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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sewn Dog Bed with bumpers

My dog Shelby LOVES to sleep with her back against something.  When I first got her 2 years ago, I knew I wanted to make her bed since all the dogs beds I saw were like $40 for a comfy one!  $40 is a bit much so off to Joann Fabrics I went to find some soft fabric.  I picked out this brown one with pink, green, and orange polka dots.  I think it suits her well :-)

The bed was my first sewing project so I wasn't 100% sure what i was doing I just kinda figured it out on the way.  1 old pillow, some stuffing, and 2 hours later, I had this bed!  The only problem was that the sides wouldn't stay up!! I had put in too many panels and so they drooped.  To fix this, I made this cardboard bed frame lol... it looked so ghetto!! But it did the job holding the side bumpers up!




Tonight, finally after TWO YEARS in the making, I have fixed it! It only took about 15 minutes too lol... I dunno why I put it off for so long.  Now the bed can stand up on its own and I don't need to have that ugly cardboard box in my room anymore!



The best part is that Shelby seems to really like it :-)

Crochet Mario Blanket Part 3- Yoshi

If you have ever attempted to crochet a cartoon with any stich other than Tunisian Simple Stitch (TSS), then you know just how annoying it can be to change colors!!

After much debate, I decided to continue my Mario Blanket in TSS.  I haven't decided if I'm going to use all of the characters I have already made even though they're in different stitches or if I'm going to scrap the 2 mushrooms and piranha plant and redo them in TSS.... we'll see!!  Maybe I can just use the mushrooms and piranha for some pillows instead?  I dunno... i gotta sleep on it..

Anywho, I finished Yoshi!!  I was super motivated so it only took me like 3 nights to do it, 2.5 hours at a time so around 7.5 hours GEEZ!!  I was also watching TV aaaannnnd I must have checked the stitch chart like a million times before each row just to make sure I didn't fudge anything up.


What do you think?! I was so excited to finish! But now that I've stared at it for a while, there are definitely some things I would change if I had to do it again.  For all of the Mario projects, I took a really small pixelated picture and made a small stitch chart on graph paper (each box = 1 stitch)  Then to make it bigger, I just made 1 box = 4 boxes (2x2) and that kept it proportional and made the picture bigger.  BUT the downfall is that it looks terribly pixelated when you blow it up like that!! I should have definitely "smoothed" the edges out a bit instead of doing the black outline so abruptly.  It does look pretty good from far away though and I think  it definitely preserves the true age of the mario nintendo game!  Remember back in the day when the characters were actually this pixelated??

Here's a close-up:



And an even closer close-up: (Please ignore my shoe holding it flat in the top left corner :-)

I used Vanna's Choice yarn for all the colors except the outside gray.  For the gray, I used Caron Simply Soft just because I had like 5 skeins to burn through!  Even though the Vanna's Choice and the Caron are both classified as Worsted weight, they're not exactly the same weight.  Vanna's Choice is definitely a bit fluffier and so the stitches that make up Yoshi came out a little bigger than the gray ones.  The only thing this really affects is that it makes my work curl up a bit more than TSS normally does but that's nothing a good blocking won't fix!! Before I put everything together, I will be sure to block the crap out of it!

Sometime in the next week, I'm going to put up a new little tab on my home page with all the posts for this blanket and stitch charts so that you can make it too if you want!  I would love L.O.V.E to see fellow yoshis and mushrooms that are roaming cyberspace out there!!

Next on my list is Bob-Omb and the Goombas!!



Edit:
I FINALLY finished the stitch chart for Yoshi!  Enjoy and please post whatever you make on here, I would love to see :-)
In my project above, I made each sqaure in the stitch in the chart below actually equal to 4 stitches (2 stitches tall by 2 stitches wide).  This just made the yoshi bigger in size but still proportional.  Beware though that by doing this, I simply made each "pixel" larger which is why my yoshi looks so pixelated.  You should "smooth out" some of the edges once you make your chart larger which is what i should have done... oh well.  This is why this will most likely end up as a pillow and not as part of my final blanket.  Happy stitching!

Yoshi Pixel Picture
Colors:
- red
-light green
- dark green
- white (the x is supposed to be a white stitch)
- black
- background color (empty square, I used grey for my yoshi)


Sunday, November 27, 2011

Yummy T-shirt yarn crochet rugs!

