A Great Read

I have been meaning to write this for a while now. If you are a fan of mysteries then this book is for you. It is a plus that it revolves around a weekly knitting circle who come together to help in a time of sadness, and fear.

Death By Cashmere, A Seaside Knitters Mystery
by Sally Goldenbaum.
ISBN 9780451224712

From the first page to the last I found myself unable to put this book down. Picture a beautiful seaside town, where everyone knows you and your business, where there are people that have lived there all their lives mixed with newcomers this is Sea Harbor, MA. Each of the characters are very well rounded, and well written, they each have such a depth to them that you really connect with them, and feel like you know them. With each page I began to feel like I was being drawn into the world of Sea Harbor, MA. I could almost see the details of the locations as they are described. Each and every chapter of this book with keep you wanting more. The conclusion to this story is so well written that when you read the answer to the mystery you really begin to see the clues that were written into each chapter but I did not put them together. I really would recommend this to anyone looking for a very good read. There is a lace knitting pattern in the back that I am really wanting to try it is for a scarf and it really sounds like it would be a great beginner's lace project.

Here is an excerpt from the publisher's website:
This brand-new mystery series spins a yarn about knitters and murder in a quaint seaside village.
Not long after Isabel “Izzy” Chambers opens up a knitting shop in the sleepy fishing town of Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, a diverse group of women begins congregating each week to form the Seaside Knitters.Izzy raises some eyebrows when she rents the apartment above her shop to Angie Archer, whose reputation for loose behavior and a quick temper has made her unpopular with many locals. But could any of them have wanted her dead? Angie’s body is discovered drowned in the harbor, her long red hair tangled like seaweed in a lobster trap.An official investigation rules the death an accident. There are speculations of too many whiskey sours, a slippery wharf, a dark night… But Izzy and the Seaside Knitters smell something fishy. When several strange incidents occur above the shop, the women decide to take matters into their own hands. But before long, their small-town sense of security is frayed, and the threat of more violence hangs over this tightly knit community.

I would really like to read other books by Sally Goldenbaum, and I will let you know how they turn out.

I haven't forgot about you all

This is a picture from a beautiful organic farm in Vermont, that I took on our road trip.

I have been so busy over the past month that I have not had the time or energy to post. I have been back in school since July 14th, and the girls started back on Aug. 1st. I have been crafting. I have made a baby blanket, a sample scarf for a kit that I am making up. I made a quick lap blanket for the house, and 7 balloon valances for the school that the girls go to. I have also been working on finding a job. I feel that I have not been keeping this up a well as I should be anymore. I will come back and post when I can. The last time I said that I was taking a break I ended up posting like crazy for a while. I thank you for reading. I really plan on posting as often as possible.

I have been going nuts over at YouTube lately. I am able to watch it on my phone and I have found a few that I would like to share.

Road Trip Day 2

We have really covered alot of ground today. Our day started out in Steven City, Virgina, and we are now in upstate New York. We have been through West Virgina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and finally New York. We are in the Adirondacks right now and I have very spotty service on both my phone and air card, so I am unable to post pictures right now because I know I will lose signal in the middle of an upload. It has rained on us off and on ever since Albany, and we are still at least 45 min until Plattsburgh, NY. I will be glad when we get there. we will stay the night there and then take the ferry over the Vermont in the morning. The girls are very excited about going in the truck on a boat. They do not understand how we are going to get the truck on the boat. I have tried to explain it but I still do not think that they really understand.



On the crafting side of things, I have made a couple of beaded crocheted chains and a cape for Shae's Barbie doll. She kept asking me to make her something and I figured that I could make her something that she could play with.



We will be going to Vermont, New Hampshire , Conneticut and New York City tomorrow. I really want to take the girls to see the city and I think we might try to go to Ground Zero, I really think we should make the effort to visit the this if we can. I really want to go to Purl Soho and pick up some new yarns.



Oh My goodness the views are wonderful up here but the light is so bad that my pictures won't turn out good. I really wish that is was clear so that I could show off these beautiful scenes.

