I'm Baaaack!

YAY! I know right, all of you are excited I can tell, but still not as excited as I am to have internet again. While I was gone I did not do much of anything crafty. I did however make this cute little cross stitch/beaded snowman ornament that I got from this super cute yarn store in town called The Red Thread. ( If you live in the area you should go check it out, if not, road trip maybe?)

Isn't he cute? It felt so good to actually have a project and finish it, I haven't had the chance to do that in a while. Now, I know what you all may be thinking, and yes, I did go in a yarn shop and come out with a small cross stitch kit. The store was full of such beautiful yarns I was overwhelmed and didn't know what to get so I though a quick project was just what I needed. But moving on, because I could go on and on about my experience there for a while.

While I was away I also got to take a little trip to Jo-Ann's to pick up some embroidery stuff to go with my new book. (read about that here) I was so excited that the first thing I did was organize all my thread on the bobbins and arrange by color. A little OCD I know, but what can I say, at least it looks pretty....see...

Ahh, behold, the beauty of color. The actual embroidering was a little less successful. I did a few stitches and then got tired of it. I think it was because I didn't get any transfer stuff, and with no real design I wasn't exactly 'inspired'. I will try again later once I get settled. I also need some inspiration on coming up with a face design for a crochet doll for my princess.

On a different note I do not have any projects planned for the near future, but I did promise my little one I would help him make a pinata  so I may do that next week hopefully. That being said I wanted to add a feature to my blog. I will call it Kids Krafts Fridays. It will feature a fun craft that I make with my little ones. I would like to do one every week but for now I will try to do as many as possible. I'm really excited about this because not only do I get more crafts to share with you, I also get a chance to sit down and have a little Noah, Mommy crafting time. Hopefully you will be seeing those in the very near future.

Last thing I wanted to add was that I am doing some research on a future project that I am spending all of my random online time looking up for. If you follow my pinterest you may have an idea of what it is. ( if you don't, there is a button on the right side of the screen, DO IT! - just kidding but it would be nice) For those of you who are not pinterest users - although I don't know what else you would be doing with your time - I'll give the surprise away.....its a craft bag. I don't know how long this project will take since I don't have much sewing experience and I am more of the learn as you go kind of gal, but I hope to open an online store -etsy or art fire- from it. So if anybody has any FREE online resources on handbag making please feel free to add it in a comment below.

Sorry to babble on, but Ive just missed this so much lol. Till later ;)





Doodle Stitching Book Review

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Border's going out of business is bittersweet to me. That was the only bookstore I actually liked to go to, now that they are going out of business I will probably have to get all my books now from Amazon. Even though it's sad, the good thing is that I now can stock up my craft library for dirt cheap (yay!). There was a big sign on the window of our local store that said 10 days left so we had to stop by and see what the slim pickings were. Poor Noah was upset because "someone took the toys" the whole kids section was completely cleared out. But anyway..

There was only so many craft books left, and only like three that I considered buying. There was this crochet book called Twinkie Chain's Crochet goodies for Fashion Foodies which had really cool patterns that I wanted to try, a few with cupcakes(which I'm into now). Alas, I wanted to learn something new so I choose a book on embroidery called Doodle-Stitching by Aimee Ray.

My first impression when flipping through the pages was that it had a variety of different patterns that seemed very easy to do. As a beginner of anything that "I can do that" feeling is very important and even after flipping through a few pages I got that feeling and wanted to dive right in.

The author gives a little advice on what materials and tools you need to get started which reading that made me happy because as a new craft its super affordable. (I can get everything I need under 20 bucks with coupons from Jo-Ann's)  She explains all of the basic stitches that you need to know to complete all of the designs provided in the book that you could also use in any design you come up with yourself.

My favorite idea in the whole book is the canvas shoe embroidery. I would have never thought to do that and I would love to personalize a pair of shoes like that. I have always seen ones decorated with sharpie doodles, but this is much better.

In the book she also explains how to transfer images and designs on your fabric to stitch over but what I love about the style of "doodle-stitching" is that you could really just draw a design directly on the fabric in pencil, no tranfering materials required. Hopefully this week I can grab some supplies and start on my new hobby with pix to show you guys.


P.S. Hope you guys had a wonderful Labor Day weekend like I did. I got to visit my family which made my whole weekend.