Crochet Clouds Baby Blanket

I have a newborn niece that I haven't met yet that I needed to make a Christmas present for.  I didn't have a whole of time to devote to this blanket since I have 5 Ninja Turtles I have to make for a nephew, an in-progress UGA baby blanket for my baby, plus the other stuff I want to make for my baby before he/she is born.  So, voila .. literally took me an afternoon.  I thought about embellishing it a bit with a scallop edging, but I didn't have any more of the cotton candy poofy yarn, so oh well.

The simple granny square in the middle was made using a random-skein-bought-from-a-garage-sale.  It was called Cotton Candy and it was a bulk weight yarn.  I probably would have made it bigger if I had more yarn, but what you see, is what I had to work with.  That's all I got for ya.  If you are unsure how to make a granny square, a good tutorial is found here: Crochet Simple Granny Square How To

• The white edging was made by attaching the new yarn by chaining 3, then double crochet once in each stitch that you can find (kinda tricky with the poofy fluffy yarn, but it doesn't have to be exact).  In each corner of the first row, I double crocheted two in a single stitch. 
• Once the row was completed, I chained three, then started over again.  This row, in each corner I double crocheted two in a single stitch, twice (4 total stitches in the corner).  I didn't keep count as I went, it just depends on how big you want to make your middle granny square, so I can't tell you how many you need to go before you double up.  I just eyeballed what I thought would be the corner stitch.  Carry on.
• Once the row is completed, chain three, double crochet once in  each stitch.  In the corner (again, eyeball it), I double crocheted in a single stitch, three times (6 total in the corner).  Carry on.
• So, essentially, you should have picked up on what I did there ... in each successive row's corner, add 2 stitches.  So, row 4, you should have 8 double crochets (taking up four stitches) in each corner, row 5 you should have 10, ect. ect.  Carry on for as long as you wish, making the blanket as big as your little crocheting heart desires.

 So, this pattern isn't exact.  Shoot me.  I wasn't necessarily planning on making it into a big project.  As I said earlier, I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on this blanket.  

Questions?  Comments?  Concerns?  Ask!

A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest

Somehow, I stumbled upon this series called A Shade of Vampire.  It begins on the 17th birthday of Sofia Claremont, who is woefully stumbling down a beach in Cancun feeling sorry for herself because her best friend, Ben is rolling around with some girl, and sigh .. she's been in love with him forever, but he has friend-zoned her.

 

Aside from wanting to shoot myself in the face at this so horribly, horribly cliche moment, I kept on trucking.  Thinking ... it could only get better, right?  

Well, she ends up on this perma-night island called The Shade after being kidnapped by a vampire.  This vampire, Lucas, seems like sadistic bastard, who wants to claim Sofia for himself, but alas, Sofia is to be reserved for his younger brother, the reigning vampire prince, Derek.   Of course, you learn that big brother Lucas can't deal with that, so there is one of the conflicts.

For some reason, Derek takes an instant liking LOVE to Sofia and decides that she is going to be his personal slave and that nobody can touch her, and anybody who does faces the wrath of Prince Derek.  (Hence the problem with Lucas arises, especially after he torments her behind closed doors and she's too afraid to mention it to Derek, even after Derek has told her he would protect her and all of that other manly-cliche-ridden-stuff.)   I hate insta-love!! And it's literally what this whole series is based on!  Oh but wait!! In addition to INSTA-LOVE, there is the--but wait, I can't love him, he's a vampire/oh wait, I can't love her, she's a measly human!  Oh, gag me with a shovel!  Are you freaking kidding me?!

I guess by the way this review is going, you can tell I'm not entirely sold on this series.  The book, like this review, is very vague.  It's a quick read, maybe a little over a hundred pages, but it merrily skips along, supposedly lasting months. I kinda felt like I had been time-warped by Castiel by the time I was done with the first book.  I'm leaving major plot-points out of this review, because if I mentioned them, I would have literally re-written this book in fewer words than it took to get it published to begin with. 

So, in answer to the question I asked myself at the beginning of this book:

it can't get better.

But what am I doing?!  I started reading the second book!! And alas, it got better, much much better, it just took ANOTHER hundred pages... I guess it was a good thing the second book is around 300 pages long.  So ultimately, I suppose you could say:

 

I'll give this series another shot, I suppose. 

Christmas Trimmings

I decided this year I am going to go all out for Christmas.  It could be because now that I'm pregnant, I'm nesting, and I want to decorate more, or it could just be because I got a creative bug up my now-enlarging pregnant butt.  The first decorative item I created for Christmas this year is a wreath for my door!  Originally, I found a wreath on Pinterest that I really fell in love with. 

 

(taken from this blog: http://www.southernsunflowersandcoffeebeans.com/2012/11/its-beginning-to-look-lot-like-christmas.html ... don't say I never give props to those who deserve it!)

It didn't take me too long to realize that those wooden-branch-inspired wreaths are expensive as hell, and with only having a $20 budget to make this wreath, I had to stroll around Michaels and figure something else out.  
As I was walking through the glitter explosion aisle full of stem picks, I decided on my design.  It helped that all of the picks were half off, so instead of spending $0.99-1.99 per item, I got them for $0.50-1.00.  I bought a smaller sized fake fir wreath that ended up being $5.99.  The wooden letter C I bought was $1.49.  It was a smaller, cheaper C since I bought a smaller wreath.  I bought 8 total picks, which I said earlier ranged from $0.50 to $1.00.  Two of the picks had a bell on them, so I could hear that Christmas-y jingle every time I open my door.  I bought one spool of ribbon, costing me $4.99.  I needed a hot glue gun and glue sticks, which will come in handy for future products, which was $2.79 for the gun and $3.99 for the glue sticks.  It helped that I had a 25% off your entire purchase coupon, so all in all I spent $17.34, which if you remember, about $8.00 was spent on the glue gun and sticks. 
Once I got home, I arranged the picks artfully on one side of the wreath, just bending the flexible stem around the wreath so they wouldn't fall off.  I wrapped my wooden C in the ribbon and hot glued it so it would stay (thankfully, a C is a pretty easy letter.  Sucks for you S's and F's out there!).  I finagled a bow so I could add in a bit more color.  I'm thinking about buying smaller ornament balls and gluing them onto the wreath, but I haven't decided yet. So this is my creation!! Good luck with yours!