Creative Family giveaway on Simple Mom blog!

If you haven't read Soule Mama's blog yet, it's a good place to visit. I don't own the book yet but I love what she blogs about and looking at her flickr pictures. However, there's an interview with Amanda Blake Soule and a chance to win a copy of her book on Simple Mom's blog!! I hope I win!

Speaking of books, I got 4 of my Japanese crochet books from yesasia.com today!! I am so excited! I will post more about that later.

We have been dealing with a house loan today.. I don't enjoy all the paperwork part, I am ready to hang curtains and move in! We stopped by the house today and started dreaming about where we would put everything and how we'd arrange the house. I can't wait! The closing is in less than 3 weeks!!

Pictures!

Well, I bought a new camera, but I don't like it. I really needed a camera so i looked around and then bought one today for pretty cheap ($112 for the camera, batteries and recharger, 2 GB card, and case!!) but it already froze a few times! I had to open the battery part and turn it on again. I've been using it a lot tonight and it's doing better, but Joel thinks (and I agree) that I should still exchange it. I don't want it to keep doing that- it's brand new!! I have 30 days to exchange it- i just don't like the hassle. I know I bought a cheap one, but it should at least work, right?
Here are some pictures:

Our new kitten! Eustace Clarence!

A bag I made- very easy and a free pattern from Clover!


Wrist warmers I made- free pattern!


I am finally finishing this cat puppet.


House shoes. I am almost finished! Another free Clover pattern.


We just had our offer accepted on a new house!! So I will be busy packing and also starting school soon. I may not have time to do a lot of crocheting but I hope to finish some of my WIPs on Ravelry (I have quite a few...).

New Kitten!

We have a new kitten! We were far from home yesterday going to see a movie. We already bought the tickets and were heading to the theater from another store when the car in front of us slowed down and we saw what looked like a rat running across the road. When we got closer we realized it was a black kitten! Luckily there were only two cars behind us and we all stopped. The kitten ran back across the lanes and ran into grass along the right side of the road. We pulled over, got out, and found him huddled under a spider web in the crevice of a tree root. We have been wanting a kitten but wanted to wait until we moved to a bigger house. Right away we both wanted to keep him. We changed our tickets to a later time and brought him to the vet. He was covered in fleas and had a lot of worms and his fur was matted. When we came back to pick him up he looked so much better. He was so calm the whole ride home and sat on my lap during our whole cell group meeting that evening.
We have him at home now and today he seems like a normal healthy kitten! All his fleas are gone, his fur is nice and soft, and he's taking worm medicine. He is now very playful and meows for food. He uses his litter box and walks up to our other cat. He also walks over to me when he's lonely. I wish I had a picture! We were going to buy a new camera because mine stopped working but we bought a kitten instead. It was about the same price. So I have no pictures of him or of my several crochet projects I finished or am working on. I made a bag, wristwarmers, finished my hamburger, got farther on my cat puppet and house shoes. But I'll just have to wait I guess...

It looks like the kitten is part Siamese. He has a black head, legs and tail, with a brownish-gray body and a small white spot on his throat. He's super friendly, especially for a stray!

Yay!! More Japanese Crochet Books!!

Yay!! I just bought two more books from yesasia.com! One is a baby book that was so cute I couldn't go on without it, and the other one is one I wanted to buy earlier but couldn't find it. After looking through several pages of books under "home arts" I found a few I didn't find before, including this one that I really liked:

(The pictures are from chocolateswirl on etsy.)

And here is the cutest baby crochet book ever!






I made two bibs but they aren't quite as cute- I think it's the yarn choice. (I found all the patterns for free here, but I still wanted to buy the book. This is where I got all these photos.)

Japanese Crochet Books

I was just searching yesasia.com for some lovely Japanese crochet books and found that there are too many to choose from! Also there is free shipping from Japan for any orders over $25!! It would be very difficult to order under $25. When I first searched and added everything I might be interested in to my cart, the total was about $300... (and there were some books I wanted that I couldn't find there). I knew that was not possible so I began researching and finding pictures of the insides of the books other places like etsy.com and narrowing down my choices. These are the four I think I will choose:
These came in close behind:
This one had a really pretty shirt, but it would take soo long to make and I usually make shorter projects.


This one had a cool hat and gloves but was both knitting and crocheting and I don't know how to knit, so I thought I'd better pass..



And I maybe would gave bought these if I found them at yesasia.com:

I haven't ordered yet and it takes a while for them to come-- but I can't wait! My birthday is in the middle of August- I hope they arrive way before then...

Crochet Crazy and Camping

I've been going crazy trying to crochet a lot and find new patterns. Either I can't crochet fast enough or there aren't enough hours in the day to crochet everything I want to in one day- or both! Here are some things I've made recently:pattern for wrist warmers found here
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the pdf box next to the picture

Pattern for hat is from Mr. Funky's Super Crochet Wonderful by Narumi Ogawa



Pattern for potholder can be found here or here.


Motif pattern is here or here.

Baby shoes can be found here or here.


I have at least 10 projects started on ravelry, not to mention the 7 or more I have printed and started or are ready to start that didn't even make it to ravelry yet!!! Yesterday I was going to spend the day finishing up projects on ravelry, but instead I started two new ones and printed off several more patterns...


We are going camping today! Tomorrow is our3rd anniversary and we decided to do something fun but cheap. Although, we went to Walmart last night and spent a bit of money for camping gear. We already had a tent and sleeping bag, but needed some cooking gear, food, a chair, and a few other camping things. But now we are pretty well stocked for another camping trip someday. We wanted to go to DeSoto in Alabama, but the camping part is closed for renovations, so we are going to Buck's Pocket to camp and then to Cathedral Caverns tomorrow for fun. I have never been to Alabama before! I hope to have a little time to crochet (I'm making a pig keychain) and to read for my masters. I have a discussion question due Wednesday. It's a good thing they have free wireless internet at the campground.