The Stocking Story

As a young married person with a toddler, I love all the opportunity to create family traditions and holiday heirlooms.  One thing I knew I wanted to do as soon as I learned how to sew was to create a stocking for my kiddos one day.

When I was younger, my mom and her friend handmade ornate personalized Christmas stockings for each member of our family.  While they are 2d for decor purposes and not so functional (they don't actually open), they are absolutely beautiful and special!  I wanted to create something much more simple and functional for my daughter this year.  I told my husband that I wanted to make our daughter a Christmas stocking, and his immediate response was, "It should have owls on it."  I. love. this. man!  <3  {I *may* have succumbed to a bit of an owl obsession this past year and my husband thought it was only fitting that the stocking should commemorate that.}

One day while I was supposed to just be picking up yarn in Hobby Lobby, I saw Christmas owl fabric and knew I had to have it!  I put the bolt in my cart to get cut but then talked myself out of it since I didn't know how to make a stocking yet or how much fabric I needed for the project.  I would get home and forget to figure it out.  I did this on at least three (probably way more than that) separate trips to the store.  By the time I found the perfect Christmas stocking pattern, looked up the exact fabric amount I needed, and went to Hobby Lobby with no other purpose than buying the fabric, it was gone <tear>!  My awesome mom searched a few stores by her, but she couldn't find it either.

I posted a call for help in a facebook group, and my amazing WAHM friends came to the rescue!  Crafty WAHM friends from all over the nation offered to search their Hobby Lobbys for me.  I posted a written description of the fabric but could not find a picture.  But the amazing Christina of Livin' Sew Green found a picture of the fabric online based on my description so everyone knew what it actually looked like.  As soon as the picture was posted, a ton of the other WAHMs fell in love with the fabric and requested some, too.  Ha ha!  Then, the fabulous Shanna of Little Britches Bows found the actual fabric and bought a bunch for all of us.

So now I have a homemade special Christmas stocking for my little girl that will always have memories of the year of my crazy owl obsession, proof of her daddy's sweet support and understanding of mama, and memories of the kindness of the WAHM network to go with it.  I hope one day it will be as special to her as it is to me.  It's simple and made by mama with love!

GIVEAWAY: Thankful Thursday Pumpkin

*CLOSED* 

And the winner is:  Tara!  Congratulations!  I will send you an email soon.

 










Thank you all for culturing grateful hearts with me!  There is still a pumpkin beanie or two that could be made for sale at discounted rate if you didn't win and you would like one.  See my Facebook page for details.  Have a happy Halloween!

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Thank you to everyone who helped me choose which pumpkin beanie to make for my shop.  And thank you for your patience as I was so busy preparing for the craft fair that I never actually listed it.  In gratitude for you (fitting for Thankful Thursday, doncha think?), I am giving away my original design pumpkin beanie (The actual #2 pictured below).

  Win newborn size hat #2 above for one of the little bitty pumpkins in your life - your own, a friend's, a stranger on the street!  It's free for shipping!  To win:

•  Leave a comment of thanksgiving on this week's Facebook Thankful Thursday post.
• Copy and paste that same one into one comment on my blog and add your email address (you may want to format it like: lola[at]lolalandcreations[dot]com to avoid spam).  That's it!  It's that simple!

This FFS giveaway will be short so the winner has the opportunity to get his/her hat on time for Halloween.  It will close at 2pm CST today 10.27.2011.  Here's the fine print:

• You must be 18 or older to win.
• Contest open only to US and Canada.
• This is a free for the cost of shipping opportunity.  Please do not enter unless you are willing and able to pay shipping.
• This FFS giveaway is in no way sponsored by or associated with Facebook.
• Item can not be returned/exchanged and has no cash value.
• Winner has 24hrs after notification to respond and pay shipping or a new winner may be selected.
• LolaLand Creations has the right to correct any errors on this page (especially as it was typed at 2am-ish) if necessary.

