Card Making Fun

I know, I know, this poor blog has been neglected as all of my blogs have been. I love blogging, but I just don't have the time to keep up with all of the blogs I try to write. Since last writing in here I have taken up many different crafting projects. I have recently gotten into decorating cards. My favorite thing about making cards is you can make one and then model a bunch around the same idea. Plus, it takes less time than scrapbooking.

I'll try to keep updating my blog with more craft projects, but for now I'll post some of the latest cards I have made:

These two Valentine's Day cards were made for my prayer group. We all made Valentine's Day cards for each other.


This Valentine's Day card is my favorite. I made a bunch like it this. You can see the other ones at my FLICKR ACCOUNT. Each one was made by punching out hearts and then adding buttons in the center. I love how the results are clearly Valentine's Day without being too romantic. This worked well as I sent these cards to many of my friends and family members. I would highly recommend sending your friends and family members Valentine's Day cards. It was amazing the responses I got to them. So many people feel alone on Valentine's Day just because they may not be dating someone, but this is a friendly reminder that there is someone out there that cares and loves them. Valentine's Day isn't just about a significant other, it is about telling people you love them and care about them!


I really like making handmade Thank You cards. It is such a personal touch! This Thank You card was inspired by a picture on pinterest.


And finally a card just for fun. It turned out really nice if I do say so myself!

Let me know what you think! :)

Decorating my Otterbox Phone Cover

I got a new phone a few weeks ago. I am really excited about it, but the only problem is it is so new that I could only get the otterbox in black. Now normally I would be okay with this, but one of my good friends that I spend a lot of time with has the exact same phone with the exact same case. It can make life a little bit more confusing by having two phones next to each other. Yes, they are set-up different, but who wants to check every time they grab their phones.

So, me being the crafty person I am started searching for ideas on how to cover my otterbox. I came across this blog post on pinterest that helped me kick start the process. From there the creative juices started flowing. What about polka dots? I love polka dots! :)

Here are all the supplies you need for this project:


First, I taped the whole back of the phone case and then painted the phone case purple as I wanted the sides to be purple.


Next, I taped around the square back and painted just that area yellow. This will soon be the polka dots.


After letting the yellow dry (REALLY let it dry! Otherwise it kind of peels off with the stickies. Plus, you can get rid of some of the tackiness of the adhesive by sticking it to fabric before sticking them to the paint.) stick the adhesive dots to the back.


Paint the whole thing purple again.


I accidentally bought gloss that is also a color, so I finished and then sprayed it a random color. :( It was really sad, but I did fix it and finished it with a gloss to hold it in place.

Here is the result:

Thoughts on Christmas 2011

Hello all!

I have been planning on writing a post about this Christmas for about a month now. However, as you can see my month has gotten away with me and it is almost midnight on Christmas. However, the Christmas season continues into January, so I feel it is fine to still write about Christmas even now.

This year is the first year I am spending Christmas in Pulaski. My new apartment has been decorated for the season since just after Thanksgiving:



It is interesting how Christmas tree decorations tend to give you a glimpse into a persons interests. The tree I have, I received as a Christmas present in high school. You can probably imagine that my Christmas tree is decked with purple garland and all sorts of musical ornaments. I love all the jingle bell music notes and musical themed ornaments that cover my tree.



Christmas in Pulaski was much different than our 'typical' Christmas, but nice nonetheless. We had homemade macaroni and cheese with hot dogs, salad, and broccoli. Much different than our normal fancy Italian dinners we normally make. It was nice to have my parents come to my apartment and go to church here in Pulaski.

On Tuesday, we will head to Illinois to see my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. I always look forward to time I can spend with them and we will be celebrating with my uncle, aunt, and two cousins this year. We rarely find time to celebrate with them during the month of December so this will be a nice change. The only thing missing is seeing my sister, but unfortunately I will have to wait for a while before I see her again.

