HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Welcome to 2015 everyone!! Hope your year was a good one and if not, hopefully this one proves better for you. Mine wasn't too bad: I lost about 26 lbs and went down two pant sizes, got a lot of home improvement things done (mostly painting), and had one of my better birthdays in a while as well. So YAY 2014!!

 I did however do something awesome for the first day of the year. YARN SALE! That's right I went to Michael's awesome yarn sale yesterday morning. This is my largest yarn buy to date, getting 3 of the large bags (which have oddly gone back to plastic (odd for Oregon, since we went to paper or reusable bags a while ago)) full, 40 skeins of yarn total and 2 spools of thread. My little mini shopping cart was full of yarn and I'm sure I was getting a few looks of 'Geez did she leave any for anyone else?' Yes I did! The check out guy actually asked if there was any yarn left. I just wanted to stock up, and I kept it relatively small too.

On sale, my haul would have cost me about $106. But with coupons I only spent about $86. I don't really want to know what it would have cost had there not been a sale . . . .  who am I kidding, yes, I do want to know and it would have cost about $185 if it weren't for the sale and coupons . . .  if I did the math right. WOOO YEARN SALE!!

My new 40 skeins of yarn.

After my score I went to hang out with my brother and his family. We watched the Rose Bowl (Go Ducks!!) and had a ham dinner . . .  yumm.  Then it was off to hang out with some pups at Fairy Dogmother Pets (if you live in and around the North Portland, Oregon area and need some animal services, go check Diane out. She's awesome!!). I'm Diane's go to girl if she needs someone to hang out or do walks or things like that. I love it. Animal love forever and always.

This morning I used my new mixer (got a Kenmore stand mixer for Christmas) and made some yummy apple "pie" muffins. I think they need some work to get the pie taste in them but they were still tasty. So happy that they came out good. Possibly making some banana muffins later today or tomorrow. Who knows, it took me almost a week to make the apple ones finally. Other things got in the way that were a bit more important than baking. 

Getting closer to finishing my little rag doll. So no fear there should be a post, with photos, come Sunday. I'm actually gonna go work on it now. So see y'all Sunday for the Project Post.

 As always . . .  Happy Crafting!

Hello..... again!

Wowza, it's been such a long time since I last posted here. Well my aim is to change that this year. Fingers crossed!

I want to set myself a challenge and I want you guys to help me keep it. The challenge being this: one new project a week and posting all about it on say.... Sundays. Yeah Sundays sounds like a good update the blog day. SUNDAY Is Now Project Post Day!

I don't want to limit this to just crochet, but it will most likely be the staple of this whole thing. Along with my goal to knit about as well as I crochet at this point. On top of knit crafts,  I want to try out other things as well. If any of you have a Pinterest account you know how easy it is to find DIY projects on just about anything, and I think it's about time I start to try some of the things I've pinned in the last few years. That makes the net to cast wide in craft land. Crochet, knit, painting, jewelery, you name it I will most likely want to try it.

On top of you guys helping me stay with this challenge it would be awesome to hear any suggestions for projects you might have (see above paragraphs last line). I can't promise I'll do every one of them but I can try out a few now and again if it really gets my interest or an out pouring of TRY THIS happens. 

So my first project post would be next Sunday January 4th (with any luck). With a new crochet pattern I'm gonna try this week:

Rag Doll

 

from the book

 

Found a few good patterns in this book. But this is the first I'm gonna try out. So progress photos (provided I remember to take any (bare with me for the first few posts)), what I liked or didn't like about the pattern, any adjustments or changes I've made as I went along, and weather this will find its place in my shop. So stay tuned....

As always you guys can find me on Etsy @ DeviouslyCrafty.etsy.com
and don't forget to like me on Facebook @ facebook.com/DeviouslyCrafty 

Happy Crafting!

.......Oh yeah and hopefully I'll remember to hit the awesome yarn sales at Michael's this week and share my new additions to the yarn stash!!!

Woodburn!