Didn't I say I was OBSESSed?  I L.O.V.E the simplicity, the reusability, the versatility of these rugs!  They brighten up a room like none other!  And like I said before, the doggies love this!

I call this one Sorbet :-)




This is the first one I ever made!!  As you can tell over on the right, this was BEFORE i figured out that to make crochet rugs, you should always keep crocheting in a spiral instead of joining and chaining for the next rows... live and learn!! This one's going in my office :-)





Here is the trio of my creations.  Now that's what I call a colorful eye orgasm :-)

The trio!!
Let's see how long I can last before starting another one!! AHA the count begins...


P.S.  Can you tell I bought a real camera and stopped using my phone?? :-D

Best Online Shoe Club IMO


vs.  


I'm one of those people who loves LOVES shoes.   I have been using Shoedazzle for a few months now and have purchased 4 pairs of shoes and only 1 which I love. At first i thought it was a steal, i thought that nice shoe could only be purchased for $80 or more so with $40 at Shoedazzle I would get a pair shipped to my house, I thought it was a pretty great deal.  Now after a few months of intense shoe shopping,  I can honestly say that Shoedazzle's shoes are not the best deal... actually they're not a good deal at all.

Let's start with their quality.  To this day, Shoedazzle has NOT put out ONE pair of shoes which contains high quality materials.  All of the materials are man-made and every shoe I have received has had some sort of small quality defect.  Yes, small but still there and for $40, they should be pretty damn near perfect.  Now don't get me wrong, not all man-made materials suck.  I have plenty of shoes that are faux patent, satin, or faux suede.  However, there are some really great faux materials where you can barely tell that they're not real and there are others who seem like they don't even try to make look real!

The fact that they give free shipping and returns may seem like a great perk but in reality they should be giving you more than that!  They sell you shoes that cost them no more than $7 to make in some 3rd world country, sell them to your for $40, and then tell you you're getting free shipping just to make you feel like you're getting a good deal.  $40 relative to many other shoe brands may seem like a steal but also realize that Shoedazzle rarely ever has sales or deals.  This is because they're already selling at their "rock-bottom" price, they don't want to go any lower!  A while back they had a BOGO event and I bought 2 pairs of shoes that looked super cute.  When they arrived, I realized just how crappy the quality was and realized, yes this makes sense why they had BOGO, who's actually buying this stuff at full price! ah! (please don't tell me you are!!)  The stitches were crooked and the faux leather plastic dug into my feet horribly.  I tried everything with these shoes, I wore them in by walking around the house, using them for short trips to the grocery store, but nothing worked!  No matter how hard you try, if the shoe is crappy, it will never be comfortable (assuming you bought the right size and heel height for you!)

Enough with my rant about Shoedazzle, let's focus on some nice shoes now!

It just so turns out that i found this great site Sole Society, have you heard of it?
They are also an Online Shoe Club BUT the biggest difference is what? QUALITY, they have shoes that are made with REAL LEATHER not this Chinese equivalent similar crap.  I don't care how textured you make plastic, plastic is NOT leather!  And let's face it, if you want your shoes to last more than 3 months, you need them to be stitched up well made from durable materials --> leather shoes.

Sole Society has some great shoes for every style and like I said they're made with REAL materials!!  Are they still made in China?  probably.... but we have to understand that the quality standards in China are not the same throughout... they're good some places, ok in others, and just plain terrible in the remaining areas. 
Their monthly price runs a little more expensive at $50 instead of $40 (Shoedazzle) but I can't stress enough that the quality is FAR superior!!

yada yada yada.... ok so what's the deal??  Everytime I post a new rant/rave about something I hate/love there's always a deal involved or an alternative.

Have you heard of Plum District?  They're having a GREAT Black Friday sale!  Use code SUNDAY40 to get 40% off any voucher.  They just so happen to have a $50 to Sole Society for only $25 which makes it $15 after your 40% off code!! So here's your great chance to get awesome leather shoes for $15 SHIPPED TO YOUR HOUSE!! It really doesn't get any better than this!

So what are you waiting for? Try it out.. better yet gift it for Xmas! I know I would be ecstatic to get this as a gift!




