Happy Halloween Blog Hop!

Happy Halloween everyone!  This post is part of the blog hop sponsored by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.  If you want to participate head over there and go to each blog to spell out the mystery phrase.  Then email it to Jo for a chance to be in the drawing.

I've made some more progress on Halloween Banner Green:

And your letter is in the pic above ;).  Hint: it's on the stitching. If you can't figure it out I'll post it at the bottom as well.

Your next stop is Fireflies Cats in the Garden

So head on over there and say hi to Noni.

I hung up my other banners finally and got them finished finished :). I did them as bell pulls.  I cut the dowels and painted them an oil rubbed bronze color. Then I added some twine as the hanging mechanism.  I love how they turned out.

I carved my pumpkin Thursday night and love how it came out:

Carving pumpkins is my favorite part of Halloween.

If you didn't see the letter don't worry.  It's: U

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a happy Halloween!

It Came It Came!!!

I kind've stalked the mailman a bit because my calendar and coloring book came today!

They're gorgeous and Brigid was even sweet enough to sign the coloring book.  

The coloring book has 50 Celtic mandalas including all of the designs from the calendar.

I've also reached page finishes (sort of) on 2 projects.  

Of course we have Paradise:

Which is a true page finish and I've reached the bottom of the page on the half I've been working on in the black on Halloween Banner Green:

I kind of like having multiple projects with page finishes!

Thanks for stopping in.  I won't have much more progress on paradise for a while because I leave the day after tomorrow for the wedding and I'm leaving it at home so the bride doesn't see.  I'll take banner on the plane.  I have to let out my bridesmaid dress which I may do by hand because I gained more weight from having to eat out for 6 weeks during the move.  I hope I don't mess it up.  Wish me luck!  On the other hand I started working out today finally after finding some good workout dance videos.  It's time to get this PCOS under control.  It should help me lose weight too.

September SFS

Hello again friends it's time for another SFS.  SFS is hosted by Mel from Epic Stitching and is designed to curb our spending and stitch from our stash!

September: $25

Carryover: $50

Used: $19

Total: $59

What did I buy?  This one was a little difficult to determine because it was part of a package deal.  A few months ago Brigid Ashwood had a kickstarter for a calendar of her designs.  Well I love Celtic designs and when I saw that it also included a Celtic wolf cross stitch I had to go for it.  Then I decided to just go for broke and get the coloring book too.  Altogether it was $45 + shipping and the pattern is from heaven and earth designs so I figured the pattern is about $19 which is their normal price.  I was bummed though because they said it was an exclusive design but it's actually the wolf guide design on the site just a little smaller.  It's okay though because I'm going to change it to match the picture in the calendar.

This is the cross stitch:

And this is the calendar pic:

I will probably just change the designs of the 4 medallions.  The coloring book patterns will probably get changed into cross stitches too later down the road.

I did some stitching as well.  And actually I got a lot done on Paradise.  I feel like I'm making great progress on it finally and have almost another page finish.

Last time I only had s few letters:

Now I have more color:

Close up:

The row row of stitches above the random stitch is where the page ends.  I should have it done in a couple of days.  

I also made some progress on Halloween banner green although not as much.

Last time:

This time:

I should take pics with my dresses on more often lol it creates a fun background!  Speaking of which I can see my schoolbook in the background as well so that's my cue to get back to work.  Thanks for stopping by!  I'll see you next month!

Home Sweet Home

Hello everyone welcome back to my little slice of the universe.  I promised I'd be back with an update about what I've been up to with my move and to show you some stitching.

Well I'm happy to say we've moved into a house finally.  We're renting it for 6 months in North Hollywood, CA.  It's basically someone's attic he converted to a private apartment to use while he was back from the navy.  Now that he's retired he rents it out.  It feels so good to be settled after being in hotel rooms and his moms house for over 6 weeks.  It was very stressful as well because after we arrived we kindve kicked my dmil out of her house because her boyfriend doesn't get along with us.  Long story but they just decided to get a hotel while we found a place to live.  We had a house lined up but it fell through at the last minute because we decided we simply couldn't afford it until I found a job.  I've applied to several schools as a receptionist and got my first call back yesterday.  I have to go Monday to take some proficiency tests and typing tests and we'll go from there.  It's about half an hour from my house so its a little far but I'll judge on if I'm willing to make that drive after I go up for the tests.  

