Squares blanket

Drumroll please....A blanket I've been working on is finally finished.  I will be eventually listing it in the shop but as I was editing the pictures for the blog i realized the blanket doesn't look even in one spot.  It is more of a rectangle than it looks in these pictures it's just so stretchy that it doesn't always appear that way.

I love this blanket.  It was made held double so it is very plush.  It reminds me of building blocks.  I really wanted bold colors for this one.  It would make a fantastic blanket for a baby boy's nursery.

It is based on a pattern from BabyLoveBrand.  You can find her website here. Check out her website she makes amazing blankets and offers some of her patterns for sale and lots of crochet tips.

If you are interested in this blanket please feel free to contact me.

Pink Pearl and Crystal Necklace

Hello everyone!  Here I am falling off the face of the earth again.  As I had mentioned before my dad had surgery and it's been busy while he is slowly getting better and able to do more of his normal activities.

In other news that has been taking up some of my time...my brother is graduating from medical school and we are in the process of cleaning to throw him a big graduation party.

I had a wedding to go to about a month ago and I made myself a pair of earrings and a necklace to wear to it.  It made me smile because I sat next to a girl who wore a store bought cluster necklace in blue. I forgot to take pictures the day of the wedding so my model form is being used today.

Daisy Earrings

Bear with me I realize I'm two weeks late talking about this but St. Patrick's Day...the whole pinching if you aren't wearing green.  That didn't exactly sit well with me.  I own almost zero green clothing.  Green just doesn't always look the greatest on me.  So Sunday night I'm in a pickle thinking what am I going to wear....I've already had people say they'll pinch me if I don't wear green but I don't have anything to wear.

So I got the idea to make something green to wear.  I sorted through my beads and didn't have any green beads that were speaking to me.  So I sat there mulling it over trying to decide what to do.  When I thought of it...I have green crochet thread!

So I whipped up some green daisy earrings to wear.  I love dangle earrings but I don't always like the weight of them.  These are perfect because they dangle and I hardly felt them all day because they are so light.

These earrings will be going up in my shop shortly.  They are the perfect spring time earring.  I have several colors.  Green, coral, mint, violet, black, turquoise, pink, blue and red for starters.  If you would like a pair before they hit the shop email me at bellabydaisy (at) gmail.com

Have a great day!

Have you liked our Facebook page yet?

MIA

Well....I posted in February that I fell off the blogging wagon and that I was back.  That lasted a total of 3 posts.  I have my reasons for why I disappeared including my dad having knee replacement surgery.  I have had knee surgery before and I thought I remembered how much we use our knee for everything but wow was this surgery a wake up call.  I guess first I should back up and say that he was originally supposed to have the surgery at the beginning of February but then it got pushed back and we were told 2 or 3 weeks and we would find out a little last minute.  It ended up being two weeks and when he came home he could pretty much do nothing...at all.  Which is frustrating for everyone taking care of him because he's used to being able to do stuff on his own and getting frustrated because we don't know exactly what he wants us to do. So the first couple weeks were not the greatest.  He is doing much better now and life is slowly starting to return to normal.

I have several projects in the making and hopefully this weekend I will get some pictures taken and I am planning on posting a mini tutorial on daisy earrings I crocheted to wear for St. Patrick's Day.

WIP Wednesday and Yarn Along 2/12/14

Hi Everyone!  It's been so long since I participated in my Wednesday link ups.  I apologize I've gone missing.  The holidays got really busy and then in the middle of January I caught the flu and I'm still recovering from that in terms of energy.

Right before I got the flu I decided to look through my massive amount of yarn and realized that I have a lot of yarn that I just do not use the brand anymore.  Some of it I really won't use so that went into a garbage bag and I'll be donating it.  I'm thinking about buying a crochet hook and tossing it into the bag so that someone else can have some fun with the yarn.  I have yarn that I prefer not to use because it's so soft that it doesn't have a lot of structure and that's something I want for my blankets that I'm selling.  I've been doing a lot of granny square type blankets and I feel like the yarn isn't going to hold together.  It's probably my paranoia talking.  So I've decided to keep some of that and just use it up first.  So that's what I'm working on today.  The yarn is Caron Simply Soft and it's great yarn.  It's so soft, it's just not appropriate for some of the blankets I want to make.  I have my heart set on the Sewing Daisies Babouska Rose blanket and the roses with Simply Soft fall a little flat.  So I decided to use up some of my yarn before I buy the yarn for the babouska rose blanket.  I'm making the corner to corner blanket by Red Heart.  I love this pattern! The blanket will be this solid hot pink color and then I'm going to do a white border. I haven't decided on what the border will be but as you can see I have plenty of time to decide.