Friday, November 25, 2011

Crochet Recycled T-shirt yarn Rug

Strip it up!
 I have had these great cotton t-shirts sitting around for the last 5 months!  I always said I was going to do something incredibly crafty with it but never really found any motivation... FOUND IT!!

Everytime I'm cooking or crafting or doing ANYTHING for that matter, my dogs always want to sit right at my feet.  It's cute yes but I always end up tripping over them and stubbing my toe or just completely falling on my face... not good!  I began to notice that they LOVE to sit on rugs though so I said I will make a rug for my craft room!!  That way I can put the rug on the other side of the room and they will lay there, only there and can no longer accidentally sit on my sewing pedal and scare the crap out of me (yes, it's happened)

I  made sure to keep track as I went just in case someone else wants to try this! I started by cutting the shirts in strips.  I used almost EVERYTHING even the neck part with the seams on it and stuff, it all gets put together and you can't even tell!  After you cut the strips, be sure to pull them so that they curl up!
The remnants of the 4 t-shirts

More strips all curled up!
Bottom seam of the shirt.  Cut in half and unfold the bottom (right in the pic) half.


I started crocheting like normal except I had a size Q hook (15.75 mm HUGE!!).  I used BACK LOOP SC the whole way around!  I love the way the ridge forms when sc goes in the back loop only!  I wanted to change colors for each round so I just went about my merry way.  To start, I ch 2 then sc in first ch (center of circle made).  Then I sc 8 into the center.  2nd round I did 2 sc  (inc) in each sc.  3rd round I did 2sc in every other sc (sc, inc).  4th round I did 2sc in every 2 sc (sc, sc, inc) and so on and so forth. 

Rounds 1-5

Round 1-8





Shelby loved it!




I will definitely be making more of these!! This is my new OBSESS!!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Coupon Savings = Fuller Yarn Stash :-)


I haven't done one of these in a WHILE!  It wasn't too bad of a week this time around especially considering that I got a bunch of stuff I needed for Thanksgiving and not necessarily just what was on sale.

I paid $80 and Saved $100 :-)  It's always nice to save at least 50%!!

The bf even got lunch (which you can see him holding in the bottom right corner of the pic).  There was a $2 off a Turkey/Cranberry Publix sub combo so he lucked out because apparently that's his favorite sub during the holidays AND we had a coupon... love when that happens :-)

Some of the highlights were FREE Rachael Ray dog treats, FREE publix eggs, super cheap shredded cheese, free Dr. Pepper, 30 cents for each bag of Alexia frozen breads and super cheap evaporated milk for all of the baked goods that are coming!

I'll do a break-down if needed just let me know!

My friend told me about this yarn store in Orlando that I never heard of before!  It's called the Black Sheep, have you heard of it??   It's one of the 2 LYS here in Orlando so I'm very excited to go scope it out tomorrow especially since we saved $100 that were going to go to groceries :-)  Maybe I will splurge on some of this amazing Noro that everyone is talking about?

Or maybe I will get some organic cotton to make myself a pink version of the celtic beanie I designed for the bf!!  Only time will tell :-)

Friday, November 18, 2011

Queen Anne Lace Scarf


I don't really know who Queen Anne is but she must have been a really popular lady!!  This scarf is a super easy project and it stitches up beautifully!

I used Caron "Country" yarn (merino/acrylic blend) and it feels so nice and warm on my neck, I just love it!  I got lots of lovely compliments from buddies at work so that definitely made my day!! :-)

I got the super simple pattern from Ravelry... while you're there be sure to check out the hundreds of other Queen Anne scarves, they're simply wonderful!! SO many colors and the beauty of this scarf is that no matter what material yarn you use, it will still look stunning!!



I will be stitching up a few more of these for Xmas time... maybe some lucky work buddies will get one for their secret santa present :-)



I think I'm a bit obsessed with scarves right now especially being that winter's coming up and quick!! I feel like everyday I step outside, it gets just a little bit cooler... and I love it!!  It really just gives me an excuse to stitch up more gorgeous projects...

Right now, I'm finishing up a little something for a little baby in my life!  I'll post it when I'm done and after I model it on his little baby head

Hope you had a wonderful day!! Think warm thoughts!


Celtic Knot Beanie for the bf

Hello!! Thanks for stopping by!!

