What's in the back of your Closet?!!! Yarn, Yarn, and more Yarn.

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I figured out around Christmas Eve/Christmas Day that my 2 rubbermaid totes containing my yarn stash were hiding in the back of my bedroom closet.  'Course I couldn't just shove them aside to forget again.  I had to take every last skein and ball and remnent out and sort the darn things.  Found an afghan that's about 90 % finished that I had started out of my scraps.  I couldn't figure out as I stared at the darn thing what crochet hook size I had used, so I set it aside.  So, there I was looking at this pile of yarn surrounding me in the living room floor thinking to myself, "You haven't made an Afghan in like forever!  You're not doing anything right now other than watching tv."  Then I thought Christmas is over there's no one to make one for, when I realized I have 2 friends with birthdays on the same day, Dec.30th.  I knew that my new buddy, Kristy would appreciate a handmade afghan so I started putting colors together and balling up half started projects: chocolate brown and a purple, blue and green variagated, and the granny square commenced... I love to make big granny square afghans because they can be made quickly and are not complicated... you just have to remember what size hook you're using or you end up with something ruffly, which could be cute if that's what you're going for.  I ended up needing additional skiens and I knew that I wouldn't be able to find these two specific colors so I went looking for a good solid color that would blend nicely with the purples of the variagated yarn.  The varigation has a slight blue color as its changes from purple to green and I discovered Caron's Simply soft in Ocean.  Its a dark green blue teal color that doesn't come across in the photos, I so wish it did, because it is gorgeous when crocheted.  It turned out to be perfect with the other colors!  I also wanted to do a fringe, 'cause I love fringe on blankets, but Kristy has a small boy and I didn't want him to get caught up in it so I found a pattern for crocheted bobble trim, which I think is super fun.

Here's a good site for basic granny square instructions: 

http://www.wikihow.com/Crochet-a-Granny-Square

Instructions for the bobble edge trim:

http://anothervegetarian.blogspot.com/

yummy color!

Close up of my bobble stitch edge trim

Here is the finish afghan.  I'm happy to say that she loved it. Especially the Caron Ocean it's her favorite color.  It was even kitty tested and approved for napping.

Journaling withdrawals

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I hadn't realized until I was sitting in at the table across from my scrapbook friend, Debbie that since about October my "me" time at the art table with my art journal open in front of me has been zilch, nada, nothing!  No wonder I've been a little grumpy. Well, work may have something to do with the stress and not just withdrawals from not having paint permenantly affixed to my fingertips.  I was looking forward to a day with the girls catching up from our Holiday hiatus, but due to the frigid weather the rest of my chicks decided to stay home.  So, it ended up being just Debbie and myself!  Tables all to ourselves! woo hoo. I wanted to work on Project Life but didn't have any pictures printed or prepped, so I packed up the art supplies sparingly.  I've gotten quite a few new art supplies in my travels in the past few months, but haven't used them so I packed those so to challenge myself in using them.

One of my favorite techniques is to layout Distress Inks on my craft matt and add a little water to use them like water colors; which is what I did here. I then started stamping a few of my favorites.  The Star is a die cut from Tim Holtz that I had tested with white card stock and used Distress Inks to colorize it.

The Jar is from Little Yellow Bicycle and the fairy is from Hot of the Press, Inc.  The little stars are from the Martha Stewart all over the page star punch.  I'm in love with the Prima Washi Tap stamps, with a little shading and some white ink they really pop.

I added a little bit of doodling here along with a quote from Shakespeare, " Though she be but little, she is fierce."




On this side I started with the doodling along the wire and then added the flower, which is from the Indie Bloom Collection by BasicGrey.  I colorized it with my copic markers. I had my circle template with me so I drew a circle around the flower in pencil and used it as a guide for my text.  It reads, "Bold Bloom * Flower of Beauty True."  I later added the bee and I colored it with copics as well.

It was a well spent Saturday playing and catching up with my friend.

How do you get back in the art/craft groove?