Merry Christmas!
Brittany

Crocheted Hat Fever

I know I should be working on more 60 Quick Knits for Em and my blog. However, I have suddenly gotten an itch to crochet some hats. Ever since the trip to Stitches Midwest this August I have found my passion for crocheting yet again. I cannot explain it, but suddenly my eyes were opened to all the wonderful patterns you can crochet. Now don't get me wrong I still love knitting, but crocheting was one of my first crafting loves and I am happy to be back to it.



When I went to Stitches I saw this woman, Pam, at the Halos for Hope booth wearing a GORGEOUS hat (pictured above). When I saw it I knew I had to have it. I talked to her about it and she told me it was a crochet pattern that you could find in Annie's Attic - Chemo Caps and Wraps. She did not have any copies at that time, but by the end of the weekend I had purchased a copy that was signed by her! It was very exciting.

My friend Em wanted to crochet the hat as well so I had to try it out a few times to make sure it came out alright. (I tend to teach better when I have completed the project myself, especially because I can kind of freehand different stitches and fix mistakes as I go.) After making one hat, which has received many compliments from both my students and friends.



The pattern is rather simple but works up like a cabled knit pattern. It especially looks beautiful in a variegated yarn. Since I made the first one I made another and am about half way finished with a third hat. Last night I sat down and helped my friend Em through the process of crocheting the hat. She is not particularly comfortable with her crocheting skills, but I helped her successfully crochet the hat in just a few hours. (She only has a little single crocheting for the brim to do.) If she can make it through this pattern so can YOU! The only tricky thing is first learning the DC foundation (from back to front) followed by the Twisted DC Foundation. I looked up a YouTube video to help me get through the stitch a couple times and then it became second nature. Before you know it you have a beautiful hat.



Happy Crocheting!

Crocheted and Knitted Dishcloths

Hello readers!

I know it has been a while since I posted in this blog. In case you do not know already, my friend Em and I are currently writing a blog about knitting all the patterns from 60 Quick Knits. You can read and check out our blog here.

Though I have stayed busy knitting all the beautiful patterns from Cascade Yarns: 60 Quick Knits. I still have taken a few breaks in the last few months to express my creativity in different ways. Some of these include, decorating my music classroom with bulletin boards, scrapbooking, and a few knitting and crocheting projects not from the book. I would like to catch you all up in the next few weeks with my many projects.

Today, I am going to share the dishcloths I made a few months ago. In May, I had a friend from high school get married. For a bridal shower gift, I decided to make something rather practical that I know anyone can use. I decided to knit and crochet several dishcloths.



The ones pictured above are knit out of soft cotton. The colors were so vibrant and my friend, Rachel, said they were so pretty she was almost afraid to wash dishes with them. You can find the pattern for these dishcloths here. The blue dishcloth is the basketweave pattern. The green dishcloth is the bramble pattern, and the pink dishcloth is a creation of my own.



When you take a closer look at the dishcloths you will notice I added the letters different ways. I experimented with chain stitching and back-stitching. Personally, I prefer to just knit the letters in. If I were to redo these that is what I would do.

Along with the knitted dishcloths, I also took the time to make three crocheted dishcloths:






All three of these patterns are free patterns that you can check out too! Pattern #1 - Simple Dishcloth, Pattern #2 - Basketweave Dishcloth, and Pattern #3 - Granny Square Dishcloth. For these I used left over Sugar and Cream yarn.

Altogether, I was VERY happy with the results. I hope you enjoy them too. If you have any questions about the patterns just let me know! :) You can also check out more pictures of this project and others at my Flickr Account.

Happy Knitting and Crocheting,
Brittany

Cascade Yarn and 60 Quick Knits

Well, I have not been working on any projects that are not in the 60 Quick Knits book since Em and I are trying to finish all the projects. As of yesterday we had 17 projects completed. If you would like to see more about how that adventure is going check out our blog 60 Projects from 60 Quick Knits.

Anyways, what I would like to blog about today is how much I am LOVING making all these patterns with Cascade 220 yarns. I had almost finished with project #22 - Cables and Bobbles Cap, when I found that I had run out of yarn.



Normally, I would have been worried as I bought this yarn at a LYS that closed this summer. Luckily I knew the exact color and could buy the yarn online. I went to Yarn Country and ordered LOTS of Cascade yarn to use for more 60 Quick Knits. Below you can see a picture of all the yarn that I received in the mail.



