For My Favorite Baby Momma

This post is a very special one because I get to announce... dun, dun, dun... my sister-in-law's pregnant! As you may have noticed, I go gaga over babies, and this is an extra special baby because they will be my very own niece/nephew! I can't tell you how excited I really am so I am dedicating this post to my very favorite family right now: Jen and Kevin Ehlert and the little bun in the oven. :) I haven't had a lot of time to do yarn crafts for the little bugger, yet, but I have definitely been inspired by Jen herself. I found the coolest stamp at Michael's in the $1 bin (Yay, $1 bin!), and it really brings out the fun in pregnancy. :) I had a lot of fun with this stamp. I made my own paper print by stamping a really fun curlique-type stamp in red, and then I stamped the little pregnancy dress on top of it and cut it out. This is a super fun technique called fussy cutting. It's one of my favorites! Then I made it even more fun and whimsical by stamping it on the paper print again and cutting out the bottom part of the dress so I could pop it out with a 3d dot tape. I thought Jen would love the realism. :) I also heart rhinestones so, of course, I had to add some of those.

I also made the envelope myself so I could coordinate with the card (for themed party coordinations, hint, hint... ;)). I used my much-loved cricut to cut out the envelope and stamped the same curlique-type stamp from the card on the corners of the envelope. Then, instead of adding rhinestones (because I'm sure they would fall off the outside of the envelope), I colored the little circles red.
There are a couple things I love about this card. One, I made it. Call me egotistical or whatever you'd like, but it's genius. Two, it's a little less baby (although we all know babies are indeed wonderful) and more a celebration of pregnancy and the beginning of motherhood. In other words, it's more about Jen! So, yes, we're all really thrilled about a new baby, and we can't wait to meet them, but it's also always fun to be celebrated and spoiled a little yourself. :) So this one's for you, Jen. We'll get to the baby when they get here. :)

To go back a bit, there was a card I made a while back that was also inspired by Jen. Her nickname is Jenny Bee. I guess I don't actually know if it's Jenny B or Jenny Bee, but in any case, she likes bees. So, for the sake of argument, it's Jenny Bee. I was trying to come up with some themes for a baby card, and baby bee sounded so cute! So we'll give this one to you, too. :) You're just so inspiring! This one was fun because I also made my own paper print, and I got to use some embellishments I don't normally use in the wire and the button. Plus, kraft paper is the best.

So, this post, dear Ehlerts is for all 3 of you! But mostly Jen. Take all the time you can get together because it will disappear quickly when you have a little one. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but store up face-time with each other because between sleeping and work and baby, you may not see each other for a little while. :) But you know who you can call for help, should you need it! Crazy Aunt Rayna will be on the move...

The Fabled Follow-Through

I did it! I, who never follow through with (hardly) anything, have finished something I said I would do. And I can safely say it was all thanks to... da, da, da, dum... Couch 2 5k! I followed the program for 9 weeks, and while there were some rough practices, I finished the program and went on to run my first 5k in... forever. A long time, in any case. I did the Raise the Roof 5k benefiting Cincinnati's Habitat for Humanity, and the course was at Sharon Woods, which was SUPER HARD! It was crazy hilly, and it went through some really pretty woods (as you might have gathered from the name of the park). My boys were there to cheer me on, and I don't think I could have done it without them, either. While I didn't reach my personal goal of finishing within 30 minutes (I finished in 35:38), I did a pretty good job, and I only walked twice for a very short distance. Oh, and I picked it up at the end. :)

