My new obsessions

• Knitting!

I tried to pick up knitting when I first got married. I hated it. I wasn't coordinated enough to work two needles at a time! So I stuffed my knitting needles into the back of the closet and tried crochet, instead. I loved crocheting. But I was always jealous of the people who could knit cool cables and lace. last week, when I cleaned out my closets, I found my knitting needles and decided to give them another chance. This is my progress after two hours and many, many slipped stitches:

Why yes, I AM ridiculously slow. Thanks for noticing. But, yay! I can knit!

• Mod Podge Rocks

Yes it does! I love mod podge. You can do so many things with it! I can't hotlink the photos from their blog, but that just gives you more of a reason to click on over to there and check it out. Because who doesn't need a pair of modpodged shoes?

• Wardrobe Refashion

The members of this blog take a pledge to make their own clothing for a specified amount of time. You can also buy handmade or used items during your pledge, so many people take old clothes and thrift store items and refashion them into something totally different. There are some awesome ideas! like turning a man's button-up shirt into a little girl's dress


or embellishing boring tanktops with crochet collars.Sign ups for the next round of pledges start this Thursday, and I've decided to add my name to the list, since I just cleaned out our closets and I have a giant pile of clothing that needs to be repurposed. This should be fun.

• Crafty Nest

This blog is rife with ideas for the do-it-yourselfer. I only wish that I had a house to decorate, so that I could attempt some of these projects. look at these awesome ideas!

Spotlight

I wanted to do a quick spotlight on www.kevinandamanda.com
Perhaps you've noticed the sweet new fonts all over my blog? Those are courtesy of Amanda. She has tons of free fonts that you can download from her site, as well as a tutorial on how to apply them. She's so crafty and clever, I'm loving her blog. You should go check it out.

Meanest Mom giveaway

There is another awesome Giveaway going on over at The Meanest Mom. All you have to do is comment to be entered to win, and there are lots of prizes. Check it out.

Gun control

As someone who has grown up around guns and gun-toting cowboys, I am adamantly against gun control. I believe that our forefathers meant just what they said when they wrote the second amendment: 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' And yet our government is slowly taking away our right to bear arms. They constantly impose stricter laws and regulations on people who own firearms, with the excuse that they are trying to keep guns out of the hands of those people who would use them to harm others.
It makes me angry.
You know what else makes me angry? The way the media vilifies firearms and those who choose to own them. I was pretty disgusted with 'If I Only Had a Gun', the 20/20 special that aired last Friday. They seemed to be trying to make the case that since a majority of children and teenagers (and even many adults) don't know how to handle a gun correctly, then nobody should be able to own a firearm. What I think is that since a majority of children, teenagers and adults don't know how to handle a gun correctly, they should BE EDUCATED. For instance, as a child I was taught that you should NEVER point your gun at any living thing unless you plan to kill it. Even if you think that the gun isn't loaded. Guns are NOT toys and should not be treated as such. I believe that there would be a lot fewer accidental shootings if children were actively educated and taught respect for firearms.
Kellene of Women of Caliber has some good points about the 20/20 special. I like what she has to say, and I especially love point #3, where she talks about freedom. Check it out: http://womenofcaliber.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/2020-shoots-blanks/
And for those of you who missed the show you can find it in pieces on YouTube.

StumbleUpon Finds

Edit: I'm not sure what's going on with my formatting here, can't seem to get rid of the wonky stuff. sorry about that.

StumbleUpon has got to be the greatest Firefox add-on ever.

Some great sites that I found this week:


Smitten Kitchen : A food blog with some yummy looking recipes that I can't wait to try. Specifically the tarts and cookies. *drool* It is very, very bad that I found this now, when I'm trying to lose weight.




Jacksonpollock.org : A fun little site where you can pretend that you are an artistic genius who can splash and dribble paint on a canvas and then sell it for millions of dollars...







little window shoppe: A blog with crafts, recipes, giveaways, and gift ideas. There's some fun stuff on here.







Cake Wrecks : When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong. I must have spent over an hour looking through this blog. It is absolutely hysterical. The cakes are funny enough, but the commentary is priceless. The Darth Vader baby shower cake is the greatest thing I have ever seen.


I'm sure there will be more things to share soon. I'm loving this add-on!

Babywearing

Have you seen those mothers who walk around wearing their babies in slings all of the time? I've always wanted to try that, but do you know how much those slings cost? Anywhere from 30 - 60 dollars, and not much cheaper on Ebay.
I just don't have that much money to spend.
Anyway, I started researching patterns on the internet, thinking that maybe my mom could help me sew one (because I, sadly, have absolutely no luck when it comes to sewing anything. I'm completely hopeless.) and as it turns out, I don't have to sew a thing if I want just a simple wrap. I tried it out yesterday using just a bed sheet, and i was able to carry Anicka around without a problem. She sat quite comfortably strapped to my hip, and the bed sheet distributed the weight across my back and shoulders. My arms were completely free. Awesome!
Here's what I did, in case you want to try it:
Take a flat bed sheet ( I used a queen size ) and fold it in half lengthwise. Then fold it lengthwise again. Find the middle of the length and place it on your hip with the thickest fold facing down. Bring the back end of the folded sheet up diagonally across your back and sling it over the opposite shoulder. Bring the front end of the sheet up to the same shoulder and tie the two ends together in a knot, leaving the fabric draped loosely across your stomach. The knot should be between your shoulder and your breast, sort of where a corsage would go. Make a 'pouch' out of the material that's hanging across your belly by separating two of the layers of material. Hold the pouch open with one hand, and slide the baby in with the other hand. Tiny babies kind of curl up against your breasts, older kids can sit up against your hip with their legs hanging out. You can then tighten or loosen the knot at your shoulder to keep the baby as secure as possible. Spread the fabric out to cover as much of your shoulder and back as possible, so that the weight will be distributed evenly.
This is just one method. There are dozens. To make the sling easier to adjust you can buy some rings to secure the fabric with instead of tying a knot. Here's a great video to show you how that works:


You can also sew the rings into the fabric if you want, and then you have only one tail to adjust, instead of two. Here are some instructions that I found for doing that, just in case you're as craft challenged as I am: www.sleepingbaby.net/jan/Baby/sling.html

If you're going to use rings, make sure you buy weight bearing rings, not craft store rings. Here's a place online that sells rings made specifically for baby slings: sling rings

Here is a site that has instructions on various different carries using a ring sling:
http://www.sleepingbaby.net/wearing/index.php

And here are a couple of general, all purpose websites with tons of useful information on them:
www.thebabywearer.com
www.mamatoto.org

I hope somebody finds all of this useful. :)
I'm just excited.