Cher, Cher, Pumpkin Wear.....er?

The results are in from The Great Pumpkin Poll!

BLOG
Pumpkin 1: 1 vote
Pumpkin 2: 1 vote

FACEBOOK LOLALAND CREATIONS PAGE

Pumpkin 1: 2 votes

Pumpkin 2: 2 votes

FACEBOOK PERSONAL PAGE

Pumpkin 1: 4 votes

Pumpkin 2: 2 votes

*Picture included for proof since my personal page is not public.  Last names and faces covered for privacy.

OFFLINE FAMILY POLL

Pumpkin 1: 2 votes

Pumpkin 2: 1 vote

*I have only my word for proof, but it's unnecessary at this point, since Pumpkin 1 is already winning.

So the winner is PUMPKIN HAT 1!  Pumpkin Hat 1 Pattern designer Danyel Pink has graciously granted me permission to sell finished hats based on her pattern.  Once I have adapted the pattern to make additional sizes I will need testers, so please stay tuned!  If anyone wants Pumpkin Hat 2, I can make it for you (this was my personal design), but Pumpkin Hat 1 will soon be the standard hat offered in LolaLand.  Thank you to everyone who participated in The Great Pumpkin Poll!

The Great Pumpkin Poll

Refreshing fall weather has finally made it here to DFW, Texas!  It's about now that I start getting excited about sweater/hoodie weather, hot apple cider, camp fires, crunchy leaves, and pumpkins.

This year, my initial excitement has been crocheted up into a hat!  A pumpkin hat!  Well... two pumpkin hats actually.  Here is where I need your help.  I am trying to decide which pumpkin hat should become an official LolaLand Creation, so I have decided to hold a Great Pumpkin Poll.

Check out the two pumpkin hats below from multiple vantage points, and tell me which pumpkin you would prefer to see on the heads of the little pumpkins you know.  Once a pumpkin hat is picked, I will start making them in various sizes and will need help testing fit.  So be sure to stay tuned!  The winning hat will be picked mid day of Wednesday, September 14.  Please comment below or on Facebook to let me know your favorite: hat 1 or hat 2!

Note:  A vine and maybe a leaf will be added to the pumpkin hat later.

A Significant Date in LolaLand

Photo source found here.

Today is a significant date in my life and in the history of LolaLand Creations.  It is part of the reason LolaLand Creations exists.  It is a date that has greatly shaped my life - a date of remembrance of grief and loss and yet a reminder of a bigger hope than this life and of present and future joy.  August 27, 2009 was the estimated due date of my husband's and my first child - a day that came to pass without fulfillment of the promise and hopes it once held - a day robbed by miscarriage.

Miscarriage is like an exclusive club into which you suddenly find yourself forced. Nobody wants to join it, but there is great fellowship in it.  One of the things that makes miscarriage so difficult is that it is often a physically intangible loss.  Sure, it's certainly tangible to your body, but often, you do not get to hold your child in your arms or in some cases the palm of your hand.  I didn't even have an ultrasound picture from my first pregnancy to have as a memorial to my dearly missed child.  I had nothing tangible to hold onto.  It is hard to explain to others the depth of loss from not only the loss of a child but the loss of hopes, dreams, naivety, and all the future joy of getting know and raise your precious little one.  It can be difficult for others to mourn with you through it since there's nothing tangible to them to help them understand.

During the same month but before that pregnancy began, a sweet friend taught me how to chain and single crochet.  Later in my miscarriage journey, my church's miscarriage and infertility ministry blessed me with a memory box.  Amongst other things of encouragement, in the box, was a small hand-knit blanket.  My eyes are watering right now just thinking of how that small blanket and box encouraged me.  For me, it was finally a tangible recognition of my grief.  It was a truly compassionate way for ladies who have walked similar paths to love on me and assure me that my grief was legitimate.  The blanket especially touched my heart since I had learned to crochet and knew first-hand how much love, time, and sacrifice goes into handmade goods.  Oh how I clutched that blanket and wept!  The thought that someone spent time, energy, and financial resources to encourage me through difficult days was a powerful reminder to me of God's great love for me when I found myself struggling to believe I was lovable.

