Random cute kid pictures

Maylee was eating ice cream the other day and it was pretty warm outside, so it melted fairly quick. She made such a mess of herself I couldnt help but laugh. I had to run inside and get my camera to take these pictures, and I just wanted to share with all of you cause its just so darn cute!




Here is the end of her ice cream extravaganza. She hands me the cup first cause she is done with it, then she hands me the ice cream...it was pretty fun trying to keep her from touching stuff with the ice cream hand until we could get her cleaned up. This was one mess I just threw in the tub with some warm water and soap! It would take too many towels for this one LOL There was ice cream EVERYWHERE!








And here is Maylee on a cleaner day. She really wanted me to take a picture of her Kitty. She loves Kitty and she kisses him every morning and hugs him. She sleeps with him, takes him with her when we go places, and rocks him to sleep at night. He is her best friend right now. Arent they cute together?







This is Maylee REALLY wanting you to notice the Brobee on her shirt. She asked me to take this picture after her big brother Justin was done taking pictures of me in a new dress I made. She wanted some attention too!




















Here is Tyler still trying to conquer the gas station chicken....someday my son, someday!

Need your help with scents!

Ok I have a craft show to do saturday. I am making lotions like mad HOPING they will sell, and I am also planning a batch of soap for thursday. Now help me out guys, I dont know what to make everything smell like!!!!

I know what sells on etsy and artfire, but I am not sure about this show cause I never did it before. I have NO idea what people in Kentucky like...yes I lived here all my life....I know, I know....

So please vote in the poll to your right and let me know what YOU think may sell, and I will choose scents from that category plus a few others and we will see how well it sells! My heart says go with the sweet candy scents...but judging by the sales at my last show a month ago I think the fruity scents may win out...but I dunno! I may make a few of each and hope for the best but honestly I dont want to be bringing any lotion home with me LOL Its so good I want everybody to have some!

Oh yeah, and I decided on flip top bottles for the lotion packaging for summertime. Now when winter comes around i will go back to the baby food jars cause I dont have to worry about product melting and leaking out when its freezing outside. The votes were a tie between baby food jars and the squeezy bottles, so I went with squeezy bottles. I dont have to worry about them leaking. Thanks for your help on that one too!

Oh yeah and my team has a new giveaway for June. If I was you I would totally get in on this one too. The prize was donated by the mega talented Jama Watts...she let me TOUCH her necklaces she makes!!!!!....she has made a gorgeous pair of earrings for the lucky winner of our blog contest, so head over there and enter!

I just made Lotion!

Yes I am THIS excited! LOL

I been reading and reading about lotion, and I had the emulsifying wax here to make it and I decided to go on and jump in while I got this ton of body butter sitting here I cant sell cause its too hot to ship it.

The e-wax I am using is totally vegetable based, and I did some pretty thorough research on it to make sure its "safe' Everything I read on it says there is no known risk to humans or animals or environment with contact with this wax. I am convinced its safe. You guys know how I am about chemicals in bath and body products, I wont use any of that stuff, its too dangerous in my opinion thats why I began making soap in the first place was to get away from the carcinogens in bath and body products. My products are more "Unrefined" and not as "pretty" as the store bought stuff but they work better and are safe!

So the verdict on the lotion is: I applied some to my arm, and it goes on feeling a bit wet...I think this is how lotion is supposed to be. Its been YEARS since I used lotion so its hard to remember. The wet feeling goes away after couple of seconds. Then it feels a wee bit oily, not greasy or gross, just oily...that goes away in about 10 minutes and baby soft skin is what I have left. I LOVE it!

This is my body butter recipe, just made into a lotion. The oil part of the recipe is my body butter mixture, the water part is....well...water and a wee bit of borax to help emulsify and to help soften the water I used...I use ONLY distilled water.

I am so happy!!! Now to find packaging. I put some in this baby food jar and I am not so sure it would be a good sell in a baby food jar. I am totally into the recycling thing, but this is lotion LOL So lets vote! Tell me what YOU think would make good packaging! Voter thingy is to the right hand side under the SUBSCRIBE form (hint hint) hehehehehe

Let me know what ya think! I am hoping you dear voters can help me make the packaging look the way YOU want for YOUR convenience. Let me know what you think is best!

