Scarves, hats, and headbands...oh my

Here is another great project. Found the hat and scarf pattern (seperate) on Ravely.com and made them as gifts for a few special people. This picture is just the had and scarf.


This is the hat, scarf, and headband set!

I've had friends ask me to post prices for my scarves, hats, and headbands. So.
Hats $15
Scarves $10
Headband $10
Contact me at carrielaine@rocketmail.com to place an order.

This year I've spent some time getting into Iris Folding. It's really very easy and looks complicated...my favorite kind of craft. I taught classes at my work on how to make these three christmas cards. Charged everyone $5 for the "kit" and made almost $200 (for charity). Had enought of the kits left over that I made my own cards for my friends and co-workers.

Painted pottery...House Divided

Have you ever been to one of those places where you can paint your own pottery? They're pretty awesome. Found one in my hometown and got a great idea to make a wedding gift for friends. The bride went to Oregon State but the groom went to University of Oregon. This is called "a house divided". The people at the pottery store...Rose City Ceramics....showed me how to transfer a design on to pottery and then helped me with the process. It took me three hours to paint the right number of coats for this to come out looking so great, but it was well worth it...as you can see. The plate was less than $25 and all the paint and firing costs were included. When I gave it to my friend, you can see how happy she was with it. Her hubby liked it too. Right now it's in a place of honor...the middle of their coffee table.

Dish scrubbies

Found this dish scrubbie pattern on Ravelry.com. They are really easy and quick to make. They're crocheted with 100% cotton yarn and can be used as dish scrubbies or coasters.

cheap but pretty...

Who would have thought that tissue paper could be so pretty. I found...via google...how to make tissue paper flowers. Made these in orange colors for a friend at work. I put two of these little flower back to back and then hung them from the ceiling with crepe paper. They were so pretty and really make a big statement for a small price. I made them again for another friend's birthday but did them in pink, white, and silver.

Forgot one of my baking yummies...

Here's another fun dessert that I made for a bridal shower. Shot glass desserts. It was hard to find pretty shot glasses but I really like these. The filling is a chocolate mousse and french vanilla cream with chocolate sauce. If you're going to do these, I suggest you make sure you have spoons that fit into the shot glasses.

Need to blog more often....

It's been too long since I've blogged. Not that I haven't been doing any crafting and baking, but I was sidelined by a hand surgery that put a little crimp in my life. All is better and I have some fun things to post.

I'll start with my baking projects...

I made this caramel apple bundt cake with my new bundt pan. Yum!! I would probably not do the caramel topping again because it slides off and then absorbes into the cake. I think I'll just do a powdered sugar/milk glaze.

This is a pretty simple cupcake made for a friend at work. She likes funfetti cake (store bought) but I added these pretty cupcake flower liners purchased at JoAnne Fabric, topped with a really yummy buttercream frosting, and a flower candy.

A pink lemonade cupcake - made with a straw and candies. I actually thought these were too tart and probably won't make them again.

And these are the red velvet cupcakes. WOW - they were awesome. Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting - dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with red sugar!

Ring bearer pillows

Made two adorable ring bearer pillows for Lindsey. Giving them to her tomorrow. Hope she likes them.

Daisy square - from ravelry.com

I really felt that this Daisy square was going to stump me. It took a couple of attempts to get it right...but when I finally mastered the patter, it turned out amazing. I found the pattern at Ravelry.com. It's free but the square designer will only give you the pattern if you agree to send a completed square to her. She combines squares from everyone and creates blankets for charity.

Here is my square. I love it so much I'm going to make a whole afghan out of the same colors. Maybe I'll use it as a raffle gift for the breast cancer fundraiser next year.

Pillowcases are fun and easy...

I've decided that pillow cases are just about the most fun thing to make with all of the beautiful fabric that's available. Sometimes I'm just overwhelmed at all of the beautiful fabric and don't know what to do with it all. The answer...pillowcases.

With 3/4 yard of the pretty stuff, and 1/4 yard of contrasting fabric..you have custom pillowcases. They make great gifts and you can even wrap gifts up in them. I made pillowcases with multiple kinds of breast cancer fabric for my 3-Day team last year and everyone loved them.

This is my latest one. Wish I would have taken pictures of all the others. I'll be better about that in the future.

Catching up on projects

I've been remiss is posting my finished projects. I recently completed a baby blanket. Didn't use traditional colors (teal, orange, white) because the Mom-to-be is a little more hip that traditional blue and/or pink. I like this pattern because it works up VERY quickly. When I figure out to blog better, I'll post the pattern.


