The Craft Gene

I got my bead order in, and made my mom’s necklace and my brother’s necklace for their birthdays. I have a few more pendants I bought, and some Swarovski crystals in Lexi and Lilly’s birthstones, so I have a few more necklaces I can make. I think my next purchase will be some more candle making supplies, or my going green bathroom supplies. My candle order will be kind of big, so I want to make sure I order everything I need at once. My bathroom order will probably be twice the price of a candle order. That means both orders might get held off a few months to make sure I have the full funding for it. In the meantime, I’ve bought a few knitting looms at Pat Catan’s to try my hand at making hats. (I blame this all on Luke’s mother, she is so crafty!) I’ve made a few so far, and they turned out OK. I’ve got a baby size that I need to try out on a baby, 2 toddler sizes, which fit the girls’ fine, a large, which fits Luke just fine, and a medium for me. Here are some shots of the necklaces and hats.

I am crafty after all...

I dove into another craft venture Monday night. We stopped at Pat Catan’s and got a few items to start making chain necklaces with beads and crystals and pretty things. I got enough beads to make two necklaces, just to see how I did. I modeled them after a necklace Luke’s sister made and gave to Lexi over the weekend. I don’t think they came out too bad, but I have to say the most expensive part is the beads, so I think I’ll be doing some online researching to see if I can find some in bulk for cheaper. Right now it looks like each necklace cost around $6.00 to make, and would probably retail for twice that. The two I made just have silver coated chain, and the beads actually contain Swarovski crystals, along with Swarovski crystal pendants on them. I placed a bead order to make a few for gifts, and a couple for the girls. My next purchase will focus back on candle-making though. Here's a few pictures of what I made!

Our Snowy Adventure and some Crafty Inspiration

We looked out the window Saturday morning to find 7 inches of snow covering everything! This is the biggest snowfall we have had of the season, so I wanted to get pictures of the girls in it. We bundled them up and took them out for about a half hour. Lilly absolutely loved it. She couldn't walk very well, but she didn't care at all. Lexi just complained about being cold, and actually started crying towards the end. We had a lot of fun though. Later that day, we had Luke's dad's birthday party to go, where I've been influenced to get into some different crafty avenues...

Luke's sister has gotten into making jewelry, and his mom is crafty in every aspect, but right now she is knitting hats and scarves and other things. Both look easy enough to do, so I'd like to experiment with them sometime in the near future. I've been getting into candle making. We made a test batch of four 4oz strawberry scented candles made from soy wax. We just purchased everything at Pat Catan's, and gave it a go with baby food jars we have collected. It was very easy to do, but the only wick Pat Catan's had for soy wax candles doesn't have any type of a core in it, so after 13 hours of burning one, our wick curved and fell into the wax and put itself out. I have the other three to my MIL and two SIL's to see what they think. It cost us about $2.3oish to make, but ordering bulk from online, we can take that cost down to $0.80ish. So I am in the process of saving some money to make that happen. We'll see how that pans out.