I love the texture of this blanket.  It reminds me of a basket stitch.

I'm not reading much these days.  I have a James Patterson book going but hasn't been touched.  If I have a spare minute I'm usually on blogs reading about craft fairs because I'm thinking about signing up for my first one this year and want to know how much to prep and what I'm getting myself into!

Linking up with Tami and Ginny

The Nutribullet

So confession time....I wake up a lot during the night and there isn't much on tv to watch then so I get sucked into infomercials.  I've seen some crazy advertisements on tv during the night.  I've also seen some things that I have found to work.  I watched the magic bullet infomercial for months and when it finally showed up in my Kohls (years ago) I decided I was going to get it.  and I loved it!

My brother ended up using it more than me for his protein shakes after he worked out so two Christmases ago I bought him his own magic bullet.  Over a year later and it's still being used daily.  Well my magic bullet finally gave out after probably 5 years so well worth the investment and I was trying to decide whether I should get another magic bullet or splurge and get the Nutribullet because I'm seeing that infomercial all the time.  It makes some pretty impressive claims.  And whether this will completely change my life the way the infomercial claims is up for debate, I'm a little skeptical.  It is proven however that we need a certain amount of fruits and vegetables and truthfully I don't get enough because I'm picky.

So last weekend I was looking online at different stores to see the prices.  I received a Bed Bath and Beyond gift card for Christmas so I thought I might use that towards a Nutribullet but when I looked at the price online I said forget it! I'd still be paying over 100 dollars with my gift card.  So I decided I wasn't going to get a new blender this weekend.  I ran into Walmart to get a couple groceries and stopped by the kitchen appliances and guess what was on an end cap aisle!  The Nutribullet and the sign said 100 dollars.  Then I saw a white piece of paper hanging next to it and I'm thinking what is that.  So I walk closer and there was a 5 hour deal that the Nutribullet was 65 dollars.  Well SOLD! Sign me up.

 So here I am day 1 of trying the Nutribullet.  I love some of the stuff that came with it.  There's a user guide and nutrition book.  It has smoothie recipes and an actual meal plan included.  The pocket nutritionist is fantastic!  It lists lots of fruits and vegetables and their benefits such as lowers blood pressure or that it's good for fighting cancer etc..and explains what the fruit should look like in terms of being ripe and ready to eat.  I'm going to try having a smoothie every day and I'll keep you updated on whether my energy improves or whether it's helping me lose a couple pounds.  I'm really hoping for an energy boost.  I got the flu last month and ever since then I've been sluggish.

The user guide suggests building up more veggies in your smoothies because the fiber side effects can make you a little uncomfortable at first with bloating and whatnot.  So I grabbed a handful of spinach, a banana, some frozen strawberries and almond milk.  I also tossed in 3 ice cubes to make it a little thicker.

I forgot to take a picture until I was about half done drinking it but it made a lot.  I had so much leftover that I added some water and reblended it to take the rest to work as a snack.  It's currently in the freezer cooling off so that it will still be chilled when I drink it later.

I'll be back tomorrow with WIP Wednesday and Yarn Along.  See you then!

20 Random Facts About Me

As a part of my New Year's resolutions I said I was going to try and be a little more open and honest with my readers.  Not to say that I've been lying but in the just over a year I've been blogging, I haven't given very many personal details about myself.  I've done this for a reason because the internet opens you up to so many people and some of those people may not have the best intentions but I feel like I've been holding my personality back for the people that do want to get to know me better.

1.  I was born and raised in the Midwest and I've lived here all my life.

2.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE snow.  However this winter has given us a tad more snow that even I enjoy.  We're averaging snow every 3-4 days lately.

