Part 1: Russian nesting dolls

All the mother dolls above .
All the dolls out of their mothers below.

This is one of our collections at our house. This post is for my MIL; she wants to know which ones we have because she likes to add to this collection at holidays, and is forgetting what she has given us. My children also collect these dolls, so there will be three more posts; one post for each daughter's collection of dolls. This collection is mine.

Newest Set
(7 people in this set) the only wood-burn set I have


This set is porcelain ,and I have two identical of this set
(6 people in this set) ( 12 between the two sets)


This set is Little Red Ridinghood, but no woodsman; just Red, wolf, grandma, and cottage
(4 people, sort of; one is a house)

A sort of Nativity
Joseph, Mary, Wise man, Shepherd, and baby Jesus (5 people)

The largest set I have (12 people)



My oldest set (this set is from before the wall fell) (5 people)

Turkish lace new site

I was left a comment on one of my oya/turkish lace posts from a lovely person who has a blog all about this type of lace. The patterns are passed down visually, so her patterns are posted in the form of pictures. This means you have to know how to do crochet and special stitches first. I think I can duplicate all of them and make patterns, if the owner of the other blog is willing to let me do this. I will work on this in what little spare time I have to save these patterns into a written language for those who don't know how to pull a pattern visually. I am hoping she will let me. If not, sorry, but please look at her site as there are a lot of lovelies there.
In case the link breaks, here is the site address below:
http://www.turkishcrochet.com/

Making Petal People

So what happens when you are in a car for about four hours every day with your kids in the middle of commute rush hours? They get board and want things to do other than just their homework. So I told them that when I was a little girl growing up in my Vavo's flower shop, I used to make dolls out of petals and wire/pipe cleaners.

They wanted me to explain how this was done. I told them, nope they had to figure it out for themselves and I would bring them petals from work every now and again so they could work on them in the car. My boss said this was fine, that I could take the girls petals to play with. This is just a few of the dolls they have come up with using nothing but dead headed flowers and guard petals of roses and pipe cleaners. I think they came out pretty cute for a first attempt.

Incase you don't know what guard petals are, they are the petals a florist takes off of every rose, usually two or three petals per rose. These are the ones that are usually greenish or damaged from growing. Most people who don't work in a floral shop have never heard of guard petals. Everyone who works in the business knows a rose is usually only pretty to a customer once these are removed.

Crocheted Chapeau for Baby (free pattern)

This pattern comes from the early 1940's: Woolies for Babies

SUPPLIES:

• Chadwick's red heart baby wool, 1 ball (3/4 oz) (ie.. baby yarn wool)
  
• steel crochet hook, no 2/0 (double zero)
• 1 1/2 yards ribbon, 3/4 inch wide
• 2 ribbon rosettes (these you make yourself)

GAUGE: (pattern stitch) 3 shells make 2 inches

PATTERN:
starting at center of back, ch2.

1st rnd: 6 sc in 2nd ch from hook. Do not join rounds.
2nd rnd: 2 sc in each st around (12 sts)
3rd rnd: *sc in next st , 2 sc in next st (an inc). Repeat from * around (18 sts)
4th rnd: *sc in next 2sts , 2 sc in next st. Repeat from * around (24 sts)

Continue thus increasing 6 sts on each rnd until there are 90 sts on the rnd and piece measures 4 1/4 inches from side to side across center.

Now work 1 rnd without increasing, sl st in next st. Ch 1, turn and work back and forth as follows:

1st row: sc in same place as sl st, * make crossed dc's over the next 3 sts- to make dc's , skip 2 sts, dc in back loop of next st, ch3, holding last dc and ch-3 down with left thumb make dc in back loop of first st skipped, sc in st following crossed dc's. Repeat from * until there are 18 crossed dc's ending row with sc in st following last crossed dc.

Remaining sc's are back of neck. Ch 3, turn.

