Crocheting Hats

I swear I'm not ignoring you!  (Don't you hate it when people say that!) But honestly I'm not!  I know I've been seriously neglecting the blog as of late even though my goal is to stay on top of my blogging!  Let me start out by saying I have an extremely good reason!  Without going into too much detail, my life is being turned upside down and I'm going to be starting a new chapter in my life.  Actually, I don't think it classifies so much as a chapter as it does an entirely new book! But anywho, my life has been total chaos this passed week or two and it seems to have been a long time coming.

The upside to all of this is that I've been crocheting very much to help my keep my mind off of things!  So, with that being said, I have some cute hats to show you all!  Let me start off by saying that I'm sorry for these horrible photos!  I can't for the life of me find the charger to my camera's battery, so I've had to take these photos with my iPod!

This lovely little blue bird hat was created for my daughter.  Isn't it just a cutie?  I love how it came out and it was super easy!

Of course I couldn't just stop there, I had to create one for my son as well!  I thought the red would be perfect and of course left the flower out!

So, that's something I've been working on through all the chaos, I hope you like!  If you wanna create some hats like these for yourself you can get this cute pattern from Sock Monkey Kook on Etsy!

My First Time Knitting Socks

Woohoo, I've been knitting!  I knitted my first pair of socks and boy I must say.... they are kinda ugly! LOL, my knitting is GREAT, but the variegated yarn created this really quite unappealing pattern.

Of course you can see that they are toe socks, and here you can kinda see the pattern around the toes is sorta nice, and even around the ankle area, but around the foot it created this weird patch that I don't care for.  But all in all, I really like them for hanging around the house and wearing my flip flops when I'm cleaning, and I think I'm gonna make another pair of regular socks.

 I made the socks from these two patterns by Patons Yarns.  I did the entire sock from the toeless pedicure socks and then added the toes from the toe socks.  These are free pattern available on their site if you are a member, also free.  Now, I will say that I've always been intimidated to try a pair of sock but I've been looking for a challenge and wanted to try something new.  Now that I did really well, my entire family wants some socks!  So now I'm gonna make different pairs for my husband, son, daughter, and even my mother.

The purple on the left has a little but of silver in it, which is what my mom picked out.  The pink has flecks of purple, hot pink, and even yellow, and it's gonna make a cute pair of socks for my daughter.  The yellow has all sorts of different colored flecks in it, but it's for my son and I'm gonna make a pair of ankle socks or stirup socks for myself.  The black and grey variegated is for my husband and is a nice wool blend that should be great!

So I have lots of work to do, off to knit and stuff!

-♥-
Chassity
XOXO

Grandmothers and Bunnies and Ballet, Oh My!

It's been a hectic time at the O. house and boy it's been fun!  My mother is in town for the week visiting and CiCi has been so excited about it!  We only get to see my mom maybe once or twice a year, so all the time we get is special.

So, lots has happened in the few days my mom has been here already.  CiCi has been asking lots and lots about taking a ballet class, so we signed her up!  It starts this Saturday.  I can't wait to be going to recitals and doing dance classes for years to come.  I used to dance when I was in high school and I strongly believe in extra curricular activities!  So we had to go buy CiCi some ballet shoes and we got her these!  Nothing fancy, just some shoes from Payless.

The biggest upset for us seems to be that we've gotten CiCi a bunny!  I know, it's been a bunch of new things for CiCi, but I really wanted it to.  I guess me wanting it was a good thing since I will have to take care of it the most and deal with CiCi's constant need to play with the poor thing.  Maybe CiCi is a little too small to have a bunny because she has been scaring the poor thing to death, but this is only the 3rd day she's had it so I'm hoping things will calm down really soon!  It's a cute little thing though, and we've named it Ruby, from the Nick Jr show Ruby and Max!  It's not all white like Ruby but it's one of CiCi's fave cartoons with a bunny in it! :)

She loves little Ruby all the same and I'm glad she has a little "friend" at home to play with.  She will hopefully learn a little from the rabbit and all will b e well! :)

-♥-

Chassity O.

XOXO

First Day of School

So my daughter, Cecilia aka CiCi, has started preschool.  I totally would have posted this earlier, but you know I had all that computer trouble around the same time! :(

So a little back story, I grew up in Germany.  My mother is full German and I spent my first 9 years or so in Germany.  Over there they have this awesome tradition for children and their first day of school.  It's called a Schultute!  Basically it's a decorated cone that's filled with candy and goodies so that they feel better about going to their first day of school, which can be filled with anxiety.

I absolutely love this tradition and had to do it for my own daughter, even though she was super excited about going to school! :)  I found this cute blog post with cute instructions on how to do it, but I'm also going to show you what I did!

What You'll Need:

• Poster Board

• Wrapping Paper or other decorations

• Scissors

• Hot Glue and/or good glue stick

• Tissue Paper or Fabric

• String

• Fillers (like candy, school supplies, etc.)

First you'll need to cut your poster board so that it can become a cone.  How large you want it is up to you, but I made mine pretty large because I had some big items.  Place your poster vertically in front of you to measure it out. To get the rounded edge I used a string and a pencil.  I held one end of the string in my right hand with a pencil and placed it at the bottom right hand corner you see in the photo. I pulled the other end of the string out to the bottom left hand corner of the poster in the photo.  Holding the string tight, I keep the left hand in the corner and draw my pencil up and around to the upper left side of the poster, like in the photo.  Then cute along this line to get the final product.

I then used my poster to trace my wrapping paper and cut it out as well.  Using a glue stick or hot glue, glue the wrapping paper down to the poster.

Use your hot glue to glue the two long edges together.  You might need some extra hands or a clip to help hold it in place while you glue.  Make sure it's holding together really well because you don't want it to come apart when you put your goodies inside.

Glue your tissue paper or fabric to the top.  To make sure it goes all around nicely, you'll want to overlap it and bunch it up.  This makes it easy for the kids to open and get inside, as well as not ripping any tissue paper used.  

You could take the decorating one step further and put ribbon around the top edge, maybe make the cone look like your child's favorite character, or put their name on it with pretty craft letters.  The possibilities are endless.  Next year I really want to make another one for my daughter and then I will probably make it into a character.

So, now you fill it with goodies.  I filled mine with lots of candy, as well as a coloring book, stickers, number magnets, number flash cards, light up bracelets, and hair-ties.  Traditionally it's filled with all candy, but you can fill it with whatever you like, even all school supplies.

My daughter loved it.  (Sorry for the blurry pic, but I had a hard time getting my daughter to be still, LOL!)

So, hopefully you can use this, but I'm sure many kids already started school, so maybe next year?  I plan on making one of these for my daughter for a few more years, though they will be smaller and smaller, hehe!  I hope you like this post! ;)