drying roses

May's almost over...

I can't believe May is almost over, has it really been almost half a year since Christmas? I miss Christmas, so to me it's a little over half a year till Christmas again. :D I better get busy...

Some of my flowers that's come out, and my old man Cherry Blossom tree with the cool roots. I guess they're not suppose to be on top of the ground, but I love it. Look at the inside of the Iris, it's so cool. Then my Mother's Day flowers below. My grandson came in trying to hide them behind his back. Well I noticed he was leaving a trail of the petals to the table. Seems his little brother was picking them off in the car and they were falling off the plant while he was walking. LOL You can see some of the petals on top of the flowers. It was adorable. :D

 Remember the pink and white afghan I started, finally finished it. It's all knitted, except for the crocheted edge around. It will be a cute one for my granddaughter to wrap around when she's here with her dollbaby.I was looking at this and thought, "Where's the edge?" and realized I had it folded over, well duh. It's below...

I started back on my cream and red ripple crocheted afghan, but knowing me I'll probably start on another project before it's finished. I get inspired too easy with other things. :D I'll finish it by Christmas, yep, I know I will. :)
 

 

 We had a great birthday party for my youngest Sunday. It was a fairytale party at the park, beautiful day. I made a cloak for her, she was a mix of Red Riding Hood, Emma Swan and Mulan. :D She just turned 18 years old, I can't believe it. They had fun playing football, kickball, badminton and everyone just running around. The kids had bubbles, big balls and windmill twirlies, some things just never get old. Give a child a ball and a field to play in, they're in Heaven.

  I made up old fashioned party bags using paper bags, old fashion candies, moonpies, candy necklaces, bracelets, and some little party favors, stuck a windmill twirlie in each, they were so cute. Ofcourse party necklaces, Target had four to a pack party necklace for a dollar each and that's also where I got the twirlies.

I made chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies, brownies, had chips, jar dips and my DIL brought subway sandwiches, add that with a cooler full of sodas and water. Water is essential when everyone's out running around, surprising how much they'll drink. I want to get a homemade ice cream maker and have an ice cream party. I remember when I was a kid and people were making peach ice cream outside, that was a good memory.

I had made my granddaughter a tutu, my first one. It had white, light and hot pink, and green tulle. I wrapped it on a long piece of 5/8" ribbon so I could tie it in the back and little ribbon pieces between some of the strips. This way I had a piece of thin ribbon at the very end on each side of the tulle strips, so I could tie the waist ribbon to them. Later you can just untie the ribbons at the end and add more tulle as they grow. I took a flower apart and hot glued it together in layers, glued a sparkle button in the middle and hot glued a clip on the back. This way it can just be clipped to the waist to take on and off. I went with this video, it's a very good one, but next time I'll make the strips in 6" wide, instead of 4", maybe I'll see... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTXo6uv9HxA&feature=player_detailpage

   I also made her a couple of hair ribbons, she wore the corkscrew one to the party. Here's the link on the how to... http://craftrookie.blogspot.com/2011/09/corkscrew-hair-bows.html I also had bought a bag of beads at Joannes where I bought the tulle and made her a couple of bracelets and a necklace.

  When you're planning a party do yourself a favor, make a check off list. Everytime you do something and check it off you'll feel so much better and not so overwhelmed. Take that list with you to the store, how many people will be there, what you need for each one and I had a theme in my head. I got most of the things together the night before, which I do for most every big event. The sodas and water had been in the frig so they'd stay colder, and we always have bottles in the freezer for ice, keeps things really cold and takes up less room than a bag of ice. We just use small water bottles and a big water bottle filled with water to freeze.

After I made the red velvet cloak, (material was half priced at Joannes), yay, I took a couple of pics. The above one was too bright, but I thought it was cool, so I kept it. The bottom one is kind of dark, but the very top photo on this post shows the color of it, love the color. Her sister took the photo in the woods of the park and it was all just so much fun, it was a great day.

 

 

 Leftover party necklaces and I got my own windmill twirlie, ha ha. :D

 

After the party we went to Krispie Kreme, oh my goodness, just sayin'. :D

Oh and glowsticks, I love blue glowsticks. I usually always have them for a party bag. Kids around give us excuses to still play with kid things, (I have a little rabbit pez toy from Easter looking at me right now and I eat way too many pixiesticks that I call sugarsticks), pffft there's always leftovers when you make party bags or baskets. ;)

   

He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Yesterday we had a family birthday at the park, it was as magical as watching a whirlie twirl. 

I got each of the kids a paperbag filled with old time candy, whirlies, a bottle of bubbles, moonpie and little things. The tulle in the bag is my granddaughter's tutu I made her and she wore yesterday. I'll post some other things later.  

Lemon Bread...

Lemon Bread...

1/3 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 milk
grated rind of one lemon
1/3 cup sugar
juice of one lemon

Cream shortening, gradually add 1 cup of sugar, beating well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt, add to creamed mixture alternately  with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Mix well after each addition. Stir in rind.
Pour batter into a greased 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 by 3" loafpan or whatever loaf pan you use. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes, (mine gets done faster). Combine the 1/3 cup sugar with the juice of the lemon, stirring well and immediately pour over the bread after you take it out of the oven. 

I wanted to share this website with free flower crochet patterns. It's pretty awesome...

 http://melibondre.com/blog/?page_id=2076

 This is just for the June patterns, there's more on the sidebar.

 I went crazy yesterday with all this burst of energy and did some spring cleaning in two rooms. Whew! What was I thinking, it took me hours moving furniture and taking all the things off and down, changing curtains around and washing clothes. :P I was so happy when I finished, though. When you pull everything out, it's so surprising how much dust collects from the winter under and behind things. I have electric heat that blows through the registers, but still changing the filters collects all this dust. I say that every year, but it's still amazing and any wonder people can breath, unless you don't wait from season to seaon to do it. ;D

It all feels so clean and you're so exhausted the next day after all the cleaning, but I was happy walking downstairs this morning. I grabbed a cup of coffee, went back upstairs and started knitting, wonderful day.

It's Spring, I love Fall and Winter, however I love the flowers, birds singing and the changing seasons. I'm excited, because strawberry picking, apples, peaches, the Farmers Market and all the yard sales are right around the corner. :D

 

I'm getting pretty far on my knitted afghan and decided to play around with this new yarn Paton has out. Well, it's not that new, but I've never tried this and it's very pretty, but really tedious. It's  Patons Pirouette yarn or thread, whatever. It's the ruffle scarf and I found a more detailed instruction video than the Paton site. It's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpWKVYG8Quw 

I worked up to the point in the photo and decided to get some size 7 needles as the Paton's instructions gave. The video called for size 10, which is what I'm using in the photo, but I think it's too loose for me. I'm going to see how it works. It took like seconds to undo all that work, so I'd sew the edges to where you can't see them on both ends when finished. It came unraveled way too easy.