Knit

More than a few months ago I decided that I wanted to learn to knit. I have known how to crochet for as long as I can remember but there are so many cute knit patterns that I felt I was missing out on. Today I FINALLY finished a knit project. It is nowhere near perfect, but I am extremely proud of it. I made a coffee cup cozy. I think I might need to make hot cocoa tonight so I can take it for a test run.

I will have to make a pink one. I didn't have any pink yarn and since I wasn't sure if I would finish it I just used some spare green yarn I had. The pattern I used can be found Here, the book I used to learn can be purchased Here as well as random youtube videos. I used Caron Simply Soft in Limelight.

I hope you enjoyed it like I did. I am super excited that I actually knit something. I am going to start looking for patterns for my next knit project soon.

Apples

After I made the Coffee themed card to go with the Scentsy for my mom I decided to do the same thing for my mother-in-law. They have a really yummy apple smell (Toasted Apple Butter) that they brought back just for January with the bring back my bar so I decided to get it for her. I think that this may be my favorite card that I have made so far. The picture doesn't show it very well but the way the pattern on the green and red paper went together on her name was almost perfect.

I used Plantin Schoolbook for the apples, letters and envelope and Love You A Latte for the wavy squares. All of it is paper from Walmart. That will end soon though, we took a trip out of town today and I got some paper at Hobby Lobby. I can't wait to start creating with it.

A while ago I taught myself to knit. I haven't successfully made anything other than rectangles. So that is my next mission. I am going to attempt a coffee mug cozy, wish me luck, I may need it. Coming up soon I will show you the cutest thing I have made in a while with a card that matches perfectly. It's a gift though, so I will show it to you after they receive it.

Coffee

My grandparents always had coffee brewing. Always. So the smell of coffee smells like home to me. I drink coffee but not all day long and my single serve coffee maker doesn't leave a smell that lingers for hours like I wish it would. So I was super excited when Scentsy brought back a coffee smell that actually smells like coffee.

I bought two of them for myself and one for my mom. I made her a coffee card to go along with it. She received it today so I thought I would share it with you. As a side note this is the first card that I made with my Cricut (I made one with a friend for my brothers wedding in September). I am pretty proud of it, my cards have gotten better but I wanted my mom to have the first one.

I used the "Love You A Latte" mini cartridge and Colorbok paper and cardstock from Walmart. 

Watermelon

I have been working on a really cute surprise for someone today. I mailed out two other surprises yesterday so I will have more posts of awesome stuff coming soon. I am really excited about the one that I am working on right now and the card I made my hubby for his birthday. After they are delivered I will post them.

I made this cute watermelon card a few days ago. It has no recipient or reason for existing but it sure is cute.

I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.
Pink and blue paper are no name cheap paper from walmart
Cream and black are Colorbok neutral card stock

Wild Card

Today I got a new cartridge, "Wild Card". It's amazing so far. If you like making greeting cards I suggest getting it. The first card I made with it is the argyle card. It's amazing. I also made this nifty box for a background when I photograph my cards.

It says memo, it's kind of hard to read.

I used Colorbok brand for all of the card stock and the Wild Card Cricut cartridge. The black and white are from the neutral pack and the pink is summer pastel textured. The white liner in the envelope is computer paper, the card stock is so thick, I wanted something thin that wouldn't take up to much room.

The posts might be a little light over the next few days, I am working on a few (ok, a few more than and few) gifts and I won't want to post pictures until they have been delivered just in case they check the blog. But I promise I won't forget about you :) I have a few other cards that I have made and I will share them with you as I work on the gifts. I have some cool stuff up my sleeve that I will be showing you soon! Thanks for reading!

BOY

I have made a few cards, some I love, some not so much. This is not the first card that I made (I might share that with you later). I had an idea to do a baby card. I don't have anyone to give it to at the moment, but I am in love with it anyway.

It would have been better if I would have had fabric ribbon but I am still building my supplies. 

It was really easy, the only cartridge I used was Plantin Schoolbook. I used all paper from Walmart (I live in a little town and it's all I have). 

This is Max, he decided that he wanted to help me make a card, his way of helping was to jump in my paper bin to make sure that I couldn't get more paper out. He is a good little helper! Isn't he cute. I love this little guy, he follows me like a lost puppy, he is curled up next to me as I type. I have many more cards to share with you, but I will save that for another day. 

