

Sans Gallbladder

2010-10-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been missing for almost a month. I'm still alive. I had surgery the last week in September to get rid of my pesky gall bladder so I've been recovering from that. I will be back to blogging soon. I have some things to post so hopefully I'll have something up before the end of the week. Have a great week everyone!

Leaf out.

Flowery Friday

2010-09-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday!

I've been meaning to make a card for some family members that just had a baby (um, last month now). With the gift cards from my birthday (and a 50% off coupon), I bought this Martha Stewart acrylic stamp set.

It has all sorts of combinations of flowers, leaves, pots, grass, and some cute butterflies and bugs as well. Oh, and birds and a bow, too. I forget how many stamps there are, but you can count 'em if you're bored :)

I love the included ink pads. They are teardrop-shaped and are lovely colors. I'm gonna check Michael's to see if they have other colors/sets.

Here are some sample cards depicted on the outside of the package. I decided to do something like the upper card.

Here's my finished card:

I changed a couple of things and added a cute ladybug and butterfly, but it's pretty much the same design that was on the package. I have a Congratulations stamp set from SU so I used the main "congratulations" stamp on the front and the "on the birth of your beautiful baby" stamp on the inside.

Other cool stuff I bought with my birthday gift cards...

A Scotch adhesive gun (I need a holster so it's at the ready whenever I need to whip it out and glue something)

And this customizable self-inking stamper: the i press from Hampton Art.

You can see a picture of Hampton Art's display from CHA here. You can even choose the color of the stamper! I chose pink :) The collection includes interchangeable ink pads, a variety of acrylic stamps, and sets of tags and cards for stamping. I have an unmounted acrylic stamp for my Etsy shop so I bought the stamper (which includes one stamp and black ink) and a set of 2 ink pads (brown and white). I removed the included stamp and stuck mine on, and then I was good to go. Oh, and I changed the ink to brown. It works great. The directions had me a little stumped on how to remove the ink pad to change it, but I eventually figured it out. I guess I'm a little directions-challenged.

Well, that's all for now. Have a great weekend everybody! I'll be heading to Virginia Tech tomorrow to watch the Hokies play.

Leaf out.

One more thing from my b-day...

2010-09-08T20:15:00.000-07:00

My friend AL and I love some Orla Kiely (I have blogged about OK before: Little Leaf Cake). If you read that post, you know that I have an OK bag with (what else?) leaves all over it. I also have an OK cushioned mat in front of the kitchen sink from her Target home collection a couple years back. It has an olive green pear pattern.

AL gave me this leafy OK tin for my birthday. Bewley's is an Irish tea and coffee company. OK used to hang out in the Bewley's cafe as a student and a couple of years ago teamed up with Bewley's to produce this tea-filled tin in her signature "scribble-stem" pattern. The tins aren't being produced anymore so AL and I thought we wouldn't be able to find them. BUT AL was recently in Dublin and found 2! (that's all they had left) tins at Bewley's! She bought both of them and surprised me with one for my birthday. Very exciting! I haven't had any of the tea yet, but I love the tin so much, it doesn't even matter if there's tea in it :)

Leaf out.

State Fair Part 3 - More Pictures

2010-08-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

It's leafy! And it won a blue ribbon :) The following are some pictures that I felt like sharing. Enjoy!

I love this birdfeeder! It was made by a junior woodworker, and I can't believe it didn't win anything :( I would commission one, but I think the wind at our house would result in birdseed thrown on the ground.

This sunflower is alllllllll petals. It's so purty.

It's an ornament cake with a snow scene inside. So cute.

This cake was phenomenal! However, it was too tall according to the rules so it was disqualified. The lady should've lifted off the top tier and filled in with some extra buttercream.

I love me some owls so I of course LOVE this ornament. I even took it out of its display case to get a picture. Shhh don't tell anyone. It's made from a hollowed out gourd.

The wreath wall...I should've counted how many there were. As you can see, there were A LOT. I think I'll enter my sweet gum wreath next year. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Oh the quilts! I can't imagine how many hours went into some of these quilts. They were amazing.

This display was in the poultry building where they had turkeys, roosters, and hatching chicks. The ducks go up stairs on the right and are able to get a little treat from the yellow dish at the peak just before sliding down the other side into the water. Then, they sun themselves under the heat lamp to dry off.

This was our last game of Fat Albert (from left: GT, AT, and AW). I'll see you next year, Fat Albert :)

That's it for the fair. Start making plans to attend next year! It was a blast :)

Leaf out.

State Fair Part 2 - Judging

2010-08-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the West Virginia Building, home of the arts and crafts. My judging partner and I were in charge of two craft categories: recycled materials and decorated fashion. There were several subcategories within each.

Here are some of the entries in the recycled materials category:

Ribbet! A froggy zippered pencil case made out of plastic soda bottles

A Santa Claus made with pinecones and goose feathers

Place settings made out of jean pockets

A poinsettia made from thin metal

And the winner is...

We gave this crocheted bag (made out of plastic grocery bags) first place and best in show. I can't imagine how long it took to make this. Someone mentioned that it would make a great beach bag.

On to decorated fashion...

This category included embellished, appliqued, and painted items such as t-shirts, sweatshirts, aprons, tote bags, vests, and jewelry.

Check out these entries:

It's Tie Dye!

Decorated Aprons

I heart watermelon so of course I also love this tote bag :)

A reusable bag with a quilted applique

Clematis flowers painted on a t-shirt

(you probably can't see it but this was very detailed)

The judging went pretty quickly so we were able to help put the items in display cases and look around at other entries in different categories. Our friend AT got first place for completed scrapbook and first place/best in show for her Christmas card from last year. I remember receiving the super-complicated card and thinking, "how in the world did she make this." Here's the scrapbook and the card:

Now that I have cased out my competition, I plan on making some things to enter next year :)

Next up: random crafts and pictures from the fair...

