Two pages

Hola! Did you have a good Superbowl weekend? I was in the same room as the television during the game, but it was more like background noise while I worked on Quent's second slipper. I'm happy for the Packers and all of our friends from Wisconsin. Anyway, about those slippers: I finished the main part of the slipper. Everything was going well until the very end when you are supposed to have so many stitches. Let's just say that I had to undo some things and now I'm just hoping it all works out. So I would say I'm more than halfway finished with the second slipper.

The other day I received my box of goods from Knit Picks, now I'm just waiting to finish the slippers and my shrug (cough) before I start on those other projects.

And I am happy to say that over the weekend I finally worked on some digital designs! Whoohoo! I will show some of that tomorrow! I have so many ideas to work on now. Yeah!

And last, but not least, here are a couple of pages I worked on last week:

Friends

It's Thursday!!!

I don't have much to say...so I will just leave you with this:

Persnickety Prints Super Bowl Sale

I just found out that Persnickety Prints is having a sale. You can see about it here. I recently had some pages printed through them and I like their quality. I've seen their kind of quality other places, but they have a good price and their shipping is very reasonable (even for Alaska!). So I would recommend them, and you can't beat a sale! Happy printing!

Always Remember

Hello! Happy Tuesday! I'm blogging since I had an unsuccessful time of trying to take a nap today. Someone in the neighborhood is doing some type of construction, so the noise kept me from sleeping. I really could use some sleep...

I created this page a couple of days ago:



My goal over the weekend was to finish Quent's first slipper and to finish the shrug. I finished one slipper (did I mention that already?), but I did not finish the shrug. But I finished knitting the 34 rounds! Hallelujah! The next step is to sew the sleeve seams onto the body of the shrug, but that first requires getting out the handy dandy iron and 'blocking' everything. I dislike ironing very much, and sewing seams isn't my favorite either (plus I probably need a nap), so I'm procrastinating (again). Maybe on my next day off....

I did make a decent size Knit Picks order over the weekend for some future projects. I also have some yarn in my cart on Jimmy Beans Wool, but I just haven't committed to that purchase yet.

Family

Hello! It's about halfway through the weekend. I hope ya'll are having a great weekend! Quent and I watched a couple of movies tonight while I knitted. I finished Quent's first slipper and worked on my shrug. I only have 8 rounds left of the shrug and then I can sew the sleeves on and then I'm finished!!! Whoohoo! Now I'm in the mood to scrapbook, but my eyes are feeling tired.

Here's a page I scrapped a few days ago:

Keller Family

I didn't mean to have so many days in between posts, but I was too lazy to turn on this computer, which is the home of my digital scrapbooking. So what have I been doing? Working, napping, exercising, eating, reading, and well...that's about it.

Here's another page I created last week. I'm slowly finishing up scrapping the pictures I took when I was in Michigan last spring.



In my last post I said I was hoping to finish Quent's first slipper. Um...that didn't quite happen. Without realizing it, I skipped a small portion of the pattern, so I had to go back and redo that. How did I miss that? And then it took me a long time to figure out what they meant by picking up stitches on the inner or outer sole. I think there should be more pictures for a visual on the pattern instructions. And then after all of that, I realized that I wouldn't have enough yarn, so...I ordered more yarn and I'm waiting for that to come in the mail. And lucky me, I get to do all of this over again for the second slipper. Yippee. (Do you sense the sarcasm there?)

In the meantime, I'm dreaming up more projects to knit while I need to finish the ones I'm currently working on. I have to remind myself that I only have two hands. But how can I help myself when I find sweet looking ORANGE yarn?? After I saw the yarn, I went to Ravelry to look up the projects used with the yarn. And then I found a project I can make someday as an excuse to have some beautiful yarn. I love Ravelry!

Tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!

Knitted Gifts

For Christmas I knitted a few gifts.


The first gift was hat. Quent was my model for this picture. He said it was really comfortable. It was really stretchy and soft. I followed a pattern from a book called More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts (which is my favorite knitting book so far!), but I had to make some adjustments to the pattern since I needed to make it bigger. It was a perfect fit, so I was really happy about that! You can look at the details more here on Ravelry (if you have an account there). It's free, if you don't!

Next was a pair of felted ballet slippers. I made these slippers for myself a few months ago, but I already wore through one of them. *sad face* I really like them and they are super fun to slide on with our Pergo flooring! We have a long hallway and it's fun to get a good running start and slide! Anyway... The person who was gifted with these asked if I could make some straps to help hold them on...so I need to consider making that. More details can be found here at Ravelry.

And lastly, I knitted this beautiful bulky lace scarf. I fell in love with the picture in the book (same book as above). I even used the exact yarn and color that was in the book. Super pretty yarn! It wasn't as soft as I would have liked. The pattern was really easy to follow. I completed the project in a day. I like it so much that I'm making an orange scarf for me, except with super soft yarn. I can't help it, I'm a yarn softy!

