christmas goodies!

so i'm lame. the only thing i took a picture of was the bag.  the rest i have pictures of, however, some of them are not the actual gifts given so forgive me. i'm exhausted. 

first off, the bag.  or the provence summer string bag, if you will.  i fell in love with this the second i found it.  yet, i found it after i had started other gifts for people. those projects were quickly scrapped as i worked on 4 of these babies: 

isn't that lovely?  i made this green one, a red one, a blue one, and a purple one. it was a labor of love really. soooooo tired...now i have to make one for me!!!  

headwraps for the nieces.  green for kassy, turquoise for kaitlyn, blue for kailee, and orange for ellie.  

and for my most favorite cousins, bath sets that included a face scrubbie and a bath poofie.  these may look small, but i must say that the poofie takes more time than it looks like it should. 

now what i don't have pictures of are the beanies that i made for my nephews.  red/black/and white for sack, black/white for caleb, and hot pink for josh. yes, he requested hot pink.  in fact, all the nieces and nephews got to choose the color of their gift.  i must admit, the hot pink hat was my personal favorite. it turned out awesome. i'll have to get a picture as soon as i can. 

my very favorite gift though, was for my dear brother in law.  it wasn't even crocheted, but it was awesome. i made him a nice picture frame. with a picture of me in it.  i just wanted to make sure he remembers how much he loves me. :)

in fact, is has THIS picture in it: 

now he'll never forget how awesome i am. never never never. 

holy crap i'm so tired!  now what to make next? i have a couple gifts left to finish and mail, but then i'm DONE!

a snuggie? pillows with swear words?  a new lampshade? move onto valentine's day? 

it's a christmas miracle!

no really, i'm not kidding.  as i get older, i'm getting better at finishing what i start (with regards to crocheting that is), so when i come across a project that i haven't finished, it bugs me a little more than it used to.

i started this kick-ass-ghan when i was 14.  yes, you heard me folks, when i was 14 years old. i'm 31 now.  so 17 years ago, my mom and i ventured out and bought i'm guessing 18 skeins of cheap yarn so i could make an afghan.

mom has an afghan that we all still use.  she made it when we lived in the apartment that flooded out (that's a great story so you should ask me about it sometime), so round abouts 1st grade for me.  she did hers with 3 strands. it's been washed so many times that it's practically felted even though it's not even made out of wool.  it's the heaviest, warmest blanket ever.  i wanted one of those.  although, i'm guessing we were strapped for cash because mine only uses 2 strands.

as i was getting out my christmas decorations over the holidays, i came face to face with it again. it's been packed away ever so carefully, waiting for me to pull my head out and finish it.

i must say, that i was a tad embarrassed when i pulled it out of the plastic and realized that it has been nearly finished all this time. there were only 2 skeins of yarn left, which were for the fringe.

i added 3 rows. 3. 3 rows until it was finished. sometimes i wonder about myself.

i then had to remind myself how to make the fringe. apparently, this takes a genius because i was stuck for a minute and was about to google it when it came to me.

it's mauve.  i make fun of mauve.  however, it was 1993 so you're really going to have to cut me some slack. my room was pink.  oh, and sage green.  pink and sage green.  lovely.

that said, i do think that it looks awesome with my grey walls and white bedding.

congrats me!! 

christmas crafting

i often have the sudden urge to glue and mod podge.  wackiness will then ensue: 

i think it turned out quite adorable. i took it to work because my office is so very very bare.  

this next one was from a long time ago.  i got the idea reading craft blogs.  apparently christmas is all about wreaths and advent calendars.  not that it wasn't before, i just didn't pay any attention.  this is a reindeer from my super saturday days.  i stained it and then put this lame blank wreath around it's neck. that worked for about 20 years.   then i decided to to this: 

isn't that so cute?  just some yarn and a few beads i had layin' around.  i don't know why i had these ginormous beads but they sure came in handy.  

runnin' low on the dude ideas....

mans, it's so much fun to make stuff for girls. frilly, lacy, and fun.

and then there's the dudes. what do you crochet for a dude? besides a blanket, beanie, and/or a scarf?

on my quest to find dude gifts, i've come across several that i think are so awesome that i just had to share.

exhibit a: the poncho. or "mancho" as i like to call it....

doesn't he look so excited to be wearing his homemade gift? he's brooding and handsome. 

dapper, if you will. 

exhibit b:  the super looooooong scarf. 

jeesh, this dude has got it all. long scarf (that doesn't look the least bit girly, if you ask me), chick on his arm.  he's livin' the dream is what he's doin'.

exhibit c:  the dude sweater.

i can't speak for anyone else,  but i know that when i receive homemade clothing, i LOVE it when it looks homemade.  just sayin'. 

exhibit d:  (these are my personal favorites) oxford slippers. 

you know what would be rad? if i crocheted a matching smoking jacket.  i'm kind of not kidding.  and then i'll give it wrapped up so pretty to a dude in my life and pretend like i'm serious:

"what? you don't like it? i worked really hard on that."

and just for fun.....

doesn't get much better than this folks. 

i kid, i kid.

i know that each of these projects took a lot of thought and effort. but the whole point of this is to make something that is not lame.

