Owlishly

This and that

I've tried to sit down and crochet a couple of times lately, but I've been getting to distracted with other things.  So I'm going to do a brain dump to purge it all out and see if that'll get me back on track with the Hula girl pattern I'm working on. 

Well. First off, I've always had fairly sensitive skin and with the hives thing the summer before last I've been super careful about what I put on my skin.  But lately I've been in the mood to find a good makeup foundation.  This seriously has been an off and on quest since I started wearing makeup as a teenager.  I don't really have complexion problems so it's never felt like a must, but I'll like to have it in my repertoire just in case :)

Before having kids I used to wear makeup a lot, never gobs of it, but it was fun to play with and I'd gotten pretty adept, but never found a good foundation.  I suck at color matching and now recently with having to be more careful about what I put on my face I was thinking about trying Bare Minerals, and did a couple of times have people at a BM store, or Sephora try it on me and the four times I did it, I had four different color recommendations.  Not really fueling my confidence in the makeup artists either :) 

Anyway, I'd have them apply it in the morning and I'd wear it through the day to see how it felt, and every single time my face itched at the slightest appearance of sweat.  I live in southern California, there's no way I could not sweat, and at first I was thinking maybe it was the brushes, but upon further research I think it's maybe a combination of the rough brushes, and the bismuth oxychloride perhaps?  So I've been looking at different mineral makeup that's bismuth oxychloride free. 

So far, I've tried Jane Iredale and it's been lovely, no problems and it's felt good all day long, but the makeup artist that tried it on me last week was having a hard time matching my face too.  I'm hispanic with light tan skin, but I think I'm a cool and have naturally rosy cheeks so while there were a lot of colors in my range, neither of us were exactly sure which to go with the two closest matches were latte and natural for those of you familiar with the range.

I was thinking about Mineral Hygienics, but have heard/read a lot of either love it or hate it about them, and then kept finding my way to the Everyday Minerals site too.  So anyway, in a roundabout way, have any of you tried and had success with any of the above-mentioned?

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Next up has been a bunch of crafting for new babies.

A friend had a preemie last week, so I've been sewing a couple blankets & knitting & crocheting a bunch of hats for him since they were completely unprepared and there were no complications up until that day.  Luckily, he was born at almost 33 weeks and was around 4.5 lbs so he'll only be in the hospital a couple of weeks.  It just seems really strange because the majority of babies that've been born lately amongst my family and friends seem to be preemies.

One of my cousins also had a baby on the 8th so I've been trying to make some stuff for her little cutie too.  I've been putting off going to see the baby because I wanted to give my cousin a chance to rest up a bit, and to get stuff made beforehand.

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Also, I've been intrigued lately with woodburning.  Too many whims I tell you! I did buy a woodburning tool at Joann's a couple of weeks ago to try out, and I've been burning a ton of little dolls for my little ones, but haven't thought until now to take any pictures.  I get a little obsessive when trying something new to find out absolutely as much as possible about whatever it is I'm obsessing about, and with the wood thing, it's been trying to find a natural finish.  I think I'm going to try a mixture of walnut oil and beeswax since no one I'd be giving the toys to has nut allergies.  I was thinking of just buying a salad bowl type of finish, but where's the fun in that- I like to making things harder for myself ;)

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Anyhoo, what's been sending you off on wild internet searches lately?

Hope you're all having a happy holiday season!

 

We've been super busy in these parts, so busy that I would think about blogging and letting you know what I was up to, only to collapse into bed and zonk out before accomplishing any of that :)

I hadn't realized how busy Kindergarten Christmas stuff is, and then I think I've overextended myself a bit at his school with volunteering in his class and the Library and the PTO, but it's good to know what's going on I think, so I guess it'll continue this way and I'll just adjust.

Crocheting has practically come to a standstill lately.  I started working on the spiderweb blanket from a couple of patterns I'd seen online, but wasn't really feeling them, so I started doing something on my own and forgot to write it down, so after putting it down for a week had no idea what I was doing and had to frog a bit to remember.  Needless to say, the blanket didn't get finished.

I did make two waldorf style dolls for my little girl and niece, that was a fun learning experience, but took up a ridiculous amount of time! I'm still working on a tiny one for her doll to have a doll- go figure. I got a teacher's scarf done and almost finished my dad's and mom's scarves but wasn't able to pull through.  I'm amazed at people who blog all the time- they're my inspiration since I can't seem to get the hang of it lately.

