OK. So this blogging thing is harder than I thought. Not the blog part, but the commitment to regular posts. Let me just say kudos to all of those bloggers who stay consistent even when it's summer, and/or they have kids and their kid's friends running through all the time, or sitting on the deck with a fresh cocktail with mint and basil from your garden sound fabulous.

So to just get my toes wet a bit again here on my blog I will just let you know that I have been really enjoying summer. Well the summer part. The part with having a senior who's about to be 18 around, not so much. Funny how that is. Oh how I love that boy! I'm proud of him and to be honest, he is a LOT like me. He works real hard on his passion of making a junior hockey team to go on to possibly a division one team some day. We had a great time taking his senior pictures! Here is a glimpse of some of them! So handsome I think!

© Eye Candy Creative.

Well has you can imagine. This type of commitment takes a LOT of time! So much time that chores seem impossible! Of course as any good mother who wants her kids to grow up appreciative, responsible and independent adults, I stay on him daily to get these minimum requirement chores done. So of course.... I'm his favorite person!

I keep holding on to the thought that when he makes it BIG one day, that when they interview him on TV, the first person after God that he gives glory to, is thanks to me, his mom! (crossing my fingers.)

Well this seems more like venting than a creative blog entry, so let me switch gears.  Here are some photos of my garden treasures. Enjoy and I promise I will be back to keep you up to date on my yarn adventures as well as some of the other photography I've been doing!!

I finally finished the fabulous drop stitch scarf I started Easter weekend. I found the pattern on Ravelry.com and I am going to miss working with the yarn! So soft and pretty! Great American Yarns Superfine Merino/Silk. Way yum! I'm naming it the Nicki Scarf since about half way through I thought that it would make a terrific gift for my Aunt Nicki when we go to Santa Claus, Indiana to see them in June. I think the colors are perfect for her.





Now to think of something for Uncle Glen..... hmmmmm. Mich Ultra would probably do just fine :o)

I am also excited to report that the baby blanket I started making for a friend of mine out of Plymouth Jeannee yarn is confirmed, as of yesterday, to be the exact right colors!! Here's the link to when I blogged about it before. So thrilled!

Also, what a beautiful day here in Minnesota! Almost 70°! That's where the word glorious comes in today! Although I could do without the fuzzy stuff flying through the air and the box elder bugs who think my deck is a brothel! Oh, and Jesse (my son #5 or so) who lives across the street came home a couple of hours ago and I could also do without the thumping coming from his car in his driveway. We are not even that close and I can hear it from inside. Now I could text him and tell him to turn it down, but Jesse is one of my golden acquired children, so I'll let it slip this time.

Truly, I must be getting old when the base thump from across the street annoys my ear drums. Pretty sure that damage was done standing next to the stage at the Loverboy concert in Duluth when I was about 17 or so.

Yesterday was nice also, but I was working most all the day and then took my two youngest and the three  neighbor kids over to Osceola to hike along the Cascade Falls path. What fun! So much blooming and growing along with some beautiful giant green leaf things and some type wildflower columbine that had tiny little flowers that looked a bit like fairies with dangly skirts. Going back up the stairs was still tough. I need to seriously work on that before the Warrior Dash in September!

It was fun to take the neighbor kids with. They hadn't been there before and thought it was fun exploring! On our way back, we took a great back road to Lindstrom that is like driving on a bit of a roller coaster. I asked the kids if they had ever heard of a Chinese fire drill. They hadn't, sooooo, at the next stop sign in the middle of nowhere, I introduced them to the drill! What fun! Of course, before we got to the golf course in Lindstrom to pick up Bryce, we had to do another one and one more in their driveway for good measure when we got home. Made me laugh!

Speaking of laughing, once we picked up Bryce we were talking about the nicknames Bryce comes up with for his brothers. Lately it's B-Nasty for Brock, whhaaaa???? We came up with B-Lo for Blake. Not sure it will stick. Bryce's nickname for Bradee is Latenight, 'nuf said there.

I asked the neighbor kids if their parents had any nicknames for them. As sweet as can be, from little Jesse who is in first grade and pretty much the cutest little girl I know, pipes up, "My mom calls me Stinky Butt!" I have to stop typing even now to laugh as it was so dang cute!

