Valentine Hat

Valentine's Day will be here before you know it, so I decided to make a Valentine hat for Little Bub so he can get use out of it. He probably would tell me that he's tired of his reindeer hat if he could talk.

The reindeer hat in action.
 

I love finding free patterns online that work really well. One of my new favorite blogs is Micah Makes. I bought the frog prince hat for Little Bub's halloween costume from this shop.

 

I love, love, love the free pattern she has offered on her site: Versatile Earflap Hat. Not only is this basic pattern free, but you can adapt it to so many different hats. Micah even occassionally posts ideas about different ways to use the hats and how to make these changes. Some of my favorites are the apple hat, the watermelon hat, the Irish colorblock hat, and the Dr. Seuss versions.

I've used her basic earflap pattern to make a couple new hats to sell. Tonight, I used it to start the base for Little Bub's Valentine hat. Instead of the earflaps though, I decided to make it a beanie.

 

I found this cute little tutorial on how to crochet a heart at Cornflower Blue Studio. It's so easy! I may make a garland out of little hearts if I can find the extra time. Try it out! What a great project for beginners! The pictures will help guide you more easily than written directions.

 

Keep checking back to see my new creations!

Life Lately

I've been having issues with blogger lately. I haven't been able to upload pictures from my computer to the posts, so that's why I haven't been posting lately. It's really no fun without adding pictures! It works in HTML mode, but I'm not very good at that either. No time to learn about it!

My little business adventure is taking off on Facebook. I've had a lot of orders already and we hit 100 likes and did a free giveaway! I'm very blessed to have so many people like my work. My sister-in-law is adding some items too. She makes taggies (or ribbon blankets) and scarves.

I had a logo made from Red Meadow Design Co. on Etsy. I love it! Now I just have to get cards made.

I've been busting my behind trying to keep up with all the orders. Maybe someday I'll venture over to make an Etsy shop, but right now I have enough business from friends and facebook fans. One of my best customers is Melissa from Lissa May Photography. One of my favorite pictures is the one where she used the banner/garland I made with the word "one".

 



 

The little girl is adorable! And I must say, the banner looks amazing here.

 

On a personal aside, Little Bub has started walking! Finally! I never thought it would happen. He only wanted to hold on to the furniture and our hands, but then he just started taking a few steps here and there. He's still not super steady, but he does take many steps in a row! As a first time mom you worry about when they start doing things, but with Little Bub I've learned that just because he isn't doing something doesn't mean he can't. He just doesn't want to! He also has a new tooth! He's just growing in leaps and bounds. I'd like to press the pause button.

 



 

This picture is from the last weekend when we had beautiful spring weather in New York! It was about 50 degrees the day we took him outside. It was his first ride in his little red wagon (a gift from Christmas). He wanted to keep going and going. Whenever I stopped, he would point at the handle. I just love the coat and the hat. Although it isn't one I made for him, it's just perfect for his little face! 

Resolutions

I'm kind of late on this one. A whole week late, actually. But it has taken me a while to think about what I really wanted to change (and would stick to!).

As I thought about it, there are a few things I should resolve to do better this year, but some were goals to achieve rather than behaviors to fix.

So here is my list of resolutions.

1. Stop swearing. Especially in front of my child. I want to get my husband to jump on this bandwagon too!
2. Practice more patience. With everything. From technology to my family to my life in general. Not everything has to progress at breakneck speed.
3. Make time for myself. I don't have to spend every free minute doing things for or with my son or I will probably go insane. It's ok to take a day off once in a while!
4. Make time for date night with my husband. At least once month we should get out to dinner and movie. Without Little Bub, that is.
5. Cook more at home. I'm not horrible at cooking, but I don't enjoy it. And especially with a little monster running around the house, I don't always feel like taking the time away from him to stand in the kitchen. We end up with take-out and going out often, and I'd like to aim for 1 night of eating a meal that isn't homecooked.

My goals look a little different, but to me they are almost more important.

1. Buy a house for our family. In order to have another child, we need to move into a house with another bedroom. And hopefully our new house will have insulation so we won't freeze at night!
2. Make enough money selling crochet items to cover my bills for the summer. I work in a school, so I have the summers off. It is wonderful, but can be a little sketchy with student loans, so I would like to not have to worry about that this summer.
3. Take a family vacation. Last summer we went to the mountains with Little Bub. This year I would love to take him to a beach!