As I walked this path, I found it very difficult to share about my journey and grief with others who had not also experienced miscarriage.  From talking with other friends who have since walked similar paths, I guess it's a way that we try to cope - we try to shove down the pain and fake our idea of 'normalcy' instead of opening ourselves up to community encouragement and help with bearing the burden.  We tell ourselves that those who have not experienced it cannot have the level of compassion for which we so yearn.  Though they may not be able to understand exactly what we're going through, the idea that others cannot have some understanding and cannot truly empathize is such a lie!  Have not others had and lost?  Have not others suffered disappointed hopes and shattered dreams?  Have not others experienced bitter grief at some point?  Oh, ladies, men, families suffering miscarriage - do not give in to the lie!  I beg you!  Find rest and comfort in fellowship - allow others help you carry your heavy burden.  It is a heavy and dark road to walk alone.

And so LolaLand Creations was eventually birthed.  I was given this story for the glory of God, and I feel I must share it.  As Jeremiah 20:9 says, "If I say, 'I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,' there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot." So I craft to worship, I craft because it has been used in the process of healing, I craft to share the story given me for the encouragement of others, I craft to proclaim with tested and increased faith that God is good and does good (and has shown it through the death and resurrection of Christ, exchanging my punishment for unrighteousness for His righteousness), and I craft to love on others by currently giving approximately 10% of the sale price of all LolaLand Creations to the Hopeful Hearts (the miscarriage, infertility, and early infant loss) ministry which gave so much to me.

And so, August 27th for me is a day of both sadness and joy.  Wishing you all faith, hope, and love!  Thanks for reading!

Get Your Wheat On

The other day on Facebook, I asked if anyone had a good wheat bread recipe to share.  I received two responses from wonderful fans and thought I would share them, as well as the recipe I actually used, with you.

Jenn shared one from this site, and Cassee passed along this one her friend swears by.  Unfortunately, I did not have all the ingredients on hand for either recipe.  The latter recipe uses some ingredients that I don't usually stock in my kitchen, and the former requires honey of which I am out.  I discovered that not having honey on hand knocks out a bunch of wheat bread options.

But I finally found this sort of blended (uses both wheat and all-purpose flours) wheat roll recipe for which I had all the ingredients!

Yum to the tum!!!

The verdict:

• Baking process = easy, especially with a dough hook and stand mixer.
• Baking time = small active bake time but LONG wait (for rising) times. 
• Fresh out of the oven taste = surprisingly meh...  Good, but not mouth-watering.
• Next day taste = surprisingly super duper delicious!  I have no idea why that is or how that happened, but my husband and I both agree they tasted fabulous on day two!  Let's put it this way: I made 2 dozen, there are 2 of us plus my daughter who maybe had 1, and they were gone in less than 48 hours.  :)

In summary, this pic probably says it best:

Let me know if you try any of the recipes linked to above, and please post any additional wheat recipes you would like to share in the comments below!  Enjoy, and thanks!

Tutorial: What Is Bunting???

One of my really good friends is having a baby (very soon!), and I was honored to throw her a baby shower with two other friends.  Fortunately and unfortunately, both of my co-hosts are extremely craft like me!  We kept thinking of all the fun things we could make for the shower and may have gone a little overboard.  :)

I volunteered to make some festive bunting, to which both girls agreed since neither of them had a clue what bunting is.  My mom didn't know.  My husband didn't know.  I didn't even know what it was until last year.  I failed miserably in explaining it to my husband and finally had to pull up a picture on the web.  His response to the picture was, "Oh!  Yeah, I have seen that before, but only with that bright plastic stuff at gas stations and car lots."  Too funny.  According to Collins English Dictionary at dictionary.com, Bunting = decorative flags, pennants, and streamers.  For you visual people, this is bunting:

Well, today I'm going to show you how to make your own double-sided fabric bunting.  I love the idea of using fabric bunting for baby showers especially because you can gift it to the mom-to-be used each year for baby's birthday or for any festive and fun occasion she wants to use it!  They look adorable in the background of newborn photo shoots as well!