I think I'll just have to keep trying, as long as I continue to give it a go, I think one of these times it'll stick and I'll be up and running again.  Thanks for all of you who've stuck by when weeks have gone by with nary a post. Here's hoping 2010'll be the year for super blogging :)

Howdy

It's been a while hasn't it? I keep making resolutions to post regularly, and then weeks go by.  This kindergarten thing is fun, but I've forgotten how to manage my time it appears!

I've been practicing a lot of knitting, though it's not up to snuff just yet.  I haven't taken too many pictures of anything because my camera's been seeing a lot of action with family type stuff.  Lot's of activities, a wedding or two and now a family reunion for my dad's mom's family tomorrow.  I get to try out a 10-22mm rental lens tomorrow for the group pictures that I'm pretty excited about too.

There's been my niece's curtains that I work on occasionally, and hemming pants for my other sister, and today we made a skirt.  So dang busy, but not much crocheting has been in the mix.  I'm hoping to remedy that soon with all the yarn in my stash just figuratively collecting dust!

I did start weight training with my husband this week.  It's pretty funny because we are complete opposites, and typically prefer doing things by ourselves since we both are really opinionated and end up snipping, but this seems to be going pretty well. 

I used to have pretty good form, but definitely need to be reminded of it, and he's been actively doing it for years so he's been a great resource for me.  It's surprising both of us how well it's working out.  I'm completely out of shape too, so hopefully with the slow start I'll stay motivated.

By the way, that completely unrelated picture up there is from a trip to Disneyland the day before the boy started school a couple of weeks ago.  You'll have to bear with me while I get back into my blogging groove, but I just hate posting without a picture!

2009 Here I come!

Happy New Year everyone, I hope it's been a good day for you all.  As I was going though my google reader this afternoon seeing everyone's resolutions and past projects it got me thinking about mine. 

I'm really not at all good about making and/or keeping resolutions, so as far as goals, all of mine are the same as they always are, hopefully 2009 helps me get closer to achieving them!

In terms of what I did in the past year though- geez, I hadn't realized that I was as productive as I was ;) Especially of late, I've felt pretty ho-hum about my ability to get things done, but it was fun creating a mosaic of some of last years projects, and hopefully this new year will be equally productive, if not more!

1. Lounging at the beach, 2. 1 inch buttons of my dolls, 3. Miss S back, 4. Malabrigo cowl WIP, 5. bear costume big girl, 6. Chester the turkey, 7. Birthday boy's felt crown, 8. Mom's Patons silk bamboo yarn scarf WIP, 9. Marcus the lion close up, 10. Little Red Gnome-y Hood Baby, 11. Nichole image 1, 12. Size 3 Thread Crochet Luke & Alexa, 13. finished flower blanket, 14. I'm not sure about the eyes, 15. Ladybug party garland, 16. Mr. S showing how shiny his cape is, 17. Georgie, 18. Little boy, 19. Octavio image 1, 20. Red hugging Blue Happy Maracas, 21. Crocheted infant cape using heavily modified Japanese pattern, 22. Felt flowers, 23. Redwork embroidery mexicana couple dancing, mom's gift, 24. Raquel image 1, 25. Dave the shamrock boy amigurumi, 26. Alexa the bee pattern!, 27. S's ripple sweater, 28. Paz image 1, 29. Big Head Baby in infant gown, 30. Lana the little lamb

Gonna be scarce, or my computer gave up the ghost & some Felt food book/pattern information

Really, I shortened that title.

So my poor MacBook has had it's share of troubles and each time I take it in the guys at the Genius bar keep telling me what an anomaly it is that it's having the issues that it's having.  Thanks to it though, I've become a back up fanatic so I do have all my old files, but I've also had to send it away for a week.

The sort of good (and unfortunately expensive) news is that I've gotten a new computer for my Christmas/every other imaginable gifting holiday of 2009 gift. It's pretty dreamy, but I still don't have any of my files on it yet so I'm figuring it all out and getting Christmas gifts ready.  Another convinient thing is that my husband'll just use the older computer for his school work and watching ESPN online.

I don't know how much posting I'll be able to get done in the next 10-ish days since we're still dealing with sucky lingering illnesses, leaving for Iowa on Friday & general Christmas busyness. I do hope that while we're gone I can get some felt food made for my little one's gifts.  Who knows. 

I bought some really neat fruit and vegetable patterns last month from Umecrafts, and a birthday book that I ordered from YesAsia came recently- Cute Felt Fruit & Vegetables, or kawaii yasai to furu tsu ga itsupai ha to uo mingu raifu shiri zu Heart Warming Life 67530 93. 


