Crafty Weekend: Mooning, Booties, and Treats :)

This weekend, I have mostly been glued to the wonderful (but long) LDS General Conference. For me, sitting down and devoting 8 hours to the tv sounded hard, just because I felt like it was a lot of time that I couldn't do anything else. Though I never was much of a busy-body at home, now that I don't have a job here at college, I find I have tons of energy to expend. So here is what I have been up to :)

For astronomy, I had to finalize my sketches of the moon I did a few weeks ago. At home, acrylic paint and paint brushes are easily found, so it took me back a little when I realized I had to go art-supply shopping! After working for quite a while, this is what I had!



Here is the basic background of the project. It has the mountainous horizonm, and then the sky. Because my project needs to display time, you can see the normal sky in the daylight on the left, slowly changing to night on the right. Fun!




During this picture I was still working on the sky. This is my cute little work area. My little set of acrylics and my make-shift paint palette. Now that I think about it, probably not the best idea to have my laptop and phone there next to all the paints. Crisis averted.





Here is the finished result. It's not 100% perfect, but I think that gives it charater. I had fun :)



This morning, I made cinammon rolls! I know that's not a great creative accomplishment because they were just from a tube, but you know what? It was fun. They taste delicious! The brand I got only has 140 calories a serving, so I didn't feel so bad when I had two for breakfast :P Making cinnamon rolls for conference was a tradition growing up, and it has remained one of my favorites! I wasn't brave enough to wake up early and make the recipie my mom uses, but maybe by the time the next conference rolls around I will have tried it by then and I can make them.

While I was listening to conference today, I was crocheting. I picked up a huge thing of cheapo yarn and a cute little hook from Walmart yesterday, and I had been playing around with it. I got to thinking that I actually wanted to do something cool with it, and here is what I did.

I was looking online at charities for crocheted or knitted items, and I one of these things caught my eye: Baby booties! There are several charities that collect baby hats, jackets, or baby booties to give to mothers who cannot afford it, premature babies who have to stay in the hospital, or babies who get sick and also have to stay in the hospital. The thought of a little baby having little ice-cube feet made me so sad, so I decided I would take on the project and make a couple pairs to send to a local charity.

My one problem was, I really don't know how to crochet. I had never learned much as a kid, only enough to make little squares for my barbies that had holes big enough for them to fit their heads through. So I decided, I just needed an easy little step by step pattern

I found this website http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/bevsbooties2.html for these ADORABLE baby booties!

The only problem was, even though the steps were so basic, I didn't know ANY of the stitches. So, I went to youtube and found Teresa's Step By Step, How To crocheting videos! They helped SOOO much. I now know so many more stitches and making the baby booties was fun, not frustrating.

Here was the beginnings of my first booty. The stitches you use make it curl like that so it actually WANTS to be shoe-shaped

Here I was stitching up the first booty. It's pretty skiwampus, but it was a great start



Here is Booty #1 Completed




Here is the very top of the booty that goes around the ankle. I learned to do a little ruffle to put at the top. It says that the ruffles are only for girl babies, but I think a manly baby would appreciate them too. Can't imagine donating the booties without this cute little ruffle!




This is booty #2. It is a lot tighter looking than the first. I think that comes with practice. I folded over the stitching for the picture so you could tell what it was. In this picture, I still had a row to do of the ankle, the ruffles, and I still had to stitch it closed.




Here is the final product!

 Booty #1 (on the left) looks weird. You can see from the photo that the ankle size is much too large and the booty is kinda twisted. I am not sure how that happened, but it must have been a mistake because my second booty (on the right) looks very nice. I will definitely redo booty-#1 before I donate, I just wanted to show my progess! I am thinking I will add little bows like the website pic shows, but I would rather do that with ribbon, rather than yarn that will fray.

I think crocheting could become a nice hobby for me. I am never patient enough to work hard on something that is mine, but I would love to be able to give crocheted gifts or donations.

I am thinking I will make a little somethin'-somethin' out of my cookbook tonight. I made cookies from Nestle Dough a few days ago, but I really want to actually make something! Here I go!