But first a quick note.  You can find my standard tutorial usage policy on my Info Page.  In this particular case, you may sell bunting you make using this pattern if you personally request and are granted permission from me (email lola[at]lolalandcreations[dot]com).  But you may not sell this pattern or this pattern slightly adjusted as your own pattern.  Thank you for respecting my work.  Alright, now that that's out of the way, let's do this!

Materials:

• 3 fat quarters
• string (honestly, I think I upcycled an old spool of kite string)
• thin utensil that will write on fabric - best if erasable/washable (I used a water soluble marker)
• ruler
• scissors or cutting mat and rotary cutter (I used a cutting mat and rotary cutter)
• iron and ironing board
• sewing machine, thread, and scissors

Instructions:
*Note:  Please excuse the horrible picture quality and switching of fabrics in the middle of the tutorial.  Also, enjoy learning from my mistakes.  :)

1. Iron the wrinkles out of your fat quarter and straighten one of the shorter ends by cutting off the selvage.  Use your ruler (and cutting mat if you have one) and writing utensil to mark a straight line down the approximate center of your fat quarter from short end to short end.  Mark two additional lines 8 3/4" from each side of the center line. (I cut my side lines and didn't realize until later that it would have been easier for me to just mark them - Hi.  I'm Lola.  I like to do things the hard way.)

2. Mark a dot every 7" down the center line, starting at the straightened edge.  Then mark a dot every 3.5" down each side line (you could get away with marking down just one of the side lines instead of both, but I would recommend marking both for better accuracy).

3. Connect the dots diagonally as shown below in the next two pictures (click to view them larger).

4. Use your rotary blade and straight edge or scissors to cut out all the triangles you just marked.  Lookin' good - Yay!

5. Place two triangles of the same fabric print right sides together and pin.

6. Starting on the short edge of your triangles, sew 1/4" seam around, leaving a gap on the short side for turning the pennant inside-out later.

7. Clip your corners, being careful not to get too close to your seam.  Turn your fabric inside out, carefully poking out corners, and press.  Fold the bottom of your pennant up to make a pocket large enough for your string and seam allowance (this seam will be edge stitched).  I made my pocket 3/4".  Press to make a crease.

8. Fold your bottom corners up and in against the crease you just made.  See picture below.

9. Fold bottom up along the crease again and pin.

10. Edge stitch the side of this pocket closer to the top triangle point to close.  Use a safety pin to guide your string through the pockets of all your pennants, making sure they are all facing the same direction.

11. Space your pennants out evenly as you like, and voila!  You can haz bunting!  Behold your handiwork, smile, ooh, and ahh!

12.  Send me a pic of bunting you make using this tutorial to lola[at]lolalandcreations[dot]com.  :)

Nursing Rememberance

I feel so incredibly blessed that I was able to nurse my sweet little girl for just over a year.  I know it's a special gift, and I will forever treasure all those sweet moments.  I knew I would be sad when she was ready to wean, but I didn't expect myself to cry.  I just finished nursing this little one for (what is planned to be) the last time, and cry I did...  So in gratitude and remembrance, I will share some of the little moments I loved in nursing with you (don't worry - no graphic pics):

Milk Drunk Baby:

How can you not adore a milk drunk baby???

Sweet Sleepy Can Hardly Or Can't At All Stay Awake To Nurse Baby

Oh how I loved watching her be so comfy and contented that she would start drifting off to sleep!

Playful Nursing Milk Drool Baby:

Nursing is where we first played peekaboo, learned to 'boop' noses, learned many new words - especially parts of the face, giggled heartily, etc.

