I’ve made these marshmallow charm headbands in my Etsy shop for a while, and now you can make your own magically crochetlicious accessories! You can use these little charms to make a headband, or separate hair clips, or fridge magnets, or big plush rings, pins/brooches, all kinds of projects!

This pattern is free for 48 hours before I put it in my Etsy shop! (Until noon on Saturday, March 5th.) I think this is a fun way to say thank you to people who follow my blog and social media. 

This pattern is now available in my Etsy shop!

I also have a video tutorial on YouTube.

A few words about the yarn. I always used Red Heart Super Saver for this particular pattern, because it came in all the colors I needed. I prefer to use the same yarn brand and line for all these charms so that the gauge is all the same, and I don’t have to think about it. The charms are all meant to be approximately the same size, or at least the same height, so that they look cute together. As it turns out, the peach color that I used is now discontinued. Yarn getting discontinued is ALWAYS A HUGE BUMMER to me, and I know it makes people crazy when they find discontinued yarn in a pattern, and they will ask me for a substitute. I wanted to wait to post the pattern until I could find another worsted weight yarn line with all the colors that I wanted. I think some people have mentioned I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby, but I have never bought from Hobby Lobby. There are some other worsted weight peach colors like Caron One Pound in Peach and Lion Brand Pound of Love in Creamsicle that you could substitute in, and I’ll make that note in the pattern. If you want smaller charms and don’t mind spending a bit more per yard, Plymouth Encore Worsted has all the right colors. Oh, also I just started checking out what seems to be Jo-Ann Fabric’s yarn line Big Twist, and their Big Twist Baby Yarn has a range of pastels that could work for this pattern, too.

I hope you guys have a lot of fun thinking of new ways to use your charms! That lil clover is perfect for St. Patrick’s Day!

The Craft Yarn Council sent me some photos from their adorable lemonade booth at the Craft and Hobby Association Show in January, where they had a bunch of crocheted lemons on display to promote the stress-busting benefits of crocheting and knitting. If you recall, last year, I created a lemon stress-ball pattern (when life gives you lemons… crochet one!) for the CYC and National Stress Awareness Month (April), and it’s really fun to see where these lemons are going!

The CYC conducted a Big Apple Lemon Drive, calling on guilds and groups to donate their time to make as many lemons as possible, and on tax day, the Craft Yarn Council plans to hand out thousands of knitted and crocheted lemon stress balls with a message about the stress-reducing benefits of these crafts to taxpayers on the busy streets of New York City. I hope there are lots and lots of photos of this!!! I wonder what people will think?

You can also participate on a local level by crocheting or knitting your own lemon stress-balls and passing them out to people you know! Creativebug just launched a #make2share challenge to encourage people to hand-make gifts and pay them forward! I will definitely participate and am thinking of something new and fun to share :).

Manda was rustling around in the cabinets last night and said, “I’M GONNA BAKE A CAKE.”

We had all the cake fixin’s from when I was GOING to bake her a cake for her birthday in January, but she ended up staying up really late the night before or something, and I didn’t have a chance to surprise her. I guess we ended up surprising ourselves with this frosting beast we ended up with!

I was responsible for the extra artistic pink blobs all around the edge. Then we wondered what to do with the rest of the pink frosting. I told her to draw something in the middle, like a heart, or write a word.

She ended up writing RAD.

So I hope y’all have a RAD WEEKEND. I’m taking Manda to her first ballet (Swan Lake) on Saturday night, which is her birthday present from me. What should we wear?!

Sometimes I forget that not all of you guys follow my Instagram. I do sometimes show WIPs that I’m working on that I don’t blog here, and sometimes I talk about stuff that I don’t blog here. It’s not a choice that I make on purpose, but sometimes I feel it’s redundant to use the same photos and talk about the same stuff everywhere. But this means some of you guys miss out! So, unless you guys leave me a bunch of comments that tell me you follow me on Instagram and there’s no need to double up on info… I will try to make more of an effort to do Instagram round-ups here, or to at least take one of my IG photos and expand on it a little more here. I did notice that some of you wanted to see more about my crochet/design process on the blog, so I’ll try to work on that more!