Oh, and the whole point of this post was to display my headband I knitted just for this occasion. I thought it would help my inner get-up-and-go if I made something special for myself to get me motivated, and it really did. I made this beautiful headband, and it's one of the many free patterns I've gotten off ravelry. By the way, if you're a fiber crafter, and you're not on ravelry, you're seriously depriving yourself of something wonderful and pure. So do it. I used this really nice thick wool yarn in my favorite crafting color: grey! I know grey sounds like such a boring color medium, but it's so versatile. And this thing is super soft. I doubled the yarn because I wasn't sure about the lace in a headband I wanted to keep the cold out of my ears, and that did the job. It worked great, and I actually ended up taking it off the last mile and using it to wipe the sweat off my forehead. It worked great for that, too. :) In addition to the beautiful, soft grey yarn I used, I used a very cool wood-like button for the back closure. The headband took no time at all to make, and I would recommend this pattern to anyone! It was great to work with it, and I loved the end result. If you're going to make it, the thing does stretch so don't worry about gauge too terribly much.

I'm really glad I did this, and I'm actually thinking of doing more 5ks. I'm kind of worried that now that I have no goal in mind, I'll stop working out. I can't let myself do that! I will NOT let myself do that. Oh, and I have to eat better. I'll be working on that. So today's lesson is to get up and go outside! I know it's hot, but you can do it. You will feel better, I promise. Unless you pass out from heat stroke, but I trust you to listen to your body and go inside if you start to feel sick. Okay? Okay. If I can do it, you can! (I'm a lazy bum. :))

Time to Accessorize

So we've been traveling a lot, lately, and I can't really craft. That means I have to find something I can do on the road (or in the hotel) and something that will also dress up my travel gear. Enter knit and crochet flowers. I've made some of these before, but I hadn't thought about putting them on all sorts of things. They're really easy, though, and I love them. :) So that makes it awesome. I bought 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet by Some Lady (google it, you'll find it), and it's got the most amazing flower, leaf, fruit/vegetable, bug and leaf designs. I've been piecing together flowers to make little corsage-type things. The most recent one I made was a bouquet of trillium (They're called something else in the book, but I made them white, and now they're trillium! Voila.) with 2 large leaves and 1 small. You probably wouldn't know that if you saw it, but that's what they're called in the book: large and small leaves. I think it looks awesome on my suitcase. :)

There's really not a whole heck of a lot for me to craft right now, theoretically speaking. I can't do any of my paper crafts right now (bah!), and there are only limited knitting/crocheting capabilities because I don't want to be carting around skeins and skeins of yarn. Plus, I have a Halloween costume to finish, and that really needs to take priority. I can't wait to show that one off! Trust me, that'll be a lot more exciting than a tiny corsage. :) This was a really fun project, though, and it made me slightly more excited about moving all my crap to another state. I definitely plan on making more of these. I think I'm going to try wearing one in my hair next time. Something fall-y. We'll see how that works out.

Joey and the Eggplant

Have become great friends since I introduced them almost 2 weeks ago. They like to play together, roll around together and the eggplant likes to be chewed. Joey is more than happy to oblige. It all started with a promise I made Joey when he was around 4 months old. I promised him that I would make him an eggplant for his 6 month birthday. I like to think Joey loves it. :)

It may be unnecessary to say this for those who know me, but I have recently become obsessed with amigurumi knitting. You can knit your own toys! It's awesome! How many children out there have a stuffed eggplant? I would challenge you to find one. Plus, it's so well-constructed. ;) It's soft, there aren't any parts that will pop off and choke him, and it's got a really fun stem that he can chew on and hang on to so he can swing it around and hit people.

I have the most wonderful book of amigurumi knitting written by Hansi Singh. This is the second pattern I've used from this book, the first one being the Garden Snail, which was also awesome. Joey really likes that one, too. He likes to chew on the snail's antennae. The eggplant was a super easy pattern to follow, and I would recommend it to EVERYONE. The only thing to brush up on may be picking up stitches, but there's an entire section on this in the book. Everything you need to know can be found IN THIS BOOK. It's awesome. I absolutely hate it when I get a book that has specialized stitches (triple treble crochet clusters, for example, 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet...), and you have to bring along an additional reference book to be able to figure out those wonky stitches. For my amigurumi knitting, I need only one book. It's heaven. :) The patterns are just so unique and fun, too. What child wouldn't want a stuffed jackalope? I have at least 2 other patterns currently planned for this book. I bought yarn for Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster (this one's for me), and I want to make a spider for Joey for Halloween. That one may be a little late since we're A) in the process of moving into a new house and currently living in a hotel and B) I'm already knitting him a costume for Halloween. You'll have to wait and see what it is. :)
In any case, I highly recommend this book as it is wonderfully fun and quirky, and Hansi Singh is a friggin' genius. Yes, some of the patterns seem pretty challenging (I love to read knitting patterns before bedtime), but challenges are fun! It always feels good to accomplish something like this. Happy knitting!