On the crochet front - I've found a new love. FOOD. Ok, those who know me know that real food is an on-going love affair, but crochet food is new and fun. I made doughnuts and cupcakes. Can you believe it? These are just about the most adorable things EVER.

Another Apple Cozy

The great thing about this blog and sharing it with friends is that they see some of my projects and say "hey....I want one of those". And that's just what's happened. A friend saw my previous apple cozy and said "I would love to have 5 of those". Cool. She wants to give them to her son to give them to his teachers. I never know how to price my projects, but I think I'm fair...$2.00 each. I found a better pattern that I like and is more flexible to the apple. I added a stem and leaf to the pattern and I really think it looks adorable.

Iris cards

I found a couple more pictures of Iris Folding cards that I've created. I love making and giving these cards. They look so complicated, but they're really pretty easy....just a little time consuming.

A special card for special friends

I wanted to create a special card for two of my friends. Here is the result...an iris folded coffee cup. I'm actually pretty proud of how great these look.

Weekend projects

After finishing my last afgan project I was looking for a small and quick project. I actually found two that I'd been wanting to try...so I did them both. The first one is silly, but it's an apple cozie. Thought it might be cute to make a cozie for my apples at lunch...to keep them from getting bruised in my lunchbox. Apples don't really need a cozie, but this was a fun little project. I used cotten yarn and if I had to do it over, I'd make it a bit taller and not narrow it so much at the top. The apple was hard to fit into the cozie.



The second project was a pair of fingerless gloves. I like them and they were very easy to accomplish, but they were a bit too loose at the hands. If I make these again (maybe next winter)I'll do the wrist with the same size hook as called for in the pattern, but change to a hook 3 sizes smaller for the hand.

Granny Square Blanket

I realize that granny squares are no big feat of amazement when it comes to crochet, but this granny square blanket is my own design. I used small squares and large squares to make the blanket and put the squares together with a new kind of joining method. The joining looks like an extension of the squares. It was pretty easy and I can post the instructions later. The colors are white, pink and brown and I used a satin kind of yarn. Oddly enought, this is probably one of the first blankets I've ever made for myself.

Iris folding and yo yo adventures

I have a couple of new projects to post. Both of these were for my very dear friend Ericka's birthday. She knew she'd be getting the necklace but had no idea how "substantial" it would be. Needless to say, both the card and the necklace are one of kind....just like Ericka. I honestly feel so selfish when I give a handmade gift. I get such a sense of accomplishment and pride at the reaction. Ericka was thrilled with the card and even more amazed with the necklace. Yeah!!

Amazing bouquet - I WANT IT

I saw this at an event that I went to last weekend. The place was called The Vibrant Table, they're a catering company in Portland. Apparently, they're floral designer make this for the bridal show a couple of months ago. She will rent it out, but my goal is to either buy it from her, pay her to make me one of my own, or figure out how she did it and make my own. I'm a little obsessed about this.

The whole bouquet is made of broaches and pins. It's not real flowers. I've never seem anything so beautiful in my life.

* Still having trouble with loading pictures. Will try again tonight.

Cake Balls

These little balls of delight are going to be a bigger hit than cupcakes. I've been reading about them and have had friends Facebooking about them. Apparently, even Neiman Marcus sells them for $1.00 per ball.

I have a bake sale coming up at work (to raise funds for Haiti) and decided to jump into the cake ball world. There is lots of tips and tricks out there to read, so I waded through them all and gave it my best attempt.

I really wanted to do a red velvet cake w/ cream cheese frosting and vanilla chocolate. But, wouldn't you know it, the store was out of red velvet cake. I opted for German Chocolate cake, the pecan/coconut frosting for the german chocolate cake, and light chocolate candy melts, then sprinkled the tops with coconut. YUMMMMM. Mark declared that he could easily sit down and eat a dozen of them.

My second batch was a cherry chip cake mix,vanilla frosting, and white chocolate candy melts w/ red sugar sprinkles on top. A little sweeter than the last batch but equally as amazing!

So - how do you make them? Honestly, it couldn't be any easier and the cake/frosting/chocolate combinations are endless!

