A few of my favorite things....

I'm in a happy mood today! This is sort of rare considering the week I have had (and it's only Wednesday)...

So far this week my car battery died on me, causing me to miss a day of work. Lewy was already at work so he had to explain to me over the phone how to use our portable charger which plugs into the wall, poor thing was so worried I was going to kill myself I thought he was gonna come home from work to fix it for me! But I now know I am capable of charging the battery in my car all by myself.... putting a new one in was a different story and that DID have to wait until Lewy came home from work.... Now $178 later I have a full tank of petrol, and a brand new battery....

I've made some progress on my two teddy bears, and the body of the first one is almost finished, with the holidays having only just finished I haven't had much time to knit, what with stuffing m face full of cheesecake eggs and chocolate bunnies, and eating waaaayyyy too much food at the Nonna's house....

I did manage to finish a teddy before the holidays started, which is now home with little Miss Daniella...

Now since I'm in a very happy mood today I feel the need to share some of my favorite things...

1. I freaking love nachos... But most of the time when I order them at the shops the put too much sauce and not enough meat, or they are too spicy so I make my own and I can literally eat through a kilo of hamburger all by myself when I make them...
2. My girls are my life at the moment.... Sade and Daisy (yes I know they are doggies but who cares!) The keep me entertained all day long, they cuddle me when I'm sad, over all they are just like little people... and I feel like a mamma bear when people say mean things about them....
3. I love my job! Being a swimming instructor isn't for everyone, it takes a lot of  patience, which in all honesty I never thought I had, but it does give me a real sense of accomplishment when I see a kid who was scared to death of the water being able to swim by themselves and know that they learned it from me!
4. Harry Potter is like an obsession for me... I know it's weird but I could watch the movies every single day for eternity and never get bored... I have all the movies, all the books, and as you can tell if you have been reading all my blogs I have the Harry Potter Night in the works as soon as our kitchen is done...
5. My phone is like part of my hand... I feel extremely naked without it, and as much as I say I hate it we all know that's a huge lie....
6. Rainy weather... there is nothing more relaxing than curling up in bed with a nice cup of tea or hot chocolate while the rain pours away outside... and it makes it even better when Lewy is home to curl up next to me....
7. I love our house, even though it needs a lot of work and its small, I still love it to death, its ours and we can do whatever we want to do to it, and this makes me happy.
8. Books, I'm a very picky person when it comes to reading books, and while I do have a kindle so I can bring my books with me nothing compares to a real book that you can hold in your hands...
9. Crafting things is like my own personal therapy.... when I have had a rough day all I need to do is cut something out or stab some yarn with knitting needles and all that stress goes away, it drives Lewy insane sometimes but he has his stress relievers as well...
10. My most favorite thing of all? Lewy! He puts up with my crap all the time but still finds it in his heart to love me no matter what I do... I couldn't ask for a better partner (in crime or life lol)

Now here's 10 things most people don't know about me!
1. I got to see Tom Felton (Malfoy from Harry Potter) at Supernova in real life!
2. The movie Twister makes me think of my daddy and I always watch it when I miss him.
3. I hate eggplant.... no matter how its cooked.
4. When I'm home alone I crank up my music and sing at the top of my lungs (I'm surprised we still have windows)
5. I have an old ring of my dads that I wear out for luck (and I think it actually helps me)
6. I believe in ghosts, and aliens.
7. I'm the only person (that I know of) on m dad's side of the family with green eyes
8. I have about 40 pairs of scissors and I can never find a pair when I need them
9. I love big accessories, clunky long necklaces big oversized bangles and ear rings.... I have a collection
10. I am Team Edward (book version not movie version) because he reminds me of Lewy, being overprotective and willing to jump in front of a bus for me.... I'm not ashamed to admit it!

Now you have a great big insight into the life of me! Enjoy it lolz this might never happen again!

XxX Rah Rah

Let the comissions begin!!!

Squeee! We are up to 1327 views last time I checked, its moving along and I am so happy we finally passed the 1k benchmark!!!

I'm gonna shameless plug my cousin's new blog!! It's all about book reviews and she shares some of her own personal stories as well (sort of like me! but with books instead of patterns) give it a look and you might just find a new and interesting book to read!!!

