Ch-ch-changes!

I've decided to change the look of this blog a bit. Ok, maybe a lot.  If you remember what it looked like before, it's very different now.

I have also started up a separate blog for my shop. I will start posting that stuff there and then anything else I feel like talking about on this one!
See the side or my profile for the link to that blog. :]

The other day hubby and I decided to take a very spur-of-the-moment trip to Park City after he got done playing a few games of bball with a friend of his and that friend's buddies.

I even got a compliment on my lovely hand-doodled shoes I colored on forever ago.

Aren't they so purty...

It was one of the guys that worked at the first store we walked into. It just so happened to be a shoe store. Haha!  Said guy asked if I had colored them. He then told me he might have to hire me to color on some shoes for him.  (I had to go get more shoes later to color on... for myself. I have been wanting to for a long time.)

We had fun window shopping and being spontaneous.

We came back down to the valley after we had wandered our fill (and had even stopped to get some pretzel bites!) of Park City.

We got some much-needed hair cuts (my hair gets so thick and heavy! With a bad neck, I have to thin it every time I get it cut) and got my thick-framed glasses fixed. They were so uncomfortable that I couldn't wear them.  So I didn't... for almost a year! I've just been bad and not taking them to get adjusted.

The Shop Is Open!

I finally got the shop open!  Just today!  I have a few listings up. Eight, to be exact.  I need to take a few more pictures and get them uploaded for other items.  I also need to talk to miss Jena about the items she took and see if she has finished with them yet.  I'm sure it will take her a little while to get the photos edited...

I am thinking about listing some bacon ornaments/bookmarks.  I get the feeling people will like them.  I don't get the bacon obsession...

Any suggestions?  If you would like to check out the shop, go to 

www.etsy.com/shop/GingerbreadCove

Etsy!

I haven't posted in almost 2 months!

I've been trying to figure out all the legal/tax stuff for Etsy and it's a little confusing.
I've read that I don't need to get an EIN (employer id number) but it's better if I do.
Then that I have to get a business license. Or not.
Then that I need all this other stuff.... maybe?

Some say get the EIN, state tax id and business license just in case.
I found a forum/team for Utah "Etsians" and they say they were told they wouldn't need all this stuff, but then when it came time to file taxes, they got in trouble and threatened with fines!  Some can be up to $15,000!
Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

At least the EIN is free. The license is like $20~ .
I have to find out about the city I live in and if they require certain things.  A lot of that has to do with if I sell anything to anyone that also resides in Utah. Some in that forum joked that you shouldn't sell to people in Utah because it's such a hassle and there are technicalities...

Some day I'll have it worked out. I'm hoping soon.  I want to get my EIN so I don't have to give my SSN out to everybody... That just seems like it could cause even more troubles for me. :/

I already have the store name and everything signed up for Etsy. I just have to list stuff and post pictures. I want to figure out the shipping profiles and get that attached to my account. I think after that, I will be golden! Then the fun can begin!!

Taxes and legal stuff.... bleh!
Until next time...

crochet football applique pattern

just wrote this up this morning!

(this hat is a newborn size, so don't worry if you think your ball
turns out a little small.. just use a larger hook!)

if there are any questions.. let me know!
use any size hook you want. i used an H  hook.

abbreviations:
ch = chain
sl st = slip stitch
sc = single crochet
hdc = half doulbe crochet
dc = double crochet
tr = triple crochet
sp(s) = space(s)
st(s) = stitch(es)
FO = finish off

ch10, sc in 2nd ch from hook.
one st in each of the next few sts as follows...
hdc, dc, tr, tr, tr, dc, hdc,sc.
ch 2. now working up the other side...
sc, hdc, dc, tr, tr, tr, dc, hdc, sc.
ch 2 and sl st in the very first sc. ch 1.
now you will sc around. the only ones you will do differently would be in the tops of the 1st and 3rd tr on both sides. you will do 2sc in each of those 4 sps.
also in the ch2 sps on the points of the football, you will (2sc, ch1, 2sc).
sl st into the very first st of this round to join and then FO.
now with another color you will stitch the football's stitches on.

happy crocheting!
meagan [°-°]

Starting Out The New Year

So far this year hasn't been super eventful.  I wrote out some new patterns. I'm in the process of typing them up and making them look all pretty.   (^_^)

Hubby caught the flu last week and is finally all better. Yay!  I also am very happy that I didn't catch it from him. Double yay!!