1. Store bought cake mix
2. Store bought container of ready made frosting
3. Chocolate (to melt and coat the cake balls). I used the candy melts from the craft store.
4. Something to sprinkle on top (optional)

Bake the cake as directed on the box. I used a 9x13 glass pan. When the cake is done, let it cool for about 30 minutes. Break the cake up with your hands into a large bowl. After it's down to big chuncks I used my hand mixer to break it down event more...like cake crumbs. Sometimes the pan sides of the cake are harder to break down, make sure to use the handmixer on those parts especially.

Add 1/2 to 3/4 (or more depending on the texture) of the frosting and mix it w/ the cake. You don't want them too dry or too wet. Maybe the consistency of a the crumble part of a pie topping.

Cover the bowl w/ foil and put it in the freezer for about an hour. After the hour, take them out and use a melon baller (for small cake balls) or a cookie scoop. I happened to have bought a great new cookie scoop at Bed, Bath, & Beyond that worked GREAT. Scoop up the cake/frosting mix into balls. Round them off a bit if you'd like, but have a little bit of flat bottom works well too. Once you've used all of the cake mix/frosting mixture, cover them again with foil and put them back into the freezer. They're almost impossible to dip into the chocolate unless they're frozen.

You can freeze them for two hours, or overnight. I froze them overnight and they were just fine. Take your candy melts (or any other kind of candy chocolate - maybe even regular chocolate chips) and melt them in a double boiler. You can use a microwave to melt the chocolate, but using a double boiler helps to eliminate the back and forth to the microwave.

Here's the only tricky part. I broke down and bought the cheap plastic "candy fork" set from the craft store to help with the dipping. One of the tools looks like a long handled plastic for with only the two outside prongs. The other tool is long handled and looks like it has an O or a cirle on the bottom. I've read that you can break the two tines off of a plastic spoon and use the egg dipper from an easter egg kit, but I figured if I was going to be doing a bunch of these, I might as well spring for the $3.99 to get the right tools.

Once the chocolate is melted you just drop a cake ball into the chocolate. Roll it around to get it covered, then (shake off any extra if you can) and put it on wax paper. If you're going to add a sprink of any kind, NOW is the time to do that. They dry very quickly. Move on to the next ball....do the same...continue. It takes a few to get the hang of coating them properly, but you're family will gladly eat the "not so pretty" ones. Mine did.

If the cake balls start to crumble or fall apart while you're dipping them, put them back into the freezer. I only brought out about 10 at a time and left the rest of them in the freezer while I worked. Each batch made about 45-50 cake balls.

After you've made them, they will store, covered, in a cool dry place for up to a week. DON'T put them in the fridge - the chocolate will "sweat" and you'll have soggy balls. Yeah...I said it...soggy balls. LOL

You can also store the balls (no yet covered w/ chocolate)in the freezer for quite a while.

p.s. Having trouble posting the pictures - will do that later.

My first yo-yo's

I wimped out and bought my yo-yo's pre-made from someone on Ebay. But for $15.00 I got 110 yo-yo's of all different colors and styles. They're awesome. I put them in a variety of different groupings based on colors and came up with this one as my first project.



The best part was my friends reaction. She LOVED it!!! She took off the necklace that she wore into the office today and replaced it with the new yo-yo necklace. Then she bounced off to show everyone her new necklace. Yeah....I guess it was a hit.

I can hardly wait to make more.

Chemo hats for a friend.

One of my best friends told me that her Mom has Stage 4 lung cancer. She's going in for her first chemo treatment today and with the cocktail they're going to give her, she'll probably lose all of her hair immedietly.

Well...I may not be a doctor and I can't be there to hold her hand, but I can do what I can do best. I can create something that might bring a smile to her face.

I researched chemo caps and what women have said works best. Hats with very soft yarn, no seams, and no wool. I actually went to a "real" yarn store and bought alpaca yarn. It's a beatiful shade of terra cotta and I paired it with a Silky yarn of pale yellow. Then I bought more of the silky yarn in a couple of other colors. All together I made 4 hats this weekend. I found a great pattern on Ravely.com and found it to be very easy and versitle.

My friend loved the hats and couldn't believe that I didn't sell them. Well...we'll see.

YoYo's - on the horizon

Here is the next project I'd like to take on. I think these are beautiful and I'd love to make them sometime soon. However, right now I'm in the middle of another crochet blanket. Maybe when I'm done with the blanket I'll move on to this.

Baby iris card

I made another iris folding card. This one is for a baby shower - she knows she's having a boy.

