What? I was paper crafting?

I know right. Paper crafting? What's that? I haven't even touched my paper cutter since I made thank you notes for baby shower gifts in October. My baby girl decided she would come a couple weeks early (THANK YOU, JESUS!), so I missed out on making Christmas cards.

Even so, when someone has a need for paper crafting, I like to help. You pretty much have to show up at my house to make that work though. That's what Laura did last night.

Laura (cake-decorating and paper-crafting Laura) needed to make favors for her brother-in-law's couples shower. The bride-to-be is an equestrian (is that the right term?), so the theme for the shower was "western." Laura made a freakin' kick-ass cake (which hopefully she will let me post a pic here). It has like, red bandana patterned fondant. And a belt buckle. It's awesomeness. Oh right. Paper.

So, I pretty much went through all of my baskets of Stampin' Up supplies, and realized that we were lucky enough to have all of the necessary ingredients for an awesome favor.

Here's what we came up with:

We used the Stampin' Up Top Notes die in the Big Kick for the main piece and stamped a paisley pattern with white pigment ink. A couple of punches and a handwriting font later, we were done. It's time's like these when I'm truly thankful for my craft shopoholism.

Jason's Socks

I finally finished these socks for my husband! He really likes them, although I think he will be stashing them in the drawer until it cools off a bit! Thankfully, he's a good sport and was willing to wear them outside for a few minutes for me to get some pictures!

Willie!

I finally finished the cuteness that I couldn't disclose earlier...the Willie Sweater! Designer Pamela Wynne sold this pattern to raise funds for her tiny dachshund puppy who needed surgery. When I saw it on her blog, I immediately thought of a little boy who needed such a sweater.

It only took me about a month to knit up, and it was my first try at colorwork. It's not perfect, and I learned a bit for next time, but overall I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I have yarn to make a girly one for my daughter! There are more details here on its Ravelry page.

My New Stash

At MDSW, I was quite successful in finding yarn for several projects I would like to start this year. As a side note, I am also interested in starting several projects that I bought yarn for last year...

Anyhoo--here we go.


Socks that Rock Medium weight by Blue Moon Fiber Arts.


Socks that Rock Silkie by Blue Moon Fiber Arts.
The above two yarns will be combined to become an Ulmus.


Some Brooks Farm mystery yarn. I really have no idea what it is, but it appears to be a super bulky. I'm planning on using it for Serendipity.


Some more Brooks Farm, but this one I can positively identify as Willow, a worsted weight wool/bamboo blend. This was an impulse buy, and I have no idea what I will do with it!

One of the best things about last year's MDSW was our total score on Koigu Painter's Premium Pallette Merino mill ends. By the time we arrived at the vendor, a sad little pile of 20 or so skeins sat there, and I picked out a few girly colors just for the hell of it.

Some Blue Ridge Yarns sock yarn. It's so fun--it comes with a variegated and a coordinated solid to use for the toes and heel! My only other impulse buy of the weekend. I don't really have a plan, but it will likely end up as something from Socks from the Toe Up by Wendyknits.
I also had my first look at Tess' Designer Yarns. I had not visited her booth before, but she really has some lovely stuff. I got some Superwash Merino Lace for trying out on my first lace project, Citron.

Also from Tess, I bought some Superwash Merino (worsted) that hopefully be used for Springtime in Hollis for my baby girl.

I also picked up some Shalimar Yarns Honey Worsted. I LOVED this colorway (called Sonoma), and I'm thinking it will be perfect for a February Baby Sweater. (Sidenote: when I stashed this on Ravelry, the owner of the company asked to use this picture on the yarn's Rav page!)

I also got a ton of Louet Riverstone Bulky in assorted to colors for a few projects that are too cute to divulge at this point. Check back later for details.

OMG, I think that's it! I'm finishing up socks for the hubster and then moving on to the aforementioned too-cute project!

MDSW 2010!

Well, for the second year in a row, I headed up to Maryland for the fiber festival of all fiber festivals, Maryland Sheep & Wool. It was pretty frickin' awesome.

Like last year, I drove up on Saturday morning, so by the time I drove from Durham to Alexandria to pick up Laura P., drove to the Howard County Fairgrounds, and parked (yikes!), it was about 2:30. By this time, we were famished, so our first priority was eating. Lamb.

After round one of eating festival food, it was time to fight the crowds and buy some yarn!

I'm not kidding when I say "crowds." Below is the main exhibition hall around 3:00 pm on Saturday.

It was worth it, because we saw a lot of this:

And this:

But it was hot out. Just ask Laura.

So it was time to get a little of this:

Thirty seconds later, my peanut-butter-dipped-chocolate-soft-serve-cone looked like this:

Then we met some of the locals:

After dropping a bunch of money on yarn to make things I don't have time to make, we headed back to the hotel. Laura P.'s cousin and aunt had come down from Delaware, so we had ourselves an awesome little girls night. You know you're going to have an awesome time when you just go ahead and call a cab to get to where you're going!

On Sunday, we headed back out to finalize our MDSW stash (to be detailed in my next post). We did have time to check out the sheep dog demonstration.

Border collies are amazing. Dogs in general are amazing. I love dogs. (Click photo to view entirely.)

To summarize, we ate, we bought, we conquered. And we got sunburned.

Can't wait until next year!

Finally....a cake!

I took all of those cake decorating classes last spring, and I'm not even sure if I used any of my new skills outside of class! Last weekend, my daughter was baptised, so I decided it was the perfect occasion to resurrect my cake decorating expertise!

I made a two-tiered cake, each tier having three layers. I called it a "Neopolitan" Cake since the layer were chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. That was a big hit! The cake is frosted with real vanilla buttercream and covered in rolled marshmallow fondant. I decorated it with royal icing apple blossoms and used decorator's frosting to pipe my daughter's monogram on the top. My fondant skills were a little rusty, but I was able to cover up imperfections with the apple blossoms!

Digital Scrapbooking

Recently, I decided that I really need to figure how scrapbooking fit into my overall life priorities. With the birth of my daughter, I really have A LOT of stuff that I need to make sure is accurately and beautifully chronicled. However small she may be, another human residing in our 1300 sq. ft. home has really cut down on the crafting space in this house. Therefore, I decided to give digital scrapbooking a go since all I need is my computer to do it.

I purchased the My Digital Studio software from my Stampin' Up demonstrator Paula Hodges. So far, I'm really excited about how it works. Another customer told me that it was similar to MS PowerPoint in use, and I'm finding that to be true. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to digital scrapbook using some free photo editing programs, or Adobe PhotoShop, but My Digital Studio appears to be really user friendly. It all uses all the Stampin' Up colors, punches, stamps, etc., so you can combine it was some actual paper crafting.

Right now I'm working on a photo book of my daughter's first few months and a calendar for my husband and I to use at our offices. Here's a sample of one of the pages I will use for the calendar.

(Excuse some of the lines...things hangover because this will be printed and cropped to full bleed.)