Mobile-ing

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

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

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

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!

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

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...

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.