Naked No More!!

Hello, friends! How was your weekend? Mine went by fast for a change. See, our "weekend" isn't until Tuesday and Wednesday because of Elliott's work schedule and I often don't care for real Saturday and Sunday much anymore, but the girls and I did some fun things.


I bought Alyssa a Jenny jump up which she is fast figuring out the jumping bit. Her little thunder thighs kick like crazy when she's in her bouncer so I thought she'd like the jumper.


Not so much at first... But each time I put her in it she likes it more. I bought Amelia a gecko sprinkler toy, you hook up the hose to his tail and he shoots water out of his back. She got mad at it when she tried to drink from one of the streams and yelled at him, "you tricked me!" I'm not sure where she picked that up from!


Then while Alyssa was in the jumper, Amelia and I had some girly bonding time. I don't paint my fingers but recently started painting my toes. And of course my shadow had to have some too. I sure do love my girls.


Well, I bet you're wondering who isn't naked anymore. My hooks! They're slowly getting dressed up. If you're a fan of Lucy from attic24 you already know where I got the idea. I've tried several different tutorials for how to do it and none worked out like I had hoped. Or even like the tutorial said it would! So I made up my own way, and I want to share it with you!


They turn out so great and my fingers hurt less. Plus, there's an added little tutorial at the end of this too. Let's get started!

Things you'll need:
•Crochet hook (some kind of metal one, a plastic one could melt)
•Polymer clay (I highly recommend "Bake Shop" oven bake polymer from Sculpey. It's cheaper and easier to work with, found at Hobby Lobby for $1.27 each)
•Alphabet beads (optional)
•Baby wipes
•Bambo skewer
•Foil
•Baking sheet
•Oven or toaster oven set to 275 F

*before we begin, please do this project at your own risk. I am not responsible for any injuries you may get from doing this. Not that it's dangerous, and if you use common sense and parental supervision, if needed, injuries shouldn't be a problem. :-)

First, take one section of your clay, there should be four little lines of clay per pack.


Smoosh it and work it until it's soft. If you want more than one color for a marbled look half each color, or 1/3 or 1/4 it, depending on how many colors you're going to work together to equal out roughly the same size as one line of clay.


After you've smooshed it, roll it out like a snake, roughly the same thickness throughout. I've found you want to make sure there is extra clay at the end for the letter bead and make sure it comes to just below the shank and where the grip begins. You're clay may spread upward in the next step.


Place your hook about where you want the clay to sit and push it in.


Pull the clay around the hook, it'll form a triangle around the hook. Your clay will stick to the table a little so work it up slowly.


Smooth all seams with your finger using gentle pressure (oxymoron! Haha!) Then roll between your hands or on your work surface to round out clay.


This picture is a little hard to explain. Taking the exposed hook in your hand and work the clay flat with your thumb nail. Creating a lip. If you've found when you do this step that the clay pulls away from your hook, you've got too much clay hanging around. Using your nail or a knife or toothpick, cut away some of the extra clay. Squeeze the clay back around your hook and round it out again. Continue to push the clay down with your thumb nail to make the lip.


I dunno if you can really see it or not but it'll look like that.


Next. You can decorate it or leave it like it is if you decided to do marbled colors or just a solid color. I decided to do stripes on this one.


I did polka dots on a different one that turned out great. Once you have them in position roll it between your hands or work surface. This will smooth out all surfaces. And if you're wondering...


I made the stripes too thick and they all just blended together instead of staying in their own spots! No matter! I still liked it.


Since you're covering the size markings on your hook with your clay I suggest marking the size of your hook somewhere on your clay handle. I just used a bead that was the same letter as my hook, H.


Press your bead into the butt of your clay until all the sides are covered. Rework your clay if needed to round or smooth out. Flatten the bottom with your fingers or on the work surface.


Once you have it like you want it to be it's time to bake! The package and the sculpey's website say to bake on 275 F for 15 minutes per every 1/4 inch thickness. I baked my hooks for 25-30 minutes on a piece of foil. Let cool before you handle after baking.


There you have your new dressed up hooks!


If it turns out you don't like it, this isn't permanent. Just use a sharp knife and CAEFULLY cut the clay off and just try again! I've cut off two handles so far and redid them. Or just cut it off because you found you didn't like it. On a side note, how do you hold your hook?


I hold mine just like that.

And now, time for the bonus tutorial! If you have kids at home for the summer this is a great project for them. Amelia did it even and she's only 2!

Using the same materials as above minus your hook but add the skewer, let your kids combine and mix the clay anyway they wish. Once they've finished combining the clay, shape it into spheres, square, etc.


Take the shape and your skewer and work it into the clay. Remove skewer, pat down the exit hole and work the skewer through the exit hole first. Now you have a potential bead! You just need to bake it. Once you have all your clay skewered place on your foil on your baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 275 F. Cool completely before handling.


