For Triplets . . .

When my facebook friends heard about my new tiny twin nieces, they came out in full force with words of encouragement. One even found some hand-me-down preemie clothes for the little ones (who knew preemie clothes were so hard to find?!?). To thank the woman who is donating clothing that belonged to her triplets, I've made a set of booties for them!
For a boy . . .

For another boy . . .

And for her girl!

awww . . . I can just imagine all those little feet . . . man, that's a lot of baby! Thank you!

The Whale Beanie

I've had an idea to put a whale on a sun hat, and i got the perfect opportunity to practce my whale stitching skills on this custom order!
The whale has a hand stitched grin, eye, and spout of water.

Light blue with white stripe and edging to add interest to the body of the hat.

Thanks for having me make this, Meagan!

Giveaway Item - Flower Booties!

I had that fun giveaway for reaching 500 fans and now have enough progress on the custom orders to start making the prizes for the winners now and then. The first winner choose baby booties in pink and white, so I thought it would be fun to try a new idea I had . . .
What do you think of the flowers as toe tops? I think I like them.

Otherwise, they're just like the booties I've been making, with the addition of and extra touch of color around the bottom to tie the flower in.

A Custom Order - Dress, Hats, Hair Accessories!

Jennifer of Doodle Bug Boutique (you can find her store on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Doodle-Bug-boutique-and-more/122572481103173 ) Fell in love with a hat and a dress and combined them to have me make this fun toddler dress!
Here's the hat she ordered to match.
And these are the matching hair elastics on toddler-sized elastics.

A toddler size rose head band to match that dress!

And boys deserve great crochet too! A hat for her son.

Thanks so much Jennifer! I hope you AND the kids love it!

Toddler Dress - Custom Order for Jennifer!

To be perfectly honest, this dress made me a little nervous, but the customer really LOVED this verigated yarn, so I made it for her and it turned out really cute!
This toddler dress is a 2T and features button straps (three button holes make them adjustable), a large rose embellishment, wide waistband, and fan stitch-edged skirt.

Here's the lace-up back (which also allows for flexible sizing).

Thanks, Jennifer for pushing my color sense in such a fun direction!

Etsy Baby Shower!

Those of you who see my posts on Facebook may have heard about Etsy Baby Shower. Its a fun little, well, baby shower for Etsy users! If you use Etsy, are expecting, and have made at least 5 Etsy purchases, you can recieve 4 baby gifts from participating Etsy sellers with big hearts and talented hands! I am one of the summer recipients. I got some amazing items I plan to photograph and blog, and will do so after baby arrives! (More fun to have pictures with baby in them!) I also decided to be a participating shop and offered to do two baby gifts. I got assigned to give two gifts, one for a boy, one for a girl, for a momma to be of TWINS! I've been crazy busy filling orders before baby, but she's been so sweet and patient and the hats are done! I just need to package them up and take them to the box. Here's what they look like!
They're both 100% cotton sun hats and slightly smaller than my standard newborn size (becuase twins are tiny when they make their appearance!) but they should fit the babies for 3 months or more. Crochet stretches. :)

This is the boy one . . . . it's bright blue with a verigates yellow, blue, and green band with green borders.

Up close shot of the visor part. :)

Here is the girl hat! I used the same green for borders because I wanted them to "go together" without being too matchy. This one is bright pink with a pink, orange, yellow, and green band. I also added a yellow flower and ruffle brim.

These were so fun to plan and make! If you're interested in being a recipient or participating shop for Etsy Baby Shower, check out http://etsybabyshower.blogspot.com . It is so fun!

Starfish on the Beach!

When I made my first starfish hat, I really thought it was a risk. My hubby thought it looked weird. But it has been my most popular hat! Even overshadowing the ladybug hat! Here are a couple off-Etsy hats I've completed . . . .

This first one is for my friend at http://lilikin14.etsy.com in a 12 to 18 month size.

She request the "top secret" buttons. :) (I've had to remove them from hats for children under 3 years due to federal regulations . . . if you get buttons on a hat for your tot, just be sure to check for loose ones before handing the hat over. My son wears his button hat a lot and we've yet to loose a button!)

This one is for my cutie pie nephew. I made it for his first birthday, which is actually this weekend, but since they were on vacation at the beach last week, he got it early. :)

I can do any color of starfish. So far the most popular are the red and orange. I've done a purple one as well (you waterfront folks know that purple ones are actually pretty common!)

One Month to Go!

My official due date is June 12 . . . one month to go! I'm so excited! This post will fill you in on how I'll keep shop while I'm in the hospital, and how you can expect things to change when I bring my new baby home!
Will Mo and Ozzy on Etsy be put in vacation mode? No. I need to be distracted as I near my due date or I go to the hospital and get sent home a lot. :) It will stay open because I probably won't want to jump on the computer real quick before getting in the car to go to the hospital and have my baby.
What if I purchase something, custom order something, or convo you about my order while you're in the hospital? I'll only be in the hospital 3 days. I'll get back to you as soon as I get out! If I get too bored, I might even get back to you while I'm still there!
I've been planning to custom order something. Am I too late? No, but the sooner the better! If I'm working on your order and go into labor, your order will take longer than usual.
Will you take custom orders still after you have the baby? Yes. The time table will be different, though. Now I can complete a custom order in 2 days to a week at the most. After the baby comes, you should expect most custom orders to take one to two weeks.
How will your Etsy shop be different after the baby is born? You may notice a decrease in the number of new items added to the shop, since I'll be busy with twice the number of boys I had before!
How long after you have the baby will it be before you can ship out orders? If the item is ready to ship, it will still go out ASAP. I will have lots of helpers at my house who can run packages to the post office for me.