I finally finished the super secret project I was working on for the bf... whaddaya think?
I've always wanted to crochet him something but could never find anything that was "manly" enough... I always saw patterns that he said were cool but wouldn't actually wear.... *sigh*

I was looking through Debbie Stoller's "Son of Stitch N' Bitch" and saw this awesome design for a hat:


But it was a knitting pattern!! BAAAH!  It's times like these that make me so jealous of knitters! There's so many more knitting patterns and books out there than crochet.... oh well!!

This only made it a bit more of a challenge.... NO, I didn't learn how to knit to do this pattern but instead I converted it into a Tunisian Crochet project :-)
I made it from a bunch of wedges starting from the top center of the hat to the rim.  Then I stitched up the sides and voila!!


For the yarn, I used all Vanna's Choice in colors: White (don't remember the label name for white) and "Charcoal Print"

At the rim of the hat, I went around and did 1 round of front post single crochet and then another round of normal single crochet, this pulled it all together and gave it a nice rim.

I love love L.O.V.E this hat!! As soon as I finished it, the bf said "Awesome, this is perfect"  What better words could a mad crocheter hear after finishing a masterpiece!!  I love that he loves it so much but I'm thinking I might just have to make another one in pink for me!!! How cute would that beee?!??!

tempting, very tempting.... but I have so many other projects flowing through my head that I think I will do those before repeating a pattern :-)

I have oodles of other projects to share I just haven't gotten a chance to post them... Also I realized that I really hate the quality of my pictures on this blog! GAH!! I always take them with my phone and well they just don't come out so good :-/

This black friday I will make it my mission to find a sweet camera so i can take some better pics... until then, you're stuck with pics like these


MORE Joann Coupons!! Better ones :-)

Have them sent to your IPhone or Android phone instead of printing paper, GO GREEN!!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Free Shipping at Joann Fabrics = New Crochet Book!

AWESOME! Joann has ONE DAY of free shipping on EVERYTHING!!  Only today Nov 17th though...



They have amazing books, yarn, crochet & knitting supplies but by far my favorite are the BOOKS!!  Michael's does NOT EVER discount books so whenever there's a coupon for Joann's I go straight there to get my crochet books!  Paying full price for those gets expensive quick as I'm sure many of you out there know...

AND Books are 30% off right now!! waaaahoooooooooooooo!!

Joann's has a HUGE variety of books MANY of which are ONLY available online so I went ahead and snagged this one for about $15 shipped :-)





Monday, November 14, 2011

My first purse ever!

When I first started crocheting, I made granny squares like a mad woman!!   I loved the ease and verstility (is that even a word?) of them.  AND the best part was that even if I had a terribly busy day, there was always time to crank out a granny!!

Eventually, my granny squares graduated into a different shape, granny HEXAGONS!!  Of course, my addiction was newly fueled and I just made as many cotton, colorful granny hexagons as I possibly could.... Within 10 days, I ended up with about 24 granny hexes!

After stalking reading a certain spectacular crochet blog: ( Futuregirl!!)  I ran into this BEAUTY of a bag!!  I was obsessed!  AND I was oh so excited that I already had the granny hexes to make it :-)  I quickly stitched them all together and....


TA DA!!


It was so beautiful, so majestic, and my first ever crochet project that I finished, needless to say I was super proud.  

Let's take another look at it, shall we?



And one more!!


With all of its loveliness, I couldn't think of anyone better than my mom to give it to :-)

Now I'm thinking I need to make more of these!!  I bought the cotton this week so it's coming!!  Next time though, I'm going to try to stick to a more defined color palette: some neutrals with a couple bright colors to POP....Maybe I'll start it next week, this week I'm working on a celtic knot hat for the boyfriend!  Let's see how that comes out first... stay tuned...

Anyone else make a sick nasty granny project?

Friday, November 11, 2011

Buy 1 Get 3 Free Ulta Online Sale!

I doubt this will last more than a day but they still have some great stuff left!  Check it out!  And FREE SHIPPING over $25 wahooooo!!

Go Crazy....go ahead


Tidy Cats Deal, 20lbs for $1.00!!

Who's got a kitty?  Not I, but maybe you do?
There's a sweet little deal at Walgreens going on, check it out!!