String it up, tie, and wear! Or gift it. I hope you have fun trying one or both of these projects. Let me know if you have any questions!

Happy crafting! :-)

Much Ado about Things

*To my blogland friends: for whatever reason blogger is not letting me comment on your posts from my phone. I'm really sad about it because I like commenting on your posts as much as I like getting comments. I'm not ignoring you, I just can't comment! :-/

*




Can you believe how fast time flies? It's incredibly fast! Especially with two instead of one. Alyssa is a month old on the left and 4 1/2 on the right. I told a friend of mine that as first time parents we're ignorant and sometimes wish the time away so they would reach milestones (mostly the sleeping one). Being a second time mom, I realize that and have noticed that Alyssa is trying to do things earlier than Amelia did. As if my dumb wish of "I can't wait until..." from Amelia's babyhood traveled through time and space and whispered in Alyssa's ear. She got the memo and now I'm all but sitting on her to keep her little for longer.


And Amelia is pushing 2 1/2. Ugh! Just stay little please, you fit in my arms so nicely, Alyssa. Amelia, stop growing up! Your were Alyssa's size "yesterday!"


It's also so much easier to get a non- moving/blurred picture of them the younger they are! Think Alyssa will be a dancer? She's already practicing jazz hands! But then again, the outtakes are just as fun to look at as the "good" ones. Well, anywho, guess what I've done?


Finished MY ripple! The ending was a huge let down really, because there was no one to give it to. That's my favorite part is the giving. Plus, I loved rippling more than I though, I've already started another ripple, but baby sized for a friend.


I got all fancy with the pictures because the girls were asleep. At the same time! Side note: if my pictures are ever blurry I sincerely apologize. I was unawares that my iPhone, aka my camera/computer, took random blurry pictures, because they look clear on my phone. I need to get with the times and get my home computer hooked up to the outside world.


Beautiful, right? If you look at it too long, in person anyway, you get kinda dizzy and cross eyed.


The colors are completely random. When I started it back in September '11 I didn't like the red-y orange next to the pink, but a little bit ago I tried it and loved it. Too bad it was almost finished by that point. Somehow I ended up with way more pink and red-y orange left over at the end, naturally that became the border colors.


(ok, I know this one is blurry, sorry!) But then that was too much RO and pink next to each other, and since I already had it all stitched up I just slipped stitches the green between the two colors. Winner, winner! I loved it!


Elliott and I snuggling under our blankets together while watching some B movie on the free movie channel.


I love them together. Bright and mute. Male and female. Ah, so much softness! Elliott said it looks like me, like something I would buy somewhere.


With the left over yarn I made this for Alyssa. Sara posted the link on her blog, tangledhappy.com, to Naomi's blog, lovelylittlelife.org, where she posted her pattern. It's adorable and fun to make.


Alyssa quite enjoys it! :-) I just bought a cheap rattle at wal-mart and cut the rattle insert out and put it in the owl. I felt bad for the rattle so I decided I would stitch him back up sans his rattle parts and give him to Alyssa too.


I have some other stuff I want to talk about but I'm trying not to overload my posts with too much because I always forget to talk about certain things when I do that. So I'll save it for another (soon to come) post. I'm totally into baby wearing though and just got my ring sling I bought from a friend. I think I prefer the wraps but the sling is so much easier to put on and take off. Just gotta get used to it. Maybe I'll make one and see if that helps. Well, anyway, have a great and safe weekend!

P.s. You should check out the delicious new blog I found. Becca at A Hermit's Wish has a lot of beautiful things going on. Plus, she's expecting her first bundle in August.

P.p.s. Jennifer I want to make some granny squares for you! <3

Elliott's Project

This project started because of our need for space. Space under the deck and in the garage. With daddy's toys and kiddie toys piling up we really needed a solution. Though our garage is considered extended it still isn't enough.


It's come a long way from being just a green patch in our backyard, to being something with considerable presence. Amelia helped daddy, as did mommy. Mommy was a bit more constructive than Amelia, who's helping involved drawing on things (including Mabel) with permanent marker, throwing around the dirt, crawling under the shed, hiding tools, and generally doing exactly the opposite of what was asked of her. But what's a two year old to do? Precisely what was described above!


The first thing I helped with was the back wall. I felt proud to have helped. And Elliott trucked on, building all four walls in a day. Stablizing them and trying to keep Amelia from climbing on them.


The first thing I helped with was the back wall. I felt proud to have helped. And Elliott trucked on, building all four walls in a day. Stablizing them and trying to keep Amelia from climbing on them.


Then came the rafters. Why don't you put a loft area in there and we can put holiday decorations up there? Great idea, Tabby. :-) I worried about Elliott hedging planks of wood up the ladder along with nails and the hammer whilst Amelia ran around the yard as long as she could stand to do then begged to go inside with mommy and sissy. Occassionally kicking the door and screaming to tell me her wishes. Often it resulted in a swift to naptime reaction.


