The Frustrations of a Tall Girl

This has absolutely nothing to do with crafts... this is a vent post. Sorry ladies. As we all are built in different sizes, shapes, colors, all that jazz, why is there never anything tailored to a tall mom?! At Old Navy, their "Tall" lengths of pants only go up to a 34" inseam! I am 5'11", and I need at least a 36" inseam!!!! Oye Ve! And, to top it all off, not only am I tall, but I am... how shall I say this? Larger than the average person. So when I need to find things in a longer length I always have to go to the "Normal" side of the store and get their biggest size, which usually is still too short, because all the "Plus Sized" clothes are manufactured by morons! Do they honestly think that all large women are also short?! And when I do find the uber long jeans that I love, they are so low in the butt that I am constantly hiking my pants up in fear that I'm showing off more of the goods than I should!

So I will ask you ladies, if you know of anyone that has the same problem as me, or if you yourself has the same problem as I do, WHERE DO WE SHOP?!!!! Is it too much to ask for a pair of jeans that isn't showing off my "Coin Slot" and also doesn't make me look like I'm getting ready for a flood?!

Ok, I'm done now. But if you have any suggestions on how to rectify this situation or any great stores that I can check out, please let me know!

Crocheted Child Head Band Pattern

This is the modified version of this pattern My 2 year old daughter saw me making the other headbands and begged for one. So I had to put my thinking cap on and make the pattern work for her. Here's what I came up with:

Materials:
4.00mm hook
Any Colour Cotton yarn (worsted weight)

Headband:
Ch 115
Row 1: Sc in second ch from hook and in the next 14chs (15sc), ch75, sc in the 15th ch from the begin of previous ch loop, and in next 14chs, ch1, turn.
Row 2: Sc in first sc and in next 15 sc, ch 75, sc in the 15sc of the previous row, chain 3 and sl st to the very first row for a button hole.

Stitch your button on the other end.

You can use any flower pattern you would like. I kind of figured this one out on my own, but explaining how I did it would be a disaster! So I would just Google "Crocheted Flowers" and get a ton of free ones.

Slight Addiction

Ok, as I have said in previous posts, I am addicted to crocheting! I honestly didn't think that I would enjoy it this much and that it would take off like this! My husband took one of my hats to work with him and all the girls "Ooooo Ahhhhh!" over it. So he started selling them! Hahaha! That day he came home with 6 hat orders! SIX!!!! WHAT?! So I started making them and continued to get more and more. I currently have 5 hat orders right now and to add to my little impromptu business I started making a few of these:

I got the pattern from here for free. I also modified it for children. I'll post the picture of the one I made for my daughter and the pattern tomorrow. But don't you just love how dang cute this is?! LOVE IT!!!!

Vintage Valentines

I love making Valentine's Day cards. I don't decorate for Valentines Day (WHAT? Gasp!!) I guess I am burnt out from Christmas that the thought of decorating again is a little tiring for me.

This year I wanted to do something a little different than I normally do. I wanted to incorporate some of the GORGEOUS vintage photos I have found and make them into lovely cards. I think they turned out nicely and are personal to each person I'm giving them to, which is always a bonus.

I cut out some butterflies and folded them so they look like they're just resting on the card.

The flowers are just three circles that I cut into ascending sizes and crumpled them up. I glued a pearl bead in the center.

The words are from a sheet of vintage words (that remind me of a cool looking hostage letter). I don't have the link right now, but I'll find it again and post it on here.

Hope you all get spoiled for Valentines Day, and if you don't I hope you did something special for yourself.

Hi, My Name Is Kelsee...

And I'm a Crochet-Aholic. I had to post something as I've been a little MIA lately. Sorry about that. Between getting myself organized, exercising, cleaning the snot out of my house and trying to keep the laundry situation under control, crafting has been put on hold for a bit. However, I have found my new favorite thing to do in the evenings. CROCHET! I have been wanting a cute hat for some time now with a brim and those cute straps across the brim, but I could not find a pattern I liked for free. So I caved and went into "Etsy-Land" and found the BEST pattern ever! Here is the link to Beth's Shop. It was so easy (if you have more talent than me, it took me a few "Mulligan's to get it right.) But the product has turned out so nice. Here are a few of my finished products. And I say a few, because this isn't all of the ones that I've made. Yeah, I have made at least 3 others. Once you get it down, its super easy and fast!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying their new year!