New recipe Mexican Chip Dip

This is my recipe I made for this awesome dip. I was inspired by a dish from a local restaurant....I didnt totally rip it off but its close...anyhoo! This can be made completely vegan with a few simple changes, for now its OK for milk consuming vegetarians
This is so quick and easy its almost WRONG!
Here is what you need:
A bag of tortilla chips
1 can of Hormel vegetarian chili
1 packet of Old El Paso taco seasoning
1 jar of Newmanns own PINEAPPLE salsa
about 2 cups of brown rice, or white whichever you like
A container of sour cream..they make this in vegan
Some cilantro,onion,cumin


First thing, put 2 cups of rice in a pot with enough water to cover the second knuckle on your index finger when stuck down to the top of the rice...yes these are precise measurements here. Put in about 2 or 3 teaspoons of the taco seasoning, a pinch or three of cilantro, and stir often as it cooks. For best rice cover it with a lid and simmer on low till its soft. This will smell real good in a minute.





While its cooking take your chili and add in about 3 teaspoons of the taco seasoning and some more cilantro...a pinch or three, and a handful of chopped onion. if you like hot chili add some powdered cayenne pepper Yee Haw! Cook all this stirring occasionally in a pot on low heat and just let it simmer while the rice is cooking. You should be drawing a crowd by now in your kitchen.






When the rice is done, layer a pretty decent layer of rice on a BIG plate, smooth it out all nice like so....








Then add your chili layer to the rice layer like so: Smooth it all out nice and purty...feel free to use the back end of your spoon to shoo away well meaning but now starving family members...






add a nice layer of salsa to the chili layer. The pineapple in this really sets it off! Mango salsa is great too!

YUM! If the crowd gathered about you is getting hostile dont hesitate to run them outside and lock the door cause your ALMOST DONE!





Now you can add some of that sour cream you been keeping in the fridge for this recipe. Just put some dabs of it here and there...I like sour cream sometimes so I put a LOT of dabs everywhere I could. Holler at the kids and tell them to hang on and quit beating each other its almost ready!





Now add some of those chips you had to hide under your bed to keep the hubs from stealing them, and your done! Call in the horde that has angrily gathered outside your locked front door and assure them you still love them with this.




I would have took a picture of it after we ate it but I was too full. It costs about 10 bucks to make this having to buy all the stuff premade except the rice. You can make your own chili from scratch and your own salsa and save some money...maybe. LOL

Have fun with it!

New Products YAY!

I FINALLY did it. i FINALLY made up some salt and sugar scrubs and some bath salts YAY!

I been making these for ages but never put the time into packaging and all that till today so I am happy. One more thing on my "to do list" checked off!

I have listed these mostly as "choose your own scent" kinda deals, but may make individual listings for scents in the future.




The sugar scrub is yummy. I have one listing for the Pink Sugar Type scented salt scrub. I made myself some of this not too long ago in the dead of winter, and OMG! heaven!!! My skin was even softer than it normally is and thats some SOFT skin! Makes your skin glow too. I like it, and it makes you smell good too. I scent it kinda heavy like all my stuff, I intend for you to smell like this at least all day LOL



I also listed a new lip balm I made the other day. Its Orange Dreamscicle. YUM! Maylee actually stole one of these and LICKED IT! She liked it so much...of course she now owns the one she licked and I charged her 3 bucks, or we can settle up her bill with some sweet baby hugs. We are still in negotiations on this one.


So thats it for my new stuff, just thought I would post cause my blog is terribly neglected lately. I hate being so busy!

Oh and dont forget about my sale on ARTFIRE!! I will be posting these items today!

******************DREADLOCK UPDATE! NEWS FLASH!!*****************************


This is the back of my head...my dreads are about 2 months old now. They are coming along slowly but surely. This is right after palm rolling...and they still kinda dont look like dreads (sigh)


I do have some good ones though...the ones in front are locked up pretty good...I pay more attention to the back when I palm roll though...weird.

All advice on what to do about my dreads is much welcome!!! I have a small bird family nesting on the top of my head now cause its so frizzy.


Oh in case anyone is wondering here is my dreads. This was taken this past week, and my dreads are about 2 months old now. They are coming along...wish they looked less frizzy though. i am looking into remedies.

My snow day

Here is an amazing picture of the snow. I stepped farther out on the front porch to take more pictures this time. I got some good ones. This stuff sure is pretty but it sure has caused a lot of trouble here. See the ice all over the power line...yeah thats bad.












