I've been feeling pretty left out lately. All of my friends (and I mean ALL) of my friends either just had a baby, are pregnant or are currently in labor. Ahhh, what's that smell? Its the sweet smell of afterbirth. Anyhoo, I may be feeling left out, but I am absolutely okay with that I do not now or ever want another kid. My telling you this is just a precursor to mine and Shelby's dinner conversation tonight:

Shelby: Guess what. Mrs. L is gonna have a baby.

Me: That's nice.

Shelby: It's kind of nice, I guess. But Mrs. H and Mrs. S just
had babies. Isn't enough, enough?

Me: Well, I guess they're happy about it, so you should be
happy for them.

Shelby: I guess so. But it's like everybody's having babies.
Maybe you should too. Aren't you worried about your biological clock?
(editors note: WHAT?!?!?!??!) You are getting kinda old, you
know. Maybe you should freeze yourself like Walt Disney. That way you'll be
fresh when you want another baby.

Shelby: Mom, I think you washed your chapstick in your jeans pocket again.

Me: Why do you think that?

Shelby: 'Cause I just put on undies from the dryer and now my butt smells like mint.

I realize that Valentines Day is coming up, but that realization came after I'd already started on this... Can anyone guess what I'm doing with this freezer paper stencil? Yep. A Love Actually themed onsie. I have tiny letter stamps that I'm going to use to write up the side "Love is actually all around." I think Nica will appreciate that, as she loves the movie. Plus, I wanted to shoot for some kind of grown up reference. I've done alot of freezer paper stenciling, and I love it, but this is an "experimental onsie" I guess. We shall see how it turns out. I covered the letters with Tulip Fashion Glitter, which is FANTASTIC. If you heat set the glitter when you're done, you can't even feel it and it doesn't shed. It looks like it had been screen printed. Anyhoo. Here we are. I'm making another hat to go with this onsie. I have a gorgeous pink yarn, maybe white roses to go with it?

Did I Mention...

I found my card reader! So, without further ado, pictures of the most important people in my life...

That is Sarah helping me prepare a batch of Swedish Glogg and Shelby hamming it up at my parents on Christmas. I do believe that if Shelby had a thought bubble, it would say something like: "Sweet! The biggest present under the tree is mine! And it's from Graham Cracker (her nickname for my mom) and Dana, so it's got to be good!"

"Mwahahahaha!!!!! I will make my mom's life a very loud, rhythmic hell that she will have to live with and support because she believes in furthering my horizons and music education!"

"And Dana, the best grandpa in the history of ever, is going to teach me! He put in Van Halen DVDs and taught me how to beat the drums and head bang like the main dude!"

And now I come to the interactive part of my blog post. The following are my in-progress pictures of Nica's baby shower presents. I love the yarn I used for the hat. It is some kind of bamboo yarn, so it is super soft and light. Odd, I know as we're expecting 84364 inches of snow tonight, but this hat is made more as a fashion accessory as opposed to functionality. It's how I roll. How do you think the hat looks best? I made some flowers to cover up a dropped stitch, but I can't decide which, if either or both, I like. Help! What do you think?

*Note: Blogger isn't letting me upload any more pics to this post. Boo. So you all will wind up with about three blog posts tonight. So, please be patient and leave your feedback about the hat... I'm just not sure if I'm loving the flowers.

I FOUND MY CARD READER!!!!! But, alas, I am tired... I'll think about that tomorrow (she said in true Scarlett fashion).

Pictures of the awesome closet Barbie would be jealous of will come tomorrow. I'm also hoping to have some pictures of stuff I've been making for Nica's baby shower. And my new throw pillows. And maybe one of my weird kid. She's currently asleep in my bed, under three comforters, in my ankle length (on me) bathrobe, a hat and gloves. I think she may be trying to tell me something. But I'm kind of hoping she continues to say it awhile. It's nice to have someone to cuddle with. Plus, she looks like a great white wookie (isn't that what those little robed things are in Star Wars?) in my robe. It's awesome.

End of year...

Hi!

My name is Caroline and I beat my New Year's Resolutions all to hell with a fire poker. Nice to meet you! As I sit back and reflect on the epic train wreck that 2010 was, I realize that I didn't keep any resolutions. As such, I've decided to be okay with it. Moving on...