Baby Boy's 1st Birthday

So, my little man turned 1 last week. *Sniff* And he's walking. *Gulp!* So I had to do a special little birthday party for him. I decided months ago to do a "Construction Theme" party. There was nothing that I could find locally that was construction themed, so I had to get a little creative. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I wrapped the doors and windows in "CAUTION" tape that you can find at Lowes. I also made signs that said: "CAUTION SUGAR OVERLOAD OCCURRING" and "DANGER STICKY FINGERS" and "CAUTION KIDS AT WORK". It was pretty cute. I also wanted to make these fun cakes that I found from Parenting.com, the same site that I used to make the purse cake. Here's the link for all 31 fun cakes!

The recipe for both called for frozen pound cakes, but as I don't like pound cakes I just used yellow cake mixes that I already had. I had to alter the directions a bit, but not too much. Just the size was off. The dump truck was supposed to be red... but it turned out brown. Here's a fun little story for you. I can laugh about it now but last week I was a little ticked off at myself! Lol I had red food coloring and vanilla frosting. So I added the red coloring to the frosting and it turned pink. No problem, I thought, I'll just add more. Well after that ENTIRE bottle was empty, and it was still pink, I then thought, well I have yellow so I can just make orange frosting. That would work? Right? After that ENTIRE bottle of yellow the frosting was a wonderful shade of salmon. I CAN'T have a SALMON cake for my little BOYS BIRTHDAY!!!!!! That is one of those things that will seriously damage him! (Which he really wouldn't have cared, I think I was just a little frantic and didn't have enough stuff to make more.) So I freaked out and sent the hubs to the store at 10:30 at night. I told him to look for frosting pigment, the paste that makes the deeper colors. What does he bring? Food coloring. Well, I just had to make it work. So I added the second bottle of red and the other new bottle of yellow only making it a more rich color of salmon. At this point I am... well pissed off! Sorry for the language, but it was a disaster and I knew I wouldn't be able to con my husband into another trip to the store to get me more frosting so I could start over. After a few "mad scientist" concoctions, I ended up with a purply- brown that you could only tell if you had it under a really bright light. Deep breaths. Just thinking about it is making my blood pressure rise! So the moral of this story is to get the paste stuff FIRST, then proceed with the directions!

Here is the purple-brown dump truck and the personal sized bulldozer.

The back view with the Oreo and pretzel back. Yeah, it was yummy!

The bulldozer. By far my favorite one.

The fruits of my labor... literally.

New Year, New Me!

Hello ladies! I hope you all had a great holiday, I know I did. We spent a "quiet" day home and enjoyed all our new goodies. But with little ones, "quiet" doesn't happen often. Haha.

Well, it is now 2010. Its crazy to think about! Why aren't we driving in flying cars yet?! Ok, yeah, I've been watching too much sci-fi lately. However, with each new year comes new goals and a new beginning. I usually don't make resolutions and if I do I usually break them within a week or I make them as a joke. But this year is different. I have resolved to do a New Year, New Me! What does this mean? No, I'm not changing everything, because let's face it, why tamper with perfection? Lol. That was for my husband who is reading over my shoulder as I type. But I think we all have room for improvement. I figure the more people that know about my goals, the more I am kept in line to keep them. Here is my resolution for 2010:

1. Lose 80lbs! WHAT?! Yeah, all the baby weight from the first and second child is still resting ever so nicely on my butt, hips and stomach... well every where I guess. So I am losing all of that weight, plus all the weight I gained since I got married almost 7 years ago. I know that its hard to do and I am looking for support wherever I can. I am thinking about starting a blog for moms/women to come and support each other and unload all their emotional struggles with one another, but I think it might just be white noise because I'm sure there are lots of those kinds of blogs around. Still need to think on that and maybe get your input.

2. For Christmas my husband asked for me to not cut my hair for a year. I agreed but only on the rules that I can trim it and thin it (as I have the thickest hair known to man, my family calls it the beast. True story.) So I am taking it one step further. I don't want to cut any length off until I have lost all the weight that I want to lose. As I have had short hair (no longer than my shoulder) since high school! This is going to be interesting!!!

3. Be more organized! One would think that having been home for over a year with my kids that I would have a system down and my house would be clean more often. However, that is SO not the case! It is a little victory for me if I get a shower in, so the dishes will have to wait. But this year, I am working on that.

4. Start an Etsy shop with some of the things that I make. Now, this is something that has been in the research stage for months and will hopefully be something that happens by late spring. I have really found my niche in making things and I find it extremely fulfilling. Any other job that I have had I was selling someone else's products. I want to start doing it for myself and help out with the bills.

5. Last but not least, I want us to be financially stable. In this economy its a closer to being just a dream than a reality. I really want us to be ok, which means I need to take more initiative in being thrifty and saving every penny we can. So all of my posts will be for cheap ideas for your house, children, menu ideas and crafts. I know I usually do that any ways, but I really want to focus on spending as little as possible.

Whew! That was a long list, but its time to make the change! What are your resolutions?