Leaf out.

State Fair! A tale of judging and fun fair activities - Part 1

2010-08-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, I traveled to West Virginia for the first time EVER. It's not that far from where we live so I imagine we'll be visiting for future festivals and events (there's a Chocolate Festival in April; that's right, I said CHOCOLATE Festival).

My primary reason for going was to judge two craft categories at the State Fair. The other reason for going was to experience fun state fair things like animal shows, horse races, competing vegetables and baked goods, deep fried everything, games and rides, a mechanical bull (oh yeah, I didn't do that), and cotton candy.

Judging wasn't until Tuesday morning so on Monday afternoon my fellow judge AW and I just walked around and checked things out. We got dinner and browsed through some of the merchandise booths including our friends' father's booth, artist Robert Tuckwiller. Then, it was time to try one of the cinnamon rolls I've been hearing so much about. The line was looooong.

But we waited...

And waited...

And waited. We watched the guy making them through the window when we got closer.

We finally got one. You might want to sit down for this (I'll wait)...and prepare to drool.

We went to the game/ride area of the fair and played a game called Fat Albert in which you bet a quarter on a particular color. My fair-loving friends AT and GT had told me all about it several times. GT even made a Fat Albert quilt for the fair last year (it even had snap on quarters). Here's the deal. There is a horizontal spinning wheel with color wedges painted on its surface. Each color has a hole at the perimeter of the wheel and under each hole is a tin cup with a handle. And there's an albino rat. Yes, an albino rat. The guy running the game places a tin cup containing the rat in the center of the wheel and rings a bell while spinning the wheel. The rat (probably very dizzy at this point) leaps out of the cup and dives down one of the holes. If your betting color matches the color the rat "chooses," you win a token! If one rat is getting tired, he gets benched and replaced with a second string rat. Here's a picture of the wheel:

AT loves this game and renounced our friendship when I won 5 tokens in 15 minutes; she had only scored 2 in 4 days. She told everyone we saw, including a reporter for the local paper. Which is why all four of us were mentioned in an article the Register Herald.

We also played the Dime Toss, which consists of spinning wheels stacked with drinking glasses. The objective is to land a dime in a glass of your choice, thus winning you the glass. AT won two short blue glasses for me. I tossed my share of dimes, but didn't win anything, once again confirming that I do not excel at throwing sports/games.

Next Post: Judging and lots of pictures...

Leaf out.

Whirlwind August

2010-08-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

So I said I had returned...but then I left again. Then, I came back, but then left another time. Now, I'm back for good. First, we had the anniversary party at the end of July/beginning of August. Then, my birthday was that week. I got lots of good stuff including 3 (!) Michael's gift cards. My friend SH of Bostons in Virginia made me this awesome felt replica of my Honda CR-V complete with license plate :)

Thanks SH!

Because everyone knows I'm a crazy cat lady, I did receive many a cat card. The Gnome gave me this card:

I do love shopping, but I also love cake :) My friends C* and J* gave me this card as they are very aware of my OCD tendencies:

(the inside said: Hope you have a near-perfect b-day)

Birthday over...onto our trip to DC/Annapolis. The Gnome had a week-long conference in DC. We left on Sunday and arrived at our fabulous hotel, Wardman Park. This is the ceiling of the lobby:

My SIL J* picked us up to take us out to dinner at a Greek restaurant down the street. After dinner, I said bye to the Gnome and traveled to SIB (my bro) and J*'s new house in Annapolis. I didn't get a picture of the outside of their new digs, but here is the view:

B-utiful! It was M-U-G-G-Y (ahh, mid-August in MD), but we still had breakfast outside every morning. I made smoothies! Oh, and they had just gotten a puppy, a chocolate labradoodle. Her name is Mochi, which is Hawaiian rice candy (SIB and J* met, lived, and got HI*tched in HI). Mochi sleeps a lot, but that doesn't mean it's easy to get a good picture of her.

She's so cute...and blurry. Here is a pic of Mochi and SIB playing:

SIB had the week off so we tried to complete as many of the chores that J* gave us as possible. That included 2 trips to Home Depot, 2 trips to Target, 2 trips to HomeGoods, and other various stops. SIB is in the Army so we got to go to the PX and browse, ANNNNND SIB took me to the mall and IKEA. The Gnome won't go with me to IKEA. Ever. We did some browsing and found some things we wanted. Here's what we bought:

We got 4 hand towels, 4 plastic pet food dishes, and a squeegee. How much do you think the total was?

We got 9 items for under $4. That's pretty darn good I think. My squeegee was by far the most expensive item at $0.99.

The 3 of us also went to the Melting Pot one night while I was visiting (sorry Gnome) :) Delicious. I'd never been to one before. My fav was dessert. On Wednesday, the Gnome picked me up in Annapolis. Back to the hotel. Thursday night, we metro-ed out to Springfield, VA to have dinner with the Gnome's high school peeps at a local pizza place (Saratoga Pizzeria, for those of you that are interested). On Friday, after lunch at Chipotle (mmmm Chipotle), it was back to the mountains and our kitties :)

Look what we found when we went out on our deck:

The long-awaited plumeria flowers! The flowers smell like Hawaii. Anyone want to go with me to Hawaii? I love it there so very much.

Next up...my post about judging crafts at the State Fair of West Virginia. Stay tuned...

Leaf out.

I have returned!

2010-08-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

I'm back! I didn't realized I'd been gone so long, but that was most likely because I was up to my eyeballs in tissue paper flowers. Maybe you should go get a beverage and get settled in because this will be a doozy of a post...I'll wait.............

Okay, are you back?

