Diaper Cake Alternative

Hi, it's been a while since I posted anything here. I had been wanting to try my hand at a diaper cake for a friends baby shower, but didn't want to do the traditional cake. So I looked up some ideas on pinterest, and this is the result.

I think I would make a few changes the next time. I would use a wide ribbon around the wheels with maybe some thin ribbon as spokes. All in all I am satisfied with the way it turned out and it was a big success at the shower!

Until next time, happy crafting!!

Yarn Wreath

Obviously from this blog, you know that I am a scrapbooker. I am not sure if that is a verb or not, I may be making the word up, but I love creating cool and pretty things with paper and all sorts of items. I have been "Cropping" with a group of friends for a few years now, and every once in a while we come up with a challenge for the group. Katie thought it would be a good idea to get a jump on some Christmas crafts, so she suggested a Yarn Wreath challenge. I did not make it to the crop last month, but I did take on the challenge. I pinned a bunch of ideas from pinterest, which you are welcome to go and explore, and finally settled on an idea. Here is the base of the wreath.

Here are some of the felt flowers I added.

Here is the wreath with the flowers alone.

Here is the nest I crocheted for the bird.

Then I decorated the bird, using Zentangle inspired art. The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

And finally, the finished project, I am pretty pleased with this as a first attempt at a yarn wreath.

Hope you like it as much as I do. As always, Happy Crafting!!!

Yarn, my latest passion!

Hi again, it's been a while since I posted anything. Not that it hasn't been on my mind, I've just been super busy with work and life!! Ruby my 90 year old Mother in Law came to live with us in December. She is showing me how to crochet. My Nana taught me the basics, many years ago, but I never did anything with it and wanted to gain some experience with different things. So Ruby and I have been trying out different patterns and learning different stitches. Here is some of our labors of love.

Ruby is much better at crochet than I am, she has been doing it for a long time. She is tackling more difficult stitches. It is fun to see what she is working on when I get home from work each day, and she is a perfectionist, so if it isn't exactly right, she will rip it out and re-do it. I have learned a lot with her here. Here are some flowers and doily patterns we have been trying as well. So much fun, and such a great way to bond with each other. Alvin and I love having her here. We are very blessed that she is as active as she is and everyone loves her as much as we do!

I will try to be better about posting, until next time, Happy Crafting!!!

A little angel.

So, a few posts ago, I posted some of my knitting. 

 Here is my knitting at its best.  How much better can it get, than to be the softness for a newborns skin!

Congratulations Aaron and Mary on your bundle of joy!

Murals

Recently at work the subject of Murals came up.  One of the participant's in my class had said that he painted a mural of a Cherry blossom tree in his niece's bedroom.  He had a picture on his phone that he showed me, and it is magnificent.  He had said that he painted, but we had no idea what or how great he was.  In any case. I said that I had done several murals.  It tends to be one of the things I turn to when I am bored and have not had a recent creative outlet.  I was talking about the different things I have painted and he wanted to see them.  I however, do not have a cell phone, so he got a great chuckle out of giving me a hard time about not being able to show him my work.  Little did he know, that I have a BLOG!!! What a wonderful way to be able to share my work.

So here it goes, in no particular order....

This is an evening shot

We have a concrete block wall behind our house, and our office faces the wall.  It was always dreary to look out and see the concrete, so I painted the Sunflowers.

In the bright light of day

It was quite the conversation piece with the neighbors...at first I didn't think they liked the idea of my painting the wall, but when I finished it, they asked why I did not extend it further into their yards!!!

It totally makes me smile, every day when I see it, and I am so glad that I painted it.

This is the back side of our shed, it is in the screened in part of the porch.

This was the first mural I painted after we moved into the house.  We have an awesome, unobstructed view of the Superstition Mountains from the porch.  However if we are hanging out on the porch, enjoying the weather, a meal or company, if you are not facing the mountains, you were facing the back side of our shed.  To solve that issue, I painted my version of the mountains on the shed.  This way there is something interesting to see wherever you sit.  When a neighbor first saw it, he hesitated a while and then said "I like it"  I told him I was happy that he liked it, but that I didn't paint it for him, I painted it for me! :-)

The laundry room, the first thing you see when you come in the back door.

