red flowers

All of these flowers are a deep red.  I photographed them on the hats so that you would see what they look like together. 

Choice #1:  This flower has lots of petals.  It has a metal brad in the center that is black with a silver leaf motif.

Choice #2:  This is the same type of flower as above.  It also has a metal brad in the center.  The brad is edged with silver and has a black and ivory floral motif in the center.

Choice #3:  This is a deep red daisy with a large crystal in the center.

Choice #4:  This is a deep red daisy-like flower with a large crystal in the center.  It is similar to the one above, but it is a bit smaller if you prefer a smaller flower on the baby sized hat.  It also has fuller petals.

Chef Nadia

 When I am at a show, I always hear, at least a dozen times, "These are so cute, but what do you do with them?"  They are toys!  You play with them!  I guess most adults have just completely lost their imagination and don't know what to do with a toy that doesn't talk or light up or tell you how to play with it.  But I love watching kids with my toys.  They instinctively know exactly what to do.  My little Nadia was the perfect example of this at our recent photo shoot.

 We had so much fun.  We dressed her up in a cute apron and chef hat that Amy made and set her up with some cupcakes and all of the fixings to make them and she went to work while Melinda took pictures.

 First, she poured the flour into the bowl.

Then she broke some eggs into the bowl.

Then she tossed a cupcake with a spatula and whisk, like it was a salad.

When she was done, TA DA!  She was so proud of the pan of cupcakes that she had made and was eager to share them with anyone who would pretend to eat her creation.   

I wish everyone who wonders how to use my toys could see Nadia play with them for a few minutes.  They would realize that an imagination is way more fun than any video game on the market.

Red Flowers

These are the options I have for you for red flowers.  Sorry about the poor photography.  This is why I try to use professional photos whenever possible.

 Choice #1:  This is a deep red daisy type flower with a crystal center.  This is the same center that will be in the pink peony flower. 

 Choice #2:  This flower has a metal accent in the center that is black and silver.  If you like the flower shape, but not the center, I have this flower available with several different centers.

 Choice #3:  This deep red daisy has a square, embossed metal center.

 Choice #4:  I photographed this one on the black hat so that you could see the details of the white layers of petals.  This one has a circular embossed metal center.

Choice #5:  This is the only shape of flower that I have in the brighter red color.  I do have several of this type.  They all have some kind of red center like the one shown.

Swiss Days!!!

I got a really unexpected phone call last night.  It was Doug, letting my know that he had a spot for me at Swiss Days.  If you have never been, Swiss Days is a huge festival up in Midway that takes place every Labor Day weekend.  Huge throngs of people show up and eat Bavarian food while shopping for handcrafted items.  Crafters come from all over the west to sell their goods at this show.  The competition to get in is pretty steep.  Amy and I applied in the spring, but we were placed on the alternate list.  We figured we would never hear from them again, so we moved on to plan B for our show schedule and booked other shows.  Some of our plans fell through when we didn't get our application in on time for Peach Days and it sold out.  We have spent the past couple of days trying to piece together a Plan C.  Then, the phone rang. 

I just about passed out when I got that phone call last night.  I called Amy and asked what she wanted to do.  We crunched the numbers and ran scenarios through our mind to decide if we could be ready for a show of that gigantic magnitude in just two weeks.  We decided that fate had stepped in and we would skip some of the smaller fall shows so that we could do Swiss Days and still be ready for the Family Christmas Showcase in November.  

This means that I will need to crochet until my fingers fall off for the next couple of weeks, but I am really excited to be doing some of these bigger shows this fall!  I swear everything in my life happens for a reason.  Be sure to check out my revised show schedule on the sidebar of my blog so that you will know where to find me! 

Country Carousel Boutique

I will be in Utah County next week for the Country Carousel Boutique.  This show has been around for 25 years!  I did it two years ago, but I wasn't able to do it last year because my twins were only a few weeks old and I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to do a big show quite yet.   