If you have other questions, please comment and I'll answer them for you. Thanks for the kind wishes and support!

Custom Sun Hats

My friend from Claire's Bowtique has 3 fun boys and one sweet baby girl, so she ordered these sun hats to help keep them cool and shady this summer! Each hat is 100% cotton with the exception of the red starfish on each starfish hat. The acrylic yarn makes a much more interesting starfish for some reason. :)


Ladybug sun hat sized for 9 - 15 months.

Starfish sun hat for 12-24 months.

Starfish sun hat for 4 - 6 years

Starfish sun hat for 6-8 years.

All three little boy sun hats lined up. So fun!
Thanks for having me make these for your adorable family!
Be sure to visit Claire's Bowtique on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Allegan-MI/Claires-Bowtique/191942987248 ! There are fun hair bows, flip flops, tutus, shirts, onsies, and more! Amiee can even customize an item to match your favorite hat from my shop . . . she's very talented!

Creations by Eileen - Weekend Wonder

I have become a fan of quite a few beautiful Etsy shops on Facebook, but I'll admit, for the longest time I had a hard time keeping the jewelry shops straight. They all seemed pretty similar. That's why I was so thrilled with our last Weekend Wonder, Chewelry. BUT I have found another stand-out handmade jewelry line! A few weeks ago, my twitter friend, CreationsbyEile, started crocheting with wire. CROCHET WITH WIRE! I mean first, I've never heard of that before and second, OUCH! I hoped it'd be worth it, and it WAS. I became a fan of her facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Creations-By-Eileen/137888834505?ref=ts I checked one of her listings and found a gorgeous green bracelet, but knew Crazy Pants would destroy it. So I just looked at it a lot. :)
THEN she did a giveaway and I won a gift certificate! I have an event coming up next month, so I asked if she could make a necklace like the bracelet I love . . . and she DID!
It came packaged all pretty. Crazy Pants (my 21 month old) was very excited about it.
He said, "oooooooooooooh!" when I showed him what was inside. Pretty sure I did too!

Isn't that gorgeous?!?! I think I counted 5 strands of shiny silver wire with a bazillion irridescent green glass beads hand crocheted into BEAUTIFUL!

I don't think the pictures of the whole piece do it justice, so here's a close up.

Lately she's been working on a bridal line that involves pearls and other wedding-y pretties! She does take custom orders if you have a color scheme in mind! Be sure to visit her shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/CreationsByEileen

Enjoy!

Crochet Dress and Slippers

Once again, I am a lucky little crafter and have gotten to fill a super fun request! Do you remember that pretty lavender and pink sweater and hat I got to make for Amiee of Claire's Bowtique and tutubugs? Well, she asked me to make a dress and slippers that her cute little one could wear with the sweater. Here's what I came up with -
Isn't that fun? I made it super adjustable - the shoulder straps can be pretty much any length she needs.

I liked this little pink and lavender stripe along the top of the bodice and around the waist.

The skirt is a series of shells with the same shell stitch at the bottom of the dress that is featured in the sweater.

Here's the back of the dress.

To make the bodice adjustable - and super cute- it laces down the back with a lavender ribbon.

The slippers are basically the same as the baby booties I make, but with a larger hook and an extra row.

Thanks so much, Amiee for having me make this! You can visit Amiee's Etsy shop here: http://tutbugs.etsy.com and for amazing deals and custom orders, her Facebook fanpage here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Allegan-MI/Claires-Bowtique/191942987248?ref=ts

Babies Everywhere!

There are an impressive number of new additions coming to my extended family this summer and fall. I'm first - due in early June with my second boy, and then we've got another boy coming in June, 2 boys in July, a baby in August, twins in September (if she can keep them in that long!), baby in October, and two in November. Wow! So, all this babiness warrants some off Etsy projects for my cousins and sister in laws! Of course, should you fall in love, I'll be happy to make something and put it on Etsy for you. :o)

First up are big brother, little brother Raiders inspired hats for my cousin.
The black one is for a 7 year old and the grey for a 6 month old.

Next, my sister's best friend (and cousin's wife!) lives just 5 minutes away and is just 4 weeks behind me. We even go to the same clinics and have our appoinments usually a half hour apart. Its been fun to be pregnant at the same time. She choose the colors for her sweater.

Its a 6 month size and very warm and chunky, as its pretty tough still to find chocolate baby yarn. Even though it is SO CUTE!

The caterpillar hat was a surprise extra. I LOVE caterpillar hats.