day 28 : purple

(Yum!)

Well, today is the last day of thing-a-day for this year. February was a long month! Thanks everyone for hanging with me. I think next year if I play along I'll do it a little differently, like maybe four larger projects, one for each week, and I'll work a bit each day on them.

I'm going to take a few days off from blogging, but I'll be back next week. Have a great weekend!

day 27 : blue

Close up of a very fun button on a vintage handmade dress I found this week at the thrift store. Love it!

day 26 : green

A warm welcome to those of you coming from the Sew, Mama, Sew blog! :)

(Sew, Mama, Sew pulled together some really cute fabric bookmark tutorials (you can find that post right here) and one of them was my fabric bookmarks I made back in August. Cool!)

For my green photo today: green stuff that I found on and around my craft table. Makes me want to stop sorting things by type and sort them by color instead. :)

And I thought I'd share another photo of the daffodils that I posted about earlier in the month. They're still doing ok. A little yellow, but ok. Soon we'll have flowers!

day 25 : yellow

day 24 : orange

I've had this quilt top finished since early last summer and I pulled it out recently to quilt it. My original plan was to hand quilt it, but the other day I started machine quilting it to get it finished faster. Unfortunately, I'm not liking it! I still haven't decided if I'll rip it all out and hand quilt or just keep machine quilting.. Ever notice how some projects just don't want to get finished?!

day 23 : red

Today is day one of color week. If you decide to play along on your blog, please post a comment on this post! :)
Heaven is a fresh strawberry paczki straight from Hamtramck (paczki is pronounced "poonch-key"). Am I cheating because it's not Fat Tuesday yet? Oh well, it was so good. And I'll eat a custard one tomorrow. And then workout.

day 22 : socks!

My first knitted socks! I had so much fun with these, and it's not difficult at all. I have no idea what took me so long to try it. I already went and bought more sock yarn (I'm thinking about Christmas gifts! Hand knit socks would be the perfect gift, don't you think?).

The heel wasn't scary for me, because I've done the same sort of thing when I made those felted baby balls. The toe needed to be grafted, which I had no clue how to do but I did a quick search on You Tube and found this video. At about 5 minutes in she walks you through grafting the toe.

I used Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Sock Yarn in HS08 Marino and this sock "recipe." I wear size 9 shoes and they are a bit too small for me, so if you have big feet like me you might want to make them a little longer. :)

day 21 : little house

Just a silly craft today, little paper houses. I printed a house template (found here) and used that to cut them out of scrapbook paper. I just layered the printed house on top of the scrapbook paper and cut them both at the same time.

I added a roof, a different colored door, and even curtains. I had some scraps of chipboard that I made the bases from and covered them with more paper. Wouldn't these be cute all decked out for Christmas?

day 20 : paint chip notepads

Today I made these cute matchbook notepads out of paint chips and old computer paper (you know the kind that's all attached with ridges on the sides?). I love them. Don't they look perfect for spring and Easter? I have them available here in my shop.

day 19 (and 18) : tomatoes

Sorry about not posting yesterday. I'm a little bored with this thing-a-day thing but I'm too stubborn to quit it, so I worked on these little tomato pincushions instead. I finished two of them last night and a few more today so I'm counting this for both days. :)

It's the "homegrown" tomato pincushion from Martha. I made the heirloom ones. Quick and easy and pretty cute. I'm thinking of putting them in my shop.. is that allowed or would it be a no-no because I got it from Martha?

I'm not sure what I'll do for the rest of this week for thing-a-day, but next week I'm thinking about color week. Red for Monday, orange for Tuesday and so on until we get to purple on Saturday. Anyone want to play along? I was inspired by Erin's yellow week.

day 17 : soap

I've been making this shaving soap for a while now and I just love it. The regular shaving creams freak me out with their crazy mystery ingredients and overpowering synthetic fragrances. So this is what I use. I know it's not pretty but it works really well and has a nice mellow, herbal scent thanks to the herbal infusion and a little essential oil. And one bar will last months and months.

I got the recipe from a book titled "Ageless Natural Beauty." You can find a free preview of it right here, and the recipe for this soap is on page 181.

day 16 : yellow

I don't know about you guys but I'm ready for spring. Only 20 more days until daylight saving time starts again.. Why do we stop with daylight saving time anyways? That would certainly make winter a little easier to handle, don't you think?

That rose photo somehow made me think about these amazing moss terrariums I had stashed away in my Etsy favorites and I thought maybe you'd all enjoy them as well. Here's a photo of one:

(Photo by made by mavis)

You can find them here in her shop. And here's the one that's pictured above. I love moss. :)

day 15 : knitting

Working on my first pair of socks! I thought it would be scary and difficult but it's been fun.

day 14 : candlelight

yesterday's thing-a-day : Day 13 : chocolates!

I didn't post my thing-a-day for yesterday yet, so I'll do that now and later I'll post my photo for today (once I take it!).