My parents' 45th! anniversary party was last weekend. That seems forever ago now even though it was just last Saturday. I was so busy running around and talking to people that there wasn't really time to take photos so I will have to wait to show you better pics when we get them from the photographer. I was able to sneak in a couple of photos, but not nearly as much as I would have liked.

Recap:
The Gnome and I traveled to my hometown on Thursday. Thursday night, we went to the local Irish pub for karaoke and great friends :) Oh, and Woodchuck (and old friend, right M and L?).

Friday, we checked in on the party headquarters to get the room set up. The room is right on the water so there is a beautiful view. They were working on the room at the time so we weren't really able to put any decorations up. Boy do I wish we would have put up some decorations then.

Saturday (day of the party), we headed back to the restaurant to decorate like crazy. For the centerpieces, I went around to our local Goodwill stores in search of glassware with a lip that I could tie raffia around. This turned out to be so much cheaper than getting a bunch of glassware from a craft store. I ordered cobalt blue (sidenote: the 45th anniversary is the sapphire anniversary so EVERYTHING was blue) embellishment glass and mixed it with clear embellishment glass that I got from a local craft store. The raffia was a pearly blue and white that I picked up from a party store. We filled the trios of glassware with some of the decorative glass and stuck a votive in each one. I tied some blue and white raffia twisted together around each and unraveled the ends. We also got some blue gems and silver confetti to sprinkle around the centerpieces. Here's a blurry, blown-up picture:

The Gnome and I set to hanging the tissue paper pomander balls (hopefully, I'll have some photos of them from the photographer). Turns out I should have made more than 8 of them. Oh well. My bro, who I will call SIB, and sis-in-law, J, showed up with a helium tank and more balloons than I have ever seen. J looked up instructions on how to construct a balloon arch. We centered it along the back wall where Mom (?L) and Dad (Pops) would be sitting. And we made a bunch of balloon trees to place around the room. SIB and J put together an assortment of photos from the parents' 45 years together to put on a table at the front of the room along with a guest book. I used a two-tiered wire basket filled with variegated ivy as a decoration for that table, but it needed a little something else. More confetti and blue gems!

We rushed back to the house to get all gussied up. Part of my gussying (sp?) up was my handmade felt hair clip that matched my dress:

It's purty!

When we arrived at the restaurant 25 minutes early, some guests had already arrived! So I had to flit around to light all of the candles while people mingled. SIB did a very good job welcoming everyone (with me standing next to him for support :) ). Then, it was eatin' time! The buffet had ham, clam strips, crab cakes (what is a party without crab cakes really?), chicken wings, tilapia, fried shrimp, coleslaw, twice-baked potatoes, steamed veggies, and corn bread. J, a former bartender, created a drink for the event called the Normanator (Norma is the ?L's name). It was fruity and delicious :)

After dinner, SIB gave a toast. Then, we had the slideshow. SIB and J did a fantastic job putting it together. It was probably my favorite part of the party. We had asked a few family members and friends to share a memory or story. After four speakers, we were supposed to start the spotlight dance, but the ?L, in true ?L fashion, jumped up and wanted to speak. She even had notes. Then, Pops spoke and had the room in tears. Well, maybe it was just me, but I'm pretty sure I heard some others sniffling. They danced to Only You by the Platters.

Hey DJ, it's dancing time! I danced the night away along with J, the ?L, and some other die-hard family members and friends. Our Locomotion train wasn't very long, but we still had a blast :) Here's a candlelight view of the room:

So the party was a huge success. At the end of the night, J was talking about having another party there for Christmas. She also talked about heading to the Eastern Shore's Premier Nightclub Shuckers after the party. She promptly fell asleep on the way home.

In plant news, the Gnome has an orchid at work (a Cattleya hybrid for those interested in that much detail) that has bloomed. I popped into his office for a photo shoot. The 2 flowers are beautiful and perfume-y :)

Closeup of the ruffly-ness:

Are you still here? If so, have a great weekend!!!

Leaf out.

Weekend...

2010-07-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, we went to Valhalla Vineyards with some friends. It was a beautiful day up on the mountain. We went on a tour of their wine cave.

Isn't it beautiful and glowing? It makes me think of Harry Potter. I think I can see him, wand raised, in the very back ;)

The Gnome's birthday was Monday, and we went to a minor league baseball game in town with some friends to celebrate. It was dollar admission and dollar hot dogs! There was lots of t-shirt shooting into the crowd, rubber chicken-catching, a dance contest, cornhole games, and our local team won! The Gnome's b-day cake was yellow cake with chocolate chips and chocolate buttercream frosting. I piped a "31" on the cake and filled it in with mini chocolate chips.

In vegetable news, we have ripening tomatoes!

Must get ingredients for salsa!

In crafting news, I've been looking for a new glue gun because mine is dinky and wants to fall over all the time. After Lollychops mentioned her new one, I went on a hunt for it as well. I had one failed trip to Tuesday Morning when they were closed for inventory, but I went back, and found that they had a whole shelf full of Dremel glue guns :) Now, to figure out a crafty project to put it to good use.

Leaf out.

Back in Action

2010-07-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

Last week, my mom and I went on a trip to the Outer Banks. We stayed in Kitty Hawk and had a fabulous time. The weather wasn't great while we were there, but we still had a fun time. We went to the beach, the pool, hit the tiki bar, watched a movie, played Uno, and went to the outlets. I wanted to stop in and check out the local yarn shop in Nags Head, Knitting Addiction. It was a really cozy shop with couches, comfy chairs, and a kid's play area. AND they have a resident cat, a lovely gray kitty named Purrl (what an appropriate name for a knitting shop cat). I managed to leave without any yarn, but I did buy a great book of patterns.

