Moms, Tots, and in-beTweens Spring Consignment Sale

Today was a fun day!  It was the Moms, Tots, and in-beTweens spring consignment sale.  This consignment sale happens twice a year and has tons of toys and clothes for kids.  I signed up as a consignor and a volunteer for this sale so that I could go to the volunteer pre-sale before the sale officially opened.

It was a lot of work getting ready for the sale.  The hardest thing was sorting through my son's baby clothes.  They were hard to part with!  I remember when he was so tiny and wore those tiny clothes and now he's growing up so fast.  We consigned some of his baby toys too.

I ended up consigning 181 items and tagged them all.  So many tags!  

And it was worth it because I found some amazing deals during the pre-sale!  I got these Melissa & Doug stacking construction vehicles, a giant bag of wooden blocks, big wooden Melissa & Doug beads in different shapes to string on laces, and a new owl board book.  Oh, and some clothes!

My volunteer shift was today.  I found even more great deals and I got to talk with a lot of other moms.  I can't wait for the next sale!

Project Life!

I just got my first Project Life cards yesterday!  I picked up the Project Life Boy Themed Cards at Hobby Lobby.  So excited!

I am still deciding which Core Kit to get.  My first project is to make my son's baby book.  I'm leaning toward the Honey Edition or the Kraft Edition.  I'd really like to get both because I think they both have some great designs and colorful cards.  

I've been swooning over Project Life blog posts and Pinterest pins for a while now!  I love that Project Life has page protectors that are perfect for Instagram photos.  If you've been following my blog you know that I document so much of my life with Instagram.  I'm going to follow the advice of Shelley of The House of Smiths and use Persnickety Prints to print out my photos. 

I've ordered some page protectors, an album, and some Studio Calico Project Life Kits.  I'll share pictures when my happy mail arrives!

Trinkets

My toddler likes to pick up small things at the playground.  I take them and put them in my purse.

This is the first rock he brought home from the playground.  He walked it over to his stroller and put it in the basket.

Pink Knitting Kits

Tonight I wound up the pink yarn that I bought so I could make Las Cruces Knit Charm Operation Stay Warm 2014 knitting kits with the rest of the coral yarn that was donated to the project.  I was able to make seven more kits.  This brings the total number of kits to 71.  I finished knitting one kit yesterday and I'm working on weaving in the ends.  I will start knitting another kit tomorrow.  And I'll also start to call the retirement communities in town. 

Knitting Kits for Operation Stay Warm 2014

This past week my toddler outgrew his first pair of sneakers!  He's running and climbing and tackling little stairs.  So fast!

And this year I'm making knitting kits for Las Cruces Knit Charm again!  For Operation Stay Warm 2014, we are going to knit 5" by 5" afghan squares and sew them together to make afghans and lapghans for the Camp Hope tent city yarn bombing on October 19th.  If we get a lot of squares we can spell out messages within each blanket.  Like fair isle.  But with squares.

I bought someone's vintage acrylic destash on Ravelry.  

And I found a couple of vintage acrylic lots on ebay.  (Note: this fluffy frosted yarn is delicious to knit with!)

I wound the yarn up into mini cakes and sorted them by color.

And I made kits that include yarn and two free patterns for knitting 5" by 5" squares.  There is enough yarn in each kit to knit twelve or thirteen squares.  

The patterns I included are for mitered squares so you don't have to worry about gauge.  I'm almost finished knitting up my first kit.

I've given out over 30 kits so far and I have about that many left.  They are available locally in the Las Cruces, New Mexico area.

I'll be making more this week because I bought some more pink yarn to go with a donation of five skeins of coral acrylic.  I'm going to call the retirement communities in town to see if I can make presentations to their knitting groups to see if anyone would like to get involved in this project.

I'm so excited that we are going to have another big project this year!

My Rainbow of Books & Other Projects

I organized Rex's children's books by color order this week and it's super cute!  It's something I've always thought looked great on bookshelves but I usually arrange my books by author.  But I think it's a great way to organize children's books and it might help Rex learn his colors.  His books used to be on the lower shelves but he was pulling out my vintage cookbooks every day and carrying them around the house.  I thought he would carry his own books around and maybe look through them if I put them up on the second row of shelves where my vintage cookbooks used to be.  Nope!  I think the vintage cookbooks are his favorite no matter where I put them.  They are pretty cute.

 I've also been working on some fair isle beer can cozy designs.

I love incorporating words into my knitting and this is another new way to do that.  I currently have designs for the words SUPER and BEER, and I'll be working on more soon.  Stay tuned for pictures!

Since this post is about projects, I'm going to also get caught up on a few from Christmas vacation.  One of my projects over Christmas vacation was making pecan pancakes for Rex.  They were very tasty and freeze well and are now a daily snack that I can send with Rex to grandma's house.  I substitute whole wheat flour for half of the flour called for in the recipe.  The recipe is from the book Blender Baby Food.  I was super excited to order this book a few months ago but never ended up making anything from it until now.  I've made these pancakes twice already and will make them again as soon as we run out.  The recipe is actually called Nutty Waffles in case you are interested in trying them.  We don't have a waffle iron and the cookbook was right when it said that the batter makes awesome pancakes too.  I love when I find a recipe in a cookbook that I really like.

I also made mini-bunting for Rex's room out of felted wool that I had put aside.  It really complements the other decorations in his room, which include Charley Harper alphabet cards and the bunting that I made for his comic book super hero first birthday party.