2nd row: Make 5 dc( a shell) in each ch-3 across, end row with dc in last sc. Ch 1 turn.
3rd row: sc in dc, * make crossed dc's over the next 3 sts, sc between shells. Repeat from * across, ending with sc in top st of turning chain. Ch3, turn. Repeat 2nd and 3rd rows alternately until piece measures 4 1/2 inches from last rnd of sc, ending with the 2nd row. Do not fasten off but work sc along lower edge and back of neck, holding edge it to fit (about 9 inches) fasten off.

Finishing...
Run the 3/4-inch ribbon under and over the shells of 1st row on front edge.
Make the ends even for ties and tack ribbon at each side of cap.
Sew on rosettes.


I also suggest fray checking all ribbon raw edges so it can easily go through in the wash without worry of fraying; or you can fold edges of ribbon to a point and stitch down instead to do the same.

There is another bonnet pattern on my blog in a real old post if you want to make that one instead. Warning the other uses size 100 thread and is an Irish crochet bonnet.

Flower bonnet

I actually worked yesterday; just didn't take any photos. Fridays are our crazy-busy day, we have shipments come in from the airport which take a lot of work to get out of the boxes and into buckets so the blooms can open up for use. We got some real pretty hydrangeas in; oh, so pretty. But like I said, it is our busy day so no photos.

I do have a picture of another bonnet I have started, the red striped one I have finished crocheting, it just doesn't have its embellishments yet. This new bonnet has a flower on it. Not just any old flower; well I guess it is any old flower. I found this flower inside a ball of thread while junking. The flower wasn't even in the same color thread as the ball it was tucked into. As a result, I don't have matching thread to make more of it. So, I set it aside 'till I could figure out what to do with just one flower. I just love little found treasures such as this.

With all the flower posts and bonnet posts lately, it seamed fitting I should combine the two. So I pulled out this random old flower and gave it a few green rows to look like leaves, then started to work on it with cream. I decided I like the back of the bonnet with a hex look, so that will be carried on into this bonnet, too. I also like the stripes of the other bonnets so, that will be carried on into this bonnet, as well. The stripes will be cream and green. The same green I used for the leaves in hopes it will pull the back of the bonnet and the sides of the bonnet together.

VINTAGE DRESS PATTERN

preciouspet, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

I am wondering how many would be interested in this pattern. I am thinking of making it available in my store for purchase after I have finished revamping the pattern a little bit to make it a little more modern in length. That is because in the late 1930's and early 1940's, little girls always wore bloomers and such, and so dresses were a little shorter to show off the bloomers.

Just an FYI my husband (and a tiny tiny bit by me) did all the twiking on this picture and added all the touches of color to it. Red ribbons, yellow pencil, and, hard to tell, but green eyes, too.

I know Easter is over

But I had to work that day. So here are a few little photos. I took the one of the tree and the one of the girls on the sofa. My husband took the rest so I could see what fun our kids had.
They got the bunny ears from their great grandmother. The hat (visor) kits from their grandma. I also got the wood bunnies and flowers for my Easter tree from the same grandma.

Looks like they had fun.

More Floral

Guess this might be a regular thing on days I work, to show a few of the arrangements I make. I have never really made a good example of my floral work because it is such a fleeting thing. I start to make an item and, five to thirty-five minutes later, I am done with it and pretty much and hour later I never see it again. Funny thing about florals is even the people that receive them don't have them very long, either. Usually within five to ten days all flowers end up in the garbage or as potpourri or something similar. Worse is true for funeral flowers; they are usually tossed away in two to five days from the care-taker people at the cemeteries.

The floral to the right is a silk that I made; it's on display in the front of the store. Above is what is called a big hug mug; an FTD thing. the flower is called a lizianthus (I think I spelled that wrong).

The above arrangement is for a new a baby girl and her mom; it came with 3 mylars. This was a gift from the new mom's boss and co-workers.
Below is for a funeral for a woman and another

funeral for a man. There was more funeral stuff today for that little 5 year-old boy. I think I posted about that before; I always hate doing baby and kid funerals. They are just so sad to me because they have not had much time here and all that goes with that.

Waiting for kids

When I am in the car waiting to pick up my kids and husband from work, I have been trying to do a little hand work. The red and cream one is my current project. I don't feel like I am making much progress on these at all. They will be cute whenever they finally make it to the complete state of being. Most of the thread in these is vintage and some have a little age in their color; I personally think it adds to their charm of looking like something made in days gone bye.

