Hat Head

My plum tree attacked me last night!  It's true!

Have you ever seen plum tree branches?  They look a little something like this:

Mine was totally overgrown so when I got home from work I decided it was finally time to give it a good trim.  It was not happy.

See those gigantic thorns?  Well, it stuck me right in the top of the head with them, not once, but twice!

I had to call my poor mom to come make sure I hadn't seriously injured myself because there was so much blood...and an instant headache!  Once she knew I was OK then she didn't feel so good.  I think it was seeing her baby looking like she just survived a major car crash that did her in.  Poor woman, don't ever do that to your mom!

Lesson learned, from now on, when you're out in the garden...ALWAYS WEAR A HAT!

Preferably a hard hat~

Make it Great Monday

The seasons are changing and you guys are in the mood to craft!  Take a look at some of the great projects that were linked up last week~

1. The Thrifty Challenge reused a great picture frame collage into a handy dandy organizer!  So smart~
2. The Gingerbread Blog is getting ready for Halloween and showed you how to make your own cute bat mobile!
3. Speaking of Halloween, take a look at these gorgeous yo-yo pumpkins from Mitzi's Miscellany.  Visit her blog to get all of the instructions.
4. Vixen Made shared a great way to give an old long sleeve shirt a new life!

Thank you to everyone for linking up!

I love having sooooo many creative ideas all in one place.

If you were featured, please feel free

to grab a featured button from the sidebar.

Now, onto this week's Make it Great party!

Please only link:

1) To your CreativeFamily Friendly Project Post
that you've made yourself,not your main blog page

2) Maximum of 3 projects that you haven't link up before
3) Please, no shops, giveaways, round ups, or commercial sites
4) Feel free to hit one of those Follow buttons on the sidebar ;)

And, not really a rule, but something you won't regret if you do....go visit some of the other links and leave a comment, we all love comments right? And you never know what kind of goodies you'll find!

If you link up, please post my button somewhere on your blog so more people can come join the fun.

<center> <a href="http://www.etcetorize.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://i1115.photobucket.com/albums/k554/Etcetorize/2012PartyButton150.jpg"/></a></center> Let's see what you've been working on! (If you link up you are giving me permission to tell the world how great you are and possibly post a picture or a link to your awesome project either here, on Facebook, or on Pinterest. Make sure you're OK with this before you link up.)


Happy Linking!
 

Lace Boot Socks

I've got some bigger house and garden stuff I've been working on the past couple of weeks so I only have time for a quickie craft today (sorry, nothing exciting, just digging up flower beds and painting the porch).  And I have to admit, I have no idea what these things are called, but they're all the rage (at least on Pinterest) so I made a pair.  I call them boot socks.
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Update:  I really, really appreciate all of the new visitors coming over from Pinterest, but before you leave a comment asking me where I got my boots or the lace to make this project, please take a moment to actually read the post (especially if you are a no-reply blogger or anonymous).  All of the information is right here in the post~
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For those of you who aren't quite as trendy as I am (which would be difficult to accomplish), these babies are a way to add a layer of somethin' somethin' (do people still say that???) at the top of your boot without adding bulk inside of your boot.

Here's what you need:

Materials:

-extra wide elasticized lace

-thread and needle

-sewing machine or serger

-scissors (not shown, why do I always forget one thing??)

-optional: buttons, bows, ribbon, etc.

Steps:

1) Wrap your lace around your calf, just under your knee.  Don't worry about doing it over top of your pants, you're going to wear these on top anyway.

2) Cut two lengths of lace to fit.

3) With right sides together, sew or serge the raw edges of your lace together.

Please ignore the messy stitches.
My serger was on a rampage.

4) Iron your seam towards one side and turn right side out.

If you want to stop now you can and there you go, you've completed the whole thing in about 60 seconds flat!

If you want to add a little bit more interest, read on.

 5) Decide if you want your seam to be on the inside of your leg or at the back and then add some pretty buttons or bows or other embellishments.  Just make sure to keep it towards the top of the sock so that it won't cause any discomfort inside your boot.  Flat buttons work best.  I put mine on the side but you could put them right down the seam at the back too!

Tah dah!

So pretty!

 This project was so quick and easy that I made a pair in black too!

This is also a great scrap buster if you just have a bit of lace left over from another project.  Have fun making your own and have a crafty week~

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**Update:  a few people have asked where I got my boots....they're actually a few years old but I'm pretty sure I picked them up at a shoe store in Canada called Spring. I don't think they have them anymore but there are a few styles that are similar~

The lace is from the bargain bin at my local fabric store.  If you don't live where I live this is pretty useless information.  So just do a google search on "Wide Elasticized Lace" or go to Wholeport (link in my sidebar), sometimes they have it.
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This project was featured here:

          

Tell a Tale: Little Bee

You know how sometimes great things come in small packages?

