A Special Surprise

I've meet a lot of wonderful people online over the past 3 1/2 years of business. I think along the way I wouldn't have made it with out the kindness and encouragement from may of them. I've not had the privilege of meeting many personally but I hope to someday. This summer has been hard with several deaths in the family, the big move and just other struggles.  It's God, the prayers and thoughtfulness of others that have got me through.

One of my online buddies is Martha. She emails me often just to say hi, check on family and life in general. She's prayed a lot for me over the past year and I've felt it. She can always make me smile and always has encouraging words to say at just the right time. She is also one of my wonderful pattern testers.

Martha found me through her love of crochet on Etsy if I remember correctly. I'm sure you might even know Martha because she has a lot of fun with my cape sets and you all often ask if I have patterns from ones she's made in her Etsy shop - Just For Embroidery

(We're working on some of those for you some day :) - so many ideas so little time!)

She also sells some great embroidery designs! Check them out! 

She said she had a surprise for me in the works and I was just giddy because I love surprises but I hadn't a clue. I got a box on the porch and it was full of several things for me and the kiddos!

She one day sent me a message with a few vague questions. I sent her my logo along with answers to those questions so here is what came about :) 

She ordered these awesome bags from her work! They are big, roomy and made well!
She then embroidered them.

This 1st one is my logo! It's perfect and this will be my new yarn bag! If you see this bag in public
It's me! LOL!

It's a one of a kind and I loooove it! 

Look how awesome the detail is! 

My son's favorite color is Red and favorite superhero is Batman! 

He's going to love this little surprise after he gets home from his 1st week of kindergarten. 

Calleigh loves purple and my little pony's Pinky Pie! 

She already has her bag packed with favorites to spend the night at her Gee-Gee's (grandma) 

Martha also had these made for me. 

The Clay hook says footprints. It's from a poem Footprints in the Sand. It's a great poem! 

The little foot marker is awesome and I'll giggle a little every time I use it. 

It will always have special meaning to me. 

Thank you for brightening my day Martha!  

You will always have a special place in my heart! 

Bah-Na-Na Giveaway Winners

Buh- Na-Na Boys Cape Set! Do you have your copy yet? 

Did you win!!! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Winners will need to msg me. You can email me, contact me via the contact tab or msg me on Facebook. Winners have 24 hrs to claim their pattern or a new winner will be chosen.

Don't forget you can still enter these other giveaways!! 

*Just Be Happy Patterns is hosting a large pattern giveaway! You can win one pattern from us. If you already have the Fox Cape Set pattern no worries it can be another of choice! 

You can enter the giveaway directly on her blog!! 

* Another giveaway is from Debbi Dearests 10,000 fan celebration Facebook page. 

*Another awesome giveaway is from Etsy. This is only for USA peeps though. 

You could win a $250 gift card to Etsy. Enter Here.

*The last Giveaway isn't for crochet it's for my new obsession of Julep polish. You can read about Julep in a previous blog post here. 

Enter Julep Maven's End of the Rainbow giveaway to win a Julep-style pot of gold! (1 winner per day)

18 nail polishes!!  

Julep Giveaway

Congrats to the winners &  Enjoy!

Birthday Sale, New Release and Giveaways!

Tomorrow is My Birthday! Let's Celebrate with a pattern sale! 

Today and tomorrow only, you can enjoy 31% off your pattern purchase in my 

Raverly Store! 

Code : HAPPY31BIRTHDAY

Today We'll also be releasing Buh-Na-Na Boys Cape Set! Isn't it cute! I know your going to love it because you've been all a buzz about it on my Facebook page already!! Since we are having a sale it will be regular price and you can use the birthday discount in Raverly. 

Now on the all the fabulous giveaways! 

Want to win the new Bah-Na-Na Boys Set! 

Enter here! For every 300 entries I'll giveaway this pattern and another pattern of choice! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This will end Aug 14th at Midnight Central! 

There are also lots of giveaways going on so I thought I'd share those so you could have a chance to win! 