Yesterday I accomplished a lot of knitting on Quent's first slipper. It's hilariously huge! Felting will take care of that. I love watching the little projects take shape. Often I wonder how the pattern could possibly take you to the right finished product, but soon enough you begin to take the correct shape taking form and it's exciting. I'm hoping to completely finish the first slipper and start on the second one today while Quent is watching football.

I've also been looking at yarn colors for a baby blanket I want to make for our little Smith baby (due August 21st). I'm drawn to orange (obviously) and cream, but I want to throw some turquoise in there, too. We do want to find out the sex of the baby as soon as we can, but I think it's interesting that I'm more drawn to the 'boy' colors. I like bright pink though.... Hmmm... So I'm trying to think of neutral colors, but it's hard to do that. I know red is a color that can go either way, but I'm not fond of red. I know it doesn't really matter. Quent said that the baby isn't going to care. He's right! He said I should just do what I want. So I think I will... Speaking of which, we picked up some paint chip colors from the hardware store this morning. Would you like to guess the colors?

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Our Funny Faces

Happy Friday! I love Friday! Sleeping in...being lazy...whoohoo! I need this break today! I'm going to the salon later for some pampering...*relaxed sigh*

My mom will probably want to beat me if she ever sees that I put this page on the blog, but I just love it! It's so colorful and fun! Get this, the other day I scrapped 3 pages! That's a record for these days!

I'm hoping the circular needle I ordered for the rest of Quent's first slipper comes in the mail today so I can knit more this weekend. I ordered it from www.purlsoho.com. I like that site because it's so bright and colorful, not to mention the awesome items they have on there, but they are spendy, so I don't order from there very often. I also have only 12 more rounds to go with the shrug. Yeah!

Published!

Hello! Just wanted to share that I was published in Creating Keepsakes again. I'm so excited! One page is in the special issue called Scrapbooking Everyday Memories. And the other page is in the February issue of Creating Keepsakes. Whoohoo!

50 Years

Hello! Did you have the day off of work today for MLK? I didn't. I came home from work and I had to decide between taking a nap or scrapping...I chose both! Ha!

I got caught up on a bunch of things this weekend. I cleaned up my craft area (which is shrinking), so now it looks much better! I finished scrapping the pictures for this project I started way back when. Now I have all of the pages waiting in Shutterfly, hoping they will have a super awesome sale pretty soon. I'm SO glad that project is complete. I felt bad that it took so long. Another thing I did was had the rest of the 2009 pages uploaded to be printed, along with what I have completed so far for 2010. I'll talk about printing later since I went with a different company this time. I still have many pictures to scrap for 2010. I would really like to get caught up before the baby comes. We shall see...

I believe I'm still working on scrapping my spring Michigan photos. These pictures were next:



I had so much fun creating this page! I used my Love Hearts kit.

Knitting projects

Happy Saturday! Thank you so much for your kind words and congratulations! Quent and I are both so excited about having a little one!

I thought I would blog about some knitting projects I'm working on (or still working on).


For Quent's Christmas present I am knitting him slippers. The colors are orange and brown, with orange being the main color. We both really like the color orange, which makes me happy because I love working on projects that have orange in it. I started working on it yesterday, January 14th. They are felted 'clog' slippers. Already I have to start over because I realized that I was using the wrong color for the sole. I was supposed to be using brown, but I didn't realize that until the last row of the first part of the pattern. Oops! So I will pull out the yarn and start again. I'm ok with that because now I'm more familiar with the pattern. I'm using Cascade Yarn 220 for the project. I bought one skein of the brown, not realizing that I would need to use double yarn throughout the whole pattern. (That's what I get for not reading the pattern all the way through). So instead of buying another skein of brown, I decided I would wind up the yarn from both sides and just cut the yarn in the middle so I would have two balls at the end. It worked perfectly. And the cats helped me (cough) this morning as I did that. I don't mind winding the yarn by hand, but I have to say this time I am now tempted to buy a yarn winder. Right now I just put the skein around a chair and unwind. I'm hoping these slippers will be done before spring. Hee, hee. As Quent keeps on saying, "The check is in the mail." Yeah, yeah...

And then there's the Francesca Shrug I'm still working on. I have the good excuse that other projects took priority over this one, but now I'm working on this again. I did bring it with me on our flights to Michigan and back, but I didn't get as much done on it as I thought. I'm halfway through the last part of the pattern. It's hard to see what it looks like from this picture, but the top is the collar/neck. I'm working in the round right now. There are 408 stitches in one round, and I have 34 rounds to complete. I have 17 completed so far. Whew! Even though it's tedious work, it's rather relaxing. After this part is over then I get to sew the sleeves on. I'm really hoping that part goes well. (I'm not sure why the first picture of the shrug looks so blue, but it's probably my bad photo editing skills. It's more gray than blue.)

And of course Tigger had to come check everything out when I was taking pictures. Funny kitty!

After I complete the slippers for Quent, I have plans to make another pair of slippers for myself. And then I want to knit a bunch of baby stuff, like little booties, a blanket or two, etc. I can't wait!!

