Christmas Cards 2010

I finally got around to creating our Christmas cards. I am late this year! Usually the cards are in the mail on December 1st. This year we were on vacation for the last 9 days of November and the cards got put on hold. Today I finally ordered our cards and can't wait for them to come in the mail. Shutterfly makes it so easy to get great looking cards for the holidays. And even better, I got them for free (just had to pay shipping) for signing up my blog with Shutterfly!

Now I will just print up some address labels, pick up some stamps and wait for these beauties to come in the mail! Happy Holidays everyone!

Initially Yours Green Christmas Card

Make a statement with custom Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas Card Time (Already? Yes!)

I am not a fan of starting Christmas before Thanksgiving. I like to enjoy my turkey without an abundance of green and red. But the one Christmas thing that I don't mind doing before Thanksgiving is ordering my Christmas cards. I hate to be last minute with cards and usually send them out the first week of December (once the turkey's been designated as leftovers, Christmas can officially begin!).

I'm a big fan of Shutterfly to order my photo cards. So easy! Upload some pics to a card, add some holiday cheer, and they send them to you lickety split with envelopes to boot! What could be easier? Not much. I just pop them in the envelopes, print out my address labels (yes, I'm that lazy that I don't personally address all my cards) and voila! Done!

This year I'm looking at a few different designs for my cards. My daughter likes this ONE with Christmas trees on it. I am leaning towards this ONE with the reindeer and snowman or this ONE (see the picture) where I can put all different pictures of the kids. Perhaps I can convince her of one of my choices (they both have trees on them).

Whichever one we do decide on will be perfect. I love not having to worry about finding just the right set of cards and signing them all. Shutterfly makes the holidays that much easier! Check them out. You won't be sorry.

I'm also thinking of making WALL CALENDARS for Mother's Day this year. What grandmother wouldn't want a calendar with pictures of their adorable grandkids?

What's even better is that Bloggers can get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly, follow the arrow à http://bit.ly/sfly2010 .

Happy Holidays! And happy card shopping!

FREE Christmas Cards!

Check out Shutterfly, sign up your blog and you could get 50 FREE Christmas cards! How awesome is that!?! I love their cards and plan on getting my Christmas cards from them this year again. It makes sending cards a snap. They even give you the envelopes! Check it out! It's a deal you can't afford to miss out on! Sign up here!

Resolving Resolutions

Let's take a look at those Resolutions and see how they are coming along:

1. Take a Self-Defense class.

DONE! Yes! The class I took was great. We learned a lot of different things and I would like to take it again in the near future.

2. Join the PTO at my daughter's school and get more involved in the school system/town.

This school year I have been unable to attend any PTO meetings because I have a part time job on Tuesday nights (when the PTO meetings are). More on the job further down.

3. Lose a little bit of weight.

Not so much. Really would like to do this, but I haven't put any effort into it.

4. Commit random acts of kindness. I want to randomly send cute crocheted items to friends and surprise them. Putting a smile on someone's face makes me smile.

Not too many lately. :(

5. I want to make more couple friends.

We've been hanging out with my cousin and his wife more regularly now. It's very nice to have another couple to go out with.

6. Lastly, I want to keep up with this blog.

Perhaps not so much. We'll see how long before I post again!

NEW THINGS

I've been wanting to go back to work teaching Biology, but can't go back full-time to teaching high school. I just can't bring myself to put my kids in daycare. So I got a part-time teaching job at a local community college. I teach one class of General Biology and it is 2 nights a week. I LOVE IT! It's so nice to get out of the house and do what I love. Plus I can still be home with my kids during the day. It's fantastic.

The down side is that I haven't had any time for crafting. :( All my free time is spent putting together lesson plans for my class. If I get a class next semester then I will just be tweaking my lesson plans, so my crafting will pick up again. I am trying to finish a blanket for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. They are expecting their first baby in December. And of course I choose to make a blanket that has no pattern. So I will be working on it while on vacation in Florida in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I can get it done before the baby comes (or at least before she turns 1!).

Resurrection of a Blog

I want to blog more. I really do. Life just seems to get in the way. So I've set some New Year Resolutions. (Yes, I know it is March.) And to start off the resurrection of this blog, I would like to talk about my resolutions. Some of these things I've wanted to do for awhile. This year I have decided to take action and get some of them done.

1. Take a Self-Defense class. I've wanted to do this for a long time. I want to be equipped with some skills in the event that something does happen to me.

This resolution is on its way to being fulfilled! I signed up for a class in January at a local community center with some other women from my MOMs Club. We are learning all kinds of great self-defense moves from a trained teacher. I love it! It is such a good class and has made me feel more empowered.