So after freezing my butt off taking pictures I decided to finish up lunch. I started some Chicken for the savages made with Simmons Creek Chicken rub. MMmmmm It sure smelled awesome! You can see it here its the greasy stuff toward the bottom of the plate, and the red stuff is my much sought after taters made with that good Simmons creek Pork rub. I gave the recipe for these taters in a previous post

I will let you in on how I made the chicken which was met with rave reviews by the way. I put some vegetable oil in a pan (obviously) and I added some dried onion...about a teaspoon then I added in some of the chicken rub, 2 teaspoons full, when the oil was hot. I fried the spices JUST a little bit then I turned down the heat and added the cut up chicken breast. Keep in mind you dont want to fry spices more than a couple of seconds they DO burn, ask me how I know this...This is a method you use when making curry, and I wanted to make a bit of a curry but not full blown curry if that makes sense...it dont but anyhoo.. Fry the chicken in this spice and grease mixture till its done, then serve as you wish, with grease or without. Hubs prefers to practically drink the grease so I let him have it LOL. I plan on doing something different with the spices next time I get my hands on chicken. For now I have a squash for me and Maylee to eat tomorrow and I am gonna use some more of these spices on that. Maylee LOVES this stuff! Those taters are one thing I could get down her while she was sick last week. not too many but enough to keep her going. I was thankful to have something on hand she would eat.

So after we ate taters and greasy chicken and some mac and cheese, I started back to work on my pants here. They are FINALLY finished. I worked ALL day on these Maylee just wont let me get too much done at once, bless her heart.

These are corduroy, even the plaid fabric os corduroy, but the orb in the picture is NOT corduroy. he is a friendly fellow that likes to hang around. Interesting how I been getting so many orbs lately. Almost every time I take pictures around here I get at least one orb now.



Here you can see up close the pockets, and the embroidery. yeah I broke out the embroidery machine last night. It wont sew for shit but it still embroiders great! I picked a paisley to put on these pants. I went thru thousands of designs before I picked this one. i felt like it suited the project. Of course I did it in red to go with the red and purple theme we got going here. I love these colors so much. They are so bright and happy!
I sewed a purple and a red button on the pockets. I like to make the pockets fancy, so I did these with buttons rather than lace and stuff...lace just isnt the thing for this project. Maybe the next one! LOL

So in between being able to work on my pants, I spun some yarn. Maylee lets me spin yarn just fine so we did a lot of that today. I am working on this white wool right now. I have mixed in some pink with it too. its gonna be real interesting to see how it comes out in a project. I would spin one long piece of white, then attach a long piece of pink and alternate like that. This should be interesting!









Here is my ball of bamboo and wool all plyed and ready to crochet into something cool. I wish I had more! This little ball wont do much but it will make a nice trim for something I hope.

I am gonna try to spin up some more bamboo soon. Its a challenge, and it goes a lot slower than wool cause you really cant draft it, you have to kinda draft as you go, but its fun!






yes thats Tyler with an icicle in his mouth like a piece of straw LOL He is so cute.

So that was my snow day today. I hope you enjoyed it! Bye from Kentucky for now

Bag Crocheted from recycled grocery bags tutorial

I was picked to be the provider of stuff for February's Contest on behalf of my Street Team. So I put together this super cool bag of soapy goodness.

the bag is one I made from plastic grocery bags. I crocheted them all with a big fat "Q" hook. The bottom of the basket is tighter. I spun those plastic strips and then crocheted it. I wish I had got a picture of it, darn!








I have filled the basket with all kinds of wonderful things. 6 oz of laundry soap, and 4 bars of soap. 3 soaps are designer scents, and one Rose scent. Rose is a good one lots of people like it so I figured it would be a good pick.


You can still get in on this months contest featuring a gorgeous pair of earrings made by Kim Ries of Creative Eye Studios
Check her out! her work is incredible! The contest ends on January 31 so you better get your butt over there and enter to win now!


I wanted to tell you guys how I made this bag in hopes that you too can keep some of these things from getting on the sides of the street and stuff...they are everywhere like a plague! They can be so useful its really a shame to see them hit the trash. So now your gonna learn how to make them into reusable bags that will last ages to carry groceries in or just to put anything in!

