Christmas Decorating

Hi everyone! Once again I let my blog go for far too long. Everything is great here, but as everyone knows life seems to get in the way of blogging sometimes. One of my New Year's resolutions is to post regularly again, but for now here is a little tour of my home all decked out for Christmas!

This is our living room area in the great room. We got a HUGE real tree this year and plopped right in the middle of the room between the dining area and living room. I LOVE it! Of course we filled it with all handmade and vintage ornaments. Such a happy colorful tree!

 It wouldn't be Christmas without our beloved Christmas pyramids (we call them whirly gigs).

Here is a full room shot with a little bit of the dining room. We have lots of handmade items out this time of year, including afghans, patchwork blankets, pillows, and table toppers. I'm also loving our Dept 56 village on top of the tv armoire.

This is the first thing I see every morning when I come down the stairs. Such a lovely start to the day!

 Next we move on to the dining room area.

This little shelf is above the buffet I usually treat it as a mantel by adding garland and lights. Most of the ornaments here are from IKEA.

Here's the hutch. This year I decided to add red and white polka dot wrapping paper to the back. I love it so much, I am thinking about leaving it up all year round.

 Our second "whirly gig is a bit bigger than the one in the dining room. My talented mom over at Happy Little Cottage made the adorable red and white table topper :)

Of course I have to include a picture of little Sophie!

So that's a little slice of my house all decorated for Christmas! How is your decorating coming along this year?

Living Room Makeover

Last week I showed you my dining room before and after so today I thought I would share the living room. The dining room and living room are one big room so technically this is just the other half of the room :)

I took this picture the day that we looked at the unit a few days after Christmas. Kind of strange that the only thing in the room was a treadmill.

After we moved in we bought 2 ektorp loveseats and a coffee table. The rest are things we already had. It wasn't terrible, but definitely a mod podge of looks and that paint color was just horrid!

After a coat of creamy paint and a rearranging of accessories this is what we have. All decked out for Fall!

My mom made the cute black gingham curtains. They were just going to be for Fall and Halloween, but I think I love them so much that they might stay up all year.

I'm still looking for the perfect wreath to hang up on the mirror. I love that it looks like an extra window. The shutters are from the thrift store that I painted green.

Our tv is hidden in that little "armoire". 

Had to share this picture of my favorite TJ Maxx find, and little Sophie sneaked into the the picture too.
I'm super thrilled with how this room turned out. I didn't think we would get this much done on our teeny budget. Can't wait to switch it out for all the seasons and holidays! Next up in decorating is the tv room!

Dining Room Before and After with a Little Fall Decorating

We have been slowly but surely getting our new home painted and decorated.  I thought it would be fun to share some before and after pictures.

I'll start with the dining room. It's a little embarrassing, but here is the before picture.

We tried to make it look it as nice as possible by adding some plate racks, our freshly painted white dining table, flowers, and such. It just wasn't happening with the awful shade of brown/pink/tan paint on the walls. It was such a cave in there I couldn't even get a clear photo.

So over the last couple months we accumulated a few more pieces of furniture and accessories, but it just wasn't looking nice with that paint. We spent weeks mulling over every shade of cream and white paint swatches to find the perfect color. I knew I wanted something neutral because the room has 13 foot tall ceilings so painting the room was a one shot deal. Finally we decided on "Camembert" by Behr.

After painting everything started came together. Are you ready to see the after? Are you sure?

Tah dah! Here is the newly painted dining room all decked out for Fall!

The buffet in the back is probably my favorite piece ever. We found it at the corner of the street on the tree lawn waiting to be brought to the dumpster.I couldn't believe it, I ran up the street inspected it and fell in love. Other than a few glow in the dark star stickers and scratches it was perfect. Luckily it had wheels on it so we just wheeled it home. What luck! A beautiful wood buffet for free!

I am absolutely loving this room. It is so cozy and welcoming. It was totally worth all those sleepless nights trying to decide on paint colors and furniture placement.

I'm a sucker for side by side before and after pictures, so here's a quick one.

Next I'll be sharing the living room which is technically in the same room as the dining room. Talk to you soon!

Crochet Owl Pillow Pattern

Hi everyone! Finally the pattern for the crochet owl pattern is now available in my shop!

   You can find it here!

It is the perfect pattern for beginners. It includes lots of pictures as well as a printer friendly version. I'm always here to help with any crochet questions you may have.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

Mandala

Last night was dark and rainy so what better to do than drink some Smirnoff ice and crochet a mandala!

 The pattern is from issue 4 of Simply Crochet Magazine (my favorite mag by the way). 

     It looked so cute and  I was craving something simple, fast, and all for me. Originally I was going to be daring and make the petals in bright yellow, but I chickened out and used my favorite light blue. For those who are wondering the yarn is just leftover worsted weight acrylic.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Hello there!