Gotta' run. I'm out of cold coffee concentrate and need to start another batch!

My mature side almost took over and titled this post "Creative Outlets | Playing with Typography". Then I remembered I wasn't being graded on this so hah! "Don't be a Booger" it is!

One of the things I do to get out of a creative rutt, or to stimulate creativity is taking funny sayings or, eh, ummmm, four letter words* and setting them in different typefaces. Working with the letters to create conflicting emotions with the type. One of my favorites is just taking the word "giggle". Just on it's own is a fun word that makes you smile, but setting it in different fonts creates different reactions to the word for sure! See some I was playing with today.

I think you get the idea.

Then for some reason the phrase, "Don't be a booger!" popped into my head. So I played with it a few times. Seriously, I can spend a ridiculous amount of time on fonts and typography. What a great creative outlet. Myfonts.com is a great resource for font exploration. The great thing is that you can type in your own word or phrase, select a typestyle category or an adjective tag to search categories and Myfont.com generates a list of fonts, sets your choice word or phrase and whoolah! Bring on the fun!
Actually, I've been billable doing this before as it helps me work through new logo font ideas for companies etc. If I don't have the font, before I invest in it's purchase, I can see if it suits my project. Which brings me back to my title, "Don't be a booger!" I think it would make a great t-shirt design or a bumper sticker if you are in to that kind of thing. Hey a coffee mug also! TileSmile on Etsy.com would make a cute tile out if it for sure! Maybe she already has!



:o)




*See below for fun with a four letter word. Don't peek if you have kids with you. But fun none-the-less. Heck, I can see a latte mug with one of these type executions now also.

OK. Not that horrible of a four letter word. But still!

I came across the word wabi-sabi awhile back and took it as one of my own personal descriptive words. Basically the word means "the art of imperfection." You can look it up if you want, but that's basically the gyst of what I remember.  I think, "How wonderful! There is a fancy word for something that is screwed up."

Or maybe not screwed up, but none-the-less, "flawed" somehow. Thankfully by grace, I am made perfect as a daughter of Christ who thinks my wabi-sabiness is perfect. But I digress. Back to the point (stop laughing, I have a point :\ !

There are some who actually intentionally create a flaw as to add wabi-sabi to something. Creating beauty in the every day or mundane for balance or what not. Well, I tend to have enough wabi-sabi in my creations that is random so to this point I haven't had to intentionally add any of it to my work.

The great thing is, that when I do make an error, in my knitting, let's say and I don't realize until it's too late, or I realize it, but make it worse trying to fix it—I just think "wabi-sabi". I'm not really a perfectionist my nature with most things, I don't fret about it.  There is some art to my mistake.

Which brings me to my latest knitting project. A beautiful little baby blanket. I picked up the yarn at A  SheepyYarn Shop in White Bear Lake last week. (I was of course going to just browse, but oh well.) I have a terrific friend due in September and I figure if I start the blanket now, there is a good chance that it will be ready on time.  The Plymouth Jeannee yarn I chose is really wonderful. So soft. I hope I got enough skeins to finish it all or, or darn, I will have to run back down to the shop.

The colors I chose seem fairly neutral for boy or girl, but my family says the coral red color looks more girly. So on the 23rd, if she finds out it is a boy, I may be back to choose more yarn and stash this blanket for the next girl on the list.

Saturday was cooler here than expected and basically a quiet day for the Thompson house, so by the afternoon I decided to start in on the blanket. I picked a pattern from a blanket I saw in Sheepy Yarn when I was narrowing down the colors. All the rows of colors were even which I thought I would change up a bit since I'm a bit more on the whimsy random side. But I considered the babies mother. She is exceptionally organized. Random stripes would drive her crazy, so I'm keeping them as even as I can. Plus, the colors I think are a bit whimsy in themselves.

I'm including a picture of the skeins of yarn that I picked out and another photo to show the progress I have so far.