*Just Be Happy Patterns is hosting a large pattern giveaway! You can win one pattern from us. If you already have the Fox Cape Set pattern no worries it can be another of choice! 

You can enter the giveaway directly on her blog!! 

* Another giveaway is from Debbi Dearests 10,000 fan celebration but it doesn't start till tomorrow. So mark your calendars and come peek at the prizes so far, on her Facebook page. 

*Another awesome giveaway is from Etsy. This is only for USA peeps though. 

You could win a $250 gift card to Etsy. Enter Here.

*The last Giveaway isn't for crochet it's for my new obsession of Julep polish. You can read about Julep in a previous blog post here. 

Enter Julep Maven's End of the Rainbow giveaway to win a Julep-style pot of gold! (1 winner per day)

18 nail polishes!!  

Julep Giveaway

Whew! That is all! Enjoy!

Knit in Weekend and Yarn

What a fabulous fun weekend! On Saturday I got to enjoy a girls night out at a knit in. Our local yarn shop Gourmet Yarn Company hosts a knit in every month on the 2nd Saturday of the Month. This was only my 2nd time but it's was loads of fun! There's food, friends, and well lots of yummy yarn!

I met up with my local crochet buddies because well I don't knit much but crocheters are always welcome at the knit in. Here are a few fun pics.

Left to right: Me, Nicole of Boomer Beanies, and Rachel of Silly Stitches. 

Can you see what I'm making? 

I always have trouble deciding what project to take because we end up chatting and I lose track of what I'm making LOL! So I tried two different project and ended up untangling a skien of yarn then proceeding to make a Turtle prop since I can make those in my sleep now! 

We found this silly sign the reads "if I crochet fast, does it count as exercise? " 

We think is surly does count!! Oh and look a Playin' Hooky Sighting! (Nicole's t-shrit)

We had a ton of fun crocheting, knitting, showing off projects and of course shopping for yarn. Although I declined to purchase any this time, I enjoyed feeling, squishing and project thinking all the divine yarn! 

So after being inspired to knit I came home that very night and started browsing. How do you decide where to start? I went to my yarn stash and my skein of Lion Brand Amazing yarn grabbed my attention. It's gorgeous. I went to Lion Brand's website and browsed by yarn to see if they had a easy knit pattern that would inspire me that only needed one skien because that is all I had. 

I came across this: 

I made two already but I'm new enough to knitting I didn't even realize I did the 1st four rows wrong, like totally wrong until I was done so I took it apart and started over or I would have both done already. 

Here is one completed! The only thing wrong with this one is the edge. I need to remember not to bind off to tightly. That is an easy fix but I'd already weaved in the ends. LOL! 

These may seem silly but I hate socks! I would go barefoot all the time if I could but I think these would be great warmers in the cooler months plus I can still paint my piggies with my new obsession of Julep Polish !!! 

The rest of my weekend I enjoyed knitting and then I remembered I had Joann's birthday coupons so I thought I need more yarn! I got all this for $40.00 well technically $15 because my mom sent me $25 in yarn money for my birthday! 

4 balls of Bernat Mosaic

6 Balls of Sugar and Cream cotton

2 Balls of Joanna's exclusive Heartland by Lion Brand

3 balls of Vanna's Chioce

2 Balls of Natures Organic Cotton

I have ideas for some of these but not all. I think the Organic cotton will become pumpkin hats for fall. 

The sugar and cream is to make more Perfect Bags! I thinking one in OKC Thunder Colors and the other in the Jade/Purple my two favorite colors at the moment. 

The Heartland is for me to make some hats for winter but not sure what yet. I'm thinking of a slouchy/brimmed/textured something to design.

I hope you had a great weekend! This is my last week before school starts. My youngest starts kindergarden and it will begin a whole new adventure for our family! Have a fabulous week! 

Thursday Yarn Shopping

I usually go yarn shopping every Thursday! My mother in law watches the kids and I can shop in peace. Some days I just feel the yarn and squeeze it hope that a project jumps out at me. I haven't done that in a while but it did today! So I thought I'd share what I got to day!