I made an effort to take pictures of my glorious new pink closet. I also took pictures of the new throw pillows I made. Just because I've been quiet doesn't mean I haven't been productive. I'm just boring and only blog once a year. Anyhoo. I took pictures. I know I have a card reader here somewhere, but for the life of me, I can't find it. So pictures will have to wait another day. Or year.

A couple of weeks ago, I was staking Tricias blog again and thought that the "foofs" she made for Megans baby shower were too cute for words. I have a huge blank space above my bed that needs to be filled up with something. I thought that 3-4 foofs at varying heights would work great, especially against the dark purple wall. Let me just say ha. haha. hahahahahahaha! That was one project that did not turn out well. I've used half of a huge pack of coffee filters from Sams, and I'm probably not even halfway done. And it took forever to get that far. I took pictures of the pretty side, and of it's naked butt. Though I don't like to admit it, it will probably not get finished. Who would have thought that a 6 inch ball would take so long to cover?

And now, I'm pretty sure it is officially January 1st in Istanbul, so I think it's time to break out the bubbly and celebrate! With another bottle to celebrate New Years in my time zone, of course. Happy New Year!

What I've been doing...

My life is way too boring and uneventful to blog regularly about. I could blog about projects I do, but that would be the extent of my blogging. Between work and soccer, I never do anything. I'm only a little resentful. Anyway.

Everybody I know is incredibly talented. Yes, that means you girls. I hate growing up with such talented people because absolutely none of it rubbed off on me. Unlike most people I know, however, I love working with yarn. I can knit and crochet and I like doing it. I'm working on an baby blanket for a friend of mine, and I'm almost done with it, so I'll post pictures of it as soon as I finish it. Luckily, she just found out she is having a girl. I was hoping that was going to be the case, otherwise the next girlfriend to get knocked up would get it. :o) Back to the topic at hand... I found an amazing new way to make yarn out of those huge piles of t-shirts I have that were destined for Goodwill. I'm really excited about this project. I love large, colorful, bulky and unusual blankets, which is what these yummy balls of yarn are going to be turned into. Aren't they gorgeous??? I apologize for the crappy pictures, but my camera is on the fritz and these were taken on my phone.

I found a sliver of blank wall space that was driving me batty, so I decided to break out the Mod Podge and packing tape to see what I can do with it. I didn't take pictures of how I came up with this, primarily because it was one big, huge accident that turned out fairly well. I had a canvas that I put book pages on. Our library has a section of free books and I grabbed one on Primative Mythology, which is right up my alley (I minored in Mythology in college). I loved the book because the pages were already yellowing and they were actually paper, not glossy magazine pages. One of the pages happened to have a cute sketch on it and I decided to keep it. Because I liked it, that's why. Then I grabbed metallic paints in colors I liked and mixed them half and half with Mod Podge. I did that so it would make the paints translucent and you can still read the pages beneath the paint. I just kinda closed my eyes and let the paint go where it would. Then this is the cool part. Have you ever done the packing tape transfers? I love them, they're awesome. You take packing tape and put it over an image (from a book, newspaper, ink jet printer, whatever). You overlap the tape a little if it's too narrow for your image. Take something straight and make sure there are no wrinkles or air bubbles and to make sure it's on there good. Then soak it in water for five minutes and rub off the paper. Then you get the coolest transparent image. Except for the black outlines, you can see through the whole thing. I chose to do a lobster, again, because I like them. Then I covered the whole thing in Mod Podge and called it done. Cool, no? Now that I have a basic idea of what I'm doing, I plan on doing an African series for my sister for Christmas. She maintains she was born on the wrong continent. Anyway, the lobster one was the one I intended to do, and th other one was a sheet I ripped out to test colors on. I added the elephant just to see how it worked. I love it and it's going up somewhere as well.

And that's all, folks. I could probably eke a little more out of my mundane life to blog about, but I am way too excited about my new yarn to not blog about that. :o) Now I'm after everybody I know for their old t-shirts. They're getting sick of me. And now I'm going to bed. G'night!