New To The Shop!

In case you missed it, here is a snippet of all the wonderful new goodies we have added to the shop since last time!



Check them out, and if you feel so inclined make an order to two!!

New To The Shop!

I'm introducing a new feature post that I hope to run every Friday showcasing the new items in the shop! I try to add 3-4 products every week or so, so I'm thinking it would be fun to just highlight the newbies every now and then!

I try to add new products to my Facebook page, as soon as I get them done, so if you are one of my faithful Facebook followers you get to preview these items first (YAY!!) If you're not a faithful follower but you wanna be since it's got AWESOME perks click here and their may just be a special discount code when you visit the store tab and become a fan!

No worries if you are already a follower, you can visit the store tab and get your discount code too! (let's hear another YAY!!!) Hurry though because this code will only be available for a limited time!!

Now-- on to what's new in the SHOP!
So???
What do you think?

We've got pettiskirts, tutus, floppy summer hats, headbands, two new newsboy versions, adorable new sandals, and a super cute owl purse...Oh MY!
(are you winded? I'm winded just thinking about it)

If you want a closer look at any of these little lovlies, please take a cyber stroll down to my shop at check them out!!

Oh and also I wold love to hear what item is your favorite, and what you might want to see more of?
(Pretty Pretty Please)

Have a fantastic weekend!!

Two-fer Tuesday: Two Favorite Things

It's Two-fer Tuesday! Actually on a Tuesday!!

Do you hear the angels singing?? I do have to figure out how this feed works from feedburner though because unless you happen to visit the blog today, I know it wont send out until tomorrow...lame. If anyone knows the specifics on that, please do share!

So for today's Two-fer I thought it would be fun to share two of my FAVORITE things!!! YAY! Unlike Oprah's favorite things however, I will not be giving them to the audience...sad...but know that I would if I could!! I am thinking that a giveaway sounds fun though, so be on the lookout for that!!!

My two favorite things for today, I realized as I was preparing for this post happen to be crochet related...crochet...me...weird huh? One is a buy and one is DIY, and I'm a poet and didn't even know it (WOW, that was lame, even for me). But here they are:

FAVORITE THING #1:

In case the picture wasn't totally self explaining, this is a crochet hook holder/carrying case!

I was buying hooks one happy day at good ole Walmart, and stumbled upon this beauty! It was so very needed, and a giant step up from the Ziplock bag that I had been previously using as my hook holder. It was fairly cheap, I believe $8 (it's been a while), it's made by my favorite brand of hooks (Boyle) and best of all it's PINK! Love it! I love that it holds; all my hooks, my scissors, tape measure, a pen, a pad of post it notes, my stitch/row markers, (last two are not shown in the picture...they were currently in use), and that it conveniently zips up so that I don't lose all of those loose items!!

I crochet a lot on the go, in the car at dance, and soccer practice, while we go on long drives (I'm not the one driving don't worry), and I take all my goodies when we travel, so the fact that it zips up and is so convenient to throw in my crochet basket and go is awesome to me!!

Seriously if you are a hookin gal like myself you've got to get one of these! It will change your life! Maybe not change, but it will make your life that much more awesome!

FAVORITE THING #2:

This one might need a little explanation. So my hubby is very super supportive of all my crafty endeavors, when we first got married I would crochet while he played X-box, or watched TV, we'd sit together on the couch and I would throw him my skein of yarn for him to pull as I crocheted along my merry little way...It was a thing of Beauty!! The teamwork was amazing!

Fast forward almost 9 years, and for Valentine's Day (which is not a big holiday in these parts...per my choice but another story for another day) this was one of the gifts I got.

If you can't tell by the picture, the hubster put his mighty carpentry skills to good use to in fact replace himself in my crochet creating process. Yep that's right folks, this baby pulls my yarn as I crochet!!

I can only deduce from this wonderful gift that somewhere in those 9 years, when the crocheting "hobby" didn't die, but in fact grew...the hubster got tired of pulling my yarn...LUCKILY for him I LOVE this gift! It's been fantastic! The reality is that I do a lot of my crocheting when the hubby isn't around and since I couldn't get the kids to stay and pull my yarn for me for more than 5 seconds this gift has been great!

GONE are the days of punishing my kids by making them sit and pull my yarn (yea that happened), GONE are the days of throwing my yarn across the room to unravel it, and GONE are the days of pulling my own yarn like a sucker!

So basically it has a dowel on the end, I get my yarn, separate the middle to create an opening, stick the yarn on the dowel and TA DA! As I crochet, the yarn just unravels as I go...and I'm one happily, lazy gal!

