After 6 months serving our country my husband is HOME!!!!!

I have not posted in a while, I have been sooooo busy preparing for the return of my husband!!! YIIIIPPPEEEEEE !! It is hard to describe the emotions and gratefulness of his return. Tears flowed as my son ran up to his daddy and just hung on!!


The way a military member returns home is somewhat secretive and the family is never really sure what the day will be. There are always changes and unexpected glitches. So, it is always best not to say anything to children about times and dates until they are in the USA... and even then delays can happen. My heart was beating fast for over a week now, knowing the time was coming. Did not sleep much, I never let myself feel as though he was safe until I actually saw his face. Once I did though, tears of relief were shed! I am soooo glad he made it home!!!!

Sew busy :-)

I have spent a lot of time on this recent project of mine. I actually did this one for myself... kind of based on necessity. I searched the local stores for spring/summer  pj's that are cute but not revealing. I do like to look cute :-) for my husband of 17 years... but I do have kids. So, the see-through little nighties and the super short shorts  that are so popular in the stores are not on option for me... not that they would be anyway. I just wanted something that I can walk around my home in that would cause my husband to smile when he looks at me yet not gross my children out :-) You think this would be an easy find, after all I do live in an area with a mall... but nooooo it was either sexy or muumuu! :-) I then went on line to see what I could find, and there are some cute pj's available but I am not willing  to spend over $70 on something to sleep in.  I thought, hmmmm I could make some and it would be much cheaper! The thing is, I do not enjoy sewing. I can sew, I am pretty good at sewing, I just do not like it all that much. But.... I do want to look cute :-) So, I found some great fabric at Hobby Lobby and started sewing. Even though I grumbled about how I dislike sewing the entire time I made these pj's I do like the results!

I do not understand why some of my pictures turn sideways? I do not see a way to turn them on the blog either.... sorry

Free item with purchase of stamp!!

My latest shop special is a free set of 10 Easter gift tags (shown above) with the purchase of any stamp in my shop! That is a $6.00 value!!


What you need to do to receive this offer is leave me a note at check out that says gift tag blog give away.
This offer expires on the last day of March

Easter gift tags using my own hand carved stamps!

I have found a new use for my hand carved stamps! I am now making gift tags with them; I really had a lot of fun making them :-) I would love to get some feedback, let me know what you think.

Happy Frog Crochet

I probably should have posted this one before the bunny, but here is my version of the happy frog :-)

http://sue-mindnsoul.blogspot.com/2010/05/happy-frog-free-pattern.html

Crochet Easter bunny with Basket

I made this little yellow bunny by altering this adorable amigurumi pattern that I found here
http://sue-mindnsoul.blogspot.com/2010/05/happy-frog-free-pattern.html

What I did was leave off the eyes, elongated the body by 3 rows, added a few rows to the feet, made the arms and legs longer,  and instead of having a plain chain stitch for the arms and legs I just went up the side in a sc. Then, for the crinkle effect of the arms I left a long tail at the hands and after I stitched it up I ran the tail through the arm up to the top and pulled a little to gather. I then used that same tail to attach the arm to the body. Sounds pretty easy, right? :-)
It actually was pretty simple, the area that I spent unfortunate hours on was hand stitching the eyes and face. I am afraid I am not the best at this. I first tried to avoid this all together by attaching safety eyes to the bunny, but I did not like the way it looked, so off they went. Then I began to stitch.... and tear, and stitch, and tear, and after several times of this I think I got it OK. I started on the nose and mouth. You would not believe how many faces this bunny had!! :-) I wish I would have taken pictures of the "fails" as my daughter would call it. I finally just went the simple route, and it looked the best... believe me :-)

I think I will post it for sale on etsy later today and see what happens. I have sold a few amigurumi toys, so I will see how it goes.

Another card thanks to the help of cricut :-)

I had to make a whopping 25 invitations for a baby shower! That is  a lot of invitations :-) I used water color paint for the background, then used my nifty cricut to make the moon and cow shapes with all of the layers ( 25 times 3 layers for each animal = a lot :-), and used my own hand carved stamps to embellish the inside of the cards.

The theme is nursery rhymes. I like them, the only thing I am not really happy about is that the water in the water color paint made the card curl a bit, but I have them sitting under a heavy book now so I hope that will take care of it.