Todays floral

I only took two pictures today.
This is one of the funeral pieces I did; this is actually much brighter in real life. Hey look! A good photo! Nothing like taking a real camera with you to work instead of a phone camera. About $150 arrangement.


Also, a little girl's birthday flowers. I like this just because it is simple and sweet and for a little girl. It also had a little stuffed teddy bear that went with it; about a $45 arrangement.


I also made other things, of course, but these two are the ones I liked the most. I made some silks that I really liked, but I forgot to take a picture of them. Maybe I will take a picture another day and show.

Flowers

I forgot to take my normal camera to work, so these photos are from my razr camera phone. So, these are not the best images, but it is what I have been crafting for six hours everyday. I made some silks and fresh arrangements today.

All these are silks that I made.





This silk one above isn't done in this photo; I added more greens to it, so if it looks a little sparse, it is.

Fresh funeral pieces that I made.

I didn't take pictures of everything I made, just a few funeral and a few silks. The every-day items I made, I didn't take pictures of. Most of my photos didn't come out well, so the real cool funeral spray I made for $150 was blurry. That's sad because that was fire and ice roses and Casablanca lilies; real pretty the lilies where wide open, all five of them. But the other two came out ok; one for $200, all roses from the 21st, and one for $70 from today that was Gerberas, white roses, and daisies. Some of these photos are from the 18th, 21st and some today the 25th; all are from my camera phone. Sorry for the poor quality photos.

Below are some photos of our flower shipment on Friday.

Family Friends on line store

My father-in-law told me about this cool site that sells vintage items; he is friends with the owners. I decided I would check it out. I really like it and thought my readers would, too. So here is the link for all of you to check it out too.
The name of the sight is "Dolls and Lace". They sell way more than dolls and lace: ephemera, old photos, millinery supplies..... etc. The list just goes on and on; most things are older than 1940 with a few reproductions. The image above is from the site and is not mine, but it was used to show just how cool the imagery is on the site and some of what they sell.

After you have checked out the site come back and leave me a comment on what you thought about it. I would love to hear everyones reactions.

Happy Easter

Where's Wendy "sunshine"

I have had a busy week! I have worked over 36 hours for the week with commutes at 4 hours or more every day, so roughly 24 hours in commutes, for a total 60 hours. This is not counting hours of normal chores and homework and all my normal "Mom" things to do. Plus, because their janitor is on vacation, I worked at my second daughter's school to earn some credit on her school tuition for next month so that bill won't be as big; so add those 4 hours into the above total. Good thing about that one is all three kids helped; my husband would have, too, but he was at his own job. The kids were great to help mom out so it would not take me so long. I love my family; they are great at pulling together. They placed the chairs on top of desks and helped vacuum and emptied trash while I cleaned windows, mirrors, desks and yucky bathrooms. No shame; it is honest, hard work. But that said, it is all I can do to stay awake 'till 8:00 p.m. Then I wake at all weird hours of the night; proof by the post time on this post.

Not much crafting lately other than lots of floral arrangements, which are a type of crafting. Made a lovely funeral spray yesterday that was all red roses and just four white ones; that was fun to do. Very elegant looking when done. I tried taking a picture with my camera phone, but it didn't come out well. I need to take my real camera with me to work so I can show a few of the nice things I get to make for people.

Today my family gets to go to the church Easter egg hunt and family breakfast at church, then to the family Easter egg hunt and lunch. The reason I say my family gets to is I will be at work; by the time I get off at 3:30 or later, all the festivities will be done. The family even postponed my birthday party 'till next month because I will be at work. So, Easter is family and I love mine and hope they have fun and know I am with them in spirit, even if it's not possible in body.

Colors

Look; colors came back to my blog! It was all the fault of a missing (;). Don't ask me how it went missing, but looking at the code this morning I noticed it. So, my blog has color again, just in time for Easter pastels. Take care and enjoy the color; I am!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

It is the wearing o'the green on Monday. May lots o'luck come your way. You still have time to make a bit o'green to wear for that day.