The only issue I have is that it's not pretty enough for me...I guess the hubs didn't get the PINK memo, but it's nothing I can't handle...and BAM! I just threw down a challenge to myself to tackle that bad boy and bring it up to par! Any ideas on what I should do? Bling? Yarn? Paint? Hmmmm...the possibilities....

So there you have it folks, two of my FAVORITE things!

I hope you all had a fantastic Tuesday!

Playing Hookie-Girly Flapper Cloche

New Girly Flapper Cloche!
Thoughts?

So I'm playing a little hookie this weekend, trying to make something new for a change. It seems like the last few weeks I've had orders to fill, which I LOVE, (don't get me wrong and keep them coming!!!), but it sure is nice to get out my hooks and create something new! It really is like therapy for me! I am always a happier gal when I can pull out my yarn and my hooks and hook up something pretty!

This morning, I decided that I wanted to make something a little different than the normal hats I have in the shop. I also decided that I wanted to use some of this Caron Simply Soft Plum yarn that I love but have yet to use (courtesy of Walmart). It has such a rich, deep color that I decided to pair it with a lighter more subtle yarn and opted for this Cream Tweed. I busted out my F and H hooks and got to hookin'.

Here's what I started with...

A few hours, an impromptu photo shoot, and a little editing later, here's my newest little lovely...

What do you think?
(Seriously, I'd love to hear your comments)!

I know that I'm not supposed to play favorites, but I gotta say this little cutie is at the top of my list! I'm digging the vintage flapper vibe, and loving the flirty, playfulness of the over-sized brim! The colors ended up working great together (thank goodness), and I threw in a little extra bling, to the center of the flower because what girl couldn't use some extra BLING?

Be on the lookout for this little beauty in the shop very soon!

Have a great weekend, check back often, and as always..Happy Hooking!

Silhouette Adventures-Cocoa Mug Revamp

Do you like my Sweet Hot Cocoa Mug?
Here's the story on my Mug Revamp:

I'm taking a brief hiatus from organizing, to do something a little crafty...I need every now and then to stop and just take a minute to create. It's my outlet...my stress reliever

although massages are good too

First I have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE Target (are you with me?)

My daughter has dance class on Wednesday's to which parents are not allowed to stay and watch except for the first class of the month (I never knew dance classes were SO strict), which is not good for me since it's in the next town over and thus too far for me to go home and come back. There is however a Target down the street which is the closest target to me, so yea I don't get to go as often as I would like, which is both good and bad. I naturally put two and two together and decided that Wednesday would from here on out be my Target Day!!! I have had to cut it down to every other Wednesday though because I kept buying things instead of just looking, but in my defense, it's hard not to.
Can I just say that I love looking through the dollar bins...sometimes I don't find much, just little toys for the kids, but every now and then I find the coolest things. Like this cocoa travel mug for example.

Not only does it have this awesome pink band around the center to keep your fingers from getting burned, or the mug from slipping right through your hands, but it's otherwise a completely blank canvas for me to create upon! And so I shall!

I thought this would be the perfect project to kick off my Silhouette Adventures.

The Silhouette Machine is a fairly new tool for me, I just got it this Christmas as a gift. I was a Cricket girl, but lost my Cricket when we were robbed this summer, which is a story for another time. The important thing to note is that I am new to the Silhouette, have not had much practice with it and all that it can do, (which is a lot,) and my "adventures" are just that, adventures into figuring out what the Silhouette can do, and how I get it to do them.

I decided the best route here was to use my Silhouette to cut out some super cute vinyl shapes to prettify my mug! The mug is not dishwasher safe, and can only be hand washed so careful washing is the key here.

One of the reasons that I decided to go with the Silhouette rather than get anther Cricket was the ability of the Silhouette to be free of cartridges. The Silhouette has a vast library of images that you can browse and buy (for a dollar or less usually), but you can also use images that you already have on your computer or that you create yourself. With Cricket cartridges at $80 a pop this was a very appealing factor to me. I hit the Silhouette Store and found some pretty sweet images for my mug, and I got to work cutting them out with black vinyl.

I cut out my vinyl, made sure my mug was dust free and ready to go, and got to it. Here's what my newly prettified mug looks like now

I wanted to carry the design all the way to the top of the mug but with all the edges it started becoming a bit difficult, still it's an improvement I would say. I used a tougher vinyl than the normal just because I knew my mug would get wet, so we'll see how it holds up. For the time being though it looks a lot prettier, it makes me happy and all I need now is some delicious gourmet hot cocoa to warm me up while I work. Where is my favorite place to shop for delicious gourmet hot cocoa you ask? Well of course it's the Ticket Kitchen! If you haven't checked out this shop then you should...it's fantastic and I'm not just saying that because she's my boss...it really is fantastic!


