Hats Galore!

Wow! I have been MIA for quite some time so I thought today I would do a photo-heavy post showing what I have been up to since I posted last.

Hats are probably my favorite thing to crochet because they work up so fast. I have been busy experimenting with different characters and have come up with quite a few that I am happy with. I use the same base hat pattern for all of my hats and then from there I decide what character it is going to be.

The hat patterns I always use are from Sarah over Repeat Crafter Me. I have made several of her hats just the was they are and they all turn out perfect and fit great. That being said, the hat patterns are perfect for making the hat itself and then trying to come up with some new fun characters. There are a lot of really adorable hats on Pinterest or Google images that often do not have patterns with them, so it is fun to try and figure out how to make them without a pattern. You can make some really fun characters by just knowing how to make some pretty basic shapes. I use circles, ovals, and cone shapes all the time to make things like eyes, noses, and horns. You can also use felt to create eyes, noses, and mouths and then hand-stitch them onto your hat. I have used this method for a few of the hats I have made and they always turn out super cute...sometimes they turn out better than if I would have crocheted the features. So, without further ado…here are the hats!

This little leprechaun hat was a custom order for an old friend who was expecting a new little one around St. Patty's day. Hard to believe that was almost a year ago and I am just now blogging about it! I did not have a pattern for this hat so I had to try and figure this one out on my own. I wish I would have written it down as I was crocheting it…unfortunately I didn't so if I ever have to make this again I am going to have to start from scratch. I do know that I made a circle for the top of the hat that was the circumference of a newborn-size head, finished off the circle and reattached the yarn started crocheting around and around until it was as tall as I wanted it and then did the same thing for the brim of the hat. I used a pipe cleaner and some felt sticker shamrocks to make the clover and then ribbon and some more felt to make the belt. Then I used some glitter glue to add some sparkle to the buckle and clover. The clover is attached to the ribbon with a bit of hot glue and I added velcro to each side of the back of the belt so that it can easily be taken on and off of the hat. It turned out to be a festive little hat!

This adorable Thomas hat was made for my 2 year old nephew for Christmas. He LOVES Thomas so I knew he had to have this hat! I did not have a pattern for this one so I used one of Sarah's patterns for the hat and then made the rest up as I went along. I made a lot of circles for most of the features and hand-stitched the nose and mouth. For the smoke stack I started making a circle and then decreased to make the cylinder shape. For the smoke I attached the white yarn and just started making a chain, slip stitching it to the stack and then repeated that process until I was happy with the amount of "smoke." The stack is also lightly stuffed with some poly-fil to make it stand up. It looks so cute on him!

The next hat was made for my husband's goddaughter, who happens to LOVE My Little Ponies! I was so excited to make this hat for her because I also loved this toy growing up! Gotta love 80's toys! (wow, I just dated myself there!) Again, for this hat, I used one of Sarah's patterns. The ponies have very unique facial features so I thought that it would be easier to cut out some felt shapes and hand sew them onto the hat instead of trying to figure how to crochet them. I think they turned out really great and everyone knew that it was Rainbow Dash! The mane was really easy to do. I cut a bunch of yarn into about 6" strands, using Rainbow Dash's colors of course, and then looped them through a stitch and tied them to the hat. After they were all attached I gave the mane a hair cut so that you could see all of the colors and so that all of the strands fell evenly down the back of the hat. She was so excited about the hat! Her reaction was priceless and that is why I truly love crocheting! 

Well, I have one last hat I am going to show today! It is another My Little Pony hat…meet Twilight Sparkle!

She was made the same way I made the Rainbow Dash hat. The only thing I did different for her was that I crocheted the eyes instead of making them out of felt and I think they turned out just as cute. This hat made another lucky little girl very happy!

I am linking up here: 

Hookin' On Hump Day

Simply Dream & Create

Wow! Hard to believe that is just a snippet of what I have been up to! I have many more projects to show so check back soon and thanks so much for stopping by to take a look!

As always,

Take care and have a happy day!

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Owls on Parade!

