Brooch Bouquet - Handmade for this Beautiful Bride

In January, my daughter was engaged. She showed me a photo of a brooch bouquet and asked me to make her one to carry on her wedding day. Her sisters and I collected brooches for a few months, and realizing that we needed many more, we tucked a note into the Bridal Shower invite asking friends and family to help.

 

 

These brooches were lovingly and generously given to Liana for her special bouquet.

 

 

 

After weeks of wiring, twisting, glueing, forming and arranging, all the individual pins became one beautiful bouquet.

 

 

For this beautiful bride to carry down the aisle.

 



 

 

And to celebrate with her sisters. 

 

 

 

Sweet Baby Granny Gift

Sweet pink baby gift for my neighbor's sweet baby girl-to-be.

Tiny mittens hat and booties crocheted with tiny pink granny squares.

All wrapped up with a soft flannel blanket.

Pink Grannys

Tiny granny squares in pink and white.

Soon to be a precious gift for a new baby girl.

Fresh Inspiration

I always think of crochet as my "winter" hobby.

I have been inspired to re-think this.

This beautiful stack of crocheted blankets in fresh summery colors

makes me want to break out my crochet hooks

and make a visit to the yarn store.

If only...

If only this was true! I just ordered 365 photos printed from Snapfish, covering most of 2010. So while I am waiting for them to come in the mail, I am wondering when I will find the time to put them in order and organize them into an artfully beautiful keepsake scrapbook that we can enjoy. I want to be ready when they come so they don't sit in a shoebox for years! Any ideas?

Years of Memories Album

A few years ago I made this Halloween Album. I put it out in October for all to look through. We love seeing the kids over the years and their costume choices at different ages. There are even some old pics of Mom & Dad in costume.

a Ninja and a dark Princess

Garden theme: beekeeper, baby bee, flower, ladybug

Creative carving

baseball player and a mouse, counting their candy!

fairy princess and scary skeleton

mean girls mouse, 50's carhop and Barbie!

My Little Ponies (remember them?) with dad and mom

ponies and the curious kitten

baby princesses

awesome scarecrow and pregnant bee

toy soldier and sad clown

Keep it simple. Use a few photos that show their costumes and personality. Maybe a shot of the jack-o-lanterns they carved, or your front door decorations. Easy cropping, add the year and a line or two about the night. No page protectors needed. 

Perfect Patriotic Grannys

One perfect granny square....

and a pile of 2" granny squares stitched together into this flag....

That will be made into a pillow for July 4th.

Crochet Tradition

I learned to crochet from my grandma when I was in grade school. She taught me the granny square and basic stitches. Over the years I taught myself to read patterns and learned more challenging stitches. I tried to teach all my girls the craft, but only two of my five daughters picked it up. My second oldest has a lot of friends who are expecting and she has been crocheting the sweetest baby layettes. Here are a couple photos and the link to her blog.

Felicia's Blog

(P.S. I still love the granny square!)

One Crafty Daughter

Katrina, my oldest daughter, has become very crafty since she became a stay-at-home mom. Here is the beautiful embroidery she made for her niece Violet.

Link:  calikatrina

Crochet #1

I finally started working with my $1 yarn , I made this cute headband. The only problem is it has been almost 80 degrees this week.

$1 Yarn

I picked up some yarn at the dollar store, really it was only $1 a skein. Now I'm browsing thru my pattern file to find something cute to crochet.

Spring! Freshen Up

Fresh Flowers

A Spring doormat

My husband found 6 of these chairs and a dropleaf table at a local antique store. Solid oak with beautiful detail.

but the fabric was worn and tired.

We had them recovered in a modern floral for the armchairs and a coordinating stripe on the side chairs. The whole set looks fresh in my breakfast nook.

(sorry for the dark photo, but it shows the fabric color well)

Then I found this fun outdoor fabric marked down from $24/yd to $6/yd! I bought some foam, made a pattern from some left over gift wrap, and whipped up 8 new cushions for my outdoor chairs. They make the inexpensive chairs look almost new.

Here they are nearly finished.

And on the chairs. Nice to add a little color.

Quart and Rose

Went to Lowes and came home with this pretty miniature rose plant and a quart of paint.

I'll show you what I'm painting as soon as it is dry.

(see this post to view what we painted)

Cute Knit Dishcloths

These are so cute! Quick to make, and free too. They were knitted with yarn that was made from strips of old t-shirts.  I saw them on Dollarstorecrafts.com, but they originated on crafster.org. The link is below.

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=286485.0