Then the siding. This man works fast! And alone. Though neighbors and my dad and brother have both offered a hand, Elliott humbly turned down those offers and steamed on full force, with tea and water breaks and hands of help from me, who often asked the same question, "am I doing this right?" After all, it's his project, I didn't want to mess it up.


When we re-did the back door from a single door and window to a sliding glass door, Elliott was going to toss the window and I said why don't you keep it for your shed? And he did. See, that's why there's two of us, I see things he doesn't and he remembers important things that I forget and is about 90% always right when the phrase "how much you wanna bet?" pops up. Though he always bets something small because he knows he's going to win. The phrase "you were right" rolls off my tongue easier than it did when we were first married.


I helped shingle the right side of the roof! It was fun, but I had to get down twice as Nana shouted, "she's ready to eat mom!" and little Alyssa would sqwak as if to prove this. Elliott ended up finishing the roof by himself because Nana and Papa left for Texas later that week and I had to stay on the ground with the babies. But then the big stuff was mostly done. Elliott had to build boxes and attach trim, putty nails and screws. I didn't help much until last week when he started painting.


We changed the paint twice and ended picking a nice gray for the body and a white for the trim. Elliott informed me today that our house, when we re-paint it, will be the same color because he likes it so much. That's ok with me!


That's the story of Elliott's shed. There's still a little work to be done but not much. I'm not being bias, I think, but I really think Elliott did a bang up job. I like to look at it while I do dishes. I like it a lot!

P.s. Please disregard the dying grass. It's been 100+ for days now and we've just given up trying to water. After all, it really didn't so any good anyway.

Banju to You!

Hello! How are you today? Are you enjoying the weather where you are? We are! Everyday we take the girlies outside so they can play for a bit. Well, Amelia plays, Alyssa falls asleep in her swing.


Amelia is finally getting to play in her water table we got her for her birthday (February 11). We actually didn't tell her about it until we put it together. I generally don't tell Amelia about things until right before they happen that way if things change she won't be disappointed. Which stops any meltdowns that would follow had she known.


I also just bought them a little dollar store pool. Amelia loves it but Alyssa would rather just sit on my lap and chew on my fingers. Yeah, she's teething already. Well anyway, I have the neatest thing to show you...


It's called a banju pillow, I think. I was browsing google images for cushion ideas and ran into this particular pillow through indulgy.com. I followed it to see if it came with a pattern but it was written in German. And being that I don't speak German, or read it for that matter, I couldn't find where the pattern came from.


I did search for quite some time and just decided to dive in using the picture(s) I found as my guide. After I had one side done, I finally found the pattern but decided against buying it because it was going so well without it.


I sewed some fleece in the middle on the wrong side because there are gaps between the second and third/fourth rounds and I didn't want fiberfill to spill out. I got some great new needles by sewology from Hobby Lobby that are super sharp (ask my thumb... Ok! I purposely poked my thumb on the needle to see how sharp it was) and they made it so much easier to poke the yarn through the fleece.


These are so much fun to make, so much so that I made two! The rainbow one for my sister and the larger one for my bed. It's now Elliott's pillow, just so you know.


I used my I hook on the larger pillow and did double crochet for the edges. I liked the way it looked but it made the pillow harder to stuff because it would just stretch instead of getting firmer. I used my H hook on my sister's and did half double crochet between the two halves. The smaller gauge and hdc made it easy to stuff and it wasn't as squeeshy as mine.


And if you're wondering, I didn't get all fancy with the green blanket as my background. It's just the thing that Alyssa was rolling around on in the living room.


And of course, the best part of making anyone a gift, is giving it to them. My sister had no idea what it was going to be though I sent her a couple picture updates. She liked it so much she asked me to make her another one in all blue for her new house she's moving into in August. Why, make something with yarn? Don't mind if I do. :-)

Moving On

Hello friends! How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good! This post is coming a week late because of something that happened. I've been struggling writing any kind of post trying to play over it, but I can't. It makes me feel guilty. My grandma passed away on May 27, rather suddenly and unexpectedly. She was just shy of her 80th birthday.


She lived in Texas, same city for 52 years, same city I was born. She's the only grandma I ever knew and regret that we weren't closer. She loved each of her 6 kids, 14 grandkids, and 5 great grandbabies. I'm sad she never got to meet my girls and they her. But that's life you know? I'm happy she's happy now. Well, I assume she's happy, I had a dream just the other night that she was. She wouldn't stop smiling in my dream. I get a lot of my crochet and sewing talent from her. Though she taught me neither, I still get it from her.


Passed to me from her stash was a shoe box full of zippers. I haven't braved into it yet, but I'm looking forward to it.