Of the restaurants we tried, my favorite was Kill Devil Grill. The food was awesome, and while it was a little loud in the dining area, it had a great old-fashioned diner atmosphere. Mom got chicken piccata, and I got crabcakes. Mmmmmmmmmmm. In fact, I ate seafood for every dinner we had because I live in the mountains where the seafood isn't so great or available. Barefoot Bernie's was fun and delicious as well. We shared a hot crab dip appetizer and both got steamed shrimp for our entrees. We also went to Rita's Ice-Custard-Happiness two out of the four days we were there. I wish we had a Rita's in Roanoke. Is there someone out there that wants to start a franchise here?

I loved the foot-washing station they had at the hotel. Maybe I just don't get out a lot, but I had never seen one of these things before. Here it is:

You step on, and the water automatically comes on to wash the sand away. Sand be gone!

When I got back to the mountains, I found lots of tomatoes, flowers, green peppers, and lettuce. Here are some photos of the status of the deck garden (all started from seed and featured in a previous post):

Maters (Roma)

Teeny Green Peppers

Bells of Ireland, Molucella laevis (ain't they perty?)

Lettuce/Mesclun

(it grew like crazy whilst I was gone cuz no one was cutting it)

Bachelor's Button or Cornflower, Centaurea cyanus

Now, it's time to get crafty!

Leaf out.

Little Leaf Cake

2010-06-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I am finally done with my Wilton classes. For this last set of classes, we didn't have to make a cake until the final class. AND we could design it however we wanted! Hooray! I was racking my brain trying to figure out what I should do when it occurred to me: an Orla Kiely cake!

Orla Kiely, for those of you who don't know, is an Irish designer with a clothing line as well as purses, travel, homeware, and stationery. You may have seen some of her stuff in Target a year or so ago. Many of her patterns are floral or leaf motifs so of course I love her stuff. I couldn't find a leaf fondant cutter in the shape I wanted so I googled "making cookie cutters." I used this wikiHow article to make my own cutter. I printed out a bit of this Orla Kiely leaf pattern (my inspiration :) and cut out a leaf as a template. Then, I cut some floral foam in the shape of the leaf to use for molding the aluminum in the shape I wanted. I removed the foam, added a couple of staples to secure, and voila! My very own fondant cutter. It cost me about $5, and now I have a giant lasagna pan with a hole in the bottom (very useful, I know) and some leftover floral foam for future projects. Score!

Enough of the babbling, here is the cake! (with my Orla bag):

I couldn't get the fondant as smooth as I would have liked, but that's because it chose to stick to my mat despite my greasing it. Oh well. It's still pretty cute.

Leaf out.

Scrappin' with the Queen Bees

2010-06-15T06:05:00.000-07:00

Saturday (through the fierce wind and rain), I traveled to the other side of town to go to a "crop" (aka scrapbooking group) hosted by the Queen Bee Croppers. I have never done any scrapbooking and thought that I wasn't interested in ever doing any (I can hear you asking, "why did you go to a scrapbooking meetup then?"), but now I'm starting to think that it might be fun. You should have seen the ginormous piles of photos these ladies carted with them to the meetup. One of the croppers had completed a 4-inch-thick photo album from their family trip to Disney World and was working on a second one for the same trip.

It was great to meet some new people, and most of what I did while I was there was talk and watch what everyone else was doing. I made one Father's Day card in the four hours that I was there. The only problem with me picking up scrapbooking as a hobby is that I hardly ever take pictures. I take my camera with us whenever we go on a trip, but then I never think about documenting anything. It would be pretty difficult to scrapbook with no pictures. I'll have to work on that.

In shop news, I have 10 sales! And 28 fans on FB! Thanks everyone for your support!

Leaf out.

Have you gotten a Father's Day card yet?

2010-06-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

No? Then, make one!

I always have problems figuring out what to do for Father's Day. Pops can never come up with gift ideas so I always have a hard time coming up with something for birthdays, Christmas, or Father's Day. And the same goes for card ideas. I came across a couple of handmade wallet cards the other day and decided to come up with my own wallet card that includes a pocket for a gift card. I recently made this card for my brother-in-law's birthday (I put his initials on the front instead), but I thought it would be appropriate for Dad's Day as well. I chose brown for my card, but if some other color strikes your fancy, go for it!

The closed card measures 4.25 inches by 5.5 inches (A2 size). You will need to cut 4 pieces of cardstock. Three for the body of the card and one for the insert. Cut the following sizes: A - 4.25 x 11 inches, B - 3.75 x 11.5 inches, C - 4 x 2 inches, and D - 3.5 x 10 inches. A, B, and C should be the same color.

For the outside of the card, score piece A down the middle at 5.5 inches for folding.

Score piece B for folding at 5.75 inches. Then, score 1/4 inch from each short end and again 1/4 inch from the bottom (one of the long sides) of the card.

Score piece C for the gift card pocket 1/4 inch in on each short side and 1/4 inch in on one of the long sides. This is what both pieces should look like after all of the scoring fun:

To make things fold more easily, on each of the bottom corners of piece B and C, draw a line across the corner creating a triangle.

Cut along this line for each corner. This is piece C after the corner cuts:

For piece B, there is one additional cut in the center. Draw two lines (creating another triangle) down from the center score starting at the bottom score level. Hmm not sure if that made sense...please see picture below :)

Cut along those lines, and you will have this:

Now, fold those edges! (on both B and C, please). Oh! And fold piece B in the middle in the opposite direction of the flaps.

Apply adhesive to the folded flaps.

Attach piece B to the inside of piece A making sure to match up at the center fold.

Now, to add the gift card pocket! Apply adhesive to the flaps on piece C and attach to the inside (right or left, whichevs you want) of the card making sure to center it.

I got a little ahead of myself and already put the insert (piece D) in the card. Before you do that, score piece D down the middle at 5 inches for folding.