Favorite Utah Treat

When I was a freshman in high school my parents moved me to tiny but beautiful place called Cache Vally Utah. I hated it at first but I grew to love it. Logan (the main city there) has some really cool local stuff that I miss. I haven't lived there in almost 6 years, although it feels like longer. Anyway. My mom went up for a visit not to long ago and she got me one of my favorite local items and mailed it to me. Root beer milk, now I know the two things that probably instantly come to your mind, who would mail milk? Gossner milk is shelf stable, until it is opened it doesn't need to be refrigerated until it has been opened. Now the other thing you are probably thinking, my husbands exact word when I told him what I was drinking was "nasty"! But if you think about it, it isn't that different from a root beer float. So if you are ever in Cache Vally Utah, pop into either Gossner foods (get some cheese too, yumm) or a Macey's and get some root beer milk, you won't be disappointed!

Cricut Mats

Yesterday I promised you a good Cricut mat tip, so here it is. If you own a Cricut then you know that one of the most frustrating things is the need to buy new mats all the time because the buggers just don't stay sticky. I see people messing around with spray adhesives and other sticky substances and I am not about to do that, I fear what it may do to my machine. I like to think that the Cricut makers know what kind of sticky gunk is best for the mat. Now that being said I still don't want to spend money buying new mats all the time, so I found a good solution to the problem, what to know what this magic trick is?? .............. Dish soap, yup regular old dish soap. If you rinse your mat then give it a good rub down with some dish soap and rinse again then BAM your mat is sticky again. I did this yesterday evening, then I hung it on the fridge with magnets to dry, I am sure that there are better places to dry it, but thats what worked for me at the time. I gave the washed mat a try today and it worked out just fine. I am not sure how much longer it's going to last but I am happy that I got at least one more card out of it. Now go get to washing your mats :)

Picture Clock

A while back I saw a picture online of a clock with picture frames, the website to buy the original can be found here. They were all different sizes and had colored paper in them rather than pictures. Well, my "symmetrical brain" would not allow me to have frames of different sizes. It would drive me crazy. So I have spent the last couple of months trying to recreate this clock in a way that I would like. My amazing mom got me the clock on clearance at Bed Bath and Beyond. I got the frames at Walmart for super cheap, but they never had enough so I bought some and waited for them to get more in. Then the frames sat on my entertainment center for a while taunting me. I knew it was going to be a lot of measuring and pounding on the wall. I really should have waited for a day when my neighbors bass was really loud, oh wait, thats every day, including right now as I write this :/ (we live in a duplex on an Air Force base and our neighbors love their subwoofer). But thats a story for another day, back to the clock. I had the pictures stuck to the wall with fun tak for a long time while I picked out frames. Today I decided that I walked past it enough and it was time to finish it. And it turned out amazing, or at least I think it did, what do you think?

The pictures are of all of our favorite places that we have been (or the ways we have "spent our time"). I think it turned out really good. I love how thin the frames are because it makes it look more finished without taking away from the over all look. I hope you enjoy it. I have a really good tip for Cricut mats that I will be sharing tomorrow. If you use a Cricut you will like this tip. See you then :) 

Given Enough Coffee

Well, I didn't make anything today... boo. But I still wanted to share something this evening. I did make a super cute card yesterday, but I decided to wait until I give it to the person I made it for before I share. I have another on that I am working on but that will be the same thing.

I am going to share an older cross stitch I did. I have been looking for new art to put in my kitchen to put on a big blank wall I have. My kitchen is all coffee themed stuff. Since I am on coffee decor overload from trying to be inspired with something amazing for said wall it makes sense to share my coffee themed cross stitch. It is the first one that I finished as an adult and made me want to get into it more. I did a few little ones in high school but I didn't really have a passion for it until recently. This one is printed, not counted. So it didn't take much time or brain power to finish, but it matched my kitchen. I love the way it looks.

After I got done outlining all of the cups I was a little upset that I didn't have enough black floss to do the words. I couldn't understand why they didn't give me enough floss to finish the project. I usually have a ton left over when I get the kits. After actually reading the instructions (oops) I wasn't supposed to outline the cups (double oops). Oh well, I think it looks much better with them outlined and I had enough red to do the words. So in the end I actually think it looks better. I got the kit from Joann and I think the frame came from Michael's but it could have come from Joann as well.

I hope you enjoyed this one. I love it! Talk to you later.