Oh My Goodness

I cannot believe that I have let almost 2 months go by with out a post. So much has gone on that I really do not know where to start.
April was a pretty calm month for me and I really did not get much done on the crafting front, school has been my focus, so I guess that I really did not have anything that I thought would be intersting to post.

May, now this month is another story. It has been a rough one for my husband's family. His father Joe Cannon was admitted into Emory Hospital on May 7, with an infection of the stomach and the lungs. He bravely faught these infections for 20 days before he was moved to hospices and then passed away peacefully on May 27, surrounded by the people he loved. He was only 59. A little back story: He recieved a lung transplant on May 3, 2006 and did very well for a few months until a stroke weakend him, he was in and out of the hospital until the end, and we are greatful for the excellent care that he recieved from the Emory family. If it had not been for the Lung transplant we would have lost him much sooner so we are truly thankful for the time we were given with him because of this transplant. (I will change this to a link as soon as I can to a previous post about Joe).

May also signaled the beginning of Summer Break for the girls and so we had all of the end of the year parties and getting the teacher gifts created. I really am a bad blogger in that I did not take any pictures of the gifts that we made. I also took the first half on the Teaching Exam for my certification, and waited on pins and needles to see if I passed.

June: on the second I recieved my test scores and I passes all 3 parts of the first section of the GA teaching exam. I am now getting ready for the 2nd section, the Art Certification section. I will be taking this on Saturday, June 14. I have also made a trip to Nashville this month and a trip to Lexington, KY. I am now on the road back home from KY. I hope to be able to update this with pictures of the things that we did over the past few months. By the way my computer crashed twice in the past 3 weeks, Yikees ! ! I guess that I need to get a better Anti Virus Software. If anyone has any tips on which on the try please let me know. I really would appreciate it. I hope that you all have a good week.

Katie

New Digital Scrapbook Pages

This one is from Shae's birthday we took her to ride the Wild Woody Racetrack on the strip in Pigeon Forge, TN

This last one if my new desktop on my computer.

I made these new Digital Scrapbook Pages with recent pictures from our trip to the Smoky Mountains.

My Newest Obsession

. . . Ribbon Covered Clothespins. Here are a few pictures of the ones that I made yesterday.

These are covered with vintage ribbons that I have collected over the years. I seend to have gotten so carried away making them that I have so many now I put a few in my etsy shop.

What I have been up to for the past few weeks.

I think that a couple pictures with captions will explain it all. Both of my girls have had the stomach bug that has been going around, and each of them have visited the hospital because of it, Anastasia only was borderline dehydrated and so they gave her meds and it really helped her along with 2 days of rest at home, but Shae on the other hand had to have IV fluids and meds to get her symptoms to stop. She also had to have 2 days rest per the doctor and it seems to be helping, but she is still very tired. We are at home today for her last day of rest before she can go back to school. Before this she had never missed a day of school this year and she was very upset that she would not get to go to school. She really loves going and getting to be with her friends. By the way in the first picture you can see a new finished object that I made for Anastasia. I made it with Lilly's Sugar n' Cream. The pattern is a improvised shell blanket.

I have been spending the day today updating my Etsy shop and I have alot of new items in the shop and I have taken so many pictures of items that I hope to get uploaded today. I have really not been keeping my shop up and I feel like I need to have a good showing this time around. I have books (with multiple copies) , yarn, knitting needles and handmade items that I really enjoyed making.

Update

I need to get some picture taken but the light has not been good around here for the past couple of days. I have two finished objects this week. I made Anastasia a crochet shell cuddle blanket, and I made Shae a large one square crochet cuddle blanket. I really enjoyed the process of making these blankets and I really need to get pictures when the light is better. I used Lilly's Sugar and Cream crochet cotton for each of these blankets and the best part is that I got these yarns on clearance at Hobby Lobby and only payed about $2.25 to make each of these blankets. They had the 3 ball value packs (2100 yards for kit) on sale for only $7 and it only took one full skein (710 yards) to make each blanket.