Now lets get down to brass tacks (I actually have some brass tacks funnily enough)

I've got commissions!!!! I am pretty pleased with myself.... of course it's really just my family and friends asking for stuff at the moment I'm hoping the more stuff I put up on ravelry the more people will get interested in what I'm doing.

I've got one of the cutie patootie teddy bears in works for my mom, and one of my close friends has asked me to make a big version of my itty bitty punkin for a foot rest (there will be pictures of this one when its done lolz)

And for myself I'm working on a Twi'lek beanie, I'm sure most of you know what a Twi'lek is, but for those of you who dont, they are from star wars. I've found a few knitting patterns for beanies, but I'm thinking its time for me to try and make this one entirely on my own, so this pattern will be going up in my ravelry shop once its done, not sure if its gonna cost or not though.

I'm starting to feel bad for not blogging much these days, but with working on our kitchen and me finally working it's been tough to get any of my projects finished.... I'm gonna try and write a little something though at least once a week from now on. Even if all I can manage is a quick vid blog I guess it's better than nothing for a month at a time lolz

So lets keep the views coming guys, I appreciate every single one of them!!!! I haven't sold any of my patterns just yet, I'm still wondering if I have priced them too high or not.... would be nice to get some feed back on them all the same.

So follow this blog and keep up to date with all kinds of funky crafts, new and interesting ideas, or just because you may be bored on a rainy day and need something to do.... Comment on my posts and let me know what you think of them, I'd appreciate the feed back, let me know if you found something too hard, or if something needs to be explained a bit more and I will try my very best to get it sorted out for you!

<3 <3 <3 ~Rah-Rah

All the Little Branches

So I know normally I'm putting up photos of everything I do, weather it's finished or not, but this time I have decided to take on a rather different type of project.

I've decided to try and do a MASSIVE family tree with both sides of my own family, all the in-laws and both sides of their families, for as far back as I can possibly go! It's a very big project that I'm working on, but to make it even bigger I have refused to use anything other than Google and my own family members to complete it, these ancestry websites are ridiculously overpriced!!!

At the moment my family tree is waiting on several branches that my mother is working on, lots of missing birthdays and partners names, and I'm stuck at my own great grandparents... Google is being MOST uncooperative in this matter, I cant find a single article on either set of my great grandparents.... Its really hard to find information out about people who were from another country =(

I'm using a simple software called MyHeritage which I found on Google for free, it's nothing fancy pants, but it does help you organize all your information. I can add photos and tag people's faces, birth dates and places, death dates and places, marriage dates and places, where people used to work, I can even link to articles I find online about them! It has a global map, and anywhere you have tagged an important event birth/death/marriage/workplace it will place a pin in the map. So far I only have a few pins, but with my limited knowledge I think I have done very well!

When I have gathered as much information as I can this software also allows you to upload the family tree to a website to share with the world, you can even order a nice wall hanging with the entire tree on it! I think that a lot of my family members would enjoy seeing the finished project, knowing where you come from is important to me.  I think it's comforting in a way to know your own background, I feel like I have a bit of amnesia when people ask me about my Italian background and all I can do is stare at them like an idiot because I have no idea about it...
I know a lot of people out there would wonder why do it at all, why even bother trying to find out things that happened in the past... I love the mystery! I would love to be working my way through my own history and , find out I'm a descendant of some one really famous, or even find out something like my family fled the country as criminals would be interesting to me. It would give some really good stories to tell people... "Did you know way back in the 1600's my relative was in the Salem Witch Trials?" "Did you know that I'm very distantly related to Vincent Van Gough?"  How cool would it be to tell people things like that and then be able to show them proof?!

All in all this task is just for me, to give myself a little bit of a history lesson. But, I know that there are many more people in my own family that would love to see it, to see how the branches are twined together, to know the places we all come from... even to see who's in-laws came from where!

At this moment we are going strong with 145 people, from 48 different families. My Uncle has a bunch of info to give me, and my mother has scrounged up a few different people I can talk to over facebook who have taken on smaller versions of my task previously... I can't wait to see how big this thing will be!!!