Our house we got is small but cute.  We have 2 magicians as our downstairs neighbors but we haven't met them yet.  I'm only bummed because we can't get a dog.  So I'm glad it was only 6 months and I'm really hoping we can buy a house after this.  It came fully furnished too which is nice but it means we have to pay storage.

Tiny bathroom!

Sorry the photos aren't the best but I love our little patio.  I'm actually writing this from the chairs as we speak lol.

My mom is coming down for Christmas and I'll have my first Christmas off in 6 years!  I'm excited about that.  Our tree was in the front of the storage unit too which is great but our decorations are in the back so I'll have to buy more.

My stitching has gotten better now that we're settled.  I finished the color on paradise that I started in the car.  I'll show it next post.  But I did work on something else.  Ready?

Yay Halloween!  This is the green panel and the left half of the design.  I'm starting to get into the massive amounts of black.  But this is what I finished in 3 days while at dmils house.  It's fun to be stitching something simpler and different.  I doubt I'll get it done before Halloween but I'm not putting a time limit on this one :). Hopefully my next post will be the other two panels finish finished.  I worked on some of the mounting before we moved so I just have to assemble and hand them.  Maybe later today.  Thanks for stopping by I'll see you at the end of the month!

Happy New Year-A Year in Review

Good morning everyone I hope you had a great 2014 and I hope your 2015 is even better.  I've had some ups and downs this year but I always try to stay positive about situations.  It's rainy here today and I have to work tonight so no New Year's celebrations for me unfortunately.  Luckily I'm working with one of my favorite people so I shouldn't be bored.  I just hope it stays quiet and we don't have too many complaints since I'm working in guest services.

My Christmas ended up being good since I got to go out Christmas Eve with my husband.  We went to Busch Gardens since it was free and it was nice and quiet so there were no lines for anything.  They also had some great shows.

I didn't realize it would work but I did a series of rapid fire shots and that's what the moving photos are.  They turned out pretty cool!  One of the shows had Santa who called up all of the kids from the audience to sing a song with him it was adorable.  One little girl in particular who is sitting under the green elf was just the cutest thing I've seen.

Present wise I did well too.  I got $50 in gift cards for Michael's to support my stitching habit.  Probably will be going toward an Ott light.  I also got a new touch screen laptop which I'm writing this on right now.  My old one had a broken hinge and no battery life so it was really more of a desktop although it has a DVD drive so I'll still probably pull it out on occasion to watch movies in bed.  I still have to transfer over all of my cross stitch patterns and all my photos and videos to the new one though.  I also received some nice new clothes and a winter jacket since we're planning on moving to colder climates next year.  My hubby got a new winter jacket as well along with some new video games for his PS4 and a headset so he can talk to people while he plays.  We also got a big cash gift from his dad.  His stepmom passed away this year and it was our final gift from her.  The note his dad wrote made me tear up a bit, I didn't realize we brought her so much happiness so I'm glad I could bring her some comfort before she passed.

The good news is my mom is doing well.  She got out of the hospital right before Christmas and although she couldn't stay the night at my sister's like she was planning, they all went down Christmas Eve and spent a few hours with her before they went home.  She's also able to eat whatever she wants and is able to keep it down.  She's been scarfing down on hot fudge sundaes like they're going out of style :).

