Blue Star Butterflies in the Local Paper!

A local paper, The St. Croix Valley Press, sought me out to do an interview.  It was so fun and exciting to be contacted.  They did a search online for artists and creative types in this general area.  This area being Eastern Minnesota / Western Wisconsin.  The gorgeous St. Croix river is the dividing line between the two.  I am so honored to be featured in the local paper and was pleasantly surprised to be contacted by someone who read the article the day it ran.  She is a costume and ball gown designer and needed to make a lace edging on an amazing gown she was working but had not had much luck trying to figure it out on her own.  She was so relieved to find me in the paper and we got together that weekend for a bit of a lesson and a plan to make her dress come to life.  What a wonderful opportunity!  I hope to get to see more of her work again soon.

Please take a peek at the interview here.  There were pictures included in the article that was printed, but they're not on the website.  I didn't know what day the article ran, until the woman contacted me about a crochet lesson!  So, I don't have a copy for a keepsake which is a bummer, but I suppose I'll be alright.  Thanks for checking out my interview and getting to know a little more about me and Blue Star Butterflies.

Check it out peeps!

Artfire, the up and coming handmade venue has an awesome new feature!  Now you can purchase items right from some one's blog!  I've set up my new Rapid Cart here on my blog so when the mood strikes you can easily purchase a Blue Star Butterflies item!  I haven't been super active on Artfire as of yet, but the more time goes by the more I really like them as a whole.  Good people and good things going on over there.  If you are a fellow artisan and you haven't looked into selling over there it may be worth your while.  Hope everyone has some sunshine this weekend!!

SPRING!

It's coming, it's coming!  The birds are out and I adore listening to them.  I've been able to shoo the kids outside and bring my knitting with while I watch them play.  I've been eagerly searching for buds on trees and they're still a bit hard to find.  But they will come and I'll be so happy when things start greening up a bit around here.  

The warmer weather brings slower business in my neck of the woods.  And that's alright with me.  I think I'm really enjoying taking the slow road (not sure that I had the choice to take the fast road, but hey) in growing my business.  It's been fun to think of things to implement next fall or next year etc.  I found a fantastic cotton blend yarn that I'd love to work with more to offer some spring and summer friendly items at Blue Star Butterflies.  Here's a sneak peek!

I've also thoroughly enjoyed finally learning to knit this year and dreaming of all the future holds with the added possibilities it brings.  I'm doing a LOT of personal projects as I hone my craft before putting it out there for all of you.  So here are the latest two...  Of course I think the kids are particularly cute as well as the handcrafted pixie (or alien for my boy) hats!

Knit, knit, knit.

My most recent completed project was this super cool super fast knit (and a little crochet) hat for the little monster in my life.  He's five years old and adores all things gross, scary, slimy, and noisy.  I was nosing around Ravelry.Com and came across this pattern and new I had to make it.  This is my 3rd knit hat since I learned earlier this year, things are going well in knit world.  

As you can see, I had a very satisfied customer!!  It was especially nice since I already had the yarn in my stash.  If you're already a Ravelry member you can find this hat pattern here .  If you're not a member, you should consider it!  If you knit and/or crochet of course.  There are so many helpful people available to you and so many cool patterns, many of which are free.  What more can you ask for?

I hope you are enjoying March, spring is coming fast!  In San Diego where I'm from and the rest of my family lives that doesn't mean much.  But here in Minnesota, it's a huge deal!  And I am loving every minute of it.  Today we made a trip to Borealis yarn shop in St. Paul.  Then later I watched the kids ride bikes in the driveway as I sat in the sun and listened to the birds chirp while I worked on a new scarf with hand spun yarn from Etsy seller Pancake And Lulu.  It's heaven I tell you!

Spring is just around the corner!

This was a crazy week for me.  I have a good friend who's pregnant and was supposed to have an amnio last Friday and ended up having to wait till yesterday.  So it was a long week of waiting and nerves.  I caught some funky stomach bug on Monday night, I think.  I was dizzy and felt strange, but come Tuesday morning I tried to buck up and take my kids to an indoor playground since it was only 11 degrees and we needed to get out.  We made it a couple hours and then my friends daughter felt warm so we headed out.  Which turned out to be a good thing because I got that hot flush you get when your sick, and then, I totally threw up in the parking lot!!  Lovely.  Luckily I had gotten the kids buckled in before that, but ugh!  Aren't you glad I shared?  So I was pretty useless the rest of the day and the next.  I didn't even knit personal projects this week, I felt that bad.  Yesterday I finally felt human and cleaned myself up and tried to catch up around the house.  

Today it was 50 degrees!  Can you believe it?  I feel spring, it's in the air.  We walked to pick up my son from preschool yesterday and brought the dog.  It was great to get out after the cold and the sick.  So, I hope to get caught up on life this weekend and then be back to some creativity next week.  See you then!  

2 More Days!

Hey party people, you've got two more days to enter in the huge handmade giveaway that Blue Star Butterflies is co-sponsoring on TryHandmade.Com!!  What are you waiting for?  Get yer booties over there and snag a chance to win some awesome handmade goodies.

Featured Artist - Krug's Eco-Logic

I found Krug's Eco-Logic on the Etsy forum through another etsian posting about a super cool experiment that Erin, the super-mom behind the product, was doing.  I had been wanting to switch to handmade natural skin products for a while but had no idea how to choose who to go with.  I read Erin's blog about the experiment and read the comments people left and I decided it was a sign.  For an entire week she was using commercial soap on one half of her body and her handmade soap on the other - in December!  With the cold burn and heater drying outs, ack!  She posted pics of each side nearly every day, it was super cool.  I bought a bunch of stuff from her on Etsy and I am so happy with it!  Especially the whipped lotion.  I've had eczema to varying degrees since I was a toddler.  It has gotten better in adulthood, but I still have outbreaks and end up using cortisone like lotion!  It's only been a few months now, but since I started using her whipped body butter, I haven't had to do that.  Yippeeeee!  I'm happy to say that I'm now a repeat customer and plan to be for a long time!  My favorite scents so far are Sunrise and Calming Scent - Lavender and Chamomile.  I have the body scrub in Sunrise and it smells delish in my shower!  Mmmmm.

Right now Erin is offering a super cool 'online spa party' deal.  You can get all the details on her blog.  Check it out!