Hi Everyone,

Well, just when I thought it was safe to put away the winter hats...winter shows its ugly face again! 32º on April 5, not unheard of in Minnesota but certainly not welcomed! And if anyone is wondering, we have a chance of snow/rain all weekend! Good thing I have lived here all my life and am a very hearty Minnesotan ;-)

Since it is going to be cold, I may as well show some of the hats that I have made that will most certainly be keeping the littlest of ears warm this weekend! And yes, they are all owls…hence the title of this post!

These are just some of the owl hats I have made recently. These were all made from Sarah's owl hat pattern over at Repeat Crafter Me. If you haven't noticed yet, I will let you know right now, I LOVE her patterns. I use them as she has written them and, a lot of the time, I will just use the main hat pattern and then come up with a way to make the hat my own (i.e. the Shabby-Chic girly hat I made). Animal hats for the little ones seem to be very popular right now and I cannot get enough of them either. I do not have any kids but I do have 5 nieces and a nephew and they all love these hats. (2 of my nieces live in sunny Florida so they do not get much use out of these but I already have some ideas in the works for when they come to frigid MN this December! Get ready girls…its going to be cold!)

Hopefully we can put the winter gear away soon but until that happens I have a great reason to keep on crocheting these cozy hats! Hope you all have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

I am linking up at these fun parties:

Hookin' On Hump Day

Simply Create

The Inspiration Gallery

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Spring Fever

Hi Everyone,

I have something special for everyone today because I have a severe case of spring fever! Lucky you huh?!

Here in MinneSNOWta, (yeah, we call it that…only when we are really sick of winter!) we have four seasons but old man winter is almost always the longest of them all; parts of our yard still have well over 12" of snow :(

It is very nice out today, probably close to 50º but with the snow melting it is pretty sloppy outside. This leaves me inside creating and you all getting a FREE April wallpaper for your viewing pleasure. I created this wallpaper in Adobe Photoshop. The gray background and butterfly graphic are from Persnickety Prints digital scrapbooking kit "Storyteller". They have great prices on photo printing and have many options to choose from…not to mention all of the freebies they offer. I designed the text and calendar elements using the Blanch font family and the font Simply Glamorous.

I am offering this wallpaper for free in 3 different sizes so you can pick the size that best fits your screen!

fyi…the wallpaper does not have my logo on it!

1024x768

1280x1024

1600x1200

click the size you would like to download and you will be redirected to download the file.

I really hope you all enjoy! Here's hoping the spring fever subsides soon…I can't wait to get outside! Thanks for stopping by!

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Shabby Chic Girly Hat

Hello Friends!

As promised I am here with a crochet project. I created this hat for an old classmate's daughter. Her little girl had a similar knit hat and she had outgrown it and liked it so much that she asked me to re-create the hat. I really love how the hat turned out...so much so that I am thinking of making an adult-size hat for myself ;-) I just love the extra long tassels and the pearl embellishments. Adding these little extras to a hat really make it stand out. 

The hat was made using the base hat pattern from Sarah's owl hat pattern over at Repeat Crafter Me. Her hat patterns always fit perfectly and if you know a little bit about crochet it is very easy to change them up and create a completely different hat! As you can see, this isn't an owl hat, I just used the base pattern to create the striped hat and then added the lovely flowers. I always had so much trouble getting my hats to fit correctly but by using her hat patterns as a base, they always fit the way they should…so a huge thanks to Sarah! You cannot go wrong with any of Sarah's patterns! Go check out her blog…she has tons of free patterns and they are very easy to follow!

The pattern for the flowers and leaf can be found here. The pattern is in UK crochet terms but includes the US equivalent terms. This is a great flower pattern and the color combo possibilities are endless…and just think of all the places you could attach these! 

Thanks to all the crocheters out there who provide these free patterns, I am forever grateful. I am still trying to figure out how to create my own crochet patterns and when I do, I plan to return the favor and provide some of them free for everyone else to enjoy!

So, enough with my ramblings…here is the adorable hat!

Materials Used:

•Vanna's Choice Baby Yarn in Sweet Pea (green)

•Vanna's Choice Baby Yarn in Little Boy Blue (medium blue)

•Red and Natural colored yarn are from my stash (can't remember what brand!)