Now, for some pizazz! Stamp or write whatever you want to say on the insert. I chose to put a "Happy Father's Day" sentiment as well as some trees (Stampin Up Funky Forest std roller).

On the front and on the inside, I added some faux stitching with a silver gel pen (I just used a piece of cardstock as my straight edge to make short repeating lines or "stitches").

There you have it!

*If you have any questions about my instructions, leave a comment or email me, and I'll be glad to help :)

Leaf Out.

This way for the tour...

2010-05-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

I shared some pictures of my craft closet makeover last week so I figured I'd post some pictures of the rest of my craft room.

Here is my crafting table:

Many of the things in my craft room originated in Sweden (Ikea). I keep all of my punches on metal bars I got at Ikea (this idea came from Mary over at Stampin' Pretty). They are within easy reach and facing out for quick choosing. Other often-used tools are either on hooks hanging from the bar or in a pencil cup mounted to the wall to the right of the bars. I also keep some items on the table in a napkin holder a friend bought me in Paris (Thanks again A!). My Stampin' Up stamp sets are all in the black and white storage boxes under the desk.

I have black fabric-covered storage boxes for my collection of felt and Cuttlebug and Sizzix dies. The dresser in the corner serves a storage role as well as being a perch for my TV and DVD player and my Cuttlebug. This particular dresser was obtained and refinished by Mom G when she was in college.

The metal rack next to the window is actually meant for a bathroom, but I stole it for my craft room since there was really no place for it in our bathroom once we moved. It holds my ginormous jar of spools of thread and my collection of buttons (my grandmother was a great seamstress and had a huge collection of thread and buttons in these jars). The rack also holds a couple of my many plants. There's a law in our household that states there must be plants in every room. In fact, we even have a room in our house that we refer to as "the plant room" since it contains mostly plants with the exception of a couple pieces of furniture. But I digress.

My Singer sewing machine sits on top of this old sewing machine table I got on Craigslist for a whopping $10. I fancied it up by spray-painting the handles. The bulletin board is covered in a Project Runway button print, and the frame is also spray-painted to match. The file box down below hold all of my magazine pages that I tear out for gardening and crafting ideas.

This little box sits to the right of my sewing machine. It is my favorite thing from my grandmother's house. It still holds her sewing scissors, her tomato pincushion (full of needles), and all sorts of sewing odds and ends. I just love the look of it and its tiny gnome, flower thimble holder, and mushroom pincushion. It was made in Japan. I think it originally had some kind of handle because there is a hole on each side in the middle.

Just for good measure, here is a picture of the craft closet again. I have added something since I posted last week. See if you can figure out what it is...

The tour ends here. Thanks for joining me :)

Leaf out.

Party in the SWVA

2010-05-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

The Gnome and I were invited to two cookouts this past weekend: one to celebrate a friend's 30th birthday and the other to celebrate a couple's 1st anniversary. I made the same dessert to take to both parties: a fruit pizza. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com: Fruit Pizza II. I used reduced fat cream cheese and lite Cool Whip for the pizza "sauce." I went fruit shopping on Friday to get the supplies and got raspberries, blueberries, kiwis, and pineapple. Of course, we already had a surplus of strawberries from our strawberry picking extravaganza. Here is fruit pizza #1 (pic from camera phone):

Do you see the hidden message? Well, do ya? It took people at the party a while to notice. I think it's probably easier to see in the picture.

And fruit pizza #2:

It has an orange juice/lemon juice/sugar sauce drizzled on top. Someone brought oatmeal raisin cookies to party #1. One party-goer had the crazy idea to dip the cookies in the extree sauce I brought. This led to much cookie dipping that would likely rival oreos and milk. Try it sometime...you might love it :)

Also, I forgot to share my most recent cake decorating feat. I made a fudge marble/chocolate buttercream cake for some friends that are departing for CA next month. We will be sad to see them go, but hopefully this will motivate us to go on a trip to CA. Their names are Holly and Zach, and since they are moving back to CA near LA, I thought it would be fitting to decorate the cake to look like the Hollywood sign using their names.

I got the Gnome to make me a template and print the text out flipped backwards. I traced it onto wax paper with clear piping gel and transferred it onto the cake. Then I just traced away with my icing. After piping a billion stars to fill in the "mountain," I finished the bottom of the cake with a rope border. My mom saw the picture of the cake and asked, "what is the significance of the brown top and green bottom?" So I guess it wasn't completely obvious what I was trying to depict. Oh well. Maybe it's because there was no sky...

Extreme (Closet) Makeover - Craft Closet Edition

2010-05-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

It was rainy all day yesterday so we decided to take on the task of making over my craft room closet. As I often do, I forgot to take a picture of the before closet. Nerds! (Insert description here: the old configuration featured two shelves; one at a height appropriate for hanging clothes and one about a foot above that, both extending the width of the closet). I wanted to take advantage of all of that vertical space in there. So after breakfast, I coerced the Gnome into taking me to Lowe's, the closet organizational wonderland...well, actually that's probably The Container Store, but we don't have one of those in the small city of Roanoke. Upon reviewing our available options, we decided to take down the existing shelves (with the intent of reusing them in the new plan) and start over. We got some shelves and wall-mounting hardware from the ClosetMaid Shelftrack line. That way I can move the shelves whenever I need to do so. It took a while, but they are installed, and it is all organized and labeled. Here's the new closet:

It is fantastic. I have so much storage space now...although I may have already used all of the available space. Hmmm. The top two shelves were the existing ones and are all one piece. The new shelves are all 24 inches long. If you look closely, you can see that the bottom two shelves are two pieces.

I love these magazine files from Ikea. I cut out a little piece of colored cardstock for each one and made labels to stick on them with my labelmaker. The cardboard organizers are inexpensive so I actually bought two sets. I'm sure I'll find something to put in the other set.