ISBN 10 digit- 4529046044
ISBN 13 digit- 978-4-529-04604-6

Hopefully this works, but here's the link to an ActionBrowser of the book where you can click through and see 20 pages of it :) Also, a tip, if you order it from YesAsia it's $15.49 and qualifies for free shipping on combined orders of $39 or more as opposed to the $25-35 that I've seen it for on certain auction sites.

Also, for reference for me :) you can go to the Nihon Vogue site scroll down to the Biblo section and click on the images of books with different crafts (I'm pretty sure this is the crochet books section) to see the books in that genre and get the 13 digit ISBN's. The 13 digit ISBN isn't searchable on YesAsia but is on Amazon.co.jp where you can cross reference the book and get both the 13 and 10 digit ISBN's for easier purchasing on YesAsia.

Sewing is pretty neat!

So, last time I was here I was still sick.  I still haven't shaken it completely, but I have been able to get some things done :)

I made a garland/bunting/banner thingy for my niece's birthday party. I blaming the fuzziness of the images on my still being ever so slightly sick, instead of me just taking funky pictures.

It was a ladybug theme.  I think all the fabrics used went well enough together, I'm definitely still a novice at color/pattern combinations.

I also made one of those pinafore/apron things for my little girl.  I have wanted to make one of these suckers for ages!  I was contemplating making the one from smocket pattern shared by Alicia over at the mayfly, but I wanted to try making buttonholes and I while I was cleaning up my craft area I'd remembered that I had bought a pattern a couple of years ago.  Actually, I think I was still pregnant with little miss S at the time.  Talk about being really good about planning ahead, or at wasting money.  Let's just say a little bit of both...

What the heck are these things called?  Anyway, I used a roses pattern on the red side (obviously, Mia!), and then that green ladybug fabric left over from the flags up above on the other side to make it reversible.

I like it.  Now I just have to get back to working with yarn, and finishing my embroidery project started forever ago.  I seriously wish I had so much more time!  That's what I told my family that I want for my birthday.  I'm somehow skeptical that that's what I'll receive.

The aforementioned skirt & cape

These are from a couple of days ago. 

Remember when I had mentioned that I'd sewn a cape & skirt for my little ones?

It was seriously a not matching play in the dirt kind of day, but it was sunny and they were both wearing what I'd made so I snapped some pictures quickly.

Oh, and I had them help me pick lemons & pomegrantes- they wanted me to take a picture of their "help" :)

I had so many things that I'd planned on working on today, and that went out the window pretty much the moment I checked my email.  A friend from grad school contacted me so I spent any free time this morning reading her blog and catching up on her life, a rather exciting one I might add!

Anyway, I need to get to work on some things that have been WIPs way too long so that I can be caught up!

Dang it. I'm sick.

SO annoying!

Both of the kids and I woke up this morning stuffed up & sore throaty.  All of us have been super sluggish and grumpy all day, but my little girl napped for 3 hours- so at least that's a good thing.

 While she was sleeping I washed and ironed and sat at the kitchen table with my little guy who was working on his letters and I cut fabric triangles- 76 to be exact.  I'm making a garland for my niece's birthday party so it was a nice, mindless afternoon.  I tried out the flower shaped yo-yo tool from clover on some scrap fabric too- it's neat, but I wish they were bigger- they seem so tiny!

I was really looking forward to spending another evening with my sister, she was actually going to make me dinner tonight.  Though I think we were actually going to paint something :)

My internet is working intermittently, so I'm trying to get patterns sent when it does work.  I called our ISP and apparently that's the case in our neighborhood- something funky happened to something else... blah, blah, blah.

On a happier note, I'm so glad everyone likes the turkey so much :) My grandpa thought it was hilarious, and my grandma thought it was even funnier- I seriously thought she was going to pee her pants!

My computer misses me

It has to, the amount of time we've spent apart. 

We're a one computer family for the time being, and my husband had to use it most of the day for a school assignment so my pattern writing efforts were stalled.

It was no biggie when he had nothing to do online but look at espn, but now I'm going to have to schedule time instead of just working on whatever, whenever. 

So instead of pattern writing this evening, I worked on honing my newbie sewing skills and made a skirt for my little girl & a cape for my little boy.  The skirt- easy peasy.  The cape- well, let's just say that I'm glad I had such a victory with the skirt first :) The good thing is, my little boy won't care at all if my stitching is a bit wonky- he'll be too busy running around in it.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to work on the pattern in the morning, since my aunt is coming for a visit in the afternoon & I haven't seen her since August.  Tomorrow night my husband has one of his classes, so more computer time for me. Score!

8 days late

Here's one of the best Halloween pictures I could find.  They were dancing with their daddy at our church's Hallelujah party :)

Wild kids.