Hi there!
I'm Kristen, the fifth daughter :) . This summer, I will be posting quite a bit on my mom's blog, so I hope ya'll don't mind!  To start out I want to introduce you to the diet/workout plan I have. I want to drop a few for the summer and be nice and trim for the next school year. If you guys want to join me it would be great! I'll be posting lots of online workouts as I do them and maybe some new calorie-cutting recipes and nutrition packed dishes as I come across them!

-Kristy

Mother's Day

Okay, I must fess up . . . I am no scrapbooker/ cardmaker. 
But I thought I would make my mom a Mother's day card and I am actually fairly pleased with it.
It doesn't have any brads, or flowers, or do dahs on it, but it does have some ribbon!

First, I printed a piece of clip art on some white card stock for the front of the card:

Then, I printed a fun picture of my mom jumping in a puddle on the back of the card, and then a picture of her in her gazebo for the inside of the card:

Then I added the paper trim:

(I was trying to achieve the effect of a shade awning of maybe a little cafe in Paris with the striped paper -- um, oh well)

Then, I added the ribbon.  It was a pain to glue, I'm sure there is a better "scrapbooker" way to do this:

Now all I have to do is write in it and stick it in an envelop.  Maybe I'll added some stickers to the envelop.  My Mom loves stickers!

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mother's out there!!!

Birthday Gift for my Granddaughter!

My adorable red headed granddaughter turned 1 this springtime month of April.

Here are some photos of the present I made for her:

I made all of the headbands or hairbands to have interchangeable flowers, which makes it fun.

I really like how the pink flower turned out.  But when I took it off and put the gray flower on the white headband, I liked it too.  She has a cute pink, gray, and white jacket that this headband with the interchangeable flowers will look great with.

The yellow and green headbands have three spots to attach the flowers to:

The green headband and flowers were made with regular Red Heart yarn.  The other 2 hairbands and flowers were made with Caron Simply Soft yarn (I like this yarn!).

Happy Birthday baby girl!

She LOVES birthday cake!!!

  

The Leaf and LUGGS!

I have had some requests for a pattern for the crocheted leaf shown in blog entry:
 How to crochet a flower

I found the leaf in a library crochet book in a city I no longer live in, so I resisted putting in the time to create my own leaf pattern, but after the requests I couldn't resist anymore and here is what I came up with:

 Chain 10 (I used a size "H" hook), then work 2 half double crochets (hdc's) in the 3rd chain from hook, then work another hdc in the next chain.

 In the next 3 chain stitches work a double crochet (dc), then a hdc in the next chain stitch. Work a single crochet (sc) in the next chain stitch.

 In the last chain work 3 sc's.  Now working the backside of the chain stitches, work one sc in the next stitch (or other side of the chain stitch -- middle photo), and a hdc in the next stitch, and a dc in each of the next 3 stitches.

Next work a hdc in the next stitch and then work 2 hdc's in the same chain that you worked the very first 2 hdc's in.

Pull yarn through last loop on your hook and pull tight to finish it off!  All done and ready to attach to a flower or anything else that needs a leaf.


Now you may be asking what are LUGGS . . .
They are a project I've been working on for months and months.  I'm so happy and pleased to have this creation finished.  The popular UGG boots inspired this project.  The "L" in LUGGS stands for "lazy" because after marching around in the snow in your UGGS you just want to come inside and relax and laze around in your LUGGS!  A cozy, snUGGly boot slipper that looks good on and feels good on with it's double comfy soul.  Here's a pic of them:

Aw, aren't they cute!!!

Finished Project for the Holidays

I have several projects that I have wanted to do before Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Guess what!?!  I actually got one of them done.  I'm so glad I put the thought and plan into action and did it.  It would have been such an easy project to think about and never do.

This little table has been in my mother's shed for years.  It used to belong to her mother and I had a spot in my house that it would be perfect for, but it needed some work.

I had to sweep it, vacuum it, wash it, then sand it, and fill in holes and gaps.
Now it was ready for some change. I painted the legs black and stained the top with mahogany colored stain (I later found out the color I really wanted was cherry--the mahogany was darker than I had wanted, but it was too late and I didn't want to re-sand it).

Next came the first coat of polyurethane.  I did this in the house because it was cold outside.  Oh boy, it took a long time for the fumes to die down!

After sanding it with fine sand paper and putting on a 2nd coat of polyurethane, it was done -- yea!!!

I couldn't wait until after Thanksgiving to get out this fabric/stuffed manger scene.  The table is short, so the grandkids can reach and play with this manger scene just like my daughters did when they were little.

Oh btw,

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

New for November!

I've been spending hours, days, weeks, months, on creating new patterns for my website, then suddenly when I'm almost finished with two new crochet patterns my website disappears.  Honestly, it is like it just vanished from the face of the earth.
I called my hosting provider and they could not figure out what happened (btw-this took three days of calling and going back and forth and being on hold, ugh!).

But alas! I now have my website back up, only because I had enough run around from my old provider (which I had for more than 7 years), and got a new one and I also had to get a new domain name.
I'm excited about the new domain name, it is the same as my blog ---- momof5daughters.com
This meant changing everything on my website from Ivy Stitching to Mom of 5 Daughters.

I'm so glad it's all done (whew!!!)

One of the funnest things me and my daughters and grandkids did, was a little video.  It distantly (very distantly) follows the "Billy Goats Gruff" story and  we are all wearing Aladdin like slippers that I made.
(The pattern is on my old yet new website).  It was a lot of fun, and I get a good laugh every time I see it.
I'll try and put it on this post ----- pause, while I try and do this . . . 

Yea!!! it worked! And it was easy.  After all the mess with my old host company and those computer challenges, I'm so glad inserting this video was soooo easy (knock on wood).

Changing the subject, today (while doing some shopping) I'm in search for gold tin foil.  If I find it, later on I will post the cool thing I'm going to do with it.  'Til then have a great day!