Adorable (And Sometimes Very Active) Footed Baby:

Nursing was such a wonderful opportunity to admire, dote on, tickle, and all out adore baby feet!  And. I. Am. Addicted. To. Baby. Feet.  Sometimes they were quite active and kicked many things off the nightstand, but oh how sweet are little feet!

 

And finally...

Well-Fed Baby:

For those of you nursing, it can be incredibly challenging, painful, and difficult at times, but enjoy every second of it!  Once it's over, you will likely miss such a sweet and intimate time with your little one.  I hope you enjoyed my little nursing remembrance in pictures.  Do you have a favorite part/memory of nursing?  Please share!

WINNER: 250 Facebook Fan Giveaway

And the winners are:

Item 1: Dawn Smisek and Sarah Haggard 

(Dawn was picked first, but then I realized there were two invalid entries which changed the number in the drawing pool.  So I knocked out the invalid entries and re-entered the correct max number in random.org which picked Sarah.  So to be fair, both will receive a headband)! 

Item 2: Deborah Wuest

Ladies, you should receive an email from me soon!  Thank you again, everyone, for being fans/friends.  And thank you to everyone who participated in my little giveaway!

250 Facebook Fan GIVEAWAY

Well, dear fans, new and old, I would like to take a moment to say, "Thanks!"  Thank you to my personal family and friends for all your support and encouragement.  LolaLand Creations would not exist without you!  Thank you to all you wonderful fans with whom I've never had and may never have the opportunity to sit down and chat with over ice cream (I don't like coffee, hehe) in person.  Your kind words and interest in my creations have meant so much to me!  Thank you all for being fans!

For those of you who are less of words of affirmation people and more of gifts people, I would like to express my gratitude for you in the form of a small giveaway!  I will be giving away two different items.  You may enter to win one or the other but not both, please.

Item #1:

A sweet and soft crocheted flower baby/toddler headband, ornamented with a simple pearl bead.  These will be offered in the shop soon.  The winner may pick yarn color and headband size.  They are so light weight and gentle that even my daughter who loves to rip off headbands and play with them will leave them on!  :)

Item #2:

An adult three-strand headband with a large flower accent.  This headband pattern came from a young woman in Rome who blogs her work at CreativeYarn: Zen and The Art of Handicraft.  I made this for fun, but am still undecided whether or not I will offer it in my shop (the pattern creator has issued a generous commercial license to use her pattern).  If you would like to see it in my shop, please let me know.  I will warn you however if you don't normally have any luck wearing any sort of elastic headbands like me (my head is shaped funny and my hair is slide-y), your results with this headband may be fairly similar.

Have fun choosing which item you would like to try to win!  To enter the giveaway, please fill out the form below:
***Giveaway closed.  Form has been removed.  See winner announcement here.

Misadventures of a Work At Home Mom

A week ago, I promised my Facebook fans a tale of my misadventures of the week.  So without further ado, here is my little account of some of my ordinary every day life misadventures:

Mondays are my grocery shopping days.  I spent time in the morning meal planning for the week, writing out my grocery list, and browsing the local ads for good deals.  As I'm sure you readers know, this type of plan-ahead shopping can be quite a bit of work!  Sweet baby girl and I get ourselves loaded into the car and head out to the store.  I'm a bit of a germ-a-phobe (ask my friends about my disgust at the thought of sharing a can of soda - I swear the purpose of the indent ring is solely to collect spit and germs) and 'green' where I can be, so I get out of the car and grab baby girl, my shopping cart cover for baby girl, and my two reusable grocery bags.

After lugging my haul into the store and getting everything settled in my cart, I reach in my pocket to pull out my carefully created list...  It's. not. there!  Ugh!  Rather than going back out to search the car or track it down, I opted to do the best I could by memory.  One of the items on my list was a plastic storage container for my inventory.  My husband really is incredibly gracious to put up with my crafts multiplying all about the house.  I thought it might be nice to try to wrangle some of my crafts and supplies into their own little storage bin homes.  Plus, I wanted something I could carry inventory in when I go to craft fairs.