I used my trusty labelmaker to label the other boxes and bins in the closet too. I'm not really sure why I felt the need to label the plastic see-through bins for yarn and fabric. I guess I just got a little label-happy with my labelmaker :)

Extreme Closet Makeover = Success!

Soon to come: more craft studio pictures...

Strawberry Fields Forever

2010-05-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

The Gnome and I went to a strawberry farm about a half an hour away today to get some not-half-green, vine-ripened strawberries. The place was huge! I don't know how many fields they have, but we drove for about 5 minutes through fields and around a pond to get to Field 2, our assigned picking area. They gave us a row and two buckets. We didn't make it very far down the row before our buckets were heaping. So now we have all of these strawberries. I don't really know what to do with them other than eat them with angel food cake and light whipped cream. That's my favorite. But I guess there's also strawberry daquiris...and strawberry cake...and chocolate-covered strawberries...and strawberries by themselves. Any other ideas?

They are delicious. Nothing beats going and picking your own.

PW in Charlotte, Nephew's Birthday, and Mother's Day

2010-05-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

The Gnome, EG, Little Man, and I traveled to Charlotte on Friday to meet the Pioneer Woman, go to our Nephew's first birthday party, and celebrate Mother's Day. It was a multipurpose trip for sure. We arrived in Charlotte just in time to grab Mom G (my mother-in-law) and head over to the bookstore for the cookbook signing. We had planned to get there two hours before P-Dub's arrival. We got our number in line when we arrived (which was around #200) and waited in the bookstore's children's area to the delight of Little Man. At 6 pm, PW came onto the balcony to address the crowd. She was hilarious, sweet, and wearing her fabulous boots as always. Here's PW and her boots:

*photo courtesy of Mom G; I forgot my camera :(

PW spoke about the wonders of Spanx, answered some crowd questions (e.g., does MM wear boxers or briefs? boxers, in case you're wondering), and sang some Ethel Merman per someone's request. Then the signing began. We went to the nearby food court to get dinner while we waited. And then we spent the rest of our waiting time outside around a fountain at the mall. It was a gorgeous day outside, and the gardenias planted all around smelled heavenly.

Note: For those of you that are planning on going to a PW book signing...If we had been savvy enough to call the bookstore ahead of time, we would have known that we could have gotten our numbers as soon as we knew she was coming, not 2 hours before the event. Oh well. They called us in groups of 20. So all in all, we waited about 5 hours until we could meet PW for our picture and signed cookbook.

PW was super-nice, and it was well worth the waiting time to get our books signed and meet her. She even whipped out her camera to take some pics of Little Man. Here's our group pic (I am notorious for closing my eyes in photos):

*photo courtesy of Mom G

Although Friday was Nephew N's official birthday, the par-tay was on Saturday. Family and friends gathered to enjoy playroom fun, outside time, barbeque, and Paula Deen's Pig Pickin' Cake (Mmmmmmm). They had the most wonderful beverage there: have you ever had Arizona's Arnold Palmer Half Iced Tea Half Lemonade? You must run out and get some straight away. Here's a pic of the Gnome, Gnome's sister Suz, Nephew N, and me at the shin-dig. Isn't N adorable? :)

*photo courtesy of Mom G

And Mother's Day! I am thankful for the bestest Mom (you know, the ?L) and mother-in-law in the world. LollyChops, in her infinite crafty genius, designed these felt flower corsages for her mom(Chops) for Easter. I decided to whip a couple up for Mother's Day. I ended up buying a different (but similar) Sizzix die (paper sculpting lilac instead of Build a Lilac) by accident, but it still worked pretty well for the task. The only problem I had is that I couldn't get the floral foam to stay snug in the fabric cone. I'm sure I was just doing something wrong (or using the wrong floral foam?), but I'll have to figure out a fix so that the bouquet will stay where it's 'sposed to. I also attempted the crocheted butterflies, but mine weren't very round (and a little big) for some reason. Obviously, I am not an accomplished crocheter (is that a word?...It is now). They're still pretty cute though. I didn't end up beading the leaves because the beads I had were a little on the large side. I even got Pops to get me two corsage boxes and corsage pins from a florist for gifting. Here are corsage number 1 and number 2:

I also made special cards for the ?L and Mom G using my new Martha Stewart punches I got on clearance. The dark and light pink (note the yellow button brad :) ) flowers are the Pop-Up Water Lily Punches, and the coral flower is the Chrysanthemum punch. I used the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder on the background.

In Etsy news, I made my first sale! The felt flower clip I made was shipped off to it's new owner this morning. Time to list some more items! :) Happy Monday!

Anniversary Party Invitation and Shop News

2010-05-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

I have been working on planning my parents' 45th anniversary party. I've got the location, the food, the decorations, and the invitations worked out. I made the invitations for the party. Here's a peek:

The 45th anniversary is the sapphire anniversary so I used wild blueberry cardstock for the base, which is stamped with the larger flower from the Stampin Up Fabulous Flowers set and heat embossed with clear powder. I printed the text on white cardstock and then stamped the corners with the same stamp in blue and green ink. I also added a "You're Invited" stamp in the center.

And on the back is my new shop stamp :)

Speaking of the shop, it's officially open! I have listed a few items and will keep adding more daily.

My week on the Eastern Shore of Virginia

2010-05-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

This past week, I left the Gnome all alone (well, he had the cats for company) and traveled 6 hours to my parents'. I hadn't been to visit my parents since Thanksgiving so it was long overdue. In my defense, I had visited once in October and twice in November, but I still shouldn't wait so long in between visits.

Monday was driving day, and I arrived around dinner time. My favorite meal, roast beef and dumplings (the flat kind, not the ball kind), was waiting for me :) And dessert was cotton candy ice cream with a waffle cone at the Island Creamery on Chincoteague Island.