You can make a shamrock green brooch or a shamrock shaped pin out of Penny's hearts; just don't forget to shrink her pattern down or it will be huge. Or have lots of fun and combine the two ideas and make something new.

If food is on your mind, you could even make old fashioned rock candy in the color of green. Cream cheese mints could even be nice with green food coloring and mint flavors for the holiday.

Baby Onesies in Store

Baby Onesies in Store, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

These are now available in the store The daisy embellishments are vintage; the rest are new.

• White onesie
• Hand sewn on embellishments
• Size small
• 7-10 lbs
• 0-3 mos
  

Copyrite issues

This is posted in a group I admin on flicker

I had a copyrited photo infringed upon so did Hyena-in-petticoats and so did Debby Kratovil

Below is the conversation as it is on flickr

hyena-in-petticoats says: Hi everyone, I thought you might be interested in this item on Ebay: cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&it... The seller has ripped off our photos for use in the listing, and is selling links to our tutorials without permission. I have sent a rather nasty letter to the seller, and posted about this on my blog - feel free to take whatever action you see fit. Cheers, Leah. Posted at 11:25AM, 14 March 2008 PDT ( permalink | edit | close | delete topic )

sunshine's creations says: I sent a complaint to eBay; I hope you did the same. I also sent a letter to the seller with my disgust for what they are doing. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. If you know that person is in our group, please point them out to me and they will be banned instantly. Originally posted 35 seconds ago. ( permalink | edit | delete ) sunshine's creations (a group admin) .

All these things are free patterns that we as a group have shared for personal use, not profit. The person is only selling them for 99 cents but, the point is, they don't have a right to sell them at any price!

Update
We won eBay pulled the item that had my photo and two friends of mine photos. Wasn't right someone selling links to things we had worked hard on to make available for non-profit them someone trys to be sly . Just goes to show if enough people speak up you can win.

For those who are curious...

I have accepted a part time job at a local Floral shop in the town where my kids go to school (25-32 hours a week). So, looks like I will be a Florist/Designer again; I put myself through College and the University being one. There are other places that wanted to hire me, but they wanted me to work Sundays, and that is just plain not a function in our lives. That is God and Family day, and that is how it will stay.

As for the part-time job (9-10 hours a week) teaching at my children's school, I did that interview, and I feel good about it. I hope to still get that job, but I won't know that for one and a half to two months, and I have bills to pay now. So, if I do get it, I believe and pray that the two jobs will work together well, still giving me nights and Sundays with my family. Saturday, well that belongs to the flower shop. If the two jobs don't work together, I will have to cross that bridge at that time. From everything I have heard from the owner of the flower shop, she tells me she is understanding about me wanting to be with my children and wanting to help in their education.

I also want to give a big shout out to my sister-in-law without who's love and help none of this could happen. She is the one who will be collecting my youngest every day from K-grade for me. That part is tearing me up! I will miss her excited face as she says bye to all her little friends and all the little kids telling me thank you for helping every day. I feel like I have let them down somehow. I was only a room mom, but I was the room mom who was there every day 15 minutes before class and 10 minutes after to make sure I could help in any way I could.

Yesterday, to top it off, one daughter was locked in her classroom for two hours (somehow four of her classmates had broken the class door and locked every one in), and she was so excited to see me after they shattered a window to get them out of the classroom because the locksmith wasn't working fast enough. She came running to me yelling, "Mae Mae" (which means "mom"), worried that I would be mad that she didn't come right out when school was over (I already knew what was happening), and she was excited to see me at the same time and tell me of her adventure. I wasn't mad, I was just concerned that she was okay and not cut from going out a broken window.

My middle daughter had someone pull the fire alarm at her school, so she was scared, too, because they where not sure if the school was really on fire or if it was a childish prank. Either way, not good to a second grader. She was glad to see Mae, too, and know she was safe.