Facebook and more

I am so addicted to Facebook that I have neglected my poor little blog. I really have not gotten much crafting done this week, and this time change is not good for my system. I did happen on a great find today at Goodwill. I really have need an electric pencil sharpener. I found one that looked just like one that I used in school. I love it. It is very heavy duty and it works great. Now all of my pigmacolor pencils look great and are really drawing me (no pun intented) to them. I will have to get to work on some new ATCs. I have a few that I need to post that I would love to swap.

Happy Leap Day

It has been a crazy day. I am so tired. I worked all week at the girls school, and when I work all week I really do look forward to the weekend. This weekend we have a birthday party, a gymnastics meet that Anastasia wants to go and watch, and I have two projects for school to have done by Sunday, with one due on Sat.. So this weekend will not be a restful one.

On a very happy note, I lost 5lbs this week. Yahooooooooo. I hope that I will be able to lose another 5lbs. by next weekend. I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend.

Hey there

I cannot believe that I have let a week pass with out a post. I had finals this week and the start of a new class. I have gotten a little creative work done also. I made a mini scrapbook for each of my daughters' teachers for Valentine's day. Let me know what you think if these pages. I also created a new template for packaging tea bags as gifts. I will post the picture as soon as I can get the camera hooked up.

I also started a new blanket project for Anastasia. Hobby Lobby had the 3 ball super saver Lilly brand cotton yarn on clearance, it is normally $21 for 3 large balls, and they had it for only $7. I picked the pink kit. It had two shades of solid pink and one ball of varigated. I love the colors and I might have to go back and pick up the blue kits for Shae. Each kit has over 2100 yards in it and this is plenty of yarn for a nice size throw. I also continued work on a baby ripple blanket that I am doing in two colors and one a 4 row repeat.

Layouts of the Day

I did not realize that I had not posted the past few layouts that I have made. I have them posted in my scrapbook galleries, but I forgot to post them here. Please let me know what you think I really would love some feedback on these. Thanks so much in advance for your replies.

A couple of new pages

I am having so much fun with Digital Scrapbooking. Here is a page that I created using only freebees from Designer Digitals. I am trying to see how many different pages that I can make out of these freebees. There are 48 different sets of downloads and I think that just using these I will be challenging myself. I will be uploading them here as I finish them. I hope to be able to make at least double this number, by mixing these kits. This is one of my favorite sayings. I really want to paint it as a border in my bedroom. I think that this is something that you should always do to your children every night. The years when they want a goodnight kiss is so fleeting that I feel like I need to take advantage of it while I can.

My next page uses Anastasia's favorite quote. " I love you to the moon and back", when ever she tells me that she loves me she will say that to me, and I love if when she says it.

A New Layout

I completed 8 traditional scrapbook layouts over the last week but I still cannot find the cable for my camera. I have a mini memory stick so it doesn't fit in my reader (ugh!). I made this digital layout to show. I took this picture last January after school on day. I was a unusually warm day, so we went to the park. We took a walk down to the small pond and they decied to walk back and forth across it and on one of those crossing they decied to hold hands and I was lucky enough to catch it with my lens.

My oh my

I cannot believe that I have let almost 2 weeks pass since posting, but it has been very busy. I hope to get my pictures off my camera (I lost the cord). So, you can see why I don't have any pictures to go along with this post. I will try to upload some of my newest FOs tomorrow.
Talk to you all soon.

Merry Christmas To All

I think I might be too busy to post over the next few days.

So, here goes, MERRY CHRISTMAS I hope that you all have a good one. I have included a few of our new ornaments that we have aquired over the past few weeks.

The Star is from Khols and the Strawberry is from Bloomingdale's

The Snowman bell is from Kohl's and the Good Night Moon is from Bloomingdale's. the Gingerbread Man is one that Anastasia made in Kindergarten last year.

Here is one of my most recent cards. I used the Making Memories Distressing kit and a Marvy 1' circle punch and one blue snap. I set the snap with the fisker's eyelet setter and punch. I also used an ink'ed phrase stamp for the happy birthday.

Gingerbread and Christmas Cleaning

Today has been spent cleaning out my cabinets and my counters and getting it set up for the luncheon that we are hosting on Christmas Eve.

Here is a picture of our gingerbread house that we made last week. We had to decorate the roof flat while the rest of the house parts dried.