Well, this book one of those~

“A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”
― Chris Cleave, Little Bee

Summary (from Amazon):
Sarah Summers is enjoying a holiday on a Nigerian beach when a young girl named Little Bee crashes irrevocably into her life. All it takes is a brief and horrifying moment of crisis — a terrifying scene that no reader will forget. Afterwards, Sarah and Little Bee might expect never to see each other again. But Little Bee finds Sarah’s husband’s wallet in the sand, and smuggles herself on board a cargo vessel with his address in mind. She spends two years in detention in England before making her way to Sarah’s house, with what will prove to be devastating timing.

Chapter by chapter, alternating between Little Bee’s voice and Sarah’s, Chris Cleave wholly and caringly portrays two very different women trying to cope with events they’d never imagined. Little Bee is experiencing all the fullness and emptiness of the rich world for the first time, and her observations are hopeful, charming and piercing: “Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl,” she says: “Everyone would be pleased to see me coming.”

Sarah is more cynical and disheartened, a successful magazine editor trying to find meaning in the face of turmoil at home and work. As the story develops, however, we learn about what matters most to her, including her fierce, protective love for her funny little son. Sarah is trying to find herself as much as Little Bee is — and, unexpectedly, each character discovers a ray of hope in the other.

Review:
Simply an absolute must read. There are parts that will tear your heart out and make you cry but there are other parts that will remind you that there is goodness out there in the world. This would've been a challenging book to write in so many ways but the author creates clearly distinct voices for all the characters involved. You won't like everyone in the book, but you will fall in love with Little Bee.

This is not an easy read.  It's very emotional and deals with some very serious issues.  But, it's beautifully written and when you get to the end, you'll be proud to put this on your bookshelf.

                         

Have you read this book or any other Chris Cleave books?  Would you judge book by its cover?  This book has two different covers, which one would you pick up?

Candy Apples

One of the only reasons I go to the fair when it's in town in the summer is so that I can buy a candy apple.  Yummmmmmmm!  One of my favourite things.

This year I didn't go to the fair though.  So, I decided to make my own!

I have two beautiful trees in my backyard that I used to think were crab-apple trees but now they produce lovely big sweet apples.

I used this recipe and played around with colours a bit.

And then tried some different toppings on the bottoms~

Considering how little time I spend in the kitchen doing stuff like this, they turned out amazingly well.  It may be awhile before I have to return to the fair...although there's always the bingo tent calling my name~

Google Tips

I don't usually blog about blogging, mostly because I feel like I'm still learning myself.  But I recently stumbled upon a couple of things that I think other beginner bloggers out there might find helpful, so I thought I'd share~

I am also not usually one to shower accolades upon 'Google' anything.  When one company is seemingly taking over the world and forcing us all to conform to convoluted ways of doing things it drives me crazy.

However, in this case, I feel I must give credit where credit is due.

I have come across not one but TWO positive pieces of Google info that I want to share with any beginner bloggers out there.

#1-Blogger (which is run by Google) is amazing at stopping spam. 

Yes, there you go, I said it.  I used 'amazing' and 'Google' in the same sentence.  Most beginner bloggers turn on as much spam filter as possible, including the oh so lovely word verification tool.  I did it too.  After I started to leave comments on other blogs though, I realized what a major pain in the behind this is.  I turned mine off more than a year and half ago and guess what, very very little gets through....maybe one spammy advertising type of comment got through in all that time.  Which I was still able to catch myself and delete promptly.

This one isn't bad but sometimes I have to try
 3-4 times before I get the verification right.
You don't have to do this to your readers,
Blogger stops most spam from getting onto your blog anyway~

Blogger drives me nuts in lots of ways, but this is one thing that it does incredibly well.

#2-Google Chrome makes Blogger easier to use!

Over the past two years I've struggled with crazy formatting, spacing issues, inability to preview my posts, and overall wonkiness.  I just figured this is how blogger is.  Then I accidentally downloaded Google Chrome and tried writing a blogger post from there instead of Internet Explorer.  Wow!  It's a whole new world!  All of the things that I found so annoying suddenly disappeared!

I can now preview my post...easily!  I don't have extra breaks inserted when I go back and forth between Compose and HTML modes!  I don't suddenly get crazy formatting inserted here there and everywhere for no reason!  I can upload more than one photo at a time! I've always wished that Blogger could do that, little did I know, it CAN!!   I hate to admit it, but the Google Chrome web browser is making my bloggy life much easier!

There are lots of tutorials out there telling you all about how to turn off verification or use other browsers so I'm not going to get into all that, besides, like I said, I'm still learning myself.  Just do a Google search and it's all there ;)

So, now I guess I'll have to suck it up and give Google+ a try as well, because if it works half as well as the rest of the Google family, it just might be something I like!

What about you guys?  Do you find that different browsers make a difference?  Do you have any basic and easy bloggy tips you want to share?  Leave a comment below~


*This is absolutely NOT paid advertising or a sponsored post of any kind.  I just  found that these things are working for me and thought I'd pass along the info.