First get you about 25 or 30 plastic grocery bags...lay them flat, this is the hard part. you have to fold in that side crease so that the bottom part lays flat, the handle part dont really matter its the body we are after, so get it as flat as you can.

You can pile 3 or 4 bags on top of each other just to cut your time down.

Cut the very bottoms off the bags, try real hard to not cut too high into the bag cause this is the part we want to preserve.

Once you get the ends cut off then you can cut your strips. Cut them 2 or 3 inches wide, try to stay the same width but its not necessary. you get a more interesting finished product if its not perfect.

Once you have processed all your bags like this you can start putting them together like in this tutorial here I am giving basically the same directions as in this tutorial just with no pictures cause I was too lazy to take any LOL She shows how to loop the pieces together better than I can ddescribe it.

Once you get a long striong of looped pieces you can get out your spindle and spin it to make a chunky yarn you can use with an "N" hook or you can leave it as is in the rough and get out your "Q" hook and go to town!

I made this bag by crocheting a circle using single crochets as big as I wanted the bottom and then I started making big triple crochets...I would chain 3 then count over 2 stitches and make a triple crochet..that gives this bag that netted look.

For making the handle I just did a chain as long as I wanted the handle to be and put in a row of single crochets in each chain space. you may have a different way you want to do the handle and thats great!

You can use this yarn to make more than bags too. i am thinking a whole line of "trash couture" fashion here. Skirts, headbands, hats, baby booties. All you would have to do is cut your yarn strips thinner to make a thinner plarn and you could even do a baby weight plarn!

So get out the crochet hook and make you some plarn! Have fun!

Felted soap and more

Ahhh the bamboo....I spin on it when I get time and this is what I got so far. After it falling off my spindle and spending over an hour to get it would into this ball I am gonna spin up some wool for a more realxing spin then ply these two together and see what I get. I dont know how many yards is here I know its not much though...oh its so shiny and soft....yum.







Tyler has been wanting to felt soap ever since Minde sent me hers. So i led Tyler step by step last night thru the dying process with kool aid so he could make a soap as a special request from Beautifulsoaps who has some really exotic scents you should check her out for real. But the Lovely miss Heather wanted a nice bar of felted Basil And Lime soap so Tyler hooked her up right!







This is the finished soap after its dried and stuff. Tyler is here swinging the soap in a piece of pantyhose LOL He liked that part a little too much...please note the sweet baby in the backgroun hard at work on hacking into NASA computers from our laptop....




In other exciting news, I have been named the Marketing Committee leader of my street team YAY! So I am gonna have to market the crap out of us and I think I am pretty good at pimping art LOL So please dont forget about the contest going on right now all you have to do to win is leave a comment, and next month the prize will be something from me, I am still trying to figure out what to offer...I may offer some legwarmers and soap I am not quite sure yet...So wish me luck in my new job, I have never been the leader of anything except my own imagination so this should be fun...I am already demanding people email me coffee and donuts and assigning slave jobs hehehehe

Bamboo and Wool Oh MY!

My wool.
From the bag
to the pot of hot kool aid dye
to finally being drafted and ready for lovin'





I love my wool.I used a LOT of kool aid for this wool. I used 9 pink lemonades, and 1 cherry and 1 yellow lemonade to get this hot pink color. I dyed about 8 ounces of wool like this. I have a massive pile of it by my sewing machineLOL.




I also have Bamboo! The picture here is me loving the bamboo...yes...love...the...bamboo....ahhhh...sooo soft....

OK I am done.

I am not gonna dye the bamboo I am mixing with the pink. I am gonna do a pink and white stripe/swirl yarn and I was gonna try out holding the two together and spinning all at one...yeah. Thats NOT working. The bamboo is a very challenging spin, so I am going to try ....(insert dramatic music) PLYING! I have already spun up some bamboo here on my spindle. I am doing SOOO good with drafting it too. I am so proud! I am having to draft as I go along because the bamboo dont stick together like wool. The fibers seem to be kinda like my hair, fine and silky! So I peel off a small section of it and just pull the fibers apart to the desired thin-ness as I go along spinning. Its slow but boy is it fun! You can see all the shiny goodness that is the bamboo in the pictures...isnt it nice!