A shoe box and giant tin (like two shoe boxes side by side) full of buttons. Matching buttons, loose buttons, random buttons. I went through both things of buttons because as you can see the box fell apart when I opened it. It took me two hours. I would assume my grandma never threw any button away. I even found a washer in there which made a giggle. Also, a box of costume jewelry came into Amelia's care from my grandma. The strangest thought passed over me as I watched Amelia play in the "neck-a-nesses", about how my grandma would think it was cute and I should send her a picture. Then I remembered. You assume you have more time with someone but it always passes too fast. Unfortunately, we couldn't make it to the funeral, but my sister went and I lived vicariously through her text messages. My mom's doing ok, she's down there cleaning and getting ready to put the house on the market. We're all moving on in our own ways.

Sorry this was sort of a downer post, I just didn't feel right not saying anything. Thanks for listening!

I love you grandma, enjoy yourself now.

Dis-Easter (Kinda, but not really)

I hope everyone has had a fantastic week and had a great Easter. My Easter Sunday started out well enough, I ran into a blog called Crochet with Raymond the night before right before I dashed off to bed, and read through Alice's posts during the my nightly feedings with Alyssa. I love the blog! It's colorful and bright, plus Raymond, you're just going to have to check it out or take my word for how wonderful it is! And I finished Alyssa's Easter booties that matched her dress that morning and had managed to dress myself before getting the girls ready. Then disaster struck. Amelia refused to wear her dress and when I snuck it onto her she desperately pulled at it and begged to take it off. Crying and saying, "mommy, off!" No, sweetie, we have to wear it for a little bit. "Mommy, off!?" No, we can change out of it later, we just have to wear it for a little bit. Screaming and crying and begging ensued and mommy put little Amelia into time out for not listening and screaming. Crying is ok, but screaming is not. Not too big of a deal, not something uncommon in our daily life. But then a bigger disaster hit.

The sweet little booties that I made for Alyssa, the one that I had tried in a cream color first and decided that the pink would match better, and tried on one of her feet and determined it would fit, didn't fit the other foot. I tried my best to stay calm and get the bootie on that sweet little big foot, but the more I tried the sweater I got, the more she moved and fussed from being "held" down. It was a nightmare. In dismay I snatched the booties, threw them at the crib and cried in despair to Elliott that our baby had too big of feet. "Can't she just wear socks?" Of course she could! But that ruined the picture of Easter I had in my head. The whole 20 minutes that all of this took place I lost my appetite for Easter. And I love Easter! Then after we were on our way to my in-law's I realized I had left Alyssa's Easter onesie at home with her sun hat. UGH! "Do you want to go back?" Elliott asked. NO! I don't want to go back. If we go back I might lock myself in the bathroom and not come out until dinner.

Then I stared out the window and shed a few angry tears that helped lessen the fire in my tummy. It would be ok, we just had to get there and I would feel better. We stopped at the gas station on the way out and Elliott ran inside to get something. He came out with my new favorite drink, Brisk's sweat ice tea, and one of my favorite little snacks, a nacho flavored slim Jim. Thank you sweetheart, for making me feel better with goodies. How could I be mad after that? He did try his very hardest to keep me collected and make me laugh. He has always been the only person to get me out of the deepest funks. So, we got to my in-law's house and Alyssa wanted to be held, no biggie, and it was rather warm outside so body to body gets warmer. We had to shed the dress before anyone really got to see it, and of course, no pictures were taken of the girls in their dresses together. Years from now when they ask me, "mom, where are all the holiday pictures at from when we were little?" Well, girls, mommy has mommy brain and I can't hardly remember where I leave my shoes let alone remember to bring and/or use the camera. MENTAL NOTE: Get better about using the camera. You'll miss those memories when they're gone.

So, aside from no Easter pictures and me being mad the first part of Easter, and Elliott working that evening, it was a pretty good day. The girls got a nap and I put my feet up and had a few minutes of quiet time, because you know if you have more than one little one down for a nap they take turns actually sleeping, so the overlap is only ever a few minutes. It's a work in progress I assume, or is it always like that? Either way, it's worth it. I can always sleep when they're in school. Right?...

Well, that's about all I have for today, because this has taken me a week to write. My mom was very generous and let me borrow her computer with her internet card. It's nice to be able to see things full screen. I was watching something on YouTube and my eyes started to hurt a little because it was so big and bright! It was a nice change from my little iPhone. I just wanted to give you a peek of my ripple which is fast growing now that I have an itch to finish it so I can cuddle with it. Yep, just in time for summer.

And I leave you with a picture of my two A's, enjoying tummy time together and watching their/Amelia's beloved Puss in Boots. Amelia wrapped her arm around Alyssa and gave her a kiss on the head. Of course it didn't last long, because being two makes you move more often.

Happy Days!