Did you notice all my goals need a little bit of money? I wish I could make a resolution to win the lottery and have it come true! I hope you have luck this year sticking to your resolutions!

Facebook Page

This weekend I started a facebook page to start selling my little handmade items. Come check it out! If you're interested in ordering, just message me on my page: Prince Charming Creations.

Christmas Stockings

Last year, a few weeks before Christmas I decided I wanted to make stockings for our little family of three. So I went to the local quilt shop and bought some fabric to make them. Then I realized I needed a lining for the inside and I wanted to use muslin because it's cheaper and no one is really going to be looking at the inside anyway. Well, I guess that was my big downfall because I never got the muslin before Christmas, so they didn't get done last year.

This last summer I had bought muslin for another project so I pulled out the stockings again. And they sat on my ironing board for months. Again.

Finally right after Thanksgiving I started to finish Little Bub's stocking. I figured his was the most important anyway and if I didn't finish the other ones, oh well.

I have a great quilting book by Eleanor Burns called Christmas at Bear Paw Ranch that had a great stocking pattern in it. She makes crazy striped stocking, but I wanted mine to be solid with an applique, but here is a link to the pattern for free online (look for strip stocking). I just used her steps and the outline shape of the stocking. Warning: They are pretty big stockings!

For Little Bub's stocking I made a gingerbread man applique. I actually drew the gingerbread man!  For Daddy's stocking, I drew an elf (at his request) based on the elves from the Rudolph movie. For myself, I used cookie cutters and traced snowflakes onto paper. I used Heat 'N Bond, buttons and embroidery floss for all of the stockings.

 

And in case you're wondering, like most everyone else, I do have some fabric for stockings for any future children. No misfits in this house!

My First Sale

I'm super excited to share that I have decided to start selling my crochet hats! I'm only going to make them to order and I only do them when Little Bub is sleeping, but I'm happy that other people will get to enjoy some of the hats.

Just a few days after I posted on Facebook about selling some hats, one of my mother's friends contacted me about making some hats for a baby shower gift. She wanted TWO owl hats for this newborn baby girl. One in a newborn size and one in the twelve month size so she could enjoy it a bit longer.

For the newborn size, I used a pattern from Daisy Cottage Designs that was free on the website. I changed it a little because I love that sleepy owl look, especially for newborns and I didn't like how much the ears were supposed to stick up. I have to say I just love the soft pink, beige and gray together. I think black would have been too harsh a color for the eyes.

 

I wanted to try a totally new pattern for the bigger size. I had previously downloaded the wooly owl hat pattern from Slugs on the Refrigerator. It's a little bit of a different shape, but it is fairly easy to make. I went with the same color scheme, but this owl has pretty eyelashes and a cute hot pink bow.

 

I do have to say that I did put the bigger hat on Little Bub to make sure it would fit a one-year-old. It did fit, but I wasn't fast enough to snap a picture!

 

If you are interested in either of these hats, or other ones you have seen on my blog, feel free to send me an email about having one made. 

Happy New Year

Long time, no new posts! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and end of 2012. I spent a lot of time working on Christmas gift projects and enjoying time with Little Bub on my break from school.

Today was my first day back at work and I can say without feeling guilty that I enjoy getting out of the house and wearing makeup so I couldn't be a full-time-stay-at-home mom. I love Little Bub to pieces but I start to feel a little stir-crazy after about 10 days at home with him; at least in the middle of winter and in a small town there are not many options besides holing up at home.

Plus, Little Bub is not quite old enough to spend long amounts of time doing activities. His favorite thing to do right now is climb up and down off the couch. Especially with a book! And then he will bounce on his bottom and flip through the pages. But don't try to read to him, he wants to flip through at his own pace! Unless it's his very favorite Brown Bear, Brown Bear book.

When he's done that a few times he will slide down (a skill I'm proud to say he mastered in just a day or two, so I don't have a heart attack when I find him on the couch by himself) and crawl over to the other couch and bang on it until I help him up. Then he'll yank on the curtains and look out the window. That is actually most of our day, besides eating and sleeping.

Yesterday we tried some coloring, but Little Bub was more interested in putting the crayons in and out of the box. Someday he'll get it!