Shae and I also made a batch of Peppermint Bark. She got to use the hammer to crush the candy canes and she loved it. This is the recipe that I use. It is my own and I really like the way it tastes.

12 oz of vanilla bark

12 candy canes crushed

4 drops of peppermit extract

Melt the vanilla bark in the microwave until smooth in 15 sec. spirts. Mix in candy canes and extract. Spread on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and chill to harden. Then breakup into pieces. enjoy

Inspirations of the Day

I love this idea. printable wrapping paper. I found this on Blueprint magazine's website. I thought I would share this very unique find. I really have gotten inspired lately to do more paper crafting. Here is a very cool blog by Tim Holtz, he is a mixed media, stamping artist. I used my weekly Michael's coupon for the Making Memories Distressing Kit. I love how it works but I think I might have to practice a little bit more before I show off anything. The bone folder that came with the kit is great I like hw crisp my folds look. I am working on a new scrapbook layout for Anastasia's scrapbook. I hope to have it done tonight. I

had to stop to watch my favorite show, NCIS. It was supposed to be a brand new one but, it is a rerun. I guess that I will get more done on my scrapbook than I thought.

I really am loving being out of school this week. I really needed the break, an essay each week has been a little hard in the sleep department. Going to bed at 12am and getting up at 6am to take the girls to school and hope that I would get to work that day (I am a substitute teacher at their school) then not getting home until 3 in the afternoon. When I got home I would have to cook dinner, do laundry and get the kids in bed by 7:30, and then start my school day over again.

I also got to watch Carol Duvall's Holiday Workshop today, and I loved the idea of the folded paper tree. Here is the link for this I hope that you find it as interesting and easy as I have.

School Is Over For The Year

I finished my classes on Saturday and the girls on Friday. I have been going crazy this weekend making a few things and letting the girls make collages. I bought myself a new cabinet to store my craft stuff that we use in the house so I don't have to carry things back and forth from the studio. It is a Making Memories Embelishment Cabinet, Michael's had then on sale for 30% off and I just had to have it. It has been great. I have things for paper crafting, stamping, scrapbooking, and beading all in one cabinet. It has made keeping things organized and easy to get to. Look at all the storage space. I love the ribbon rods, I thought I had more ribbon than this, I will have to look through a few more drawers. I have the jars filled with floss, buttons, beads, paper scaps, paint daubers.

Here is one of the scrapbook pages that I made last night. This one is Shae's first trip to Stone Mt. in 2003.

Supply list:

Black Dye Ink Pad

Blue Eyelet Snaps

Forest Green Cardstock

Round Journaling Stamp

Flourish Stamp

Tree Stamp

1 inch round paper punch

Green Crinkle print paper

All Night Media Typerwiter Key Letter Stamp Set

Dark Blue Ink Dauber (used to distress the edges of paper)

Anastasia's first year in school.

Supply List:

1 inch round paper punch

Paper Flowers K & Company

Large Brads K & Company

Fabric Stickers

Making Memories Heart Brads

K & Company Chipboard accents

Plum Ink Dauber

Scallop Scissors

Round Journaling Stamp

Striped Pattern paper

Pink Cardstock

Amy Butler Mat Stack

I also got an early christmas present. I bought my self a new camera. It is a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S700. Circuit City had it on sale for $20 lower than wal-mart and they gave a 1G memory stich with purchase. Yipee, my last one fell in the atrium waterfountain at the Georgia Aquarium, this summer.

Here is the list of books and magazines that I have used to get some ideas for my paper crafting.

Vintage Paper Crafts

The Decorated Page

The Encyclopedia of Scrapbooking Tool & Techniques

This weeks update

We have been really busy this week. We made two countdown calendars, one for each of the girls.

Anastasia's is a bottle cap tree with round tags for the covers and I left the strings because I thought it would help her pull the tags off each day.

Shae's is made out of origami water cups that were glued to a piece of poster board.

Each of these took less than one and a half hours and they offer a fun change of pace.

I really can't believe that these pictures are so dark, but I don't get home until late and it is still dark when I leave so I have to deal with afternoon light and the dreaded flash.