If you are a horrible decision maker like I am, then you understand that having multiple choices of brands, colors, sizes, and styles of storage bins was completely overwhelming to me.  After not very little time was spent making a decision, I decided upon a green what I thought was a medium sized storage bin.  Of course, they stack them all together and cram them into the shelves so you can't just take the one off the top.  So I struggled to pull the whole stack out far enough to get the top bin out but not too far where it fell off the bottom lip of the shelf which would require me to heave the whole stack back onto the shelf.  The bin took up all the space in the body of my cart.  I figured I would put the groceries in the bin, so I wouldn't use so many plastic bags.

Groceries were acquired, and we proceeded to check out.  The cashier ended up putting the groceries in plastic bags before placing them in the bin and put only about three items per plastic bag.  My attempt at being green?  Fail.  It turns out that was a pretty good thing though as you will soon read.

I placed the lid halfway on the tub so the lady at the exit could see the bags and know that I wasn't a rebellious mom headed out of the store with stolen goods.  Apparently, it was pretty windy that day.  As soon as I stepped outside the door, a huge gust of wind blew the lid right off the top and sent it flying down the main street at the front of the parking lot.  So there I went pushing my cart after it down parking lot, praying it wouldn't keep moving just out of reach and that a car wouldn't reach it before I did.  Baby girl had herself a grand old time laughing at mama's expense.  :)

The lid was obtained and latched onto the bin.  We headed to the car.  It was then that I realized how massive this bin truly was!  It looked medium sized in the store, but it wasn't about to fit in the trunk of my car (not with the stroller back there and whatnot anyway).  So after opening the trunk and discovering that it's not going to fit, I opened the back side door to put it in there.  That's when I figured out I couldn't lift the thing with all the groceries in it - too heavy!

So what did I do?  I unlatched the lid of course.  My jokester friend, the wind, gusted again just in time to throw the lid up to smack me square in the face.  But the wind was blowing so hard I had a hard time getting it off my face!  So I'm wrestling with the stupid thing that I already chased down in the parking lot.  Fun times, right?  It's at moments like that that you really hope nobody is watching.  But low and behold, I saw a lady in the driver's seat in the car parked right in front of mine.  Wonderful...  I managed to wedge the lid in the cart, opened the trunk again, and removed most of the contents from the bin to trunk.  I went back to the side door to put the bin and lid in there and almost got whapped in the face by the lid again!

The groceries were in my car, the bin was in my car, baby girl was in the car, and I got in the car.  I took a deep breath and removed the sunshade from my windshield just on time to see that not only was there one woman in the vehicle in front of me...  She was driving a minivan with a whole family of like seven people.  They all witnessed the whole thing.  Fun times!

I got home, put baby girl down for a nap, unloaded the groceries, and showed the bin to my husband.  I shared my tale of misadventure with him, and we laughed heartily.  The funniest part...  we decided the bin was too big and that I needed to return it AND discovered I forgot some important groceries on my lost list.  Sigh.  Oh well!  Grateful to have bin drama behind me, I prepared to get back to a normal day.  Unfortunately for me, more misadventure was to be had!

Our family has chosen to cloth diaper.  If you cloth diaper, then you know you remove the solid waste before it hits your washing machine.  Yeah...  So somehow a diaper must have skipped this step in the process.  I went to move the diapers from the washer to the dryer and discovered post-processed mixed veggies and raisins all. over. my. washer.  ICK!!!  I had to pick them all out with a paper towel and kept finding them in the next few washes.

So lest anyone think I have a normal every day life or think I don't have a normal every day life, I have shared my daily life misadventures that you may judge for yourself.  All I could do at the end of the day was laugh (and treat myself to some ice cream).