Wordless Wednesday

    My Boys sharing an Oreo :)

                                                            

Too Cute... Case

I have been searching for some new crochet hooks for a little while now and I thought I settled on a set on Etsy.  They are gorgeous, cute, and fun! I asked my husband to buy these for me for my birthday.  I was totally ready to plunk down the money to purchase those hooks and crochet to my happy hands content :)  Then I realized it was a ton of money for those hooks!  Plus, I am a SAHM and not really contributing to the family's income; at least not enough to warrant a large purchase on crochet hooks.

Now, for my birthday I did get some nice gift card and my sweet, sweet husband ordered the new iPad 2 for the family as all our birthday presents for this year.  As stoked as I am to get it, mid April, I still don't have any new crochet hooks.  So, I took one of my gift cards and purchased a new set of crochet hooks.  I am super psyched to get them in, but they are back ordered until mid April.  Mid April is going to be super awesome for new things!

Since I ordered new hooks my old case isn't going to work anymore.  My new hooks are the kind with a bamboo handle to make it easier on my hands when I work.  But they aren't going to fit into my little case.  Then I remembered I saw the cutest little case on a blog I follow.  They did a tutorial on how to sew a crochet hook case.  Super awesome and super cute!  I went to Jo Ann Fabrics and purchased my fabric.  I am so excited to start working on the new case!  Here is the fabric I chose...

I precut my pieces and all I have to do now is wait for my hooks to get here so I can measure out how big my spaces need to be for the hook pocket.  I will post on this again once I have the organizer/case completed :)

Until next time...

Under the weather

Happy Spring!  Hope everyone is having a wonderful spring day.  It was storming and thundering here this morning, and woke my son up at 7am!  While this is not a problem normally since I have to get up at 7:15 anyway, today it was NOT welcome.  I needed those extra 15 minutes!

I have had a sore throat since Friday and it has been getting progressively worse.  My husband worried about me so much he made a doctors appointment for me this morning; He was convinced I had strep throat.  A trip to the doctors office and a co-pay later, no strep.  I have terrible post nasal drip and, according to the doc, my throat looks like a cobblestone road!  So I have to gargle with salt water and take tylenol/motrin until I feel better.

My son came with me to the appointment and once we got into the room proceeded to freak out!  He thought we were there for him.  He has such a good memory; he thought he was going to get a shot!  Lucky for him, it was all about me today :$  Thankfully my check up went well, I have lost about 5 pounds and my blood pressure is spot on, YAY!

Here is hoping you all stay above the weather this spring.  May all the yuckies pass your home by.

Until next time :)

An uphill battle...

I find my new self-imposed job is hard on me at times.  My hands are sore, my fingers ache, and I have been letting other things that I need to do slide so I can complete orders.  Something has to give, but what?!

My husband thinks I should concentrate on writing patterns and keep the custom order shop closed or leave it open on an extremely limited basis.  I am wondering what is going to be best for me and my little business; I have no idea what the answer is.  Ideally, LBDFxbg would be a pattern shop with some custom orders.  But in order to build the business, custom orders are a natural stepping stone to a budding pattern shop.

How do I balance the custom orders with writing and being a mom/wife/babysitter full time as well? Any suggestions?

A new product

I work several jobs; I am a full time mother, wife, and babysitter as well as a budding entrepreneur.  My sweet baby is a boy, so I cannot put cutesy, girlie stuff on him to model.  But the baby I watch, Harper, is a girl! And this affords the the options of having a real life girlie girl model.  Today I designed a new product, a cute little headband with flower.  I made is during the kids naptime today and when Harper woke up... it was photo shoot time!  :)

Here are a few pics of the new product; as modeled by Harper :)

Working and working...

I really am working, I promise :)  I have recently redesigned my blog space; hope you like it.  I am working on finishing my custom orders for the month and then I will be off to pattern writing land!  Pattern writing, pattern writing and more pattern writing hopefully.  I have many things I'd like to see work themselves onto paper; hopefully it will all come to fruition.

I know I have been slacking on the blog front this month and I will try to do better in March.  I plan to do at least 2 posts a week, but no promises though.  I have been trying to train my son to sleep/nap in a toddler bed and the first part is going smoothly, the napping part... not so much :(  He just doesn't want to stay in bed, darn little booger :)  So with him being awake ALL DAY LONG, it has made non-baby watching work very difficult to accomplish.  But I am still here and still making headway, although that headway is not as smooth or swift as I'd like.  Pray for me my friends, trying times are ahead I suspect. :)

Until next time...

I love....

I love many things; Crocheting, knitting, baking, playing video games, all of them are very enjoyable!  So many things demand the time of a mother/entrepreneur and finding time to do the things that need doing and balancing that with time for myself can be very daunting!  I am trying to find a rhythm and I think I have found my solution... maybe. :)

I have "decided" to "work" four days a week, Monday-Thursday, and take the weekend off.  I need some me time; time to spend with my husband and son and also time to work on new and exciting things!  I also decided I will take two months a year and close my shop just to work on new things.  My pattern is starting to sell (thank the Lord!) and I feel that is going to be the way to get my little business really thriving.  So I need to start writing and creating little things, but with all the orders that have been coming in (thank you each and every customer!) I haven't had time to do any experimenting or create anything new :(  So with my new schedule I hope to remedy that.

Effective March 1st, LBDFxbg will not take any custom orders until April 1st.  This will allow me to create new things for everyone and I can broaden my catalog for all! Yay! If you'd like any items that need to be done for March, please submit them no later than February 19th so I can have them done for you asap.  Thanks for bearing with me as I get all the kinks wrinkled out of this crazy construction faze of LBD :)

Happy Valentines Day and hope you all have a wonderful day with your loved ones!

Until next time!