I have a few yards of bamboo on my spindle now, and when i am done with that I will spin some of the wool and then try out the plying thing...should be interesting! I will let you know how it goes! Thanks again to Suespins for the awesome bamboo fiber and the quick shipping. I was about to hyperventilate when I seen the package yesterday I was so happy!

All Kinds of new stuff! And leg Warmers too!

The kids are back from their dads house and Maylee has finally erupted 4 great big molars and has calmed down into the little sweetheart I had before the molars got started. So now I can sew!

I must admit I have not had much inspiration lately with all the wool and Kool-Aid laying around here but I did have an epiphany earlier today...my legs are freaking freezing from the knee down! I have bad circulation I guess and so my feet and lower legs freeze no matter how much clothes I have on, so i fixed it

I made a plain pair of leg warmers I dont have a picture of and then I got to thinking, well these are like little skirts...skirt....little...tiers!!!! Yeah! (light goes on in brain) So I made three tiered leg warmers!!


I put some lace on the bottom and broke 4 needles on my crappy machine getting the shiny pearls on but it was worth it.


I like em, they are too cute. If I had to do em over the only thing I would change is the fullness in the bottom. I would make that last tier smaller for sure but they arent too bad for a first try!

Oh and in case your wondering I did NOT make the awesome shoes...those are made by Cintia who is super mega talented, and just had surgery but will hopefully be taking more orders for these soon, and restocking her store soon too! I have a pair for me and Maylee that match and I swear I am wearing these all over the place this summer. They only come off my feet to go outside in the mud and rain or to go to bed!

Next cool thing I made was a skirt!

I cant get a decent picture of it for nothin' I tried and tried. I got an up close of the pocket and of the sparkly trim here, and the pretty lace. I got that lace from a friend here, she didnt need it or want it and its just beautiful. Its not polyester either, it feels like cotton and has some weight to it. i am so glad I used it on this skirt. It just works with the shabby chicness of it. I LOVE this skirt and as much as I hate to I will be putting it on Etsy. I dont need another thing in my closet, but this is so...*ME* I love it. I am hoping someone else will love it to and give it a good home. I should have it listed sometime in the next week or two along with all my other stock I been holding off on to get thru the holidays when sales come back! The fabric is a premade patchwork...I didnt make all that otherwise this would carry a price tag no one could afford! LOL. I did however patchwork the pockets (smiles)



And last but not least I have to yell at Lacy. Dammit Lacy you started this OMG!


I was in a certain store...cause hubby got a gift card to this "certain" store from his work and there he was...Brobee. In hot pink no less. i had to get it I had to! She HAD to have this hoodie!



Then I got to looking around some more....and I seen it....



The PARTY IN MY TUMMY SHIRT!!!!!!!


OMG!!!! I want one for ME TOO!!!


Of course I couldnt leave without it, and I did go after all to find Maylee some long sleeved shirts, its just that this "certain" store has shirts for like 2 bucks and these were a bit more but thats OK, we blew daddy's gift card on Brobee stuff thanks to LACY! I hope your happy Lacy..your evil plan worked....I guess this is paybacks for the Chuck Norris-ing of your blog. you casted a Brobee spell on us! ROFLMAO!

My handspun wool shawl

This thing turned out so pretty, and also a lot shorter than I intended! I had 8 oz of wool dyed as you could see in my last post, and it really didnt make enough yarn to do much...but I am still happy, but the next time I want to make a big project I may spun a pound or more of wool for it LOL


And yes those are orbs in the picture. Yes I realize one is situated over my uterus, yes I am freaking out.



Anywhoo, the shawl is trimmed in this neato magenta colored fuzzy sparkly stuff I had stashed. I wanted it to have a trim and this worked well. I have it tied together in the front with a piece of that yarn, kinda lame, yes. I intend to put a nice button on here soon.



This is the back, I couldnt get a good picture of the back cause Justin was very un co-operative with me in taking pictures this night LOL





Here is the best picture Justin got but you can really see close up what it looks like. I made some boo-boos on it so its not perfect, but I love it all the same. I used a great big "Q" hook and a triple crochet stitch thru the whole thing. I wanted it to be big and open, lacy looking.

I love my kool aid dyed wool!!!

Next challenge is BAMBOO! I ordered a pound of it from Suespins on Etsy
And it should be getting here any day cause she was so awesome and shipped it so fast! I will post all my adventures with bamboo soon!