When my friend Ericka got married she made several lovely gifts for her bridesmaids and hand selected gorgeous butterfly hair clips for all us to wear in our hair. They did one of those butterfly releases after the ceremony so the butterflies sort of fit in with that. Her husband to be however had a more pressing dilema. It’s not quite as easy to make a groomsmen gift and guys probably don’t want hair clips either. They seem more interested in flasks and golf accessories. Men are weird that way. I’ve seen so many lovely hand crafted wedding party accessories over the years, from the jewelry and brooches that everyone wears to hair accessories and of course there are decorations and cookies to make!?! What are your favorite crafty wedding bits?

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I know it’s not crafty, but darnit it’s super cool. And we all have floors that need cleaned too I’m sure. The Domestic Diva has a contest to win a sexy new pink Dyson vaccum cleaner. All you have to do to get entered is blog about it and link, and grab this cute little button for your blog.

Why is the Dyson pink? Because it’s October and it’s breast cancer awareness month! I know I probably didn’t have to tell you that, because you being the highly informed person that you are already knew that What are you waiting for? Go … enter … now~!

I’d love to win this beautiful vacuum cleaner, I seriously need a vacuum, I have my handy dandy little one but I have no attachments or anything cool to use. And with the asthma/allergy factor going on in our house it would be awesome to have a vac that kicks serious allergen booty.

Technorati Tags: dyson, vacuum, contest, blog contest, pink vacuum

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The flight tracker is most helpful in finding you your required flights, whether it is on the indian airlines or the midwest airlines. Later you can decide what hotels you would prefer staying in and if you would rather be on cheap cruises or not.

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We finally had a bit of chilly weather. It lasted all of one day again. That makes two whole chilly days this year where the boys had to grab their hoodie jackets on the way out the door to the bus stop. Two. It looks like we’ll have an unseasonably warm halloween again this year. At least you won’t have to be all bundled up in your North Face jacket carrying a travel mug full of hot chocolate. But still, a little more fall like weather would be great. As opposed to 80 and 90 degree weather that we’ve been having.

I saw a totally cute pattern for a kids hoodie jacket that I wanted to try to make. It looked ridiculously simple, but I forgot to bookmark the darn thing. Now I have to go hunt for it again. We have the hardest time finding hoodie jackets here for some reason. And the boys use that most of the year, rarely do we need a full out winter jacket here. Of course I see people all bundled up in big bubble coats and scarves wrapped around their head five times, and I think they are crazy … and they think I am crazy for walking around with no coat on. I don’t even own a winter coat, I haven’t had one since we moved here. I just grab a hoodie and a pair of gloves and I’m all set.

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I want to thank Lisa for pointing this out to me. We had a miscarriage what feels like a million years ago. I was right at the end of the 3rd month going into the 4th month when it happened. It was probably the single most painful, traumatizing, burned in my memory forever experience that I will ever go through. I can go through every moment of that day in my mind even now after many years. The bleeding, the phone ringing, the ambulance siren, the feeling of being lost in a sea of confusion…. it’s all a very vivid memory, nightmare, bad dream ….

A miscarriage is something the world seems to make us feel like we should be embarrassed or ashamed of. A dark secret never to be spoken of. Or maybe it’s just too painful and awful for people to have to think about. The truth is that it happens and it happens very often to many women every single year, maybe even every single day all across the world. And it never, ever gets any easier for any of them.

Miscarriage’s that are ignored often lead to depression, anger, resentment, drug use and ultimately drug rehab, and many forms of treatment for various types of depression. And I don’t just mean the confusing PPD (post partum depression) that occurs, I mean serious life ending depression. So if you know that has had a miscarriage, recently or ever, give them a hug. Trust me, they need it.

Light a Candle and think hopeful thoughts please

P.S. I apologize for cross posting, if you read my other blogs you might see this again today.

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12 oz grated soap
1 oz cocoa butter

Cocoa butter is known for being a substance that helps soften skin. This recipe for cocoa butter soap is very gentle to help soften even the most sensitive skin. Melt the grated soap in a pan with some water. Add 1 oz of cocoa butter for ever 12 oz of soap used. Be sure to stir well, then pour into molds.