I found a new app for my phone that is called Noom. It's a weight loss / get healthy type app.  I have gotten soo out of shape, that it isn't funny!  I plan on getting back down to my "healthy" weight and the plan it has set up for me (which is on easy mode) should get me there by Christmas.  Literally.  The date they set for me is 12/25/13. It seems simple enough and not too much of a hassle.  I just hate having to count calories and mark down all this stuff day after day after day.  With this I just scan the bar code or type in what I have eaten. Mark if I did any exercising and then it makes my phone it's own little pedometer! I just have to turn it on and put it in my pocket.  If I want it to stop counting step, I push pause. Easy, right?!  I sure hope so. I'm even having hubby try it out, being he keeps telling me he wants to get closer to his Army days. Not exactly like back then, but healthy and toned. I'm cool with that.


Hubby and I finally used some movie tickets we got from my Christmas work party of 2011 (they were good until the end of this year) and just hadn't been to a megaplex with a movie that we wanted to see AND the tickets could be used. Finally did. We saw Django with Jamie Foxx. It was really good... other than all the blood.  You can't really find a Quentin Tarantino movie that doesn't have and exaggerated amount of blood and spraying in it, though.  Some parts of it were really funny.  There is one part where this little town has the whole townsfolk out in the street because the sheriff just got shot (he was really this outlaw going by a new name and the bounty hunters got him).  There is one towns person that looked to me like she might be one of the prostitutes, and she had a crutch and a really big cast on her ankle/foot/leg.  Everyone in the town starts running away and she's just hobbling away as fast as she could. I have no idea why this was so funny to me, but it just seemed really odd.

As a whole, I liked the story.  I just wish it didn't have so much blood. I would definitely not recommend this movie to my mom, but my dad might like it.


The last few nights after hubby went to sleep, I stayed up and watched random documentaries that I found on netflix.

One was about the "Silver Pharaoh."  He was around not long after king Tut was. He also ruled at the beginning of a time that is referred to as Egypt's dark ages. Dark ages because they don't know a whole lot about that era. His tomb was one of the only tombs they have found that was intact when it was found (i.e. no tomb robbers or other outside forces messed with it!).  It was found around the beginning of WWII, which is why it isn't as well known as Tut's. People were much more preoccupied with Hitler.  He is the "Silver Pharaoh" because his is the only sarcophagus that was made of silver and not gold. Very odd.
I would totally say check this one out!

Another was narrated by Mr. Spock himself and was about human sacrifice and the religions that practiced it. They cover placed from India to England to Mexico and the Aztecs.

Last night was one about King Herod the Great.  I'm sure you know who he is!  Think Herod that was the king when Jesus was born. This one talked about how he was a really amazing architect and created rather beautiful buildings. They also say how he went kinda crazy near the end of his life and all his people hated him. They think they found his final resting place, but aren't completely sure. It was an interesting show, too.

What have you been watching lately?

We're Alive!!

Looks like we survived the end of the world.... again.

Survived 1999. The whole Y2K bug, the various other "apocalypse" predictions in the last several years. If you were one of the people that said that the Mayans just ran out of room on the rock or they thought that maybe nobody would care this far out in the future or whatever else... Good for you! Personally, I think they just ran out of room on the rock. It happens.  It's not the end of the world. ;)

I have given away 3 of the handmade Christmas gifts so far. I ended up making a few things for my husband's coworker. I was feeling pretty random the other day and made my little brother some little ornaments for the tree my mom got him (a tiny one, being he is off in Cali on his mission). I made him a bacon ornament, a pickle, some ribbon candy and a gingerbread man. The coworker thought the bacon sounded awesome. I ended up making the ones pictured below for him. I even got the honors of one of them hanging in his cubicle! The other is going on his parent's tree (he wants it to be a surprise when she is taking the tree down and finds it... haha). The reason it is "honors" is because not just any old thing will get to be displayed in the coworker's cubicle. He mostly puts up collectibles (like special edition action figures or whatever).

The other things I gave in a gift exchange I had with my friend and her bf when they came over to hang out. We played the Michael Jackson Experience, Little Big Planet 2, and ate junk food! She made rum cake that was really moist. I just threw some monkey bread we got the other day in the oven. 

The pink hat I had given her last year. I made her the bob-omb bag this year. (The fuse is the drawstring to the bag, the fuse cap is the lid. It even has the little wind up thing on the back!)  The hat on Pinkie's bf is supposed to be one of the ninja turtles. Kudos if you know which one! (It's his favorite one, which is funny, because it's my favorite, too!)