The third was trying to loose her second tooth. In our house that can mean lots of blood because of VWD (Von Willenbrands Disease, similar in concept to hemophilia). So she had blood on her hands, all over her face, and was scared because she saw her reflection. I finished removing the tooth from her mouth, cleaned her up, and stopped the bleeding so she wasn't scared any more. Then to see her excitement afterward that, hey, the tooth fairy is coming tonight! From scared to happy in all of 10 minutes. Now I have to miss some of this and all the children at their schools who I have helped every day. Sadness and lack of sleep don't even come close to describing me right now.

At the same time I am excited about working again, and the interaction with people and all that brings; just a little ball of emotional nerves, I guess. New job starts in four hours -- wish me and my family luck and love that we can get through these changes because all my children have ever known is Mom is always there home, school, church, anywhere; and now, that isn't the case.

I wanted to thank all my readers who sent well wishes and thoughts and encouragement. It has meant a lot to me.

The Easter Lilly on this page came from my youngest daughter's teacher at school as a birthday present to me. An Easter lily; a symbol of Christ and all he has done for us, and how he knows all our pains, and of rebirth. I will leave this post thinking of that.

Baby Caps

I am still making caps; none of these are totally finished because they still need ribbons and embellishments. The yellow and cream is still being crocheted. I plan on making a lot of these in the future to have in the store. I want to get a wide variety of colors, styles, and prices. I hope to have about a dozen or more in the store by the end of the month, hopefully more. They are all different sizes in the photo, to fit different aged babies.

Happy Happy Birthday ....

Happy Happy Birthday, originally uploaded by littlepinkstudio.

to me. I hope your day is filled with love; mine will be filled with errands and job hunting and love, of course. Many happy returns of the day to you all.

I bet you all can guess my birthday wish: a job/career that fits in with my family.

YoYo progress on Halloween Star Quilt

In case you all thought I forgot about this project, or scrapped it, I haven't; it was just put on the back burner for a while. I still plan on having it done for next Halloween. I have included one of my children as a size-sort of reference. She is a typical 6-year-old in size, if that helps all who wondered how big this was so far. End goal is big enough to fit on my double pillow-top king-size bed. I have a ways to go, to say the least.

other posts on this quilt

• Not Much Progress

• Center Medallion Complete

• Halloween YOYOs

• Start of Halloween Yoyo swap

For those who are curious, I am still job hunting.

A Lot of Firsts

1. It is the first time in 10 years I have gone job hunting.
2. The first time in 12 years for me make a floral arrangement as part of a job interview (I passed that test just fine; not to rusty after all).
3. My first time using kiosks to send a resume (just so we know, I am not fond of those things).
4. My first three call backs in less than 1 day after dropping off resumes (good to know I am still considered a good catch to employers).
   
5. My first time applying to teach art at an elementary school (k-4) (1 of my dream jobs, it is even at the school my children go to); pray for me on this one. (On a side note, other dream jobs: being a pattern tester in almost any fiber medium, owning a fiber art museum and teaching classes there, enough of that).
   
6. The first time my littlest daughter has ever lost a tooth.
7. First time for any of my children to wear glasses (I think they look cute in them, I have no idea why she is doing a blank stare in the photo).

Lots of first the last three weeks. I thought life was supposed to slow down as you got older; it seems to be speeding up on me. Not complaining, just amazing how fast life changes. No job, yet, still hunting. I have been offered a few, but I want to wait a few days more so I can compare them and see what works best for my family.

New and Old

So I am making some baby bonnets in between job hunting and filling out resumes. Some of the thread in these is vintage, such as the green and cream and some is new, the variegated blues. I think they will be real cute when done. I incorporated one of the hexes from the thrifted afghans that I have been using to make skirts and shirts. You can see it on the back of the green and cream baby bonnet. I used green in one just because St.Patrick's Day is coming up, and I am not one to say boys have to wear blue and girls pink; a few other colors are always nice, too. The piece of crochet you are seeing under the bonnets is the hex skirt from the same afghan.

Easter Sale in Store

I am offering all my readers a 15% discount from now till Easter in my store. This discount is on the entire order and can be used several times up until Easter. Also, it is on top of any sale prices, so if something is already on sale this will lower the price more.

Just type in the word Easter when it asks if you have a coupon.

Thanks and have fun!