The show takes place at Provo High School and should have some really fun vendors.  You can look here for more information about what kind of vendors will be at the show.  It will also have the address and hours for the show. Amy and I have grand plans for our booth- it will be really cute!  We are going with a late summer red gingham/sunflower theme.  I am excited to see it all together.  It doesn't matter how many times we put our "Princess Shack" up.  I always get excited to see her. 

This will also be the big debut of my crochet purses!  I found a great hat stand at the DI to hold my purses for me.  We named him Timothy.  After a little TLC, he is looking awesome and is ready to make his first public appearance.   I will post pictures of Timoths and my new purses in a couple of days.  Right now, I need to get busy tagging all of my stuff for the show.  It's going to be a long night...

Frog Prince

I have a photo shoot on Saturday and I am so excited! I am really going to put my photographer friend to work. I have a link to her blog on my sidebar. Her name is Melinda and I have known her since we were eight years old. She is incredibly talented and I am so excited to get some new pictures of my babies and my products. I will post pictures as soon as I have them in hand!

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I am not the only one in my house with an unhealthy obsession with fairytales. Nadia has grown up on Disney and she is in love with princesses. Her most recent obsession is Tangled. We have watched that movie about 500 times this week alone. But one of her all time favorites is The Princess and The Frog. When we saw princess Tiana at Disneyland, Nadia acted like she was meeting her idol.
Aren't those dresses cute? I wish I had gotten better pictures of them. Amy made matching pillowcase dresses for all three of my girls to wear to Disneyland. They had Minnie Mouse head appliqued on the front. I got 10,000 complements on my cute girls!

The Princess and the Frog was always one of my favorite fairy tales, too. When I heard that Disney was coming out with a movie telling that story, I decided to make my own frog prince.

This little guy was actually inspired by a pattern that I found on-line, but I changed it up a little to suit my crochet style and added the crown.

Now it is your turn to share. What is your favorite fairytale?

My photography skills really need some work!

I had a product development week about a month ago when I made a bunch of new things to offer in my shop and at shows. I was getting kind of tired of making the same old things over and over again. I made some really cute things and meant to get some good pictures of them to put in my shop and to blog about here. Like many of my good intentions, it didn't go quite as planned. I brought all of my new products to the Freedom Festival and they were really well received. So well, in fact, that I sold them all before I had a chance to take pictures, so I need to make them all again.


Since I don't have pictures of new products to show, I will show you what I have been up to for the last couple of weeks.

My twins turned one today! They are my last babies, so I am playing dress up with them every opportunity I have. I made everything in this picture: the pettiskirts, the shirts, the hats, the rocking horses, even the babies! I thought it all turned out so cute! Nobody spends such a crazy amount of time making outfits for their kids birthdays, but I really have the "I don't know when to stop" disease, so I did. You can't really tell, but the hats are the same fabric as the numbers on their shirts. I plan to have professional pictures taken in these outfits, so there will be a better view to come. It really is all about the pictures.



The rocking horses were unfinished wood. I painted them (well, actually, I got Patrick to paint them for me) and then I decoupaged patterned paper on them. I am thinking of gluing 1" ribbon streamers along the mane. What do you think? Too much?
This is the cake. It is supposed to be a teddy bear picnic theme. The bears were originally supposed to be wearing party hats, but there were a few problems in the execution. I am not a cake decorator, so I was pretty pleased at the end result of this cake. I decided that the secret to successful cake decorating is in the icing. I made the Wilton buttercream icing recipe and it worked beautifully. It requires a shocking amount of butter and shortening, but has the perfect texture for piping details. The side had a basket weave piped on it. I had no idea how to do one, so I googled it. It looks a little homespun, but I don't think that is a terrible thing when a picnic basket is your inspiration. Each of the babies got their own teddy bear for a smash cake.
The babies were cranky-pants the day of the party because they took crappy naps that morning, so they didn't really get into the spirit of the smash cake concept.
After everyone else had their cake and the attention had died down a little bit, I put Chloe in the high chair and let her have a second attempt at her cake. The second time, she attacked it with reckless abandon and made a mess that any one year old would be proud of.

