Christmas

So I'm a lazy bum. Not much going on. Christmas break.

For Yule we got new Jammies and the wizard of oz. 

Christmas Eve we go to mom's

Ross took all the pictures at moms /sigh

Christmas Day is the hard one, we get up super early and do presents at home

Connor got lots of cars. Kae got a case for her laptop and a ton of monster high stuff

Then we went to my In Laws (::sigh::)

They sound like dinosaurs

Last we went to my dad's...

Playing cars with great-grandpa

Writing a short story using her story dice..

Then grandpa read it to everyone lol

The kids got a ton of presents, lots of cars and monster high. Lots. Both seem pretty happy!

I can't wait for school to start

BEER!

So for Christmas we got Ross a Mr Beer Brewing Kit. It comes with everything to brew and bottle 2 gallons of beer. 

Ross isn't much of a drinker, but he does enjoy the occasional beer, and he loves loves loves the process of stuff like this. 

The kit comes with the malt to make the equivalent of Bud Light, which is gross (I don't drink beer), and after much searching we found out you can change the recipes! Then after even more convincing, Ross is going to make the first following the directions. So he knows how it works before making it his own. ;)

The fermenting process takes between 2 and 4 weeks, I think Ross is going on the longer end. I'll post more when he bottles. 

Parents of the year! Kae's got the malt can in her mouth, and we put the little brown keg next to Connor's Dora cereal!

Shop

So opening an etsy shop has been a stop/start thing for me. I look at all the fees and go, "well I can price accordingly!" Then I see all the same stuff for sale, where is the business going to come from?

I've decided to boost traffic to my Facebook fan page, "Paula's miscellany" and sell on a first come first served basis, and try and drive up some business. 

I also plan to make hat/fingerless glove sets, and cowls/scarves, to try and sell at the green market in Gardens next fall. I can use stash up, and hopefully make some spare coinage. 

I already got my first commissioned order :)

Ignore me, the hats real owner is far cuter. 

Nostalgia

Saturday is Kae's teachers birthday. Since we already made her the spiffy hat and gloves for Christmas, and EVERYONE is making her a card, kae and I decided (mostly me) to make her a necklace.

Paper beads!

When I was 8 my grandmother Burdette came to visit us, it was the first time we'd ever met, and pretty memorable, for me at least. It was Christmastime, too.

We spent hours cutting pages out of magazines, and rolling them up on toothpicks, making piles of different colored beads to make necklaces for my mom. Which she still keeps in her jewelry box. I love my mommy.

So kae and I decided to make them too, but instead of magazines, we took a falling apart copy of a children's fairytale book and used book pages!

I made my own modge podge. 

The book was going in the trash anyway

The thread is from my embroidery box, it's pink, Mrs. L's favorite color.

Kaeley threaded them on with a yarn needle, I tied it off. It's in a pink bag to take her on Friday. Completely free gift, and lots of fun with my girl. 

Oops

It's been a while since I posted. For the like, 2 people who read my blog, I read 2 books last month. Woo!

I've been crafting up a storm though. Gift knitting! Most of these were Nerd Wars round 2 submissions

Gloves and hat for Kae's teacher

Gloves and hat for a friend 

Seed stitch cowl for my SIL

Cardi for Mai - kae gets the same one, in hot damn pink sparkly. But the picture is missing from my phone.

I still need to finish the two hats for gabe and Connor. And possibly one for my half brother. He's being a toad, so maybe he'll get an SAT prep book.

October Reading List

1. Fantasy Lover - Kenyon

2. Dark Lover - Kenyon 

Both re-reads

3. Carnival of Souls - Melissa Marr

Favorite of the month. This first book in a new adult series was FANTASIC. It's that rare genre between YA and Adult, and I'm really looking forward to the next one.

Happy Halloween!

We went candy begging with Gail and Kids again this year!

Our little devil

He's so enthusiastic.

And we had a fangless vampire:

One of get canines is loose so the caps wouldn't work.

Practice run at home.

Where be the candy?!

Our motley crew, Cinderella, Thor, a vampire and the Devil. Plus two gypsies, a nerd, and my husband, "the tired salary-man". Cibderalla told him that was boring and his costume sucked. Schooled by a 4 year old!

Grandma Debbie says she's throwingca Halloween party next year for all the kids because treating down here is so lame.

This, our town of Halloween

We carved our pumpkin!

I made roasted pumpkin seeds

He's got a strobe light in his head

Scientist for a Day

This is something new this year for kaeley.

Each student is assigned a section from their science textbook, and they have to do an experiment to teach the class about their portion.

Kaeley got the Earth's Surface

::snore::

So we she did a demonstration to teach the kids how to remember the surface layers...using snacks!

 

I hope the teacher sends me the in class pictures soon! 

Nerd Wars - T9 round 1

So this is my first time doing nerd wars! It's an awesome fun competition on Ravelry based on geeky fandoms. The hardest part is picking a team.

This time (and probably all of them) I'm on team Mythology. It's one of the smaller teams, but everyone is super nice and freaking awesome! I get to link my rav craft projects to mythology, fables and fairy tales. Because I don't do that anyway.

Here are a few of my projects for this first round.

I donated the proceeds from my Aceso hat pattern.

Aceso is the Greek goddess of the healing process.

My Gravestone handspun for flex 

I linked it to the Stygian witches, who lived on salt and man flesh, so their skin was drab grey. They also shared one eye and tooth between 3 of them. They are in the myth of Perseus and Medusa.

I finished a shawlette for Lindsay

I linked it to butterfly, and the Shoshone butterfly woman dance. I'll link it tomorrow on the computer, it's hard from the blogger app. This is also my team unity project, the elements. The Aztec god of fire was often depicted as a butterfly, or with a butterfly on his chest.

And my most recent, in the LARP category, a handspun, crocheted, tribal belt.

This one was hard to link, I actually ended up using The Hindu belief that all of creation is part of an elaborate dance, and that the priestesses used to dance to communicate with the gods. 

I'm ALMOST done with Kae's hot pink cardigan. It'll be tied to the stratosphere somehow. I'll probably need help placing this one. 

I'm having so much fun, and it's great motivation for my Christmas knitting! 

Pumpkin Patch

For the very first time ever, we took the kids to the pumpkin patch.

Trinity Methodist Church has one Every year, the proceeds fun their missionary program ;)

Photobomb!

We'll carve this weekend, I'll post pictures 

Charity Hat Pattern

I'm going to cut and past this from Jess at Storied Yarns newsletter. She is a wonderful writer and her prose is much better than mine. I think i'm too close to the situation to be poetic.

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I've got a lovely new pattern to share! The amazing and talented Paula has designed this hat - called the Aceso Hat (named after the Greek goddess of the healing process) - and she used a custom-dyed skein of Storied Yarns Superwash Worsted to make it! Paula's hat was designed specifically in honor of the people she has known, loved, and lost to cancer and in support of cancer survivors everywhere. She is donating 100% of the profits from the sales of the pattern to cancer research.

I designed this colorway for Paula because she asked for something in honor of the official colors for thyroid cancer - blue, teal, and pink. My favorites! Here's the yarn:








and here is the adorable hat Paula designed:



You can find the pattern on Ravelry now - purchase it for a good cause, and knit it up for those you love! Paula whipped up the sample hat in no time, so it would be a great quick-knit project for a holiday gift, or to make several to donate to local cancer survivors! At a cost of only $1.99, it's an inexpensive and simple way to make a difference in the world.