Tuesday, my mom, the Question Lady (?L for short; called this due to her superhuman abilities to ask an insane number of questions within a given amount of time), and I jumped in the car and drove back in the direction from which I came to go shopping in VA Beach. Our first stop was a consignment shop the ?L loves called Worth the Wait. The shop carries consignment items from Anne Taylor, Talbots, BCBG, Vera Bradley, and Coach to name a few. I myself didn't find anything, but the ?L came away with a dress and two tops. After lunch at Macaroni Grill, we went to the biggest Michael's I have ever seen (I am in our local Michael's and ACMoore at least twice a week). A quick stop at Bed Bath and Beyond was followed by a lengthy visit to TJMaxx (also the largest TJMaxx I have ever seen). We had some time to kill before dinner so we walked around Fresh Market (a specialty grocery store in case you aren't familiar with the name) since the ?L had never been to one before. I had decided that we had to eat at a Japanese steakhouse for dinner because the ?L had never been to one, and I knew she would love it. We met up with one of my best friends from high school to have our hibachi dinner. The ?L definitely loved the dining experience, but the fire was a bit close to her for her liking, and the chef didn't throw shrimp for us to catch. The ?L hasn't stopped talking about the fried rice.

Wednesday was just a hanging around the house day until dinner with some more of my best friends from high school. We had flatbread pizzas and flirtinis. We were going to watch a movie, but we ended up talking the whole night so the movie didn't happen.

Pops (my dad) took Thursday off to hang with me. We ran errands, had lunch with the ?L, and then headed to Ocean City, Maryland for dinner. Everything on the Boardwalk was closed so we ended up just eating at Outback. Friday morning, I loaded the car with all of the stuff the ?L was sending with me and headed back to Roanoke. It was a great week with the parents. Here are a few pictures from around my parents'.

Strawberries ripening away in their own personal patch:

The strawberry patch!

Sweet Potato starts growing in Pops' hot box. He topped it with an old window, and it's equipped with its own temperature/humidity monitor. You may be able to see the sandals on either side of the box. They serve a very significant role in venting the box when it gets trans-mega hot in there. How's that for recycling?

Pops has an ongoing battle with the booming deer population. His pea plants are deer candy so he is constructing a 7-foot-tall fence complete with double gates. Gate #1 is to the left of the truck while Gate #2 is under construction. The pea plants are safe, but the ?L contends that they haven't been consumed because she bought these strips meant to deter deer called Critter Chasers and hung them up around the garden. Pops doesn't believe in the Critter Chasers.

Finally, this is the canopy Pops built recently to cover the back steps, mainly so snow and ice don't accumulate on the landing. Now, I'm trying to talk him into coming out to our house to build a screened porch.

Calling all die-hard die cutters...

2010-04-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

My fabulous huz-band (henceforth he will be referred to as the Gnome on Little Leaf Lane) has been researching die cutters in hopes of finding one that will work with my Mac for cutting out any shape that my heart desires. The Gnome is a very nice one :) Every time in the past two weeks I have ventured the question, "hey what are you doing?" He replies, "looking at cutters." The Gnome has read many a forum trying to figure out what the best combo of software/machine would be for my wants, needs, and desires. I want to be able to design my own shapes on my Mac and be able to cut them out with said die cutter. The Craft Robo looks awesome, but we aren't sure about its compatibility with a Mac. AND what is the difference between the Craft Robo and the Silhouette?...from what we can tell, they seem to be the same machine. The Cricut would be a good option except that you have to drop loads of cash on cartridges and can't design your own shapes (or can you? I would like to know the answer to that question). In other/related news, my Wilton course instructor introduced me to the red, shiny new Cricut Cake the other day. It's fanc-y. Have you seen/heard about it? You can cut out fondant shapes with it...using any existing Cricut cartridges. They are compatible! Can you imagine the number of leaves I could cut out? I would definitely be surrounded in leaves. And you wouldn't be able to see the cake surface for all of the leafy goodness. Oh yeah, back to the die cutters...so I want a die cutter, and I want to use my Mac, and I want to design my own shapes...OH! and be able to cut out any true-type fonts. So crafty blog world...help a sister out! What do I get?

Basketcase...I mean, cake

2010-04-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

Last night was the final night of Wilton Cake Decorating Course II. Unlike the first course, we only made one cake for this class. We spent three weeks fashioning flowers out of royal icing and butta-cream. We always have to take lots of supplies to class, and I pretty much have always forgotten something for each class. Last night, as I was driving in rush hour traffic (well, as much rush hour traffic as Roanoke, VA has), I realized that I'd forgotten my flowers. All of my hard work from the past three weeks was sitting on top of the dryer in the laundry room. Doh! Oh well. It didn't matter because it took me the entire class to put the dang basketweave pattern and woven rope border on the cake. Here is a before flower picture:

And to the right of the cake, you can see my arsenal of flowers. This morning, my mission was to put every single last one of these flowers on the cake in some cascading manner. I didn't use the 2D birds we made 'cause I didn't like the 2D-ness. And I did go a little crazy with leaves, but that is to be expected from me :)

I present to you, my basket cake. Ta daaaaa!

Got mulch?

2010-04-19T06:04:00.000-07:00

We sure did. And lots of it. We got 12.5 cubic yards to spread around our yard, and still came up a bit short. That's 10 scoops people, the max truck load they could transport. Here is our starting pile from 2 different angles:

The mulch was delivered at 8:15 am, and we didn't finish spreading until 6:30 pm. At around 12, I collapsed onto the ground and started whining about how tired I was already (the stupid meds I'm taking for my lovely case of poison ivy are bringing me down), but after some prodding with a mulch-covered shovel, I got back up and continued on for several more hours. I wish that the Hubs had counted how many wheelbarrows loads he schlepped around, but alas, I have no such figures. He wanted me to take a victory picture of him with his shovel, but we were exhausted after spreading mulch for 8 hours so that didn't happen. So the Before pictures will have to be enough. We are both exceedingly sore after all that, but the yard looks great. Perhaps I'll go out and take some pictures of the yard post-mulch today for your viewing pleasure. Happy Monday everyone!