Stitching wise I think I finished a fair amount this year.  First off I started this blog and am currently at 40 followers so a big thank you to all of my readers!  I also started up my stash this year which is now more than enough for a couple years to keep me occupied.  My wind up this year is as follows:

 Finished Aurora Cabin

Started and finished 2 panels of Halloween Banners

Swirling Peacock started

Started and finished Legend of Zelda for my friend

Started and finished My Tinkerbell for hubby's friend

Started Magical World

My goal this year is to start and finish Paradise by October.  It's 42 pages and 800x202 stitches so I'm nervous about getting it done on time.  I'll be stitching on this exclusively though so I'm hoping I'll finish.  I already have the fabric dyed and gridded and I have the words charted out.  I'll be working off of two charts at the same time and I'm still trying to decide on colors for the words.  I'm thinking since there's so many colors in the pattern (100) I'll just do white letters with a black border.  It's for my cousin's wedding so it has to be gender neutral.  I was telling her about my Tinkerbell project and she said I should stitch a little something for her.  I already had this planned but I know she'll love it as she loves the beach and it's Broncos colors for her fiance.  I calculated it out and need to do a page a week to stay on track.  

Once I finish this I'm going to stitch Howling for my mom.  She loves native American design and wolves.  She also started stitching and she does blankets for her newborn grandkids but she isn't a big fan of stitching and won't do anything for herself so I decided to do something for her.

Non stitching-wise my goal for next year is to get pregnant.  I have some pretty bad fertility issues as I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was a teenager.  I won't go into much detail about it but basically I don't ovulate except like once a year.  I'll be 29 in April so really want this to be my year.  I've already started the first step which is a strict diet where I can't eat basically anything good.  I had to cut out all starches, dairy and sugars.  So my diet is basically meat and some veggies, eggs and hard cheeses.  I just discovered cheddar is considered a hard cheese so that made me happy.  Also all of the almond flour and almond milk out there means I won't be suffering as much as I thought.  I found a dairy, sugar and starch free bread recipe to try.  I just have to run to Whole Foods to get almond and coconut flour to make it since they didn't have them at my normal market.  I'm trying to cheat only once or twice a week which is where I just cheat all day and then start it again the next day which is what my endocrinologist told me to do.  My other goal next year is to move to our final location.  We've been living in Florida for about 5 years now and we both miss our families so now that hubby is graduating in May, we're finally moving back home.  The only problem is his family is in CA and mine's in CO so we're still "discussing" where we're moving.  We may just move to Vegas so we're halfway between the two ;).  My last goal is to start graduate school.  I should finish it in a year I just have to finish my exams that I need to get into the program.  I'm hoping to have these done in January.

So lots of changes in the new year and lots of nervousness. I hope to get my goals accomplished but we'll see how everything goes.  I hope you all achieve all your goals and happy New Year!  I'll be posting again tomorrow with my New Stitchy Start post.  Thanks for sticking with me I know this was long and detailed.

Until next time,

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?  Should old acquaintance be forgot and auld lang stitch ;)

My Project(s) Reveal!

Yep I'm happy to say I'll be starting two new projects instead of just one!  Technically it's 5 new projects but 4 of them are designed to be one piece.  I'm still finishing my Dimensions Aurora Cabin but I should be done in a week hopefully.  My first piece I'm excited about because it's everything I love.  Sparkly, swirly and peacock (which was the theme of my wedding).

It's the Swirling Peacock design by Joan Elliott.  It uses DMC thread as well as Kreinik to make it sparkle and Mill Hill beads for some added bling.  I'm stitching it on 28 count Opalescent White linen to give it even more sparkle.  It's my first time putting beads on a project and also my first time stitching on anything other than Aida.  Hmmm...also my first time stitching from scratch rather than from a kit.  Well a lot of firsts on this one.

I'm also excited about my next project(s).  I didn't think my hubby would let me buy this one too but I found a good deal on fabric so he's not too mad.  My next project is a piece which can be broken up into panels which I decided to do.  It uses more fabric but there's so many more possibilities with it.  It also encompasses my love of Halloween and on that note, here it is.

So pretty!  This piece is called Halloween Banners by a design from Vanessa-Fotolia.  I love the versatility and how each panel is so colorful and complete and look beautiful when combined.  I'm picturing these staggered on my wall but I could also see them on different walls in the same room.  My particular favorites are the blue and green ones.  I'm strongly considering doing the moons in Glow-in-the-dark thread.

 Well that's all for now see you next time!