beginagain

In my lack of blogging, I have neglected to inform you...


I got a haircut.

And then I got it shorter still and had a fun night out with some girlfriends for Valentine's Day.


(and in case you were wondering, this is why I did it)
(I ruined it with a flatiron. The curls were dead and could not be revived.)

Also, I just visited my sister at her college on Saturday. I am happy.

The End.
<3

hello, teeth!

So, Monday I got a call from Cathy at the Office.
She's my favorite Cathy.
Also my favorite person at the office.

And you know what she said?
"Hello dear, would you like to get your braces off tomorrow?"
And I said "ohmygoshareyouseriousCathyIloveyou!"
Or something like that.

Really, I wasn't *supposed* to get them off yet, even though my teeth were ready.
Cathy pulled some strings. She rocks like that.
And so, I went in on Tuesday morning to get my braces off!
But first - a picture with the awesomest orthodontist on the planet.

Dr. Wright is the bestest EVAR. Seriously. Not that I've met any other orthodontists, but if you've met Dr. Wright there's no point meeting any other orthodontists. ha. Nobody could top Dr. Wright. He's just that cool.

Out of the 2 years and 10 months of having braces, getting them off was the worst part. Well, actually that would be right after I got them off. Having your sensitive teeth blasted with icy water and freezing air is pretty uncomfortable.

However, it wasn't too terrible, and it's all over now! And now I have teeth.
... Well I had them before, but now you can see them. In all their toothy glory. It's a little odd, actually. But I'm getting used to it! I was worried I would hate how they look, and I don't, so I'm happy. :)

See how happy I look? Also, I'm wearing TWO bunny necklaces. That was a contributing factor.
And since I had the camera out, and my snake was sitting right there, I ended up with this picture, too.
He doesn't have a name yet.

I used to have braces. Now I don't. That's how the story goes.

Showing Off

Last weekend I made a sweater vest thingy!

I kind of don't know what to call it.


I also don't know what to do with it.
Keep it? List it?

I have more of that yarn, and I don't know what to do with it, either.
Make another sweater? A different sweater?

So many decisions.

I think my photographer/little sister did a fantastic job on these pictures.

But not that last one, cuz I took it. =)

So, what do you think?

Show and Tell

Last week was a very creative week for me. I shall tell you about it. =)

I had a little home decorating project to do that turned out really well.
Turns out, doing things make my life seem a little more meaningful. Who'da thunk!

Last week our corner shelves were put in their homes in the dining room, looking rather bare. Guess whose job it was to spiffy them up? Mine! Yay!

I went on a scavenger hunt around the house, found some interesting stuff, and put it all on the dining room table. We were lacking some focal centerpieces, so I dragged out the percolator and espresso machine.

Then I was at a loss as to how I should arrange it all.

Somehow, it ended up looking really nice. The percolator and espresso maker constantly being before my eyes don't help with the frequent coffee cravings, but they sure are pretty.

Most of the week's creativity was spent in the kitchen. I cooked a lot of stuff. I decided that we needed to have some new, different stuff for dinner, so I went to the library, picked out two cookbooks that had "normal" sorts of food in them, and went from there. (Turns out, most cookbooks are full of recipes that require fancy things we don't keep around here.)

Besides for 3 recipes I (sort of) made from the book, I also decided I wanted to replicate the chile rellenos I had at the Mexican restaurant. Success! No recipe, but it tasted exactly how I wanted it to. Probably not authentic, but whatever. It was delicious.

Also, I kept thinking about all the homemade poptarts I'd seen online. I was itching to try it, and it did so warily. My expectations were very low. I expected nothing more than edible-ness, and that only because the ingredients were edible. I certainly did not expect triumphant success. That's what I got, though!

Even though I used different flour than what the recipe called for, I had perfect, flaky pie crust. (Which you can't tell from the pictures.) You would not believe how excited I was. I ran around jumping and squeaking "IT'S FLAKY! LOOK! It's REAL pie crust!!!" (which you also can't tell from the pictures.)

Anyways, it was a good week. I cooked two Asian-y meals yesterday, complete with oyster sauce I bought at the market. Yum!

While I'm showing off, here's a picture of our mantle that I mentioned somewhat recently.

You kind of can't see all the awesome grasses and stuff on the left, but they're there.
So, that's all for now. Now I need to get off the computer and find some creative things to do today. I think I'll crochet something. I haven't done much of that in a while.

Have a lovely week, people!