But today’s blog is not about crocheting. It’s about Bibi. I wanted to talk about what’s happening with Bibi in case any other doggiemamas out there end up going through the same thing.

Bibi is half Shar Pei and half Basset Hound, so she is prone to all sorts of skin/ear/eye/yeast issues which we have dealt with throughout the years. She was basically not meant to be on this Earth, but we are glad she is here! She will sometimes get a random lump or bump under the skin, which the vets usually feel is a fatty deposit. However, a few months ago, I noticed a lump on her skin, near one of her ….  uhh, mammaries… teets …doggyboobies… I don’t know what I should call it! It was just on top of the skin, looking like a clump of lumps, and it seemed to be itchy, and would get irritated when she licked it. After watching it for a month, I took her to the vet. Because it seemed itchy, she gave me a spray and said to spray it regularly to see if it helped. Yes, it did help take down the redness, but the lump still remained. So we scheduled her to get it removed and tested, and at the same time, we removed one of her under-the-skin lumps which was probably fat. Bibi spent the next 2 weeks in a cone, which she is a trooper about, but really changes my daily schedule because she can’t fit through the dog door and shouldn’t be left on her own to run around the yard like a maniac.

I knew the news was not good when I called in for results, and the person answering the phone said, “Yes, the results are in… and… I’ll have the doctor call you back.” I was in the car at the time, driving myself home from a dental appointment. When the vet called me back, she told me it was not good news and that Bibi had a stage 3 mast cell tumor (which some of the vet techs called a grade 3 mast cell tumor, so I’m not sure if there’s a difference). At any rate, it was malignant, and apparently aggressive. There was definitely more surgery in Bibi’s future, and possibly chemo, but the next step was to get her x-rays and an ultrasound to see if there were lumps inside of her.

I am generally not an emotional person, but the seed of this idea that my dog could die of cancer got to me. I called Bibi’s doggiedaddy (we are not together anymore), but got voicemail, which was good, because then I just burst into tears like a giant baby while driving my car. I figured it was good to get it all out then, and then go on with life.

This past Saturday, she had her x-rays and ultrasound. The good news is that they didn’t find anything inside of her. So she was scheduled on Monday to remove a larger margin around the lump they removed before, and they also ended up removing another under-the-skin bump on her side. When I picked her up, it looked like a monster had taken a huge bite out of her belly. It turned my stomach to look at it.  This was definitely a harder and bigger surgery than a few weeks ago, and I just felt so bad for her.

She has spent the last few days/nights being very restless and crying a lot. She always seems uncomfortable, even though she has two different pain killers. I have not gotten much sleep. The lab is also checking out all the stuff they removed from her, so we’ll see what the next step is after that. The bruising is kicking in, so now it looks like she has a zombie virus to boot, but at least she is peeing/pooping regularly again! Celebrate the victories!

As far as crochet news, I’m finishing up some Etsy orders and getting ready to try to get more patterns up for sale as well filming for YouTube. I can’t remember if I mentioned it here, but I’m prepping a whole new batch of classes for Creativebug! I’ve also been asked to teach a few crochet classes at an event in L.A. which I will tell you more about when it’s official. Until then … I can’t wait for a good night’s sleep! My dogs go to their doggiedaddy’s house on the weekend, so that will be a nice break for me!

(Picture taken by Manda!)

TGIF!!!!!

Were any of y’all TGIF fans back in the day on TV… Full House… Just the 10 of Us… Perfect Strangers … Family Matters. I was SOOOO all over all of that! I had no social life and just had Friday night TV and homework. THE BEST, RIGHT?!

Well in case you missed it… Netflix is bringing you FULLER HOUSE!!! And grown-up Kimmy Gibbler is totally sporting a bacon and egg scarf in the trailer! I wasn’t contacted specifically for the show, so at first I didn’t want to say it was one of mine. It could have been one of the “inspired by Twinkie Chan” items on Etsy. But the costume designer let me know on Facebook that it was indeed a scarf from my Etsy shop, and I was super duper thrilled! I can’t wait to see the episodes go live on Netflix next Friday, Feb. 26th!