Card Swaps

One of the most exciting things I have begun doing, is hosting cards swaps. If you are not familiar with what this entails, I will explain. If you are, go ahead and skip down to the next paragraph. :) I have a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/CardSwapWithSoozaque, where I currently host two events per month. Paricipants can pick and choose what swaps they want to participate in, or just follow along to see all the amazing cards everyone makes! Ok, so each participant makes 5 cards per swap, following the guidelines for that swap. For example, the Valentine Card Swap was unusual shaped cards. Some shape out of the ordinary rectangle. And then Febraury's birthay card swap is ANY type of card, but for women's birthdays. Most people use the A2 size. Some go bigger. It's up to you. So you mail all five of your cards, along with a SASE, (self addressed stamped envelope) to me. Once I receive the swaps, I mix and match them with the group, and you should get 4 cards back, all made from different people. It's pretty exciting, and we have people who participatee from all over the world. Several Canadians, and even an Austrailian have participated in our swaps. It's really fun, and so exciting to see how much people appreciate your work. We are all lovers of homemade cards, and keep stashes, so this works out really well. So, if you would like to give it a shot, please SHARE the Facebook site and join in yourself!!!

Ok, so here are a few pics from recent swaps. You can also see these in the photo albums of the Facebook page, www.facebook.com/CardSwapWithSoozaque (it is NOT case sensitive, just easier on the eyes this way).

From the Christmas Card Swap:

These are just a few of the beautiful cards sent in for the swap. Below are some pics of the Thank You Card swap we just closed out.

I will post my Valentine Cards here with step by step on how I did them, in my next post.

Hope you all are having a wonderful 2014!! Be sure to follow me, and please share my blog so I can start doing some giveaways!!!

Temperature Scarf Project

Have you ever done a temperature scarf? I just found out about this, and I'm so excited to get things together so I can give this a try. The idea is to stitch 1-2 rows per day, color depends on the weather. From what I read, either in your current town or perhaps, in your dream town. I am just going to use my town. I live in Southern Colorado, so we get enough variation that I think it could make a very pretty scarf. So, you can assign a color scheme entirely your choice of course, to different temperatures. You could use white for snowy days, black and white verigated or something, for lighting storms. gray for rainy days, variations of blues for the colder days, yellows, orange and red variations for warmer days (yellow for 70-80, orange or pink for 80-90, red for 90-100 etc). Anyway, I see lots of potential. So tomorrow, I am going to go through my yarn stash, followed by a trip to Micheals, to pick about 10 colors to reserve for my scarf. Now, I loom knit. I don't like crocheting much, and for the sheet convenience of this project, I think leaving it on a loom all year is going to be the last messy choice. I plan to use a smaller, tighter stitch. Normally just a plain knit I use e wrap, but I will u knit because it's tighter. 365 or more rows will make a really really long scarf, so I want my rows to be thin.

So here is the YouTube link for the video I found regarding this scarf.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ybmVgH93Ds

Hope this inspires you to use your yarn stash. You could make a blanket or something else with this idea. I will update you on my progress as soon as I have my color scheme put together. Please feel free to share your ideas!

Have a blessed day!

Yarn Hoarding & My Knifty Knitter Looms

Who else out there is a loom-a-tic? I haven't a clue how to needle knit, though I can crochet, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE to loom knit. I've been doing it on and off for years. But this year, I found support via Facebook and have branched out. Like you would not believe.... No more boring hats. I became proficient at making Minion hats and Minion slippers. I gave about 15 different people loom knitted gifts for Christmas. I want to share the photos, but I'm having trouble with the upload. I will edit this later if I get it all figured out.

So anyway, I have about 8 looms, which I don't believe is hoard status - REALLY!! Lots of the loomers I met via FB, have in excess of 30 looms. So see, I'm good. But I do have somewhere around 40 skeins of yarn. And I want more. A lot more. Seriously, does anyone want to send me any? I'm open to any type any color. Now, THAT qualifies me as a hoarder of yarn.

Well, my kids are waiting for me to join them for some PS3 Skylanders. Not that I will play, but they cannot play without me to set it up. I will work on posting pics of some of the items I gave for Christmas. Hope you all will share some type of yarn items you have made, loom knitted, needle knitted, crocheted, whatever.

Have a blessed and happy new year!

Ok, I think I figured this out. This is a picture of one of the minion hats I made for my nephew for Christmas.

This is another minion hat given as a Christmas gift.

I made this scarf for my oldest son's girlfriend - also had a matching hat, but I can't find a pic of it. This was my first double knit scarf.

Here is a pic of the figure 8 scarf I did for my 16 month old niece.

And the matching hat (colors are the same, just don't look the same in pics)

And finally, as far as decent pics go, here is a pic of the minion slippers I made for my 14 year old niece.

My life as a craft hoarder.... New Year, New Me....maybe....I don't know....

Well, 2013 has truly just, well, SUCKED for me. I had to pack up my craft room, no easy task mind you, close up my blog, put my business on hold, and prepare a 6 bedroom house for sale, with 5 little ones running around. And 2 teens, but we will just pretend they are furniture. So last February, life as I knew it was packed up. Took a few months, but we finally got an offer on our house, and found one in the town we were moving to. Not really a town. Outside of a town. A one acre lot with a 7 bedroom house, off a dirt road, 6 or so miles from the highway. So not really in the MIDDLE of nowhere, but close. Or so it felt.

Early to mid May we got moved in, got lots of new LARGE play things for the kiddos (we sold the swing set with the old house), and with an acre to run, I mean we basically built a park in our yard. Okay, so during this construction, I took a bad fall. Oops. Broke my leg and my ankle, tweaked by back and injured a nerve, causing permanent nerve damage. I'm just summarizing for effect here. Basically as life moved painfully slowly forward, my craft room remained in boxes. Sometime around mid September, hubby finally started bringing my boxes into the house, and into my new craft room. I set a few things up, which was difficult as the origin of my nerve pain and back pain had not yet been determined. Got it mostly set up, got a new laptop to get things rolling again, and then our oldest daughter moved out. Again. For the third time in 2 years.

Well, we now have this 3600 square foot house with 7 bedrooms. I JUMPED to rearrange rooms to, well, discourage her from returning. It was time she start figuring things out on her own. So, here we go packing up my things again. (so, are you bored with my story yet?, I would be, don't worry though, I'm almost done!) Got things moved into another room, got the other kids situated with a plan for the rare occasion our oldest son comes home from college, and well, here I am, sitting in my craft room, with it about 1/2 done. With very little motivation to finish. I'm a craft hoarder. I have too much junk. You know what I do when I get stressed and don't want to get into my room to get it organized? I look for coupons and sales. Now fortunately, this little town only has two craft stores. Not very good ones, either. So, I've saved some money. But it's time to step up to the podium and admit, "Hi, my name is Susan, and I am a craft hoarder". And I'm going to blog about the ride I'm about to embark in 2014!! Hope you will join me! I look forward to sharing my progress with you, as well as hearing about how any of my changes may have impacted you.

January 5, 2014, I am jumping in feet first, into the Daniel Fast. The what? It's a Biblical Fast, that lasts for 21 days, designed to help get one closer to God and to "feed your soul, strengthen your spirit, and renew your body". It's not what you might be thinking, it's not Bible thumping and living off bread and water. Keep watching and learning as I share this journey though. I know it will help me get organized and get my crafts together so I can spend more time doing what I love and CREATING. What are your vices? What do you like to do? Please feel free to share your craft with us, as well as photos of your craft space. I know now everyone is as blessed as I am to have an actual room. But organization is universal, right? I look forward to sharing my journey!