P.S. I hope I didn't subject myself to more poison ivy in the mulching process because I definitely came across more in our yard. Which reminds me...to Lowe's for Roundup!

Sneak Peek

2010-04-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

Alright. So I've been working on a bunch of stuff to list in my new Etsy shop. It has been difficult to do these past few days because these meds I'm taking for my righteous case of poison ivy are making me feel very subdued and numby (is that a word?). BUT here are some pics of what I've been making. Happy Friday!

New favorite store!

2010-04-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks to MintBasil, I now have a favorite new online store. They have a brick and mortar store in PA too so hopefully I'll be able to visit their wonderful merchandise in person. AND hopefully, that trip will be combined with visits to Longwood Gardens and Winterthur Museum and estate. Am I keeping you in suspense?

The store is terrain. I cannot express to you how much I enjoyed browsing through their wares yesterday. I am so hopelessly, totally in love with everything they sell. I especially love terrariums, and they have a terrarium section. An entire terrarium section! This is my favorite one: White Spring Terrarium.

And I very much want to purchase some of their shea butter soaps. I definitely can't afford to buy some of the items in the store that I desperately want...for instance, their vintage section contains these Stone Topiary Finials recovered from the UK that (dare I say it) I am in LOVE with, but they are $1K for the pair. BUT they are beauteous :)

Enjoy browsing around their site if any of this strikes your fancy.

Seeds (and Plants) have sprung!

2010-04-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

Please enjoy this tour of some of the plants in our yard as well as some seeds I have sown for later residence in our yard :)

The Hosta rootstock (from a Sam's Club box) we planted last year have finally come up...well, two of the 10 have come up. Here's hoping there's more where this came from.

We didn't plant these, but I had to share. Pansies have popped up all under our deck. I am constantly reminding the husband to "NOT STEP ON THEM!" even though they are totally in the walkway.

And introducing...all of the seeds for container planting!

If I'm going to be doing all of this gardening, I am in need of these boots. I love, love, love them!

Easter Weekend and New Stuff

2010-04-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

For Easter weekend, we spent a lot of time in the yard. You may think, "oh fun, hanging out in the great weather." No, we were clearing brush and sticks and branches from behind our fence. We had to prune a bunch of trees and plant some perennials. I finally have hellebores in the yard! We now have four giant piles of yard waste. We may even have room for a compost bin now. We also discovered what we believe to be a skunk den beyond our fence. That explains why I keep smelling a skunk. I just hope we don't come face to face.

We did take a little break on Saturday to go to a local winery (Valhalla) up on top of a mountain. We had some snacks and wine with friends enjoying the view. The road up there was crazy winding though.

In other news, I have been holed up in my studio working on various things for my shop. I've got cards, wine charms, hair clips, and a couple of purses. I need to take some pictures and write descriptions, and they'll be posted soon enough.

Ready, Set, DECORATE! - Wilton Course 1

2010-03-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

Many times in the past, I have looked at Wilton course listings at Michael's and ACMoore trying to figure out if I should take them. Well, the local ACMoore was offering 50% the course fee (which is normally $45!) so I gave in to the urge and signed up. Four classes and 3 cakes later, I'm an expert cake decorator. Um, no. But I am getting better at getting a super-smooth, iced cake. I am no expert at making the Wilton Rose, but with some practice, I think I'll be able to produce some pretty decent roses. (Just between us: I think roses are just okay. Both on cakes and as real flowers. I'm more interested in making other flowers. Shhhh...don't tell anyone.) I have enjoyed the classes and found them to be helpful for learning the techniques, but the supplies are expensive! I was told by the instructor before the classes started that if I bought the 101-piece Wilton kit (available at Michael's and ACMoore, $145 without a coupon), that I would only have to buy a cake pan to get me through to course 4. Well, during the fourth class of the first course, she fessed up and said that we would still have to buy the kits (about $30 each without a coupon) for each of the following three courses. But, but, but...And you have to buy the ingredients for both the icing and cakes and make them in your spare time before class. So there's quite a bit of homework. For three of the classes out of the four, we had to make a cake and two batches of icing. We had to ice the cake prior to class and thin the remaining icing down to have different consistencies. If you decide to take these courses, make sure you are aware of both the time and monetary investment involved.

I will share my cake pictures with you. The first two are from my cell phone so the quality is low.

Cake 1 - Rainbow cake (we had to freehand the rainbow because the instructor forgot the template)

Cake 2 - Clown cake

Finale Cake - complete with Wilton Roses

Shop, Drop, and Roll

2010-03-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

Since I love crafting so much and I don't have work at the moment, I am going to try to market some of my wares on Etsy.com. It's a competitive world on Etsy, making it difficult to get noticed. I am reading "The Handmade Marketplace" by Kari Chapin, a guide to selling crafts locally, at craft fairs, and online, to help get my business started. It's a really great guide to "craftonomics," making sure one knows everything they need to know about selling their handmade goodies.

I am in the process of building up some inventory to list in my new shop: littleleaflane.etsy.com. I will be whipping up accessories such as barrettes, headbands, and purses as well as baby things such as pacifier clips, burp cloths, and bibs. I'll also be listing my handmade greeting cards and card sets on Etsy.

If you are looking for me sometime in the next few weeks, I'll be holed up in my craft studio. Happy crafting!