Going green with crafting!

I'm finally finding the time to tell you how it was sewing Joey's wet bags, and I know I said I was going to do it a few days ago, but, well... life gets in the way sometimes. We had to make an emergency trip to Ohio (good emergency, nothing's wrong, but thanks for worrying), and my poor little boy is cutting his first tooth, and it finally broke through today! He's still quite a bit cranky, but you would be too if something razor sharp was tearing your gums apart trying to rip its way through your face. So don't judge.

So, wet bags. I found a GREAT pattern online courtesy of the oh-so-talented Jessica of Yarnmonster. Just for your clarification, she made an all-cotton bag so, if you use this pattern, adapt it to what you need. The link for the pattern can be found below. I made a drawstring wet bag using cotton flannel and PUL. PUL is a wonderful fabric that I used for the first time for this project. It's a thin, slightly stretchy washable water-resistant fabric perfect for things like wet bags, snack bags and whatever else you would make that you would want to resist water. Please note I say resist. Not water-proof so keep that in mind if you decide to use it. I made the bags slightly bigger than Jessica uses in her pattern, but she is wonderful at explaining how to adapt your measurements so it was absolutely no problem. These bags could also be made to be nifty little reusable gift bags. I made the 2 bags on the left, and all the diapers on the right are FuzziBunz. Great stuff, so far! I love them. We got several different colors so Joey can always look stylish in his FuzziBunz. :)

Jessica's Drawstring Bag Pattern


Below, you can see Joey modeling a pair of his FuzziBunz. He looks very cute in them, if I do say so myself. He's also very interested in his diaper bag. That's fine, I suppose. They were made to hold poop. He couldn't do much worse than that to them. Have at it, little gooba.


I sized the bag to fit Joey's diaper pail so we could continue to use our current diaper disposal system. You can kind of get the look of the PUL in this picture. It's the light blue, shiny fabric wrapped around the top of the bag holder. You do have to be a little careful when sewing this fabric as it is slightly stretchy, but it's definitely manageable. I had no problem with it, and I'm definitely nowhere close to being a first rate sewing person (whatever you call them). The only problem I had with the bag/pail combo is that between the cotton flannel and the PUL fabric wrapped around the bag holder and the piece of plastic that's supposed to go into the holder so it closes securely, the fabric is a little too thick for it to close. However, that ended up being just fine with us because 1) we put little Arm & Hammer odor eaters at the bottom of the diaper pail, and 2) since we're using reusable diapers, there is no actual poop in the pail because we rinse the poopy diapers in the toilet because I AM NOT putting poopy diapers in my beautiful green washing machine. NOT doing it. So there's really no smell to speak of in the first place. Now, I just lift the entire lid of the pail, throw the diaper components in, and when it's full, I take the whole bag out and throw everything into the washing machine. Voila. Just like magic. I'm loving this system! Plus, using reusable diapers makes me feel like a better person. So, the two reasons we're using reusable diapers: 1) wonderfully adorable fashion statement (for Joey), and 2) it makes me feel better... so purely selfish. But still okay!


I had to include King Gooba himself in some of these pictures. I put him in the midst of the bags and diapers, and he ended tearing up my pretty picture and chewing on diapers. I guess when you're this cute, you can pretty much do whatever you'd like. :) I don't think there's anything I didn't cover, but if you have any questions about this project or Yarnmonster's pattern, let me know!