 $1.00 for 20lbs of Tidy Cats Litter at Walgreens (Deal is valid until 11/19)
They cost $2.50 a bag 
- You get $2 Walgreens Store Credit when you buy 2 bags 
- Use 2 "$1.00 off any size of Purina Tidy Cats" coupons from 9/11 Newspaper (Redplum Coupon Insert)
Final Price: Pay $3.00 cash but get $2.00 back in Walgreens Register Rewards (Store Credit)

NOTE: You can only do ONE DEAL of $2 Registrar Rewards (2 bags of litter) PER TRANSACTION.  So don't buy 10 in 1 transaction, do 5 transactions.  Also, you can't use the Walgreens store credit on more Tidy Cats Litter.

** GREAT TO DONATE TO THE SHELTER!!** If we all spent $1.00, we could help the kitties :-)  


TidyCatLitter.jpg

ONE DAY ONLY- Joann's 11cents shipping offer!

Today (11/11/11) Joann Fabrics is celebrating Veteran's day by having an 11cents shipping day!!  You can apply the code:  to any order $11 or more.  I have never seen shipping this cheap and I know they have a lot of stuff online that they don't carry in stores so if there's something you have been wanting to get online, I would do it now!


AND there's also an ONLINE ONLY 10% off your entire purchase code!! Use: EVT317

AND one more!!  There's also a 50% off any regular price item ONLINE ONLY code: FPH315


TODAY'S the ONLY day that all 3 of these are valid so pick one and get shopping!!


Note:  Joann's only allows ONE promo code per order :-(

Thursday, November 10, 2011

New Publix Pet Club Coupons!

Here are the new pet coupons for Publix!! They are good from Nov.10th to Dec. 7th 2011
Enjoy :-)



Great deal on Tupperware

Over the years, we have slowly gathered up a bunch of tupperware, crappy tupperware that is.  There's a bunch that are stained, slightly broken, and others that just spill all the time.  We also learned not too long ago just how harmful BPA in plastic is for us and how microwaving plastics also hurts us.  This is why we're slowly trying to transition to buying glass and BPA free tupperware to use for food.  The glass is great to take lunch to work bc I can microwave it in the glass tupperware and not worry about putting harmful chemicals in my body.



Thank goodness there's a deal for tupperware today!!  Plum District has a $50 voucher to LockNLock for only $23.  It gets better though!!  Sign up through HERE and I can gift you $5 credit to Plum District!  AND on top of that, use the code: "fabulous" to get an extra 10% off your order!! (exp 2/14/12)

With both promotions, you get a $50 voucher for only $16.20!!

Already have a Plum District account?  HERE is the direct link to the deal.

They even have containers for pets, kids, glass with seals, normal glass, BPA free plastics, water bottles and a lot of other stuff.  Their prices are also pretty good, much cheaper than what you would find it for in the store for sure.  They also have stuff for baby food for all the moms out there!

**Contains affiliate links that will support this website, thx for your help!!**

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Making Labels for Homemade Crafts


I love making new projects, especially for gifts...  I mean what am I going to do with 10 pillows? But I also want to make sure that I add a little personal touch so that my homemade goodie can always be linked back to me wherever in the world it may be!

I got my sewing machine, Brother SQ9000 last Christmas and it is AWESOME!  It has this monogramming feature that I hadn't tried out until this week.  It has all the letters in the english alphabet as well as some foreign accented characters!! It was super easy to program the letters into the sewing machine and once that was done all I had to do was put the pedal to the carpet and VOILA!! Awesome little personalized nametag on my finished pillow.

Yes, yes, I know my name's actually a bit crooked on there but hey! it was my first time using it and I guess my head was tilted a bit when I started the machine..... yea that sounds good we'll go with that...
Honestly, I feel like it adds a little more flair being crooked and all so I can't say I'm disappointed.

The thread I used was part of this set that I bought on EBay from this little store in INDIA!!!  The colors in the set are AMAZING and shiny as you can see in this picture. The thread I used for the lettering is a mixture of pinks with white in it all swirled, all gorgeous looking.  To stitch the tag on, I used the blue thread which was a variety of blues and white in it too.  I used a purple non-stretchy fabric for the tag so that the letter wouldn't crinkle or risk the thread of the lettering to get torn from being stretched.  I also made sure to make the tag a bit bigger than I wanted so that I could fold over the edges of the tag and make it a nice finished edge and avoiding the future fraying that may happen from use.