This came about after one of our many trips to the home depot.  I had picked up a can of "oops" paint to throw a little color into the Laundry Room.  It is hard to tell the color in this picture, but it is an interesting green color.  The more I looked at the wall, the more it called out to me for an image.  So I consulted my partner in crime, Alvin and asked for suggestions.  This is one of  his favorite cactus, and he loves the flowers, so this came from a photograph he had taken.  At first it was just the cactus, but they looked odd, just floating, so the pot finished it off.

Ratatouille, in the Kitchen

After seeing the movie Ratatouille, I decided to have a little fun in the kitchen.  The little sign says Ratatouille, you just can't read it in the picture.  The funny story about this is, we had an exterminator come to the house to spray for bugs, not that we had seen any, just all of the neighbors were spraying and saying that the bugs were moving from one house to the next if they didn't take care of it, so we had someone come over.  They inspected the house inside and out, then asked if we had seen any traces of insects or rodents.  We said no, except for the small mouse hole in the kitchen.  When he first looked to where I was pointing, he gasped, but then realized what it was and got a good chuckle out of it!

Guest Bathroom

After we painted the guest bathroom (another "oops" color that I really love)  I asked Alvin, "if I paint a window in the bathroom wall, what would you like to see out of the window".  I was thinking, a beautiful sunset, maybe flowers in a meadow, or a tree with a birds nest....but no, he decided he wanted Lombard Street in San Francisco.  So here is my interpretation of Lombard Street.  This is a tiny bathroom and I had to paint most of this standing sideways on a ladder, and it got really hot at the top of the ladder with the light on in the room, but I managed, and here it is!

So that is a look at the murals I have painted since moving into the house.  I am sure there will be more, and I will try not to wait so long before posting pictures.

Until next time,  happy crafting! :-)

Hi, you may not know that I have another blog, our photography blog that can be viewed at ourartisticimpressions.blogspot.com.  In any case, we are expanding our repertoire of what we photograph, to include children, especially infants.  With that said, I am trying to come up with some cute ideas and things to use in the photos.

I have been knitting and sewing for many years, and found an adorable pattern for a hat that I have made several variations of, that I want to share with you here.

This is the first version.  These were the colors in the original pattern and I was pleased with the way it turned out, so I made some others.

This strawberry version may be my favorite.  It will be easier to know when I get to use it in a shoot with it on a baby.

This pumpkin version is the one I just finished, and I think they are all so cute, I can't wait to see how they work out.

I have also finished a couple of baby blankets, that I have been giving to friends who are expecting.  Seems like lately, everyone is having boys!!

These knit up pretty quickly using 4-5 skeins of yarn at a time, on really large needles.  It was a pattern my sister shared with me, and between the two of us, we have made a lot of them.  One of my co-workers said that it is the only blanket her son likes and he takes it everywhere.

The last pictures I will share with you today, are of a needle holder I just made.  My old needle holder fell apart, after many, many years of wear and tear, so this is just a needle roll that holds all of my needles and has a pocket for the small miscellaneous things that didn't fit anywhere else.

As you can see, I have been pretty busy.  I like to have things like this that don't take too much time and I can do when I am sitting around watching TV, which isn't very often.

I hope that this may inspire some creativity in you, and if not, I hope you enjoy seeing the results what I do to keep myself sane.  Working on something creative keeps me grounded.  I get a lot of satisfaction creating things, and even more pleasure when I can share them with others.

Until next post, happy crafting! :-)

I have been really busy with work and life and all that comes with it and have been very remiss in my posts.  I am super excited to share what I did last weekend as a Thank you to a friend who helped me out recently. He is a very creative guy who is into Steampunk and does some amazing things with old vinyl record albums.  I got this idea, from Tim Holtz, 12 tags of 2013, this is my version of a tag he did in 2012.

I love the old typewriter, and since I didn't have Tim's diecut, I printed a picture, adhered it to cardstock and cut it out. 

Getting this done has inspired me to do more with tags.  They are a quick way to get an idea down that can morph into whatever your heart's desire.

Hopefully it will also get me to post more often.  I am cropping this weekend, so I should have more to post soon.

Until then, Happy Crafting! :-)