Joey says: "Thanks, Momma, for saving the planet for me when I'm a much older, mature and handsome man." Go, green!

New look!

As you may have noticed, I've changed the background on my blog! I probably had too much fun messing everything up, but I think it looks great. It looks like a unicorn threw up rainbows all over it! I love it! For those of you who don't know, unicorns throw up rainbows. It's a fact, look it up.

In other news, my darling hubby now has his own craft-related blog! His craft is not nearly as feminine as mine is so you'll be disappointed if that's what you're expecting. His craft, however, is incredibly cool. To preface, who likes beer? ME! I DO! (bouncing up and down while violently shaking my arms in the air...) His craft is... BREWING BEER! How cool is that? I've tasted his homebrew, and it's great. His most recent creation was a watermelon wheat, and it's summer in a bottle. It's awesome. This is really the first batch I've gotten to enjoy like this simply because I was pregnant for, well, 9 months, and I missed a lot of it. But now I'm back in the game! Yay, beer drinking game! So if you're interested in his homebrewing hijinks, check them out at:

Beer Blog

Yes, it's seriously called Beer Blog. Now he just started it tonight so maybe give it a few days before you start expecting something, but go ahead and bookmark it. Bookmark it. Now. Well, I suppose you can finish my blog first, but THEN bookmark it. You'll be very glad you did.

I did finish both wet bags as I tested the first and completed the second today. They look great, they fit in Joey's diaper pail wonderfully, and I'll have more on that tomorrow, probably. Pictures and such, you know.

So I hope everyone has a good night. I've sent the unicorn back home after he so lovingly contributed his beautiful unicorn vomit to my blog. Bjorn (the unicorn) is wonderful for helping me out in my time of need. So go bookmark Scott's blog, and then come back later for wet bag project info! Don't tell me... YOU CAN'T WAIT!

Holy notecards, Batman!

As you may know, I've been working on a very large order. I think it's the largest one I've done, minus work I've done for craft shows, of course, but it's been an absolute blast! I got to use a ton of creative license, and I am very grateful for that. I came up with a ridiculous amount of new designs, and I have listed many of them on my site already. So, as I said, TONS of fun. I think the most fun part was ending up with a huge stack of notecards at the end.

Awesome, right? I LOVE IT! :) Anyway, I'm sure it's boring reading about how I stacked up a bunch of notecards so I'll stop. But it was fun. I mean, look at that placement!

Anywho, besides, going bonzai on my notecards, I've been working like a crazy woman on stitching some more notepads. You know what they say about crazy bookbinders... they're crazy. Watch out, right. Since I've had my bookbinding drill, I've made a few more notepads, and I've got quite a few more in the works. I'm working on a very special one that I'm making out of the very same paper I used to make Joey's baby announcements. I'm thinking about keeping that one for myself. In any case, my bookbinding drill is a-freaking-mazing. I can clearly get notepads done in a fraction of the time, and it really does save my wrists and hands. The stitching is quite a bit easier, and I'm just plain happier with my products. Go, me.


Now that I've mostly got my products solidified, I'm working on finalizing some other business-type things. I worked on some packaging materials yesterday, making myself some stickers for sealing product bags, and I got my new stamp! Yay! Now my products will all have my new website on the back. Woo hoo! While this may sound very boring to you, it's so exciting to me! I've also started making a list of new things I might want to carry. Party accoutrements! Banners, themed thank yous, cupcake toppers... Of course, I'll have to work out the logistics, but, again, I'm really excited. As you can tell, it doesn't take much. :)

Now that I'm done with this order, I'm going to get it ready to send off, and it will be lookin' good! Then I have another order to work on, and in between all this, I will get that wet bag done. I promise. I'm off today to get more fabric. Unfortunately, I did misjudge what I would need on that front. While sewing is not my first love, I like to think I'm capable. :)