Which brings me to the Wabi-Sabiness of this blanket. I have a dropped stitch in row one, that I couldn't fix. It shows. Basically the edge has a bit of a "nik" in it. Wabi-sabi I thought and kept going. Row 8 or so ended up with a hole of some kind also. Small enough, but still, wabi-sabi.

The second color stripe I was able to catch a dropped stitch and figure out how to fix it without a run to the yarn shop, whew. That particular stitch would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Thankfully I kept going.

Now if you are a perfectionist, then you would have by now started over I'm sure. But k'syrah, I am not and find it a bit unique or wabi-sabi. So on I go. I know it is a gift, but I think this beautiful little baby needs something wrapped around her in love that is slightly imperfect but adored none-the-less. Maybe she too will embrace wabi-sabi and know as she goes through life, and things aren't perfect, that there is still beauty in each breath.

Looking forward to working on the rest of the blanket, wabi-sabi style. Oh,

Or a better name might be, "Make them when you have company or are going somewhere or you are low-carbing it without cheats...for real... so you don't eat the whole pan yourself Bars"!

I mentioned that I needed to share the recipe for the bars shown in the background in the photo from my Iced Coffee Break blog, so here it is. Really, so easy and terrific!

I first had them at the fall football potluck banquet. I literally stalked the pan afterwards to see who was picking it up for the recipe. (Speaking of stalking, that reminds me of another time I stalked for a recipe at a hockey arena so I'll mention that after this recipe*.)

*Speaking of stalking...

Good morning! I'm waiting for a bit of troubleshooting assistance on my software for a project I'm working on, so thought it a good time to pop in on my blog and make myself an iced coffee!  Last Friday I made up a batch of coffee concentrate from a recipe I found on a terrific blog, thepioneerwoman.com.

I found the recipe and tweeted it and actually stop, dropped and whipped up a batch of the mix to try. Actually, the recipe calls for a whole pound of grounds, but since I thought I would test it out, I quartered the recipe and got quite a large amount anyway! When I got to the straining and filtering the grounds part that night, I didn't have cheese cloth as the recipe suggested, but I did pull off my french press off of my shelf and filtered it through that in a few batches and it worked great.

I also don't have a pretty little decanter yet so I have my glorious pampered chef large mixing bowl holding the concentrate now which works, but I couldn't find the cover so it has plastic wrap on it now. I'm surprised a hot dog hasn't ended up in it by now. I must look for a decanter as I believe this is something I will be doing from now on. Yum! I sweetened it with Truvia sweetener and since I'm "low-carbing" it right now, treated myself to real cream in it! Highly recommend!

Since, pictures are so popular on blogs, thought I would keep it real and take a couple of the coffee concentrate experiment in process. Please don't hold these pictures as a standard for my professional photography. What I actually did to take them was pull up my picture booth camera on my Macbook Pro laptop and snapped them that way. Quick, efficient!

  <<<< oh, remind me to leave the recipe for the bars on the counter in the background tomorrow! I had to whip them up for hockey banquet pot-luck! 4 ingredients!!!!!



What I thought was fun (okay it was strategic) is that my dishwasher quote made the picture! A friend of mine Amy is a rep of custom wall sayings, I can't think of the name of the company right now or I would mention it. ha! Also, my wonderful little TileSmile tile by the sink that reminds us all to "warsh" our hands. Warsh is how my mom always says, "wash", and I give her a hard time about it. Plus it lets me plug one of my favorite etsy.com sites. Tilesmile.etsy.com who made this tile for me!

Anyway, Ree Drummond over at thepioneerwoman.com has much better pics of her perfect iced coffee. Pretend my photos look like hers when you see it and when your there, spend some time on her site. My friend Meg recommended the site to me and it is really wonderful. Doubt if there is much "random" planning that goes into that site. It is lovely! In fact, I will make a shortcut on my links list to the right of my blog for you to make it even easier! I have never met Ree, but looking at her blog I think we would get together and both talk at the same time for hours and not miss a word either one said!

Okay, odd title I know. But my dad has always called it "kahkah" which I think he got from my grandma because she always called it that too. Well, actually, she used to spell it until we finally told her we knew how to spell. She used to spell most everything when she was mad at us.