It is so fun to buy yarn online because you get the package in the mail and then get the excitement of opening the box to see what is inside. It can be a little risky because you do not know the exact color, but it is still really fun to receive it in the mail. It is obvious that I received large quantities of yarn, but do not fear I have projects in mind for all of the yarn. You can see what I'm expecting to use the yarn on by looking at my pictures below:

Project #1 - Chain-Link Scarf


Project #10 -Diagonal Stripes Hat


Project #15 - Striped & Bobbled Hat


Project #24 - Mitered Scarf


Project #42 - Ribbed Pillbox


If any of these projects catch your eye keep checking our blog for updates!
Brittany

Taylor's Strawberry Hat

Back in November my sister-in-law asked me to make my niece a new hat. I made her a cute purple ear flap hat last year for her first birthday. My sister-in-law said it was starting to get kind of small and Taylor (my niece) now has a hot pink coat. After rummaging through all my knitting and crocheting books my sister-in-law loved the idea of a cute hot pink strawberry hat. At first we were both thinking having a stem on the top of the hat, but then she mentioned liking the ear flaps to keep Taylor's ears warm. That is when I decided to make the strawberry upside down. That way the bottom of the hat could be the leaves of the strawberry and two rather large leaves could be the ear flaps.

I debated for a few days and drew some sketches and thought about how to do certain things. I finally started crocheting the hat in late December. By January 5 the project was complete.

Please take a look at the pictures and let me know what you think:

Side View


Back View


Front View

Thanks for looking!

60 Quick Knits Duel Blog

Em and I decided that it would be easiest to keep everyone up to date with our New Years Resolution by creating a joint blog. I will still probably write a bit about some of my progress or put links from this blog to that blog to remind you to read my posts. However, it did make a lot of sense to make something that I did not have to constantly update. This way Em can put more information on the projects she completes and I can do the same. If you are interested in learning more about our Adventures, please go to our blog and follow us. Also, if you enjoy the 60 Quick Knits book as much as Em and I do, feel free to join the Ravelry group for 60 Quick Knits. There are all sorts of people that can help with your own projects.

Superbowl Sunday 2011

I have lived in Green Bay the majority of my life. It is a great place to live, but the city's dependance on the Packers can sometimes be extremely annoying. However, these two weeks leading up to the Superbowl remind me why I DO enjoy living in Green Bay. There are parades, there are parties, there are pep rallies. I still remember many parts of the Superbowl XXXI and XXXII. I remember what we ate and different events leading up to the Superbowl. I remember the radio playing about 3 hour or 4 hours straight of Packer music. As a child my sister and I recorded a lot of the music and would play it over and over again cheering on our favorite team. I have now grown older and lost a lot of interest in football (and sports, in general). My love and devotion to music and religion definitely surpass most things in my life. However, you cannot help but catch Packer Fever in a town like Green Bay. My mom has planned all sorts of delicious foods to celebrate the day and spent time debating what to wear to bring the most luck. This year, unlike Superbowl XXXI and XXXII I will not be spending it at home. Instead I will be heading over to a friends house for some knitting. It will be great to spend time with my friends and get some knitting done during the Superbowl. By the end of the game I will hopefully have gotten even closer to completing my wave scarf while watching a Packer win! All I know is if the Packers win I can look forward to a weeks worth of happy faces on many of my students' faces.

Keep watching for updates to the 60 Quick Knits post as Knitterqueen and myself continue to knit like crazy.

Enjoy the Superbowl (or the commercials) and/or Glee afterwards!

Completed 60-Quick Knits

As of February 7, 2011 all updates will be talked about on our specific blog for our 60 Quick Knits projects.
--->Here<---
Thanks for your continued interest.


60 Quick Knits by EMBellished Knits and Britter's Little Critters

This post will be edited over the course of the year to show EMBellished Knits and Britter's Little Critters progress on their New Years Resolution. Next to each one it will say in progress, complete, or waiting. Purple font stands for Britter's Little Critters and green font stands for EMBellished Knits. When the project is completed I will also have a link on the completed so you can see what it looks like.