Caitlin

Of Owls and Spectres

Hello.
My bird just flew past and distracted me. Vincent's gotten pretty good at flying through the house. Sometimes he lands on the edge of the fishbowl, which I find comical.

Yeah, that's not how the beginning of this post was supposed to go. Then again, I didn't have a beginning planned or anything, so it's okay.

Thursday night was movie night at the Looney's house. Yeah! After the first movie, we sat around in the kitchen for a few minutes, just taking a break before we put on the second one. Or so I thought. All of a sudden, we're all singing "Happy Birthday." I like singing the birthday song, so I'm just singing along, wondering whose birthday it is now (there have been lots of August birthdays), when Alicia starts walking toward me with a glowing little birthday cake. I was like "Oh RIGHT! It's MY birthday! sort of..."

They gave me a little surprise party!!
It was sooo awesome. Katie stuck a tiara on my head, and I blew out my candles and just sat there and grinned like a little kid while presents started appearing out of nowhere. Among which gifts were these lovely owl bookends from Sheesh

.

That's not a very good picture of them.
I'll just have to take pictures of all my presents and make a whole post about them. ;-)

In other news (I love that lead-in, but I try not to overuse it, really I do), one of the resident kitties had a litter of kittens. A white/calico kitty, a grey kitty, and a white and grey kitty. I saw the white and grey one and declared that I was keeping him.

His name shall be Specter.
Or Spectre.
I haven't decided yet. What do you think?

See how cuuuute he is!!?

So, if you want a kitten, let me know. His very cute sisters will eventually need to be relocated.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make hot dogs for supper.

Driver's Ivy Scally Flat?

Hello! This is a crochet story.
If that doesn't interest you, you may leave now.
(but it does have cool pictures. ;-) I promise.)



So, apparently there are a lot of names for this particular style of hat. I've heard driver's cap, golf cap, ivy cap, scally cap, flat cap... If there are any technical differences between the hat structures, I stand unawares.

At any rate, I've always wanted to make one. I browsed for a pattern a couple times, but didn't really find anything, so I moved on. Then I watched this music video the other day. (Need To Breathe - Washed by the Water) I just kept going "duuude! Their hats are awesome!" through the whole video. Then I decided that I Really Must Make One.

So you know what I did? I did what any sane person would do.
I whipped out Laura's trusty laptop (oh, wait. I already had it cuz I was watching the music video. nevermind.), and started looking for crochet patterns. All of the ones that claimed to be what I wanted were floppy, beret-like things with brims poking off one edge. Of course, that's fine and good if it's what you're going for, but that's not what I was going for. For hours upon end, I searched for a pattern. For hours upon end, I was met with nothing.

Being the brilliant person that I am, I exclaimed, "if I could just find a template of the shapes I'd need - like from a sewing pattern or something - then I could figure out how to crochet them and put them together!" So, I began a search for a template. Or any sort of sewing pattern for a flat cap. Yeah, um... all I got was the medieval muffin sort of flat cap. And one person on Etsy had a pattern. Good for her. But I really didn't want to pay that much for a sewing pattern when what I wanted was a crochet pattern anyways. (It just occurred to me that I'm really dragging this story out.)

When I went shopping and found ZERO cap patterns at the store, I gave up. Looking for patterns, that is. I went home determined to create one without a pattern. Hey, that's how I make almost everything else, right?

Sooo, I pulled out a nice little conductor-y type hat of my own to help me estimate the size my cap would need to be. Then I drew a nice little shape for how the top of my cap should look. Then I found a nice little skein of wine colored wool and got to work. The sides and the brim were a lot harder to figure out than the top. The brim was just a big ol' pain, actually.

Two Star Trek episodes, one Janette Oke movie, and at least 6+ hours of non-television aided work later, I have my SUPER AMAZING CAP!!



I say, folks, I am so insanely proud of this thing.
And that stupid brim gave me fits.
It's a little big on me, and the pattern definitely needs tweaking (that is, if I can reinterpret the chicken-scratch I furiously scribbled as I worked), but I'm very happy with it. It looks just like it was supposed to!!

P.S. Isn't my brother Nick a fantastic model?

P.P.S. I know you were all just dying to find out what the new thing in my Etsy shop was. (that was said with just a smidgen of sarcasm, in case you mis-read it silently to yourself.)








Beautiful red fingerless gloves. Now you know.

Favoritism

Hello! Happy Saturday.
I would like to take this moment to share with you some of my favorite items on Etsy.
Seeing as how I felt like blogging, and haven't done this in a while, it seemed like a good idea.
So, I opened up my page of favorite items, and picked a few to show you today.