Ha! Since just the other day I was saying something out loud and spelled the word "S-H-I-T" in front of Blake, my nine year old. Observent as he is, and also a good speller by now, he said to me, "Why don't you just say it Mom?". I replied, "Because we don't swear in this house, Blake." Seemed to solve his dilemma. Although, I'm not sure if the Big Man upstairs would call it good or not.

Regardless, I didn't say KahKah in the title because I googled the word and odd stuff came up that had nothing to do with "poo". Pretty sure my grandma and dad made that word up. But it still works in most cases when you don't want to say S#17 (translation #=H, 1 = I, 7 = T) but you probably already figured that out. (Remember, the title of my blog is RANDOM creativity when you read this.)

So what does Passion and S#17, aka kahkah, have to do with anything you might ask? Well the analogy has come up for me quite a bit in the past year or so. You see, what I have noticed is, that if you are doing something you love, something you are passionate about, something that you are "called" to do, you could do it endlessly without growing tired or weary. In fact, if you were called to "shovel kahkah" and it was your job, you could do it for hours at a time, day after day, 24/7/365 and still have energy left over to do other things. You would be filled with joy while shoveling it, you would smile and be kind to others while shoveling it and you may even inspire a few other folks to shovel it with you!

On the contrary, if you say had a job, that required you to be waited on hand and foot, by say a tall handsome guy named "Biff" (who of course is your husband). And you had everything you ever wanted given to you on a silver platter and the sun always shined on you and you always had a new pedicure, even in the winter... but you weren't called to be that or weren't passionate about being waited on and catered to (I have a hard time believing that you wouldn't want a nice pedicure even in the winter, but that's just me), then it would suck the very life out of you. You most likely would become depressed, you would be a fun sucker and complain a lot, to whoever would listen by the way. It wasn't your "calling" so it would seem like labor or work to you. Even though to someone else it would seem like pure heaven. (Lot's of run on sentences in this paragraph, but thankfully I'm not being graded on my writing.)

There are many things I am passionate about that I could do endlessly without tiring, with Joy in my heart and inspire others at the same time. A few would be: taking pictures of people or most anything at all, walking in the woods, by the lake or on a mountain—any place that doesn't have concrete nearby. Holding babies, they don't even have to be a baby I know. Being ransacked by puppy kisses. Riding horses. Creating something new and solving a design challenge. Doing most anything alongside my husband and having one of my kids hold my hand in public. (Brock my 7 year old will still do this.) I think you get the picture. Thankfully I haven't been called to shovel S#17, and I'm equally thankful for the people who are called to do that.

I'm also thankful that some of these passions allow me to help provide for my family and run over to help my church and other causes. My goal from here on out is to stay in my creative calling and passion MORE than I work in kahkah. I think it will make everyone around me and myself much happier! In fact, I'm going to go and find my dog, Lucy when I'm done writing this. She will load me up with puppy kisses instantly. Then I can drive over to Osceola and walk down to Cascade Falls out to the river on a path next to a creek where their isn't any black top, while I generate super great jewelry designs in my head.
<<<<< Photo I took during a senior photo shoot at the falls. 

So here's the deal. I spend countless hours at the hockey rink, my husband probably spends more, but whatever. Anyway, since I can't sit and do nothing, I decided to take up knitting. But first, here is how that started.

I found this listing on Etsy.com for a Felted Tote Bag in a beautiful spring green by Little Projects. To my surprise it was a pattern and not a finished project. Since I had been intrigued by the whole knitting thing, I thought this was my nudge. So I went online to knittinghelp.com where they have videos that dummy proof it for you. Well at least enough to get you hooked. Then I needed help, so I went to our local yarn shop, Miss Elsie's Yarn, (by the way I see she finally got a web site up so I have to link it to make it easy for you. Not to mention, tons of yarn, quick to sit you down and help in any way which is where I came in.) There I received a practice ball of yarn and needles and a quick instruction to help me get out of the funk I had got myself in while practicing from the online video. There is only so much you can learn from a video.

Once I felt I mastered the knit and pearl and completed a couple of scarves, I was ready to order the pattern from Little Projects. Bamm, I order it, it downloads, and then I realized, which it said on the site but I was too much in awe of the bag that I didn't notice, that it was a pattern for CROCHET! Yes, it's true.