3.  I consider myself to be a very logical person and this competes with my creative side a lot.  I feel like it's the whole right brain versus left brain that I read about in high school psychology.  

4.  I got my bachelor's degree in political science and at one point wanted to go to law school.  

5.  I also have my master's degree in public administration.

6.  At 29 years old I don't know "what I want to be when I grow up" and I'm ok with that.  I've come to realize that we all evolve as we get older and it's not a bad thing to be open to whatever may come my way. I've seen a lot of people make career changes around my age because they've had a chance to live life and realize that what they originally chose when they were young isn't what they want to do for the next 40 years.  I think it's kind of scary that we make all these life decisions at the age of 18.

7. I am a self taught knitter and crocheter.  I dabbled in them after college but I really picked up steam knitting while I was in graduate school and taking a stressful class.

8.  I love soft textures.  I got two blankets for Christmas this past year because my mom saw them and knew I would love how soft they are.

9.  My favorite food is Italian.  We generally have some kind of pasta every week for dinner.

10.  I have 3 dogs and 1 cat.  I love animals as I'm sure anyone who reads my blog can see.  They make appearances quite often.  

11.  I've been out of the country once to Italy.  I loved Venice and can't wait to go back there.

12.  I have one younger brother.

13.  I am the typical stereotypical first born child.  Eager to please, type A personality and hate to let anyone down.

14.  I consider myself to be very diplomatic and try to see both sides of an argument.

15.  I don't consider myself very girly but I love nail polish.  I may not wear makeup every day but I almost always have nail polish on unless I am giving my nails a break.  And my favorite color is red.  It took me forever to find the perfect red.

16.  I don't consider myself to be a hugely exciting person.  And I'm feeling that way even more now that I'm trying to come up with 20 things haha.

17.  I'm late to the Pinterest scene but I love it! and I'm addicted to Instagram.  I think it's so cool how a picture can give a quick insight to someone's life.

18.  I would love to take a photography class some day.

19.  I said above that I don't consider myself to be very girly but I do love changing my hair color.  I'm a dark blonde but I think I've been every natural color under the sun and pink as well but that was an accident! and I love trying new makeup even though I don't wear makeup every day.  So I guess I'm not girly in the I love to shop for clothes way.  I hate shopping.  I can never find anything that I think looks good and I have the attention span of a kid when I'm in the stores.  I want to be in and out in 5 minutes which is why I never find anything good.

20.  Last but not least I have an amazing boyfriend.  We've been dating for a couple months and friends for years.

If you are still reading this I'm shocked and thanks for listening! I'm leaving you with a picture of my boys.  They take Christmas pictures every year.

Off the Wagon

Hi Everyone,

I apologize...I fell off the blogging wagon with a big thud. You can probably still see the dust settling!

Life got in the way again.  First I changed to a new earlier schedule at work and most of my blogging is done in the mornings because the light is better.  So that makes things difficult.  Then add to the fact that I got a nasty little bug about two weeks ago and I'm still not completely healthy from it.  By the end of the day I have a lovely raspy voice.  But I'm going to do my best to get back in the swing of things! I hope you all have a great weekend!

Reflection

I am not one of those people that goes crazy celebrating on New Year's Eve.  I know a lot of people that do it's just not my cup of tea.  I hate all the crazy (sometimes drunk) drivers out there.

Then you add in the New Year's resolutions.  Don't even get me started on that one.  I've been there and I've done that and you know what....a lot of the time they fail.

However...I do believe this is a good time of year to look back and reflect on the past year.  What did you do right?  How could  you have done things differently or better?  Where do you want to go in the next year?  I have seen this picture everywhere on Facebook and Instagram.  When I googled 2014 open book make it count this image came up from someone's Twitter so apparently it's on Twitter as well.



What a good reminder that we influence where we end up by the end of the year.  I am hoping to make Bella by Daisy's year great!  I have new items coming to the store over the next couple weeks and I can't wait to see what you think.

I have my first giveaway with another shop planned and I created a new tab for it at the top so you can always see if there are any giveaways in the works!  And there's the giveaway on Facebook for 5 hair ties once I hit 50 Facebook Fans!

Happy 2014 everyone!