Just a thought you could get any travel mug and do this same thing to it and it would make a pretty cool gift for the coffee lover, or hot cocoa addict in your life. Just a thought!

Happy Crafting!

Organization Station-The Plan (Phase 1)-Living Room

So a few days ago I let you all in on my crazy addiction with organization...my secret shame if you will. So I thought today would be a good time to introduce you guys to "THE PLAN" and to give you a little back story on why I long for a more organized space.

So, first up is the back story:

Okay, so for those of you who don't know, we were living in Texas for the last 3 years but moved back to Utah about 10 months ago. My husband is currently finishing up his prerequisites for Pharmacy School, and working crazy hours and I am currently finishing up my Masters in Education.

Needless to say, money is tight, we are both in school, we are trying to pay off school debt and put some money away to one day finally be able to get into a house of our own and for the time being we are living with family in a basement apartment. The situation itself is not a bad deal really, our kids are building a great relationship with their grandparents, we are strengthening our financial situation for the future, I have help with my 4 little monkeys when I have class or an order I need to work on, and my husband's grandparents (who we are living with) have help around the house that they otherwise wouldn't have. So for right now it's a good deal all around.

Now, with that said, our basement apartment is great! It doesn't at all feel like a basement apartment. It has a ton of storage for the size of it, great natural light and big windows. We have our own kitchen, living room and we even have a toy room/play room for the kids. The only issue is that there are 6 of us living in 2 bedrooms, sharing 1 bathroom, and while there is a lot of storage we still seem to be bursting at the seams!! Luckily, the bedrooms and closets are huge, but with my hand in several projects, and with me being a super organizational NUT, not having a organized, dedicated space to work is DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! Not to mention that my stash of yarn is taking over!

Okay so I devised a plan that I am from here on out referring to as "THE PLAN" (super original huh??) I'm also kicking around the name "Operation Organization Station" or "Operation Stop the Crazy." The name is a work in progress, but for now it shall be known as "THE PLAN."
So my plan is to go one room at a time, come up with a organization solution that is low cost, easy to handle, but functional to what I need the room to be. I'm starting at one end of the apartment and moving my way down to the other end, and first up is the doozy...the Room of many functions...the Living Room/Office/Entertaining Area. So here is what I'm starting with:

This is our everything room (a.k.a living room), it is cluttered to the max! Our goal for this room was to cram as much junk into this room as humanly possible, and to make it function into as many functions as we could imagine...I'd say we succeeded! Yay, go us!

As you can see this space houses our TV, baby gear, office, work out center (didn't you see the Sweet Treadmill/Coat Rack?), and Craft room, to name a few. It is cluttered, and unorganized, and in every sense the word annoying. It is as unproductive as a space could be!!

AND I'm sick of it! It's a little difficult a space to work with because we are restricted on space and we do have to keep some pieces in here (i.e. the piano which isn't ours), buy fear not because I have a plan.

The Plan for this room consists of
1. rearranging furniture

2. purging unnecessary junk

3.organizing with some low cost (fingers crossed) solutions.

4. accessorizing/decorating just a touch for a more homey feel

The third part is the part that gets me all giddy! Believe me I have ideas for this, most are pretty standard, get some bins, drawers, clip boards...but what I'm really excited about is this:
Okay so, in my last post, I mentioned that I had a dream organization system from Pottery Barn. It really is a dream of mine, ( I have weird dreams). The only problem standing in the way of me and my dream is well Money. My dream system is pretty pricey over there at the Barn, and that is a problem...UNLESS you have the Bestest hubby in the whole world who is good with tools, and has a little experience in building things!

My wonderful hubby has agreed to lend his great building skills to help make one of my dreams come true! So I looked at all the different options that the Pottery Barn system has to offer, and tweaked them with what I needed for my office area and the picture below is my (sad), mock up drawing of the system that I want him to build for me!
My family is blessed with some great artistic ability and as you can see...that is a blessing that I was not given, and yes I know that the proportion is way off (or else I have some giant paperwork to file)...but hey the picture does the trick! He gets what I'm saying.

I am so excited to get started on this project and to FINALLY get some organization in to my space. I need it man! I'm telling you, I will be one happy lady once I get this first phase done. Stay tuned to follow my progress!

Playing Hookie- Dancer Bag

This is a LONG over due post, but yea it's totally been one of those kind of weeks, SIGH...I've been meaning to post this since last Tuesday when I finally finished it, but the days got away from me in all the mommy craziness.