Now I hadn't crocheted since I was in college, so you guessed it, back to the internet where I found help on Lion Brand Yarn online. Half-double crochet the whole way so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Actually, I think I restarted a few times since I was sassy and thought I knew what I was doing before I took the time to figure out what I was doing wrong. When actually, once it got felted down, my blunders were covered up anyway.

Weeks later, I finish the parts and get to piecing them together. Then felt them and add hardware. Which by the way I give myself a "star sticker" for since when it comes to finishing with a needle and thread, it's like work for me. Speaking of hardware, no that's a long story, I will save that for a later post. I love the way it turned out and ended up finding an outlet to post my project, Knitting Daily. Which I later got to a couple more bags and posted them also.



Which brings me back to the title of the longish entry, yarn addiction begins. Needle acquistion begins. Two years later I take on more than felted totes and scarves and try hats staying away from double point needles as long as I could. I found out they aren't so bad and whoolah! I start in on baby hats which I have the patterns from Susan B. Anderson's "Itty-Bitty Hats" book. (I think I have done a couple of cute cupcakes hats before this, but I forgot about them until now. ) I bought the "Itty-Bitty Toys" book at the same time because I loved the little elephant pattern in that but I have yet to start any of those projects.

Now I have a few of the ribbon hats under by belt which I show below. My first hat was given to a blessing of a baby girl, my friend Meg's daughter Charlotte. The other's I have waiting to pass along to a grand daughter of a my friend Dawn and another grand daughter of my friend Diane. I just need to meet up with them. Now, if I could only figure out how to make this a hat for boys. Maybe hockey laces and black yarn instead of ribbon and pink?

If you are an early reader, like the kind that gets here before I am even somewhat organized, or the kind that is curious or what ever.

Here is a beginning list of topics that I will be rambling about or highlighting. List of course is random and in do particular order.

Photography
Design
Faith
Fashion (or lack there of)
Knitting
Crocheting
Yarn (addiction)
Nature
Kids
Hockey (because all four of my kids play and it will come up a LOT!)
Sports (I mentioned I had four boys, who of course are in sports.)
Parenting
Wifing (Being a great wife to my fabulous husband)
Laughter (it is the best medicine)
Music
Quirky stuff

Okay, I have to go, kids are hungry. To be continued......

Well, against my better judgement (that controls my time investments), I am starting a blog. Mostly because I have all of these thoughts going on in my head. Ideas, quotes, images, thoughts, nothingness. Well where do I put it?

I have collected all kinds of lovely journals, handmade, store bought, expensive cheap. But I keep waiting for some golden image or moment to grace the pages with. Plus, it seems old school. Then there of course is facebook. But sometimes I just want to get something out into the universe but not specifically to facebook. Mostly I have my facebook so I can snoop (or as my kids say, creep) on their facebook pages and post bragging pictures about them. It is nice to have connected with some old friends though! But nah. This type of rambling needs empty paper or, er, uhhhmmm do they now call it cyber space?

Anyway. Off I go into this adventure. Please note however, that the title "random" isn't by chance. Because as you will see if you become a reader of this blog, there is not usually any sense to what comes to my head. Pretty random. Random in content, frequency and length. Oh, and my nine year old, Blake wants me to give him a "guest spot" here and there. When he came in from school and saw me working on my banner, he had all kinds of ideas. Mostly to do with the thoughts that I would be read from all around the world and be famous. Not sure about that. But I'm not apposed to it either! In fact, if you like what you read or see, share it please. If you want to purchase something you see that is for sale, contact me or the individual I've posted.

 And if by fate, you are some great business owner with connections in high places that wants to pay me big bucks for my random creativity posted, by all means, CONTACT ME! Don't even think about it! Just do it! I have a huge vision and dream with much yet to be blessed! Did I say that right? Well, I've been blessed, so to whom much is given, much is expected and I'm a giver by nature. The kingdom is my field! And if by chance I have enough left over to feed my fettish for "things that always fit" such as lip gloss, purses and what not. Then glory!