Beginning a New Craft!

Last night I started knitting! 

  To catch you up on my past craft experiences I will let you know that I am a very creative person, heck my day job is in Graphic Design! So my very first craft that I started off with was Scrapbooking. I found a liking for scrapbooking after I got married, last summer 2010. After buying a Cricut which I absolutely love! I created two complete scrapbooks, then came the Fall season well that is when I picked up a magic bottle of Mod Podge & Folk Art acrylic paints and started repurposing accent decor! 

  Then came Christmas and was absolutely in love with a friends' love of Knitting and my love for Crochet sprang up. Starting off learning through online videos and of course picking up TONS of books on Crochet at the West Allis Public Library my first creation has a (green) hat for myself to wear to a Green Bay Packer football game. I also was creating a yellow cowl to wear to the game but could only finish the hat. (By the way my friend Megan will never let me live down the fact that I finished crocheting the hat in the car going to the game! That is her favorite memory from that game.) I have crocheted Hats, cowls, granny squares, amigurumi. It is crazy because I have found myself and my drawers stocked with yarn and until this week I have promised myself that I need to finish off all the yarn in my possession! The last trip I made to Michael's I saw the knitting needles on sale and decided to purchase three sets. So last night I learned how to cast on & garter stitch. Tonight I will learn how to do a purl stitch and my ultimate goal is to knit a cable scarf!

  

 Now that I read over this blog post I notice that I have severe ADHD when it comes to crafts! What do you think is this normal for creative people? I am seriously looking forward to adding crafts in my next day job. Such as creating & maintaining a yarn/craft companies catalog/website/social media network accounts! 

  

 Recently I have been adding more posts to my blog and I have finally decided to join other crochet/knit heads in the "Knitting & Crochet Blog Week" 

What is Knitting and Crochet Blog Week?

This is a week of blogging for knitters and crocheters, where individual bloggers will all simultaneously post about the same topics over the course of seven days, so that for one week readers might be able to read from blog to blog and enjoy a community of bloggers all talking about elements of their craft in their own unique way.

~I am looking forward to adding photos of finished knitted swatches of my new craft! And totally looking forward to blogging during blog week!~ Till next time!

 

December, January & February

     Sorry I haven't posted anything for the past month & a half the holidays can make us all super busy! I have to tell you about my favorite hobby that I recently picked up! Crochet! I was inspired by a good (knit) friend Abi Polzin who works with my husband as an Emergency Medicine resident. I was amazed when she showed me all the cute things she was knitting especially for babies. I am in that stage of life where now slowly all of the people in my life are starting their families so I thought wouldn't it be great to make handmade gifts for the incoming babies. So I started off with a tons of hats big & small, then cowls and scarfs now I am on to (summer granny square) blanket. I seem to have faded out of scrapbooking and into crocheting! (Don't worry I will get back into the scrapbooking fad again!)

     December was a fast moving month for me, from recovering from Thanksgiving holiday to Christmas shopping, Christmas cookie making w/my mother-in-law, Crocheting gifts and then finishing up with the BIG New Year's Eve party that we had at our house! I enjoyed every minute of December and realized how lucky I am to be blessed with the family members in my life! The relationship I have with my husband  is growing stronger and stronger with every year, I am so thankful to have found such a caring and loving husband. We are getting closer & closer to starting a family ourselves but we want to make sure things are in order with us as a couple before we bring another human being into our lives. We have talked about it and we both think that before Bob's residency is over we should start a family. This would mean a max. of 2 1/2 years till the end of his residency but we are loving the life we have now and I believe we should enjoy it!

February has past us by and I do have to admit that I enjoyed the Valentine dinner Bob prepared for me! Steak, Shrimp Scampi, Baked Potato, Rolls and a 2 pound box of chocolate!

It seems like this winter has been pushing back the nice spring weather and barely within the week in March we will get to feel the temperature in the 60's. I am looking forward to this Summer because I am in my cousins wedding in June and I love all the pre-wedding events! Plus my other cousin is having her first baby and then in October another cousin of mine is getting married! I will be posting pictures of all my finished crochet projects and talk about how I came about making them!

Please check back with me soon! Here was my first Crochet hat that I made for myself!

November Is Here!