•Small beads or pearls (for centers of flowers)

•Small amount of embroidery floss (for sewing beads on)

•Sewing needle (for sewing beads on)

•Yarn needle (for weaving in ends)

•Crochet hook size H-8 (5.0 mm)

I really hope you all enjoy this hat as much as I do! I am doing my first ever link-up with this post! So excited about that! See the link-up details below. Have a wonderful day! Spring is finally in the air here in MN!

I am Linking up at:

Hookin On Hump Day!
The Inspiration Gallery!
Simply Create!

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Happy Scrapper Re-Design

Hello Everyone!

Here tonight with a quick little post…

This weekend I had the opportunity to practice my web/blog design skills by re-designing my sister's blog. It is truly a learning experience every time I try to tackle web design and so rewarding when things actually work. Web design is something I really love to do but I still need A LOT more practice. The few skills I did learn in college are pretty rusty so I am basically teaching myself all over again! I am really happy with how Happy Scrapper turned out and I think that my sister is too! I designed most of the elements using digital scrapbooking kits from Shabby Princess and Persnickety Prints. Those cute little owls were an Etsy find from Graphic Market. Me and my sister were so excited to have found them because the colors had already matched the logo I had designed for her in Illustrator…we just needed the perfect little owl to go along with it and these fit the bill! Spend some time with the Happy Scrapper (my sister!) and check out all of her amazing, handmade cards and paper projects, A LOT of time goes into her creations! Don't forget to grab your Happy Scrapper button for your own blog while you are there! Here is a little sneak of her blog…

I will be back with some long overdue crochet posts this week! I have a whole stockpile of images of the hats I have been busy making! Stay tuned…there will be links to patterns for most of them! Until then, take care!

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Clean Office

Hello all,

Well I have been absent for quite some time and if you have read any of my previous posts you will notice that this time between posts has been a common occurrence and I am not proud of it. But I am here now and I guess that is what counts!

Well this time between posts has not been wasted. I have plenty of projects to blog about and share with you but first I must show you what has kept me out of my creative space for so long...the mess!

I can not believe that my craft room got to this point but after a full weekend of taking everything out, moving some stuff back in, and about 3-4 garbage bags later my space is looking much better. I still have some work to do but at least now I can stand to be in there. The before and after is pretty shocking! Take a look...

Before:

crafting desk...hard to get much done when it looks like this!

view when looking in...Yikes!

Computer desk...can't do much computing here!

nook in wall...and my terrible yarn storage.

And now the best part...the after pictures:

craft/computer table...much more functional

this is where the craft table was, now it is a storage and printing station. I am still working on making this look more attractive!

my favorite part of the whole room....my yarn storage area in that nook that was so messy in the before pictures! I can see all of the yarn I have now! All my craft, design, and crochet magazines made there home on the top of this shelf.

craft/computer desk. Now that I can see the table it will be much easier to get some stuff done! Still trying to figure out what kind of desk I want in here as this one is not the most functional but it will do for now!

I still have a lot of work and organizing to but at least now I can keep the door open on this room without being embarrassed! Hope you have enjoyed this long overdue post! Until next time...

Take care!

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Give Thanks...

Hello everyone,

Wow, I have really not been a good blogger! So its been a while since my last post...again! I have been keeping very busy with work, crocheting and everything else in between. I just have not been good about blogging them. I finally got my Etsy shop open...yay me! But there is nothing in it yet because I have been busy working on custom orders that I already had before I opened my shop. I am hoping to get some things in there soon though, doesn't help my time management at all that the holidays are fast approaching. I also created a Facebook page for CBCL...yay me! I still have to update my blog with my new design and make some buttons to link to my Etsy store and Facebook page but in the meantime, and just in time for Thanksgiving, I have another free printable for everyone.

the downloaded file will not contain a watermark, file size is 5" x 7".

dress up your house with this pretty Thanksgiving printable!

You can download your 5" x 7" printable HERE. I really hope everyone enjoys this printable and have a very blessed Thanksgiving!

Take care

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