13/60 Projects - Completed
10/60 Projects - In Progess
37/60 Projects - Waiting to be Started

60-Quick Knits

My good friend Em and I have made a knitting New Years Resolution. That is to knit EVERY pattern in the 60-Quick Knits book by the end of the year. Between the two of us we have already almost completed half the patterns in the book. I can't say why we are so addicted to it, but I think it has a lot to do with the simplicity yet the detail of each pattern. When you look at some of the projects highlighted in this book they seem to be so difficult or intricate, but as soon as you start them you realize the simplicity. They aren't simple to a point where you get bored, but also not so difficult that you get confused and have to take your project apart over and over again. When we do complete all of the projects we will probably make a post with all the pictures, but for now you will have to wait.

Anyways, currently I am working on three different projects from the 60-Quick Knits book. I am working on the #11 Wave Scarf, #17 Plaid Mittens, and the other is the #23 Smocked Fingerless Mittens. I started the Smocked Fingerless Mittens (pattern #23) on Friday after buying a beautiful purple heather cascade 220 from someone on ravelry. As soon as I saw the color I knew they needed to be something beautiful and I had my eye on the Smocked Fingerless Mittens for quite sometime now. Since Friday I have finished the left hand one (other than the buttons) and I have started on the right one. I am really happy with the first one and just had to show them off.


And yes, I am wearing a Green Bay Packer's jersey. I am currently watching the game and hoping that the 14 Packers - 0 Bears will lead to a Packers win!!! Packers in Superbowl 2011? I hope so!

EDIT 1/23/11 - 6:42 PM - THE PACKERS WON WE ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!

Christmas 2010 Presents Post

I made all of the Christmas presents I gave this year. Because of that I decided to make one massive post with all of the Christmas gifts I gave out this year. Below are pictures and descriptions of each project and who it was given to.

Starting with my family, I made my sister a Noro scarf. These scarves are made by many many people and there are a lot of different styles and shapes. I picked a brown Noro that is very neutral colors and then I chose a skein that is full of all of the rainbow colors. The actually knitting is also simple as it is starting with an odd number of stitches, then every row you knit 2 then purl 2 across. Because of the odd number of stitches it creates the nice zigzag look of the scarf. Here a few photos to see what it looks like:

Click the picture for a picture of my sister wearing the scarf

For my brother I knit a hat. I was very inspired by the rather new 60 Quick Knits book. I was so inspired that about 6 of the winter projects I created were from the 60 Quick Knits book. This particular hat is called the Tweed Watch Cap. I chose Cascade 220 yarn in the following colors: #9458 - Bainbrige Island Heather (brown), #2424 - Heather Summer Night (blue), and #2452 - Turtle (green). Here is a picture of my brother wearing his Christmas present as well as a few close-ups of the hat:

Click the picture for a picture of my brother wearing his hat

My sister-in-law was gifted some beautiful mittens. These mittens are the Tweed mittens from the 60 Quick Knits book. The colors I used for her mittens are the following: #2419 - Heather Aster (purplish-pink) and #9921 - Caribbean Blue.


I made my adorable niece a soft sweater for Christmas. I used a pattern from Lion Brand called the Little Princess Cardi. I used Plymouth Yarn Dreambaby DK in a purple, blue, and green. Here is a picture of my niece's sweater.

Click the picture to see my niece wearing her sweater

My mom received a pair of mittens from the 60 Quick Knits called Checkered Mittens. I don't know the exact Cascade 220 colors I used for her mittens as I have no documentation for them at this particular moment. However, I do know I used a light blue for the cuff while I used a dark blue and magenta variegated yarn for the checkers. They were finished already over the summer and my mom finally received them on Christmas Eve. She really liked them and said her hands will probably stay very warm. Here is a picture of them:


My dad was the final family member I made something for. He also had a gift made from the 60 Quick Knits book. His gift was the slip-stitched hat. I made it in a burgundy and gold color. The specific colorways are Cascade 220: #4008 - Heather Ruby and #2415 - Sunflower. Here is a picture of the finished product:


Hope you enjoyed, Comments and Critiques are of course welcome!