     Just updating you on Halloween celebrations, my husband and I traveled to Illinois to attend a costume party which was alot of fun! We saw a decent amount of Jersey Shore costumes which also includes my cousin John with his girlfriend who dressed as "The Situation & Snooki" they covered themselves in brown body paint to emphasis the guido & guidette side of themselves!

     I believe the best costume that I saw at the party was the "We Can Do It!" strong woman picture costume! Yup this girls' costume looked exactly like this but she was attached to a poster board which made it hard to walk around in! The best guys' costume was the host of the party was dressed as Duff Man"classic"!


Here are some pictures of me in my costume! My mime costume turned out great and I only paid $10-15 dollars for the whole get up! I love shopping at resale shops & thrift shops for Halloween costumes! On the other hand Bob spent $35-40 dollars on his whole costume (scary clown)! All in all the night went well & we plan on attending the Packers vs. Cowboys game next weekend! Until then stay tuned up more updates!

Getting ready for Halloween!

As Halloween approaches...
     Last night while I was spray painting my beret hat for my mime costume black I finished my mosaic inspired bottle! My husband finally finished his beverage of choice and I decided to keep the unique shaped bottle for a craft project. So what I did was first apply Mod Podge to the front and back labels and applied DCWV"Whimsy" paper and applied more Mod Podge on top of the paper to make sure they were adhered well. Then the following day I decided to grab my new Folk Art acrylics and start adding bits of mosaic looking dots all around the bottle. The following week I decided to add DCWV"Mariposa" rub-ons transfers onto the Mod Podged labels on the front and back of the bottle. Here is the finished product except I am thinking of adding Mod Podge scrap book paper around the top of the bottle.

This could be a vase used to hold some flowers.

Or you can add some white twinkle lights inside for some ambiance.

Here are both sides! Below you have the top of the bottle.

"Simple Pleasures Are Priceless Treasures"

So my husband and I are going to be traveling from West Allis, WI (our home) to the suburbs of Chicago, IL (where my family lives) for a Halloween costume party tonight! Here is a look at my husbands scary clown costume! SPOOKY huh? Well your probably wondering what my costume is...I am going to be a MIME! You can see my Mime shirt hanging up next to my husband in the picture, I will be posting some pictures of all the creative costumes people come up with this year, stay tuned!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

Hello And Welcome!

     Well here we are and I want to introduce myself to this new experience called blogging! My name is Laura Rogers and I am a Graphic Designer & Paper Crafter! I started this blog because I wanted to start getting more involved with the crafting world and all its counterparts!

I am 26 and I have been married to my wonderful husband Bob for a year & 3 months now. We own a 2 year old female dog named Sadie who is very bright and has tons of personality. Here is just a little pic of my happy family! We plan on adding another addition to the family in a couple of years...but we'll wait for now.

I recently went to my nearest craft store and bought some Folk Art acrylic paint to refurbish some home decor pieces here is just a little look at my craft table right now! I would have to say "What a mess!" Yup from the Cuttlebug to Felt Rosettes to Acrylic paints & Mod Podge you can say I like to work on many projects at once!  

Here are some of the Folk Art acrylics that I bought recently! I love the colors and I especially love to mix and match them! I do have to say that the one metallic "Gunmetal Grey" is tough to work with at first but once you add that second layer all is well. The finish of the paints are matte and cover the area nicely so far I am very impressed with the two projects I have started.

First I bought a serving tray from my nearest Goodwill store and added different colors to all sides of the tray then I Mod Podged some scrap fabric into the bottom of the tray to bring the colors together. The colors used were Sky Blue, Grass Green, Honeycomb, and Metallic Gunmetal Grey. I am a little afraid that not using "Fabric Mod Podge" will not adhear the fabric well enough but we will have to see.

My next project was a decorative shelf that I want to use as storage in my crafting room. (To store my new cool Distress Inks!) So I took out the 3 drawers and started painting Peony & Yellow Ochre. I haven't decided whether I want to paint the drawers a coordinating color or Mod Podge some great scrapbook paper to them. You will have to wait and see what I do next! (By the way these projects are going to get some cool masked Inspirational quotes added to them! I can't wait to finish what I started! 

To Be Continued!