Cricut Tool Kit

I got my nifty new Cricut tool kit in the mail today. I am super excited about it. I am going to use it as soon as I am done with this blog but I was so excited about it I had to share. It has all of these cool tools... Bone Folder Tool, Small Scraper Tool, Large Scraper Tool, Exacto Knife, 2 Extra Exacto Blades, Small Scissors, Stainless Steel Tweezers, Hook Tool, Scoop Hook Tool, Narrow Blade Spatula Tool with Rounded Tip , and a Wide Blade Spatula Tool and it's all in a nice case. Plus, IT'S PINK, which makes it even more awesome! 

I am betting you can guess where I got it... did you guess eBay? Then you would be correct. Well, I am off to make some card ideas I have in my head and use my new tools and the paper I bought today. If they turn out as cute as I think they will I will share them with you later. 

Magnetic Window Markers

So I know that I already posted once today but I had to write about these awesome little things I got in the mail yesterday. I don't know if I am more excited about the fact that I finally got them or how awesome they are. I ordered them on November 5th, so it's been a long wait. The first package got lost in the mail. I ordered them on eBay from a girl in England, she was really cool about getting me another one though. That aside they are amazing and in my opinion well worth the wait. I do a lot of counted cross stitch, not an easy thing for someone with ADD. So I was excited when I found these window markers, they are magnetic and come with a magnetic board to put behind your pattern to keep your place. I am doing a complicated cross stitch for the first time. I always picked really simple patterns until this one. I am sure I will post pictures of some of the past ones I have done.

This is one of the markers that came with it on the pattern I am currently working on.

It came with many different sizes of windows and a white magnet board.

Now if I stop to (pretend) listen to my husband tell me about his video game, watch my cat run into something or get distracted by     "oh look, something shiny"      sorry, see how easy it is. As I was saying, now if I get distracted my place is held and easy to find again. Such an amazing helper!

I looked at the tracking information for something I ordered a few days ago to go with my Cricut and I should have it tomorrow. So I am sure I will be back to tell you all about it.

Cricut

This past weekend I got my newest craft addiction, a Cricut Expression. I have wanted one for a long time and I finally got it. I debated for a long time which die-cut machine I wanted and ultimately decided this was the best one for me. I love it so much. The only thing that could have made it better is if it were pink. They make a pink one, but it was MUCH more expensive and limited edition so I couldn't find one on ebay or amazon.

So now that I have my new Cricut the debate was project was I going to do first. I have so many ideas. I decided on something for my laundry room wall, it's out of the way and if I screwed it up no one would have to know. I knew my first project would have a lot of mistakes (and it did, I had to do it over 3 times) since I was figuring out the machine. I think it turned out quite cute. 

After I took the picture I realized how off the "g" and one of the starts were. They have since been fixed. I used a pack a paper that I got at Walmart for 97 cents, it doesn't have a name but its browns, pinks, and oranges. I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and hung the letters up with  poster putty that I cut into little chunks with scissors. I got the idea from Pinterest, here is the original blog that it was on http://ramblingasusual.blogspot.com/2011/01/prodigal-socks.html. I hope that you enjoyed my first project. I hope to post much more later as I figure out my Cricut. 

Hello World

So, I will admit that I have tried the blog thing before and failed miserably. I am hoping to keep this one up. I will be posting lots about my craft projects (past, present and future) with a few life and beauty posts thrown in there (I am a cosmetologist after all). As it is starting to get late tonight so I think I will just tell you a little bit about me and then I will call it a night and post more tomorrow.


 I am a proud Air Force wife to an amazing man, we have been together for 5 years and married for closing in on 3. We recently had our first PCS (military move) together and I am trying to get used to living in a small town again (I lived in Las Vegas for 6 years) and adjusting to being away from my parents. I am a licensed cosmetologist although I am not currently in a salon, we moved right before the holidays and it wasn't practical to get a job. I plan to begin looking very soon though. We have no kids with no immediate plans to have any. We have two cats Max (my cat) and Jake (hubby's cat), both of them are male, black and very loving. I am sure they will pop up in blogs from time to time.


The color pink is not just my favorite color, it is an obsession of mine. I am guilty of buying things I don't need simply because they come in the color pink. If you continue to read my blog you will notice this trend.


I spend the majority of my time doing craft projects of all types, I won't even try to name them all. As I mentioned before this blog will be mostly about my craft projects. Since I have done so many amazing (well, I think they are amazing) projects in the past I will post some of those on here too, with links to tutorials and sites I got inspiration when possible. I may even try and to a few of my own tutorials if I come up with something cool.


I hope that you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it. Please feel free to comment and ask questions. Now I think it is time to head off to bed and read.