First Knitted Sweater = Complete

I know it has been a while since my last update. I have so many projects to share with all of you. For tonight, I'm only going to let you all know that a few days ago I finished my first knitted sweater. My roommate from college, Em, convinced me to make it back in October. I doubted that I would be able to knit it as I have only been knitting a little over a year now. It is amazing that I have now completed it less than a year later. I would post pictures, as I am very proud of the results (even though I am sure I made lots of mistakes), but they must wait. You see, my mom borrowed my camera for her vacation back in May. Her and my dad went on a vacation to Texas, Arkansas, Illinois, and back to Wisconsin while I stayed here student teaching. Anyways, when I finally got my camera back the batteries were completely dead on it :(... so I cannot take pictures currently. Hopefully next week I will fix that and you can all see the finished product.

Edit: 29 Dec 2010 - Below is a picture of the completed project:

Summer is Coming!

It has been a very long time since I last updated this blog. I feel kind of bad about that, but time flies by. It is crazy, the older you get the faster the years go. I'm currently student teaching nearby and I find myself thinking about myself at their ages. There are parts of that time in my life I would love to have back. Being able to just have fun. Sure, you have chores to do around the house and life seems so tough at 10 years old, but you don't have to go look for a job. I miss the capability to think outside of the box completely. As we all get older it is harder and harder to use our imaginations. We are so surrounded by reality and the stresses of bills, how could we ever think of unicorns, magic, and castles. It was in elementary school that I was first inspired to pursue a career in music education. I can only hope to inspire even one of the students I have to see music in a new light...

Anyways to talk about my knitting which I haven't been able to work on much, since I have been teaching. I finished my first pair of socks yesterday. I'm really excited about that and I started working on my sweater once again. Once the summer hits I will hopefully have a lot more updates about my different projects. I can hardly wait to get my hands on another skein of yarn!

Baby Ear Flap Hat

It has been a long time since I last posted. I have worked on a lot of projects and have completed a lot of projects. I'll try to update more this week, but for now I would like to share with all of you the ear flap hat I made for my niece, Taylor. (The picture quality isn't very good, but I'll update the pictures when I take pictures with my actual camera.) I crocheted this hat by freehand. I originally had a pattern, but I knew it would not be big enough for my niece. Instead I kind of just made up the pattern myself and I hope it fits her.

Purple & Green Purse

I took a break from working on Mallory's present and decided to make a quick project to use up some of my left over yarn. I had quite a bit of Plymouth Galway yarns from different purses I have been working on. I took out my Happy Hooker book and decided to work on the Fit To Be Tied purse pattern. I started the purse last night and quickly finished it today. I added a green and pink polka-dotted lining to really complete it. I also had some left over purple and yellow polka-dotted ribbon for another finishing touch. I like the say it turned out. However, I would agree with my mom that it isn't the sturdiest of purses. The handles kind of look a bit funny if you put anything in it that weighs more than a cell phone. However, it is still cute and I'll still use it for just a small going out purse. Let me know what you think of it. Here are some pictures:

First, here is a picture of the purse right after I finished crocheting it. Before lining it or adding the ribbon.

Here is a picture of the purse right before it was lined. The fabric is some left over from my picture bulletin board.

Finally, here is a picture of the purse after I added the ribbon. :)

One Birthday Gift Completed

Yesterday, I spent a lot of the day watching tv and knitting. I managed to finish knitting Katie's birthday gift and then started making an i-cord handle. Finally, I threw it in the wash to be felted. It turned out really nice. After felting, I took out my needle and thread, yet again, to attach the handles. I also decided to add a button hole and button. I thought this added the perfect finishing touch :). Here is a picture of the finished product and a picture of Katie with the purse. She really liked it :)!



I love the colors and I like how cute and small it is. It is perfect for just throwing your wallet, cellphone, and keys into. I liked the pattern too. If you are on ravelry you can find information about the pattern here.