Crochet and Silhouettes

Crochet is seriously hard! I finally made something though... besides countless little flowers that I have no use for. I look so goofy in this picture, but you get the idea. I used THIS pattern (check it out so you can see what the head wrap is supposed to look like, and the girl on the site makes a much better model than me) and refered back to my Crochet School over and over again. Also... I kind of gave up on the pattern and did it my own way. Crochet patterns are all written in code! It's impossible to figure out.



But I'm still excited to move on to my next project, which is going to be a white head wrap, or maybe gray, because I really don't see myself ever wearing this bright blue. I just grabbed the color for practice. I tried to give this head wrap to one of my girls, who would look much cuter in such a bold color, but it was way too big.

And my quest to figure out Photoshop... well it took a back seat to crochet once I realized how involved crochet was. But I'm coming along slowly. I made these silhouettes of my kids. They need some touch up work before they are frame-able. I used THIS tutorial to learn how to make them, and once I had my husband come sit behind me and tell me what buttons to push, they came together pretty quickly.



Have a Happy Halloween!

Some Improvement

I'm getting a little better, I think. I like my crochet flowers.




I've been going to this crochet class for a month now, but I think I've learned more from online tutorials than I have the class.

Here's a link to the class I've been following online, it's really helped me a lot.

Tiny Bunting

From the leftover 2 1/2 inch squares from my Ruby tablerunner, I put together an adorable little bunting.



I just ran the little triangles and mini rickrack through my sewing machine.



Sweet and simple.

A Decade of the Boy

This adorable little baby boy turned 10 yesterday...


I have to say that not only am I incredibly proud of him, but I am also a little proud of myself. I've survived 10 years of motherhood. It's not as easy as some think.

Not only is he alive and well, but he's smart, gets good grades, loves to read, is legitimately funny, and is happy, friendly and caring.



In celebration of his birthday he wanted to go to Lagoon (Utah's answer to Disneyland, though us Californians think it falls a bit short of the mark). We had a lot of fun as a family and tried really hard to forget how much it cost us to get in.

We had a small party with both sets of grandparents Sunday night. I got creative and made him a Lego cake.



The past 10 years have flown by. The next 10 will hold puberty, the teenage years, high school, driving, dating, and the beginning of a Mormon mission. Now that I know how fast 10 years can seem to a mother, I plan to enjoy every moment of them.


Like my Lego cake? I got the idea HERE

Photoshop Basics

Recently we bought a new laptop. It was way overdue. No one can ever blame us for not following the advice to "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" (Boyd K. Packer) Our last computer was the old laptop that my husband used through law school. It was 10 years old! And yes, I was blogging on that old computer. It cost us 3,000$ when we bought it (an amount that was completely out of reach for young college students and got stuck on a student loan that should get paid off sometime around my husband's 80th birthday) and it was so slow and so filled up with junk that it would take most of the day just to "warm up".

Well, it turns out that kids need computers while they are in school... even 2nd and 4th graders. While Bruce and I could make do with that hunk of junk, the kids needed something better, faster, and reliable. And I figured since I like to blog and since we are buying a new laptop anyway, I might as well purchase Photoshop for it (notice silly new blog title and side bar buttons).

I'd never worked on Photoshop, but every time I ran into a tutorial for cute blog stuff, it always involved Photoshop. So I bought it without really knowing what I was doing... and I still don't. At this point I can make a picture lighter and darker, write some text over a picture and add some fun clip art (again, please notice my new blog title :) and make my pictures all crazy, weird and crooked. I know I must not be using this program to it's full potential.

So I am very happy to have found (thank you Pinterest!) what seems to be a very basic beginer course on Photoshop for bloggers. I thought I'd share. She's only on day 3, being the 3rd of October. It goes to the end of this month, at which time I may have changed up my blog title a few more times... bear with me, my mood changes very frequently.

If you are interested, you can find the 31 days of lessons on Photoshop for bloggers HERE.

My Console Table

I see a blank space and I immediately start thinking what quilt can I put there. My pretty little console table by my front door needed a table runner. Of course I knew a table runner made out of the fabric Ruby by Thimble Blossoms would look perfect there. Most of my house is decorated in Camille Roskelley's fabric anyway.



Does this table runner look familiar to you? If you own THIS BOOK then it might. I was inspired by both the Sugar Rush Quilt in her book and THIS BAG. But I wanted to make mine out of a charm pack (cheaper than a jelly roll). So I cut my 5" squares from a Ruby charm pack into 2 1/2" squares. I like the look of all those little squares, but trying to match them all up was... well, impossible. My seams don't match up much at all. Oh well, good thing I'm not a perfectionist.



To be honest, this is how my console table looks right now...


I suppose my new table runner will just have to wait until the holidays have run their course.

I got the idea for my pumpkin HERE