In preparing for the Grandma Shower for my friend I started to think that maybe I needed to make a baby blanket for her. But the shower was only two weeks away and the last blanket I made (see previous pic) took me almost 6 months. I knew I had to do a quick blanket so I started piling through the old pattern books. I found a blanket that was pretty and looked quick. It's made with a P sized hook and double yarn. I'm almost embarrased to say that the blanket only took about 3 days to make...but it's beautiful.

I was also wanted to frame the iris card folded invitation that I made for my friend. The invitations took a long time to make but they turned out adorable. I framed one for my friend to add to the the baby's room.

Breast Cancer awareness necklace

* originally posted 1/5/10 on another blog

Sometimes you just never know when you’re going to find something in common with a stranger.
I went to Costco to get a new pair of glasses and started chatting with the optician. Found out we have some cool things in common (friend, vacation spots, etc.) We also have a desire to find a cure for breast cancer.

I told her that Mark and I participate in the Breast Cancer 3-Day in San Diego and mentioned some of our fundraising efforts. One of those fundraising ideas, from a coule of years ago, are breast cancer awareness necklaces that I make. Each bead on the necklace represents the size lump that might be found if you are… or are not…doing monthly self exams and getting regular mammograms.




I’m proud to be a part of such an amazing event. If you’d like more information go to http://www.thebreastcancer3day.org/ Or, if anyone EVER happens to read this blog and you’d like a necklace, send me an email and I’l be mor than happy to send you one. I sell them for $5.00 (while supplies last). carrielaine@rocketmail.com

* orignially posted 1/5/10 on another blog

Another thing I started this year (2009) was doing some kitchen gifts. I got an amazing recipe for spaghetti sauce from a freind. After eating about half dozen of her jars of sauce I thought it best that I just ask for the recipe and attempt to make my own.
I planted tomatoes last summer and none of them ripened. Oh well, better luck next year. Since I didn’t have my own to work with I bought the 10 lbs of roma tomatoes and set out making the worlds best spaghetti sauce. YUM! it turned out amazing and I’ve been giving it as gifts this holiday season.

I also found a recipe for jalapeno jelly. I remember in high school my step Mom used to have this on hand and it was pretty darn good. I jumped into making this for gifts too and low and behold…it turned out great! I’ve now had to make two batches because it was so well received that I gave away my whole first batch.

The final holiday kitchen gift was something that I grew up calling “Smuckers Mustard”. Long story behind the name, but it’s homemade mustard from a woman who used to live in Hood River. My step-Mom had the recipe and sent it to me. It’s better than I remember and now Mark may never buy store bought mustard again.

Baby Blanket - crochet

* orignially posted 1/2/1o on another blog

Here is the baby blanket I started in late July and finally finished late last night.

* originally posted 1/3/10 on another blog

Some days I hate my computer and others days I feel like a genius. Today is a smart day!
1. I figured out how to upload a youtube video. I've done it before, but this time there were a couple more hurdles. Here is the general process. Open windows movie maker and add your still pictures to a collection folder. Drag the selected pictures to the storyboard below. You can add subtitles to the pictures or add new pages with titles on them. All of this has been easy so far. Then it comes to adding video...also not too hard. Find your video clip in your "my video" folder and drag and drop. The hard part is the music. Apparently all iPod songs (all songs in general) are now mp4 formats. WMM only accepts mp3. DARN. I went out and found (for $35) a converter program called TuneClone www.tuneclone.com Works pretty cool. Create a new play list on itunes of the music you want to convert, burn the play list to the tune clone CD, and the program converts it to an mp3 on the cd and you can upload it to your wmm video. Sounds complicated, but if I can figure it out...anyone can. :-)
So, my newest youtube can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1NLaBpHQi8 I'm very proud of it.
Computer success #2 today. Skype! I got a small computer camera for my Mom and I so we can Skype. She's never heard of Skype and to be honest, I didn't have any experience either. My Aunt wanted to get involved too because her laptop has a built in camera. So...Mom and I went on the adventure together and now we're Skyping...and so is Dana. I called her and got her all signed up too. We're so 2010!

Hello 2010

* originally posted 1/1/10 from another blog site

I'm new to blogging so bear with me. I've seen other blogs that contain many crafty ideas and projects and finally decided to create one for myself. I'd like to post completed (and in progress) craft projects as well as just other stuff that I might consider doing in the future. This just might be a master "to do" list or a completed project file.
I finished a crochet baby blanket today that I started 6 months ago. Tomorrow I'll figure out how to upload the picture.