Firstly, here are these great little heart earrings by Novadesigns. I am not going to hyperlink any of the text, because all of the pictures are hyperlinked and will take you directly to that item in the seller's shop.

Here's the lovely "Candy Girl" hat from BKMHattitude. (what a great name...) It's not there anymore. It sold. But I love it so much, I had to show ya.

These twig pins by4TheSparrowsNest are so lovely.
I want them.
They would make me feel like a woodland fairy or something... lol

And I'm not a huge fan of sparkly necklaces, but I think I'm in love with this one.
And I just gott a shirt it would go so well with...
from SoVeryCharming.

And I HAD to include something from PamperingBeki! Her shop is fantastically vibrant and fun.
So is she. I follow her blog religiously. She said she wants to adopt me. What's not to love?

I added this to my favorites because it makes me think of certain friends of mine.
The lovely artist over at sticknymph originally designed it as a wedding announcement for her friends.


And if you've known me very long, you probably know I'm a sucker for stuffed animals
- mostly bears.
I have 13 of them.
There are so many cute animas at ptitebaloue!
This little polar bear is all natural and all handmade.
And his name is Leo. How impressive.

And, one of my new favorites are these lovely little silk poppies. They're cropping up everywhere on Etsy. These pins brought to you courtsey of foundling.


And so, now I think it is time for me to be off. Me creative genius eludes me. I'm still trying to find it. I have made a few things, but they didn't feel creatively brilliant like they should have.
I don't even know what I'm saying.
lol

Happy Weekend, everybody!
CaitiJo

Another Shoe Post

Hello!

I do not believe I have ever shown off my amazing, custom hand painted shoes from Alexandra.
Allow me-

Are those unique or what? I got her to fashion the little paintings after some of Helen's designs.

(Because I own the little bird earrings and a tiny lovebirds ring from her. And I LOVE them. )

In other news, I have been on the ball with slipper-making this week.

That one blue background picture with all those green ones is feeling a little lonely. However, it's a better photo all around, so it doesn't mind too much.

Now, I would like to share with you a photo that absolutely made my night when I saw it.

From a super-awesome buyer:

"Your description of the slippers made me think I would love to illustrate that."

Is that just the coolest thing or what?! It makes me soooo happy!
I've gotten a couple of appreciation photos before. They all rock, but this one SO takes the cake!

So, I think I'm off to read a little, and maybe make more brown Elfin Slippers.

Happy Wednesday!

Caitlin

This is Gimli

And me.
We wish you a happy week.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel!

Ok, so I'm nowhere near Rapunzel, but my hair is growing!
And I'm so happy about it, that I decided to do a blog post and show off.

This is me in July, when my hair was red and the shortest it's ever been.
I loved it like that.
So fun!

This is me today, and my hair is blonde. And I need to color it again.
It's growiiiiing!!!
My roots are getting very long, and I want my hairs back to their natural color.
I look like a hobbit!
:D
And I'm wearing my favorite little bird earrings in both shots.


You could have seen these pics in vibrantly edited color, but alas!
Picnik would not behave.

On a totally random note, I'm eating a PB&J and some yogurt. Yum.
Grape jam! My favorite!
What's your favorite?

Last Weekend

Time for
...**drumroll**...
A picture post!

Obviously we didn't go to Six Flags on Saturday because of the weather.
They didn't open anways. :)
I had a wonderful productive weekend at home, making 9 hats and 2 pairs of slippers.
Behold! The fruits of my labor!

These are way cooler in person. Nine excellent, buttery soft cotton beanies.
Well, 8 beanies and one hat that was supposed to be a beanie, and turned out floppy instead.
Perfect for the upcoming spring and summer weather.
You know how I mentioned wanting to make a hat to wear to six flags? This is it.
Now I have to pick which one I want to keep.

I think I want the super amazing most colorful stripey one.
(the fifth picture)
:D

These aren't the slippers I made, but I've had them forever and finally got them listed:

Elfin Slippers!

I'm going to sit down with them tonight and give them a good lookin' over so I can figure out how I did that. Somebody in France wants a black pair, and I don't remember how I made them.

Now I thought perhaps you might like to see some of the pictures from Sunday.

Pine Needles

Dogwood Tree

Archway

Hungry Birds

Frozen Daffodil

Lovely, eh?
If you'd like to see the rest, try this link.

So! I think that's enough pictures for now.
Goodbye!