i want something awesome.  i want something snappy (if you know that movie reference, then you too are awesome). 

help me crochet nerds!



lightin' the night yo's!

before i tell you all about the 'light the night' project, just a small taste of what kinds of conversations happen between shannon and i when we get excited. like, super duper, crap in your pants, excited.

basically, it goes down something like this:

kami: (or shannon, depending on who found the cuteness): check this out!
shannon: oh my I LOVE THEM ALL!
kami: I know right? I gasped out loud. You could do a bunch of *insert rambling of incoherent ideas here*…..
shannon: holy CRAP! Now I gasped out loud! I think I'm going to faint.
kami: easy as pie.
shannon: Mother effing trucker, it's genius!
kami: I'm going to die.
shannon: like magic! Oh my gosh that would be so cute I can hardly stand it.
kami: I think my blood pressure just went up.

and so on and so forth. all the great ideas happen like this, and then it's like the creativity spews out. i say spew because sometimes we don't think before trying a project and it turns out to not be such a great idea. like my picture frame crochet cozy. i'm still not pleased with it. and we have yet to find a willing participant who will let us try out the testicle receptacle. although, if you're interested...please let us know....

back to spewing cuteness. i saw a post on somewhere (i sure can't remember) by a young lady who spelled out words with yarn on some baskets and then used them to organize stuff.

it. is. darling. it's so cute, and so easy. however, i'm too cheap to buy the good thick yarn so i had to come up with a different idea. and had to come up with a project in which i needed to write words out of yarn.... i can't believe i just said that.

this is where 'light the night' comes into play. my cute sister headed up the annual 'light the night' event in sugarhouse park this year. if you haven't checked it out, it's a super cool event.

i wanted to come up with a cool (homemade=cheap) gift for her to put in her office to commemorate the event, and to let her know that all her hard work didn't go unnoticed.

so i got to thinking. what does this event entail? walking....donating money....balloons....BALLOONS!

and then i had an epiphany. i wondered if anyone had ever crocheted a balloon. of course, i knew someone had to, and they did! i found this super easy pattern here and got to work.



now, isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen? i originally did a white, gold, and red balloon but the piece of wood that i picked up didn't accommodate all three. so red it was, because that's light the nights' main color. i decided i wanted the balloon's tail to spell out "light the night."

i wonder how many times i can say "light the night" int his post? someone count for me.

after several attempts, this is what i came up with. it's the first writing-words-in-yarn attempt for me, and from far away, it kind of looks like a pre-schooler wrote it, but if you look up close, you can see the cool texture (the "rope" is just a single crocheted chain) and of course, the adorable balloon. with a bow. everything looks cuter with a bow.

can you tell i'm in love with the balloon?

here's a close up in case you couldn't tell:

This Post Is Brought To You By....

Camera phones! When nothing, but the best will do! (Except that it has to because your real camera's batteries died)

We now rejoin Shannon in the midst of her dilemma...

*wimper*...*sniff*....*panicked shifty eyes***

*whine*But I'm soooo close..... *wringing hands*

   *SOB* BOOOOOOHooooHooooHoooHooo

This is quite possibly the saddest day ever. No..more..cotton. This empty shell of ice-cream-cone-crave-inducing cardboard used to be this thing of beauty:

The Sugar 'n Cream 1 lb Cone. (in white though)

My latest obsession. Everything I make lately has a little SnC in it somewhere. And the cone teases you by making it feel like it will be there forever. Then, when you're 2/3 of the way through making the back of one helluva cute pillow, it's gone. Just like that! And here I thought it would be there for me through thick and thin. Through wonky washclothes and lovely textured flower pillows alike. Yet I find myself here, alone longing for its natural cotton absorbency to soak up my salty tears.

Lucky for me I have a little something goin' on the side. *wink wink* *elbow nudge* I got all of the supplies to start my coworker's American Flag afghan and I'm extra excited. I showed her the colors I picked out (duh, I know red white and blue. I'm talking about shades) and have her blessing, so I'm off! Maybe a little space from my SnC obssession will do me some good. I might have been getting a tad codependant.

Oh! Did I ever show you these adorable little guys?

Cute huh? I made these guys nearer to the beginning of October and they've been keeping me company at work. Those little faces just make my day. They're so cute, in fact, that I'm having trouble taking them home and packing them away. It feels so wrong. I do have plans to make a crazy adorable little gobbler so I might let these guys hang around until the new bird is in town. We shall see.....

what to make next....

on november 1st, i started to panic. on november 1st, i was left with exactly 55 days until christmas. so, i got out my trusty notebook and made a list of all the people that i'd like to make gifts for.

but then, i saw this again:



this is a cb2 pouf. that's code for darling.

and all of a sudden, i've forgotten about all the gifts i have to make and am trying to figure out how to make myself one of these. in my world, i can't be spendin' that kind of dough on things that one might consider to be frivolous. plus, do you know how much yarn $80 would buy? a lot. a lot of glorious, magnificent yarn.....

yarn for me to make more presents you see! so many projects, so little time. this one sadly may have to wait until after the holidays, along with my snuggie.

don't judge.