Yesterday my sweet Valentine brought home chocolates for me from my favorite shop. God, these things are good! And they're so pretty..

Hope you're all having a lovely Valentine's Day!

last-minute valentines

Short on time? Here's a few cute things to make or print for Valentine's Day that won't take forever:

Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Hearts at Make and Takes
Love is All You Need Class Valentines from Bunny Cakes
Valentine Pins from The Purl Bee
Paper Fortune Cookies at design.wash.rinse.repeat
Printable Valentines from Inside a Black Apple
Sewn Paper Valentines from The Purl Bee

day 12 : buttons

Just a simple shot of a vintage pickle jar storing vintage pearl buttons. Those buttons make me so happy. :)

day 11 : painting & some quilts

First my thing-a-day photo:I actually forgot all about it until just now so that's why the lighting is yuck.

And here's some more photos of the quilts made by Susana Allen Hunter that were on display at the Henry Ford Museum last year (here's where you can see the others I posted):

Do you guys like these quilts? I love quilts designed like these but my mom can't stand them.. I wonder how most people feel about them.

day 10 : thawing

We had record highs today in Michigan. There are puddles and little streams everywhere... the massive amount of snow we had is rapidly disappearing. I love it! I'm hoping my garden soil will be nice and workable really early this year. We won't be getting any more snow, right? ha! :)

I was checking out Etsy today looking for Valentine's goodies.. there's sooooo many great things there. I pulled together a poster sketch with some of my favorite finds:

1. BE MY VALENTINE handspun novelty yarn 2. Love birds, letterpress card 3. PETALS - Winter flower - Unique Corsage Brooch Pin 4. Red Velvet Cake Balls
5. It's because of love - Necklace 6. My Dear - 5 x 5 signed fine art photograph 7. February No.2 8. I Wheelie Like You Letterpress Card
9. Heart Balloon - Printable Valentines, Notecards, Gift Tags and Stationery 10. Be My Vegantine Heart Cupcake Box filled with 6 Chocolate Ganache Dipped Mini Cupcakes 11. I LOVE YOU wood stationery set 12. FROM A PASSING CAR- Fine Art Print 8x10

day 9 : at my desk

I got that adorable calendar from Blue Tricycle on Etsy. It's comes as a PDF file that you can print yourself. Neat huh? She has cute cards and stationary sets as well.

day 8 : my buddy

I love that Lucy hangs out with me in the craft room while I'm working..

day 7 : evening

hope you're all having a wonderful weekend so far...

day 6 : warmth

I wanted to post some Valentine crafty ideas for you but this day has gotten away from me. I'll pull some together soon. For now though I'll share a site I recently found: kittenskittenskittens. That's right, a blog full of photos of kittens! You're welcome. :)

Now I'm going back to my knitting by the fire. Hope your Friday evening is warm and cozy.

day 5 : waiting

day 4 : golden

The last bit of sunshine for the day. A few minutes after I took this it was gone.

day 3 : emerging

First my photo for create-a-thing-a-day:
We have a little micro-climate on the south side of the house where these daffodils are planted. I also have some planted out in the middle of the yard, but we won't see those for weeks. So maybe this is cheating a bit, but I'm still so, so happy to see them.

And on the crafting front, I finished this the other day:

A hat for Brian. He picked out the yarn and the pattern. The yarn is Berroco's Ultra Alpaca and it's wonderfully soft and silky. I love this stuff. The pattern is the Jacques Cousteau Hat, which I found on ravelry and it's available for free here. I'm pretty sure he picked it only because of the name. :) But I love the pattern the decreases make:
It's a really easy pattern but I did have some issues with the sizing. I started with the men's size and bigger needles (he has a big head) but it was way too big. Even the larger size with the recommended needle size was too big. I finally tried the smaller women's size and it's a perfect fit. So I started this hat three times! I'm glad it's finished and he loves it.

day 2 : in the sun

I love all the sun references in this photo. Thea is laying in a patch of sun, with my great grandfather's old bed in the background with a pattern in the wood that looks like sun rays. And in Greek mythology, Thea (usually written as Theia) is the mother of the sun. Cool huh? I didn't realize any of this until after I took the photo. :)

day 1 : snow trail

Figures, day one of create-a-thing-a-day month and my camera battery dies! The above photo is the one and only photo I took today. ha! But I actually kind of like it so all is well. With all the snow we've gotten in the last month, the dogs have taken to using a few well-worn trails to get around the backyard, and this photo shows a small piece of one, with the sun and shadows highlighting it (I love shadows.. I love to watch them change throughout the day and throughout the seasons..).

It was such a beautiful day today, 38 degrees and sunny. I'm sure 38 seems really cold for some of you, but I don't think in the entire month of January it got above freezing so we were thrilled. We took the dogs for a walk and I even spotted six robins!!