So today's Hookie project that I'm featuring goes along with last weeks dancer theme. Do you remember the leg warmers that I made up for my daughter? Okay, so I took Bean to dance two weeks ago and decided that I was tired of lugging all of dance shoes to dance class in a sad little grocery sack, not to mention that all the other adorable little dancers in her class were sporting the cutest dancer bags. (Who knew dancers had so much gear?) I stayed with the dancing theme on this one and decided that I would naturally make Bean a dancer bag in my favorite of favorite mediums...crochet! I searched through my library of patterns and sure enough I found a cute drawstring backpack pattern, with a fun design, and gathered my supplies and got to work.

So here were my supplies:

A skein of Hot Pink, White and Black Sugar' n Cream cotton yarn and a G hook, oh and some matching ribbon.

So, this project was a little more intensive a project, not hard, but just more time consuming. With the constant interruptions and working on it whenever I could find a minute, I got it done I'd say over the span of 3 days. By the next dance class, Bean had her super cute dance bag to show off...

The perfect size to hold all her dancing gear!

Love the ribbon straps!

And here's a picture of both crochet dance projects making their first dance class appearance...so cute I could almost cry she looks like a real little dancer.

So this week later, I'll show you some new Hookie projects that I'm working on! Super cute! Stay tuned and happy Hooking!

Two-fer Tuesday- Two Great Sites

Today's Two-fer Tuesday is:

2 Great Websites!

I love website hopping, it's probably one of my all time favorite hobbies! I love stumbling on great sites, and get oh so giddy when I find great ideas, awesome products, or inspiration for future products of my own... I adore finding those fun little treasures or finding great ways to "organize or simplify my life" (isn't that the BEST??) And of course, yes occasionally I love to do a little online window shopping, but who doesn't??

So today I'm going to share two of those great little websites that I just happened to stumble upon.

The first is a website called Woo! Jr, it is a fun little site that is geared to kids, and is chalk full of great craft ideas, educational tools, activities for kids and even has awesome coloring pages. It's definitely one of my Go-To sites when I need to get a little work done, or when I need to calm the kids down after a busy, pent up energy kind of day (which is happening a lot since we are in a winter that just wont quit!)

Woo! Jr has a ton of fun things for the kids,

Like this fun St. Patrick's Day Maze,

Or this spring butterfly, math coloring sheet...

but occasionally I find a few gems for myself like this Angry Birds coloring page, which you better believe I am excited about!!

The second website that I want to mention is called Say Please. Say Please is such an adorable company with such a great message. They focus on the products that feature positive messages in a hip and humorous way through lunch box notes! Check out some of their super cute and adorable products:

I'm thinking my little man would love finding one of these little lunch note treasures next to his PB and Honey sandwich.

And how cute are these Holiday themed notes??

Have a girlfriend or coworker who needs a fun little little pick me up?

And I am loving these adorable lunch boxes to house all your loving lunch notes!

Say Please offers a variety of other great products and the best part is that Say Please also offers a few lunch note printables on their site!

You should run over to both of these great sites and check them out for yourselves!

And as always happy website hopping!

Two-fer Tuesday-Two Great Deals

It's Two-fer Tuesday! Yay okay so my plan for these posts is to give you two cool.............

I'm going to fill in the blank with something ultra cool and you'll just have to wait and see what it just might be. It could be 2 great deals I've come across, 2 great finds or future projects, 2 great pictures, awesome blogs, cool websites...you get the picture...hmmm what will it be today??

Today is going to be: Two great Deals!

Our First Great Deal: want to be able to find your little one when he/she is on the move?? Check out these cute squeaky sandals!

I am LOVING the Hot Pink on these sandals!

And how cute are these for your little guy?

I LOVE these Sandals for my little ones, so much fun (and the squeakers can usually be taken in and out which is GREAT when you can't take the squeakiness anymore). Best Part is they are only $11.00 today!!!!

I LOVE Sophie's Chic boutique! (and no they are not a sponsor) They have the greatest finds for you and your baby and they feature a daily "Deal of the Day." Subscribe to get their emails and you'll always know when they have a new deal, or when they are having a sale! If you live in Utah they are local and you can forgo the shipping and just run up and pick them up Today!!

Our Second Great Deal comes from The Mini Social. The Mini Social is a great website that features great deals for everything from kids clothing, maternity wear, toys, bags... you name it.

Now I am a SUCKER for bags! Love bags in almost any form... and I've been known to pay more than I should for a good bag...So while I was perusing The Mini Social this morning guess how stoked I was to find these Amykathryn little beauties:

Love this...so cute!

And this one...

And this one...

Too cute! I don't know how I'm going to choose!

Hurry over to these sites and check out these Great Deals for yourself! Happy Shopping!