Technorati Tags: soap making, cocoa butter, cocoa butter soap

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Okay, so this really doesn’t have a lot to do with stitching. But one of the reasons I stitch is to relieve stress, anxiety, tension. And another way that I like to do that is with a video game. Sometimes a mindless easy to play video game, and other times a crazy video game where I can kill stuff and blow things up! LOL Woohoo!

Video games seem to be the popular stress reliever in my household, the boys go crazy without them. They only play once or twice a week so I don’t mind too much. The big wish on everybody’s list right now, including mine is Nintendo Wii. Wii’s are currently a little pricy and pretty hard to find. The closest I’ve come is finding the empty display boxes at the store, never the real thing. I probably haven’t given it that much effort though because that dollar sign is flashing in the back of my mind all the time. So of course when I was looking for coupon codes tonight online I was pleased to find that Everybody Loves Coupons blog is holding a contest to give away a Wii set and the very popular Mario Party 8 game! I know the kids would be in heaven if we actually won a Wii! And it would keep them off my notebook computer for awhile I’m sure. There would probably be a line of kids around the block to come over and play too -lol-

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I have been so sick the past month, ugh … it just won’t go away. Bronchitis is evil and won’t go away, and the weather is even more evil because it won’t pick a temperature to be outside and my arthritis has been going crazy flaring up on me. But, I have managed to get back into stitching mode and that is a good thing. Stitching for me has always been a stress reliever, a way to unwind from the insanity that is my life. And for the past year I haven’t been stitching - maybe that’s why I’ve been a neurotic mess. Just over this weekend I managed to stitch and I felt so relaxed and at peace with myself.

Now, if I could find a headache treatment that made me feel up to par I’d be okay! Stitching and headaches don’t really go together very well. I do make enlarged working copies so that I can see the chart better, and I have magnifiers and all that jazz, but ugh sometimes I don’t even want to look at the fabric. Even if it is pretty!

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I don’t know about you but I like to have a cup of tea or coffee while I’m stitching in the evening. Which, by the way I’ve started doing again! I am very excited about that. Now, I haven’t had any coffee other than some boring instant French Vanilla thing because I don’t even have a coffee maker. The reason for that being that I don’t really drink much coffee anymore, and if I do I only have a cup for me and no one else has any. I’ve been considering getting one of those coffee makers that uses pods and only makes one cup. Of course a super cool jura capresso station would be cool and I could have cappuccino’s and all sorts of java creations just like my own little coffee shop. But I just don’t have the counter space for something like that!

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I am going to be re-releasing all of our free cross stitch patterns here at Stitching the Night Away as both PC Stitch files and PDF files! We had a poll recently to see what the preference was, and PDF won by a about a million! But, you see my effort is two fold. If I release PDF’s more of you will save a copy. If more of you save a copy then more of you stitch a piece. And if more of you stitch a piece, then I get more pictures for the gallery and the web pages! So, in the end we all win and we’re all super stitch happy.

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Lacking the energy to stitch? Stock up on your nutritional supplements today and get back to feeling like you again.

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Technorati Tags: free cross stitch patterns

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I hear that question a lot when I send out mail to community members. Sorry to those that I just mailed to this week you won’t get to see the cute labels, I need to reorder with my new address! I have sets both for business and personal mailings, and both came from Vista Print. I think the personal ones get more comments, with the cute family member caricatures on them. I just went to start my reorder and I see they’ve expanded that line and there are other things like notepads and holiday cards with the caricatures on them too! So cute. My business ones weren’t quite as cute, but I’m thinking of getting a more funky design this time around.

Sure, I’ve got a decent printer and graphic software and I could print my own labels with label paper from the office supply place. And for some things I do, but for my business cards and address labels I want to make sure there will be no smearing of ink or bleeding of colors if it should happen to be a rainy day outside. Vista Print gives me that quality printing experience but still has cheap address labels, price wise that is of course. They do have other things too, business cards, notepads, magnets, etc. If you have one of STNA Magnetic calendars from last year those also came from Vista Print.

Technorati Tags: address labels, caricatures, caricature notepads

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