I am, once again, wishing my photography skills were better. I didn't even get pictures of the decorations (pink and purple tissue paper poufs hanging from the trees) or the centerpieces (pink and purple candies in glasses that looked like ice cream sodas on a bed of hand punched confetti flowers)! Really, what good is it to have the "I don't know when to stop" disease if I can't manage to take a decent picture of my crazy excess?

Anyway, I am done party planning and playing dress-up for the moment, so I guess I will go back to work on making my new products for a second time. I really will get pictures before I sell them this time. Really. Seriously. I mean it....

July 4th BBQ

I usually have a great 4th of July tradition. I invite myself to my sister's house, which just happens to be on Main Street in Hyrum, and watch the small town parade go by while sitting on her front lawn. The kids get giant bags of candy, and I get to hang out in the shade and chat with the grown-ups. We usually stay long enough to grill some burgers and then head home in time to walk up the street and gate-crash the country club for some fireworks. Basically, I spend the day going to parties where I invited myself. I am a little sad (and my husband is a lot sad) that I will be breaking with tradition this year and will be making the 4th a working holiday. It means I won't be able to see my three little girls dressed in their cute matching dresses at the parade.

Here's the deal with the craft show circuit. People gather on holidays. Most people have the day off of work. They all go out with their families to festivals and shows together. That means that if I am going to have any luck selling my stuff, I need to work the holidays. This means I have spent the last two Thanksgivings setting up a booth to be ready for Black Friday. Now July 4th is going to the cause, too. I'm just glad that my husband's birthday isn't really the national holiday that he thinks it is or I would really be in the dog house.

I figured if I can't be there to celebrate with my family, I can at least post pictures of what I am missing.


OK- we don't actually make our own french fries, but you get the point.

This is how I like my burger. Nothing fancy for me. I also made a super-cute hot dog, but you will have to wait until Labor Day for that one. I am too lazy to pull it out, take a picture and fight with my computer to get it to upload into the right place. Besides, my camera battery is dead. Maybe I will be a more organized/motivated person when I don't have three kids in diapers. No cookout is complete without an ice cream cone at the end! I make these in a variety of flavors and they have rattles in them. It is the best kind of ice cream for a baby because it doesn't melt and make a giant mess.

I guess I should plug my show now. I will be at the Freedom Festival on July 1, 2 and 4th. It is in Provo so, of course, it doesn't run on Sunday. How great is it that, in America, we are so patriotic that we celebrate our independence day with a full week of car shows, carnivals, beauty pageants, parades, fireworks, concerts, hot air balloon shows, golf tournaments, essay contests.... the list goes on and on. This is one of the biggest July 4th celebrations in the state and it should be lots of fun for the whole family. If you live in the Utah County direction, make sure you stop by my booth to say "hi"!

South Ogden Days

I am off to South Ogden for a show today. This should be a fun festival. There is a car show, a carnival, a parade, a mud volleyball tournament and fireworks. I love fireworks. And the mud volleyball should be pretty funny to watch, too. I am looking forward to spending a couple of days sitting in the nice weather, now that summer has finally decided to make an appearance, and eating fair food. If you are looking for something fun to do with the family this weekend, stop by and check it out! The info about times and location is on my sidebar. You can also see a schedule of events here.

Mmmm...mmmm...good!

One of my favorite lunches is a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup. The soup is really more of a dipping sauce for the sandwich. There is something about the crispy, buttery bread with the gooey cheese dipped into the creamy, savory soup. All of the kids love it, too. Even the babies like it if I cut the sandwich into tiny pieces and dip it in soup for them. I was recently at a craft show and I saw a lady who was selling cans of soup. Her workmanship left a lot to be desired and she used a styrofoam cylinder to hold the shape. I could tell, because you could see it through the spaces in the stitching. It inspired me to do better. This is what I came up with.

I could never let my babies play with a toy with a styrofoam core because they would bite pieces off with their four little teeth. I use tight stitches and a structured yarn so that mine will hold it's shape in it's own. I have even thrown my toys in the washing machine to see if they would lose their shape. They came out clean and looking perfect.