I also made a mini-bunting for the door to his room.  It feels like a much more colorful and cozy environment for him now.

Have a great weekend everyone!

King Cakes!

Today I make king cakes for the first time!  I was inspired by this blog post by Kittee Berns at kitteekake.blogspot.com.  Mine weren't vegan though.  I used this recipe.

I made the dough and let it rise for a few hours.  Then I punched it down, made the king cake rings, and let them rise again.  They are filled with a cinnamon-sugar-pecan filling made with recently harvested New Mexico pecans.

I mixed food coloring into white granulated sugar to make the green, yellow, and purple toppings.  I only had gel food coloring so I had to mix in a little water to get the colors to combine with the sugar.  I think I'll get the regular kind of food coloring for my next king cakes so hopefully the sugar won't stick together so much.

  

These taste like giant cinnamon rolls - yum!  I'll definitely be making these again.  

I hope you enjoyed your Saturday!

Donuts!

I love these donuts and their super happy colors so much!  I'm inspired to knit and felt a "Pink Donut with Sprinkles Stripes" beverage can cozy for my Etsy shop!  It should be listed in a couple of weeks.

Speaking of sprinkles, here's a catch-up of my 2013 Christmas cookies.  I made my grandma's Italian Knot Cookies again this year, which is something I do every year, and I added a lot of new sprinkles to the mix.  I love how they turned out!  I have a really good friend in Michigan who I sent these cookies to every Christmas and it was fun to mix them up a bit.

I also FINALLY achieved my goal of making and icing my own sugar cookies.  I ordered the cookie cutters and meringue powder from Amazon and stayed up super late one night to get them all baked and decorated.  So worth it!  I can't wait to make more for holidays throughout the year.

And I'll just take a second to let everyone know how much I LOVE the US Postal Service.  I feel like I rely on them so much with my Etsy shop and with Las Cruces Knit Charm and they never let me down.  I'm super happy that I was able to personalize their Christmas cookies this year.

There might be a few more catch-up posts coming and I'll also be sharing some new projects with you soon.

Have a great Friday tomorrow!

The Sock Monkey Collection

One of my goals for this year is to felt two cozies each week and to list the cozies felted the week before on Etsy.

Meet the Sock Monkey Collection!

My plate is pretty full with my day job and running after a 13 month old, and I love that I can still continue to grow my creative business.

Have a wonderful week!

Las Cruces Knit Charm

The next Las Cruces Knit Charm yarn bombing of the Camp Hope Tent City will be on October 19, 2014!  You can help by knitting or crocheting afghan squares, afghan panels, washcloths, and other items!  

Stationery Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Last year I started organizing Las Cruces Knit Charm!  It is a charity knitting group that yarn bombs our local tent city here in Las Cruces with knitted and crocheted items.  

On Sunday, October 19, 2014 at 10:00 AM Las Cruces Knit Charm will yarn bomb the Camp Hope tent city in Las Cruces with knitted and crocheted afghans, lapghans, washcloths, and more!

Operation Stay Warm 2014 - Afghans! Join this project and knit or crochet afghan squares or panels. We will seam them together to create afghans and lapghans to keep Camp Hope residents warm this winter!

For afghan squares, knit or crochet squares in multiples of 5 inches. For afghan panels, please knit or crochet panels 10 inches wide by 45 inches long. Feel free to use any color and stitch pattern you like! Please leave a 6 inch tail at the beginning and end of each item and use only machine washable and dryable yarns. You can knit or crochet entire afghans and lapghans as well!

Operation Clean Fun 2014 - Washcloths! Join this project and knit or crochet washcloths for the residents of Camp Hope! Washcloths can be any shape, size, or color. Please include a new wrapped bar of soap with your washcloth donation so that each washcloth can come with a new bar of soap.

Camp Hope was yarn bombed with 190 washcloths, 44 scarves, 12 afghans, 6 hats, and 3 pairs of socks in 2013. Lets beat those numbers in 2014! All kinds of knitted and crocheted items will be accepted!

Items are due by September 15, 2014 so they can be assembled and tagged with a Las Cruces Knit Charm tag and animal charm.

If you live in Las Cruces you can drop your items off at Quillin Fiber Arts. Make sure you tell Kym or Dedri that the items are for Las Cruces Knit Charm because they collect for a number of projects.

If you don’t live in town you can mail your knitted items to: 
Las Cruces Knit Charm 
P.O. Box 1266 
Las Cruces, NM 88004

On October 20, 2013, eighteen Las Cruces Knit Charm volunteers yarn bombed Camp Hope with 255 items: 190 washcloths, 44 scarves, 12 afghans, 6 hats, and 3 pairs of socks! We also donated 200 bars if soap. Starbucks donated 100 cups of coffee and Albertsons donated 5 dozen donuts for Camp Hope residents to enjoy while we yarn bombed their camp.

Tent city residents and other homeless people who were on the area were super happy and thankful for all of the beautiful donations. They posted a story about the event on their blog: http://hopevillagelascruces.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/las-cruces-knit-charm-yarn-bombs-camp-hope/

We have more info on the Las Cruces Knit Charm facebook page too: http://www.facebook.com/LasCrucesKnitCharm.

And we're also on Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/groups/las-cruces-knit-charm.

And here are pictures from the 2013 yarn bombing!

This project was so much fun and made a difference in our community! Can't wait for this October!