Wow I can't believe I haven't posted in over a month, I have a good reason I promise! 

We moved! It all happened so fast I didn't have time until now to sit down and share the exciting news with you. After waiting 4 excruciating months for the short sale to close we found out the bank excepted our offer on May 8th , we packed and we were all moved in by May 12th.

We love our new house and are busily making it home. I'm super excited and inspired to crochet all kinds of goodies to make it cozy. Pictures coming soon :)

Hexagons

After playing with some Red Heart Super Saver color combinations I started a new blanket this week!

It involves hexagons. My first ever blanket using hexagons and I am loving it! The pattern is from the book Crochet with Color available on Amazon.

You know what I'll be doing this weekend :) Hope you all have a fantastic first weekend of May!

Puppy Embroidery Pillow

The stitching bug bit me the other day when I came across the cutest little vintage embroidery pattern. Not knowing what I would do with it I started stitching. It took me a couple hours and a few mistakes, but I finished it, then decided it needed something extra so I added a cute border.

I went back and forth between deciding whether it should be a pillow or a wall hanging. I finally decided on pillow after seeing it with pam kitty fabric. They were meant to be!

My mom over at Happy Little Cottage worked her sewing magic and made it into the cutest patchwork pillow.

I love it! It's happily sitting on my bed, the little dog reminds me of Sophie :)

Finished! Greengate Blanket

I'm on a roll with finishing projects lately! We won't talk about the one's I have started though :)

This one has to be my proudest finished projects. I can't believe I actually finished it. Way back in August when I started it, I said to myself why am I making this I'm never gonna finish it. But here you go in less than a year it is finally done and it's a whopper! It measures about 68 inches wide by 96 inches. Definitely the biggest thing I've ever crocheted and probably ever will. I am so in love with it and it fits so perfectly on my bed.

The pattern can be found here. It is in Swedish but with google translate and a little crochet knowledge its easy to figure out. Or to make it simple, it's just a series of straight double crochet rows and granny stripes, if you wanna make your own just mix them up.

Since we sadly can't get GreenGate products here in the US I dub this blanket my first ever GreenGate!

Hope you all have a fab weekend!

Happy Matryoshka!

 Yesterday I had so much fun playing with Annaboo's House new pattern! A cute little matryoshka! I love Russian nesting dolls (it's probably all the Russian blood in me) they are just so happy and cute!

The pattern is super simple and clearly written out. The only changes I made was I stitched the hair and face onto the crochet piece for extra stability, tied a piece of ribbon around her neck for the bow, and added blush with a pink crayon. If anyone is curious the fabric is from Bonnie and Camille's Ruby ling. I'm already working on a few more, these will be so adorable on a Christmas tree!

She's currently happily living on the kitchen cabinet door!

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!

Finished Spring Blanket!

It's all finished!

 Remember I started it back in February?

I had lots of fun working with these colors, can't believe I actually used brown!

If you are looking for the pattern Sharron at Annie's Place was awesome and wrote up the pattern here!

Of course Sophie loves it. Back fresh from the groomers with a new toy and a funny feather in her hair.

Thrifty Blanket

Look what I found!!!

I had to share with you the cutest blanket that I found at the thrift shop today.

I couldn't resist it! I always have a weak spot for anything crochet at the thrift stores or estate sales.

Perfect size for napping and cuddling. Sophie loves it of course! I'm amazed how much work went into this beauty! It's quite big (fits on my full size bed) and is great condition (no holes or pills).

 Thank you all for the sweet comments and support on my last post. I can't tell you how much each one meant to me!

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

Instagram

Hi everyone! I know I have been a naughty blogger and haven't posted in a while. 

Things are a little stressful here. I'm not ready to discuss it yet, so things may 

be a little slow here for a bit longer, but I promise it will pick back up soon!

In the meantime I have officially jumped on the instagram bandwagon! You can find me 

there as hopscotchlane, and can keep up with my everyday happenings which includes

lots of crochet, Sophie, and home coziness. If you are on instagram I would love to 

find you (I'm always looking for more fun people to follow)

so feel free to follow me or drop me a comment :)

patchwork pillow

I've been a crochet machine this past week. A few pillows made and a couple blankets started and some almost finished.

My favorite part of every night is curling up in bed with my puppy, netflix, and my hook and yarn with a couple hours of complete relaxation. It has been such a great stress reliever lately.

Here's the latest pillow. It is just a simple granny square pattern made with 100% cotton. I am loving the happy colors!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

WIP Spring Day Blanket

Here's a little sneak peak of the newest blanket I've been working on. Pattern inspired by Haken en Meer! More details to come :)