I was thinking the soup would be fun in other flavors, too. How cute would it be to give a can of chicken soup to a sick friend in the hospital on diet restrictions? Or a can of mushroom soup to my mother who made a different casserole with a mushroom soup base for dinner five nights a week when I was growing up? It would even be a cute and unexpected rattle for a baby shower! Now it's your turn to tell me about your favorite soup!

Bonjour!

This is Pierre. He started out as kind of a joke. Katie told me that I should make french toast and I asked her how I could make french toast look different from regular toast. This is what we came up with: When he was done, I decided to photograph him and put him in my Etsy shop. Since photography isn't my special skill, I decided that it would be fun to find pictures of French landmarks on-line and take pictures of him standing in front of them.

I had no idea at the time that he would become one of my biggest sellers in my Etsy shop. I have sold dozens of him and shipped him all over the country and to a couple of countries in Europe. Last week a cute lady ordered him from my Etsy shop and asked if I could have him arrive quickly because she was leaving on a vacation to France and wanted to take pictures of him in front of real French landmarks. I squealed with delight when I read this and asked her if she would mind sending a couple of her photos my way. She said she would be happy to. I really hope she does. I can't wait to see them!

In other news, I updated my sidebar with my 2011 show line-up. I will be really busy, but I am excited to try some new shows and see what happens!

Tea Party!

I am never going to win any awards for keeping my blog updated, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been very busy creating new things. I had a few "product development days" last week and came up with some really cute new things for my shop and have a really full show line-up for the summer and fall with some new shows that I am really excited about.

But the thing that has really been the focus of my time and energy over the past couple weeks is getting ready for Nadia's birthday party. It started out like this:

Katie: Let's have a tea party for Nadia's birthday!
Me: OK. We can invite her three little cousins and one friend over for a little party.
Katie: Great! I'll start planning the menu!

What followed was a month of planning, baking, decorating, sewing and organizing for a party for 20 people. I really need to learn to control myself. And I have passed my disease down to Katie, who also has a tendency to go way overboard in the planning process as well.

This is the birthday girl. I made the pettiskirt. And the shirt. And the hat, too. See what I mean about needing to learn to control myself? But she looks so cute that I just can't help it!

This is the view from behind so you can see the fabulous hat. I may be out of control with my ideas, but I really know how to stick to a budget. I made a hat for each of the little girls at the party from hats I found at the dollar store and flowers that were just sitting around my house. Total cost for 11 hats: $15.

These are all of the little girls at the party in their hats. It was so cute and the girls loved being all fancy. I didn't plan any games or anything, but you know your party is a success when the guests tell their mom that they want to have their birthday party at your house!

These are my babies. I made their pettiskirts, too, but they aren't quite finished. Their birthday is coming up and they will be fabulous for their pictures. Their party is going to be amazing, too. They are going to have a birthday cake with a "Teddy Bear Picnic" scene. See... told you I have a disease. I really can't help myself.

I really wish photography was one of my skills, but sadly, it is not. This is the table with all of the food. I am not a fan of baking, but Katie is, so she got to do a lot of the baking for the party. We had finger sandwiches (cucumber, egg salad, and PB&J), fruit skewers with mini raspberry muffins and dip. mini quiches, crumpets with clotted cream and jelly (there is a great story behind that which is worthy of it's own blog post), assorted tea cookies, strawberry lemonade, and sherbet punch. All of it was served on my fancy display pieces that I have sitting around because they are all a part of my booth display. Nadia got in on the baking action the day before the party. Don't you love the chef hat and apron? She insists on wearing them every time she helps out in the kitchen. Amy made them and you can buy them from her Etsy shop. (The link is on my sidebar.)

Of course, there were cupcakes baked in teacups, big tissue paper poofs hanging from the tree branches, tables with cute eyelet tablecloths and teacup centerpieces with fresh flowers cut from my yard, and a canopy draped with flower garlands and a chandelier hanging from the center. Of course, almost all of this was stuff from my booth. Total cost of decorations: $3.

Now that that party is over and I'm done homeschooling Katie for the summer, I will post some pictures of all of my new stuff for my shop and put up info about my upcoming shows on the sidebar.