Good Morning all. Hope your weekends are going well, take in that sunshine. I know my weekend has been filled with it. Went to Woodburn yesterday and got a good amount of sun once the rain and clouds decided to leave. We had a long day, up at about 4:40 am (some of use even sooner), left the house by about 6 and rolled into the Woodburn Drag Strip around 7. We finally made it home around 7 pm, completely tired and warn out. The swap meet went really well though, being my first sale and all. Sy-clops and Voodoo Dolls were the top attraction, pulling kids into are little section. So a bunch of my little guys have new homes. I have a list of stuff to improve upon for next time (PIR August 4) and a handful of new ideas as well. My Brother-in-law did well. He was selling mostly bug parts. Didn't unload the two big items he had in the trailer, but he managed to find a few things he had been looking for for a few projects of his own. I think we all managed to get a little burnt as the day went on even after the sunblock was applied. And it looked like there were some good burn outs over at the drag strip. There were a few that smoked out the entire place, we could barely see the little road out in front of our little set up. The show cars were nice as well and we had the perfect view of those. Regretting the fact that I forgot to use my camera. I made sure it was charged up and everything. Darn it!!
Now on to the future. I think for the next week or at least the next few days I'm gonna be listing more things in my shop. Shuffle some things and just get organized once again before August rolls around. Maybe I can even manage to plan something for my upcoming birthday (14th).

So have a good rest of your weekends and as always, Happy Crafting.

Short, but to the point

Hey All.... So it's getting close to my trip to Woodburn. The crazy month hasn't settled yet. In fact it got even worse. We had cell phone and cable drama this month when we tried changing the billing name for our phones, then even more when we tried saving on the cable. But it's all sorted now, Thank God.

One Week till Woodburn and things are coming along great. I have seven new VooDoo Dolls along with some hats, scarves, patches and even a PopTart. Must get back to work now.

Happy Crafting!!

Busy Time

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, Crafters and Non.
Today is the 1 month anniversary of my little shop opening, YAY! Its slow going right now, but I have a feeling (and tons upon tons of hope) that it will pick up. So lots of positive thinking going on here.
This weekend has been focused on getting organized for the coming month... and waiting for my glasses to come in. If I didn't mention it before, on top of when I threw out my back a few months ago I also had the miss fortune of my glasses braking. So after finally getting an appointment with my optometrist on the 30th of April to get a long overdue check up, I went to pick out new frames the next day. They should be coming in any day now. My taped up pair are starting to be more and more trouble.
Back to my weekend though. I've almost finished planing out the month, setting aside Mothers Day next sunday and my fathers birthday on the 29th. All there is left to plan is what I want to get done, goal setting. I have to be all ready for the Swap Meet on June 1st. So I should get back to it and stop wasting time on the net (aka FaceBook). Speaking of, you can now check out my FaceBook page. Needs a little more work but it is up and you can check out what I've been working on and what will be showing up in the shop, as well as at the Swap Meet.

Goodbye for now. And as always Happy Crafting.

Why Why Why???

Okay so I'm surfing around on Pinterest, mostly searching for new patterns and ideas to crochet through their DIY & Crafts section. But I keep seeing these projects that involve defacing books. I know I'm not the only big book geek out there that cringes at the thought, but the idea of people actually taking perfectly good books and painting or coloring on their pages, cutting them out for flowers, or any other number of things you can think of is a bit depressing. I hate defacing books, even if its a book that I think never should have gotten published or that I think people put too much stock in or just plain hate. Books are sacred objects, they teleport us into different worlds, provide escape from our daily lives, make things not seem so bad, give us adventures and let us lead vastly different lives. Why would anyone take this and make a craft project out of it? I just can't wrap my head around it.
I know some of you think I'm overreacting, saying 'There are hundreds of copies of books, what's wrong with crafting with a few? Relax!' and some of you are on the same page with me. But let me share something with you, I freak out and get worked up if someone dog-ears pages in any book, not just mine. I have to unfold pages in library books and feel bad for these book. And when people write and highlight in books I get even worse. Its a distracting and harmful practice. People are bring down the material value of the book and just plan making it hard for someone like myself to read it. Worn covers and spines don't bug me because you can tell how much people love the book and how often they've gone back to it.
But back to the crafting point, I can see a few cases where it would be understandable. If the book is badly damaged, missing chunks of pages or just not worth repairing, fine. Use the poor book, give it new life. But taking brand new books is just plain wrong.

Now that you all know how crazy I am, at least about my books, Happy Crafting. But please leave the poor books alone, I beg of you.

GRAND OPENING!!!

.:GRAND OPENING:.

Yes I am opening the shop today! I know I said April 1st, but I had a few more things I wanted to do before I opened. Not to mention a friday just seems right to me. So please go over and check me out (Shop Link). I don't have a whole lot on the shop at the moment, but it is a start and I am very proud of what I have in there right now. 

Coming soon... a few scarves, more PopTarts, and other beauties. 

Happy Crafting all.... and let the chaos for being a shop owner begin. WOOT!!