There is one other I gave already... well Z gave.  It was that bearded beanie I showed a few posts ago. I do have a picture of him wearing it! Woot!!

Well. Until next time!

So Now This Is December

It's the last month of the year already. Can you believe it? Crazy!
It's barely snowed! I work with a lady from Texas and she gets really excited every time she hears it's supposed to snow. She wants to have her very first white Christmas. She's cute.

Here are some hats I made just because I wanted to try out a pattern or try to come up with one...

The blue one is a pattern I found on April Draven's craft blog. It's filed under "plain slouch hat" and I just changed the colors to some yarn I had gotten and wanted to see what pattern it would make. Sometimes you think it will give you one pattern and it doesn't, ya know?

The kitty one is a basic beanie pattern (I believe the pattern was called snowboarder beanie, but I am currently unable to find the pattern to link to it. I hadn't noted where I found it. Sorry.) and found a picture that was kind of pix-elated. I think it was a picture of those beads that you put together to make a picture and then melt them to keep them together... (Just google images and type in "hello kitty and pixels" and you will probably find something similar.)  I used it like you would a normal graph and did it with color changes (I think some call it tapestry crochet.)  It ended up being kinda big because I waited until after I was done with the increase rows to start the kitty head. It will fit an adult man pretty well. Possibly an adult woman. (It's kinda big on me.)

For the panda hat I used the earflap hat from Micah Makes (I linked it in the last post. I really love that pattern!) And just made some changes of my own. I used the ears from her monkey/bear variation and then some circles for the eyes and embroidered the nose on.

The red scalloped hat I used the same snowboarder beanie pattern and came up with a way to get the bottom edge to scallop.  I'll probably be adding eyes or something to it to make it a pacman ghost! (I made a blue one and a pink one last year for my aunt and a friend, respectively.)

The multicolored hat in the middle was made using Peruvian Print Red Heart yarn.  I believe I based the design on a pattern I found on Purple Sage Designz (She has 2 free patterns listed. One was earlier this year, the other a few years ago... closer to when she started that blog.), and then just changed the sides and top a bit.

The red, black and light gray hat was made following the other free pattern on Purple Sage Designz for the zigzag tam. (The one earlier this year.)

The tan and purple hat was based off a picture I found and couldn't find the pattern to. I saved the image and just tried to guess which stitches had been used. The I believe the colors I used were Red Heart's Grape Fizz and Buff. I just alternated every few rows. 

On other craftings...
A (sort of) Tutorial!

Dice Bags!

My husband and Dad are getting giant bags of dice. I ended up making dice bags for them. Z requested a bag for each type of die so that he could keep them all separate. That means about 7 bags each. 14 in total. (He already had a bag that his friend's wife made so I already had one out of the way!)

Here is what I have done so far:

(Sorry. My shadow kinda photo bombed the picture.)
Also, that little blue bag was made using some material left over from when I made Z some pj pants.
The blue used on the gray bags has little squares on it. 

Hubby picked out some fabric he liked from the remnants bin. There were only 2 that he liked that did not look girly, so we got them.

To make them, all I had to do was lay out the material (and have it folded in half so I could cut both sides at once), trace around my hand far enough away from my hand so that I had a seam allowance and cut it out.

     I put the appliques on so they can tell the bags apart better. They will know which bag has what. You can skip this part if you want.
     If you do want to put them on, I used some of the left over material and found some of the pictures and cut them out (mostly with a template I made in the shape of a hexagon). I cut out pieces of the blue color we got in pieces just a little bigger than the GI Joe pictures. I sewed them together.
     NOTE: You can also use fabric markers to draw on them or you could embroider numbers or even cut out numbers to sew onto the shape. Be creative!

After that I pinned the appliques to one side of the bag and sewed it on. 

I then folded the top edge of both sides of the bag over to create a casing for the drawstring.

Now, put the 2 sides of the bag (right sides facing) together and pin. Sew along the edge just below the stitch line for the casing. (See image below.) If you start higher you will not be able to put the drawstring through later. (You will end up with a little bit of a raw edge here, but it's barely noticeable. I just wanted to make it faster.)

Now turn the bag right side out. Get some string or yarn or whatever you want to use for the drawstring (I used some hemp bracelet material I had lying around. It kinda has a coating on it, which seemed to help get it through the casing.) and put it through the casing. It makes it easier to get the drawstring through if you tie one end of it to a safety pin or a paper clip and guide it through that way. Tie both ends of the drawstring together and you are finished!

Any questions?

What have you been doing/crafting lately??