I love Vanna's Choice yarns and how they all work together no matter the color combos but unfortunately Hobby Lobby is weeding out most of it's non Hobby Lobby brand yarns. The selection is small but they were clearancing a bunch out so I grabbed a few skeins of the colors I know I'll need eventually.

I  picked up some Grey worsted in two colors since I used a bunch up in my new shark design.

The fun furs and cream color is for a fun custom order I'm going to work up tomorrow! I can't wait to share it with you!

I was excited to see Hobby Lobby added Vanna's Choice Twists. I fell in love with them when they first released but that was while visiting my mom in Colorado and my stores weren't stocking it. 

I loooove the purple with blue/green twists. They are now carrying about 4-5 colorways of it. 

I use it to make my favorite slouchy hat (free pattern) 

Then on a whim I picked up the bon bons. I laughed when I 1st saw these a while ago. Why would you buy this? I have tons of scraps but......today I thought of an idea for them and I'm hoping to get to work on the pattern very soon! I love the bright colors in this set. I've been obsessed with Jade lately and I tend to lean towards jewel tones. You'll just have to wait and see! 

On another note! I've been wanting to share my desk in my crafty loft space. We've had it a while but finally got it upstairs. It was a little heave so my hubby got some help since I'm a weakling!

We purchase this from a friend of my hubby's that was moving. She had hand painted the entire thing. 

Isn't the top pretty! I said to my hubby "that reminds me of ikea" and he said that was her inspiration! 

Funny because most my yarn storage is Ikea and so is the rug and lamp in my picture!

Any hoo! That is my Thursday fun! I hope to share more in the coming Thursdays! 

Julep Maven - Birthday Gift!

Warning....This post has nothing to do with crochet. I just wanted to take the opportunity to share a new product I love. I bought myself a non-crochet birthday present. My birthday is next week (Aug 14th) just incase you were wondering :)

My friend Rachel of Silly Stitches posted about her nail polish fetish and she had lots of pretty bottles! I saw a brand I didn't recognize called Julep! She had a lot of it LOL! So naturally I asked her about it. I found them on Facebook and saw lots of wonderful reviews and then I got sucked into all the pretties on their website!

They have this fun Nail Polish subscription and Rachel so kindly offered me lots of coupon codes she had! So I got a $19.99 intro maven box for free just had to pay shipping! That gorgeous box came into today! It had two full size nail polish colors that I picked from my maven profile (Classic with a Twist), A full size bottle of foot cream, and surprise a sample of hand scrub.

Subscriptions scare me but you can choose to skip months at anytime with out penalty and you can cancel at anytime. I've hear customer support is hard to get to but once you do they take super awesome care of you! I've ready a lot of great things about it! If you do choose to skip months you don't get to see what's in the secret store! I don't have the privilege of looking at it yet but I've read about mystery boxes with great things in them! I can't wait till I have access! Although if I end up with more polish than yarn I might get into trouble. Haha!

Why become a maven

1. You get three full sized products
2. A little surprise in every box
3. save 20% on everything in there online store
4. plus free shipping on every order

I was excited about my box and decided to order a few add ons and I also placed a separate order for a color I wanted just because well it was a birthday present and they sent me another coupon. LOL!

The group on the right is from my Maven intro box. The group on the left are my add ons.

I fell in love with America! It is glitter polish, red, blue, silver and little starts. I can't wait to get this polish on my nail! Now where is my remover! 

I already have a bunch more stuff on my wish list and I'm excited about my next Maven box! 

 I know someone will ask but Nail polish featured in this post are as follows 

1. Alaina

2. America

3. Dianna

4. Helen

5. Claudette

Okay so do you want to try it and get a free into box too. All you have to do is pay shipping and I think that was $3.99. Great price for all you get! 

Click to the site below and use the coupon code: 

JULEP 

FREEBOX or FBFREE

Tell me what you think!