Little Word for 2011

Yes, it sure does look like it's been exactly a month since I've posted. A lot has happened in the last month, but I'll get to that...

The last post I talked about my little word for 2010. Around the beginning of December I started to pray and think about my little word for 2011. I knew it would come to me, so I didn't focus on it. And then one morning I was on my stationary bike watching Joyce Meyer on tv when the word came to me. And it was quite a word. At first I was like, "No, that can't be it." (That's what happened last year when God showed me that 'discipline' would be my word). I tried to push this little word out of my head, trying to convince myself that I was just imagining things. But the word didn't and wouldn't go away.

So what's the word?

Prune.

Yes, that's it. PRUNE.

Not the fruit.

Definition: to cut off or remove dead or living parts or branches (of a plant, for example) to improve shape or growth

Sounds like fun, right? (Don't worry, it gets better--lots better!)

So once I swallowed my pride and was convinced this was the word God picked for me, I began to ask why. What needs to be pruned from my life? Why? I was clueless.

I have to admit that I still hoped that I was imagining all of this and that a much better, newer word would appear later on. Ha! (little did I know)

So...on December 15th my little word for 2011 started to make much more sense. That was the day I found out that our lives are going to change for forever. We are going to have a BABY!

*tears of JOY*

I've waited 7 years for the fulfillment of God's promise that we would have children (more on that later). So now pruning doesn't sound so bad. So much will change. I'm so EXCITED!!

This is definitely going to be a year of pruning, of growth, of making time for more important things (like cuddling with a little one). Maybe it's hard to see the correlation here, but I totally see it. I get it now.

August 21st cannot come soon enough!

Little Word

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my little word for 2010: discipline. As I said before, I wasn't too thrilled about this being my word, but now that we only have a few weeks left of 2010, I'm so thankful that this word was chosen for me! I'm sad to start another word in 2011 (I don't know what the word is yet), but I know that what God has taught me so far this year about discipline will stick with me forever. Almost a year ago I started changing the way I lived my life. It's been wonderful! How is your little word coming along?

Change Your Mind

Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind.

--Anonymous

In good company

Happy belated Thanksgiving! I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I've blogged. I thought that life was going to settle down after summer, but I was wrong. I've been busy! I'm working 4 days a week now, plus working on design work, plus working on several projects that are for Christmas. Eeek! I'm having fun though...lots of fun!

I thought I would share a layout I created a couple of weeks ago. This is a page about my Aunt Mary and I. She's so dear to me! I was inspired by a page somewhere, but I cannot remember where it was from. I like the simplicity of this layout. I really want to get into scrapbooking more, but I haven't really had the time. I need to figure that out because I have LOTS of pictures to scrapbook.

How has November been for you? In a few days it will be December, can you believe it?

Go! Go! Go! (it's here!)

Hello! Happy Monday to ya! My newest kit is in the shoppe! It's 30% off today through tomorrow, November 9th! You can get the full kit here, or you can just get the papers, or just the elements. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday!

Hello! Shortly after waking up this morning I remembered the time change and that we hadn't changed our clocks. Oops! But it wasn't a big deal. I know it will take me a little while to get used to the change. How about you? It's nice to have an extra hour today, but I'm sad that it's getting darker earlier. The long summer days are gone. *sniff*

Here is one last preview for the Go! Go! Go! kit that I will put into the shoppe tomorrow!

Snowscape snowflakes

Whew! It's been a busy last few days! I meant to post this yesterday, but I never got around to it. This weekend Little Dreamer Designs is having a 30% off store-wide sale to celebrate Digital Scrapbooking Day. Or is it international Scrapbooking Day? No matter, there's a sale! And I love sales! In honor of the sale, I created a cute little snowflake package which will eventually become part of a collection called Snowscape. There will be different parts of it, but all sold separately. These are the snowflakes:


For more details, click here.

This is a layout I created using the snowflakes just as they are, but I can also change the hue/saturation to match any layout. I love that about digi!

For this layout I put a cream-colored layer behind the snowflakes so they would pop more. So they look more like stickers.

This is a layout Jessica created using the snowflakes and I just love how she changed the colors! It looks wonderful!!

Your Love

Hello! Happy Thursday...almost Friday! Here's another sneak peek of Go! Go! Go!:



I've been pondering a lot of things lately. Actually, it doesn't seem my mind has been at rest about the subjects it's been concentrating on lately. Maybe I'll share more about that later, but for now I think this sums it up:

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it all together.
You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it...

For you formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother's womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18


I love these verses because it proves right there that God is a personal God. He's right there. He knows everything about us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He created us on purpose.

Go! Go! Go! *sneak peek*

I have an official "sneak peek" to post! And I finally named the kit! When I first started this kit I knew I wanted it to be a boy theme. I quickly noticed that it was geared more toward the transportation part of it, like trains, planes, and you guessed it, automobiles. There will be more boy type kits in the future because I want to take all of the other ideas/suggestions and create more.

Go! Go! Go! will be released November 19th!



And I thought I would post another page I created using the papers/elements from this kit! I've had so much fun playing with this kit! There's more to come...