2. Join the PTO at my daughter's school and get more involved in the school system/town.

I have also fulfilled this one. I joined the PTO (I've been to 2 meetings so far) and have learned a lot of interesting things about the school. I never realized how much support the PTO gives the school when it comes to fundraisers, school events, and so much more.

3. Lose a little bit of weight. Yeah, yeah...I know this is a standard resolution, but it is one I want to try to fulfill. I have done Weight Watchers before and did well with it. I just haven't gotten on the ball since having my son.

This one I have been on and off with. I start to follow the plan and then I go off. I will keep trying and hopefully be able to get into a rhythm.

4. Commit random acts of kindness. I want to randomly send cute crocheted items to friends and surprise them. Putting a smile on someone's face makes me smile.

I have already committed one random act of kindness. I made a cute little goldfish for my friend Sarah. She loves goldfishies, so I worked one up and sent it along to her. She was very surprised and very happy. Yay!

5. I want to make more couple friends. It's hard to get together with friends ever since the kids. To go out as a couple, we have get someone to watch our kids. We've only ever had my parents or my in-laws watch them. Mainly because we can't necessarily afford a sitter and to go out for the night. So by making more couple friends who also have kids, we will have people who understand our situation and we can get together with the kids.

We've done well with this so far. My cousin and his wife have 3 kids (ages 13, 10, 7). Emily loves playing with her 10 year old and 7 year old cousins. Jakob also loves to play with the big kids. So we've gotten together with them once so far this year and plan on getting together this weekend. We have dinner (at our house), the kids play, and we get to chat. It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to hanging out with them again this weekend.

(On a crafty note, Crystal (my cousin's wife) wants to learn how to knit so I am going to teach her. We'll be sneaking out after dinner to pick up some supplies for her. She had a dishcloth her grandmother made that she wants to be able to make. I actually figured out the pattern for her just by looking at the dishcloth. I was so excited. Granted, it wasn't a hard pattern, but I was proud of myself.)

6. Lastly, I want to keep up with this blog. I want to complete bigger projects and this will be a good forum to showcase them.

Hopefully I will be able to stick to the resolutions and keep moving forward with them. It is very motivating to complete a resolution. Makes me want to make more!

Hello? Is anybody blogging?

I need to get better about updating my blog. I've been working on lots of projects in the past few months and have many others that were finished before that. Hopefully I will be able to get them posted up here for ya'll to check out.

At the moment I am finishing up a baby blanket for a friend's baby shower. Once I am done that I have a scarf I want to complete. Perhaps it will be done in time for the cooler weather. After that I want to attempt a sweater for myself. I've never done an adult sweater before so it should be interesting. I have a few patterns I'm looking at. Just need to pick one and buy some fabulous yarn for it.

Monkey Hat and Blanket

Li'l Monkey Baby Hat and Matching Afghan
by Carmen Watkins
from Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker

I made this super cute set for my son. I worked it up when I was pregnant and couldn't wait until he was here to see him in his super cute monkey hat. Unfortunately, until recently the hat was too big. :( But now he wears it with pride. Who wouldn't want a sock monkey on their hat?

I used a 5.0 mm (H) hook and a 9.0 mm (M/N) hook as the pattern called for. I also liked the colors of the blanket from the book that I used the exact yarn and colors as suggested in the pattern. (Which I don't usually do - I usually pick my own colors or ones that are close enough.) I had to order the yarn online because I couldn't find the exact colors in any local yarn or craft store. I found them at http://www.herrschners.com/ which offers yarns at discounted prices most of the time.

The yarns used were:
Bernat Softee Chunky Solids & Marls: Berry Red (2 skeins)

Bernat Softee Chunky Solids & Marls: Natural (1 skein)
Bernat Softee Chunky Solids & Marls: Rodeo Tan (2 skeins)

This pattern wasn’t too hard to follow. But I did find it a bit tedious to do. I had never done granny squares before and I didn't anticipate how long it would take to complete all the squares even though they were easy to do with the chunky yarn and larger hook. Sewing the squares together was a new skill and proved more difficult than I thought. Next time I do granny squares I anticipate it to be easier to put together. I didn't line them up quite right at first and had to go back a couple of times to re-do the sewing. I also found it frustrating to weave in all the ends of the yarn in each square from the color changes. I would think I had them all and then another inspection would turn up more ends to be woven in. I will have a better system in mind when I attempt granny squares again and I'm sure it will go much smoother.

The hat was super easy to work up and came out so cute. The monkeys were also easy to make. I think I would make the monkey on the hat a bit smaller next time as it seems to overwhelm the hat and my son's head when he wears the hat. If you wanted to make the hat a bit more girly, the pattern offers a scalloped edging instead of the plain straight edge.

All in all, this was a cute project to work on and I like how it turned out.