REALLY OLD PAINTINGS....by me!
I was going through some files that my husband just compiled on to a massive server that he's been working on.  We sadly lost some precious photos recently, so we thought it might be a good idea for us to start backing up our stuff.   You'd think we would know better because it's not the first time this kind of thing has happened to us.  Anyhow...I came across some scans of paintings that I did many years ago.  16 years ago to be exact!  Wow, it's some what weird to think that it's been that long since high school.  These 3 paintings have been in good hands for years, and those hands would be my mom's.  She pretty much refuses to allow me to take any of my art from her.  Oh well at least I know where they are.  
So here they are.

Still life 1996

Still life 1997

Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols 1997 

KICKIN OFF 2011 WITH A GIVEAWAY!!! FREE! FREE !
So I was thinking what better way then to start the new year off with a lolospetals giveaway.  Everyone loves free stuff and it's really simple to enter the contest.  I'll be giving away this super cute little baby hat that I knit up for a 6-9 month old.  It's really bright colors and looks great on. Makes for a great little gift for someone's little one, or for your very own little one.

 Here are the contest rules:
1. Check out my Etsy shop at www.lolospetals79.etsy.com
2. Leave a comment on this post including your name, e-mail address and which item in my Etsy shop is your favorite.  
3. One last thing, add me as a blog that you follow!!!


Contest deadline ends January 14th, 2011 at midnight.  You may enter more then once, however only once per day please.  All names will be entered into a randomizer to see who wins.  Good luck!!

AND CHRISTMAS IS OVER...JUST LIKE THAT!
So I guess I can finally start posting some of the things I have been working on that were gifts.  This is a painting that I did for my brother, he is obsessed with anything wildlife, nature, and especially trees.  The painting is of an Australian gum tree and has a line from the Australian nursery rhyme "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree" written on it.  
It is acrylic paints on a wood canvas.  I attempted to cover this painting in a resin coating.  It didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped, however it looked pretty cool the way it did turn out.  Mixing that resin was not a fun task.  I had plans to finish two table tops and this painting.  Lets just say the tables went to the dumpster and some how I managed to salvage the painting.  
Back to work for me in one week!  I can't believe it's been 7 months already.

20 DAYS UNTIL I'M BACK AT WORK 
I cannot believe how quickly the last 7 months have gone.  My baby girl is 6 months old tomorrow :(  She is growing and changing so fast and I'm really not looking forward to leaving her.  I apologize for the lack of posts, but after Christmas it should be better.  I have tons of gifts that I have made and taken photos of to post on here.  I've also been working really hard on my Esty shop to get it up and running.  If I don't get a chance to get back on here in the next week, I wish you all a very merry Christmas!!!!!

FUNKY BABY HEADBANDS FOR SALE ON ETSY

Check out my hand knit baby headbands in my Etsy shop!!!  They are a great way to accessorize your little one.  Each one is originally and made with love. 

LOLOS PETALS ETSY SHOP IS OFFICIALLY OPEN!!!
I'm super excited about this and I'm saying a little prayer that it works out for me.  It's officially open, i'm just working on getting the items for sale up there.  Give me a few more days and it should be open for business.  Here's a link to the web address: www. lolospetals79.etsy.com
Check it out and please feel free to send it to anyone you think might be interested.  For now i'm still focusing on knitted items, however eventually I would like to have other items up there for sale.  
Thanks everyone for continuing to view my blog, I really appreciate it.  

FIRST ORDER!!!
Here is the finished product of my very first order.  A cream version of the neck warmer.  I love knitting this one, it's fast, really soft and pretty simple.  It's got a cable in it, which is new to me, but it's not too difficult.  I've been avoiding cables for a long time, so I decided to try it out to see what I was missing.  I love the look of it!!  Thanks Erin for being my first customer, I really appreciate it.  Enjoy!!

HELLO KITTY
I just love knitting things for my little girl.  It's honestly a never ending job because she doesn't fit into things for very long.  I have been generally making her a new hat every month.  I also do love for her to have a variety.  Accessories are important...I think!  So here's my recent creation for the wee Willow.  Hello Kitty is always a great way to go.  This is a neck warmer I designed for her considering it's probably not a good idea to put a scarf around a 5 month olds neck.  
She loves it!!!

KNITTED ITEMS FOR SALE

So the main reason I haven't been spending a lot of time on here lately is because I've been working on items to sell on Etsy.  These items will soon be for sale in the Esty shop that I am working on.  However if anyone is interested in purchasing them now please feel free to contact  me at ebeers79@hotmail.com and I can get you an order done up!  These are a few items that can be made in the color of your choice, however the items in the photos are also for sale.  

Here are the details and the photos. 


*SHIPPING FEES NOT INCLUDED IN PRICE*

Grey Neck Warmer $45.00 CND
80% Acrylic 20% Wool, very soft, hand wash /dry flat

Blue hat $60.00 CND
100 % Wool

Grey NeckWarmer Cabled $45.00 CND
80% Acrylic 20% Wool, very soft, hand wash/dry flat

Grey sloutch hat $60.00 CND
100% Acrylic, very comfortable and warm, machine wash & dry
available in different sizes (hat in photo is medium)

I KNOW I KNOW...
I'm going to work on some photos today of the work i've been doing and post them ASAP.  I was without photoshop for 3 weeks and Willow was teething.  It's just been hard to get on here.  Stay tuned....

I KNOW IT'S BEEN AWHILE....
I'm trying really hard to focus on my knitting lately and get a stock pile because I'm really hoping to open an "Etsy" shop.  So that's why I haven't posted anything for a good week now.  Knitting takes awhile to accomplish anything, however I have managed to finished two hats and a scarf this week.  I'm also finding as the baby gets older she is much more demanding :)  She is my main priority, obviously.  Thank god it's Friday...daddy is home for two days!!!  Well i'll try to keep up with this a little more in the next couple of days.  Happy Friday!!!

HOO HOO......OWL STUFFIE!

I made little Ruthie a stuffed owl for her birthday.  I really love owls, especially stuffed owls...they are super cute.  I pulled out my bin of fabric and decided to make a denim owl.  I was also kind of going for an Asian kind of look with the colors and the choice of ribbon.  Anyways, I really love this owl and I hope that Ruth does too.  

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY RUTH!
My good friends little girl turns 1 on Sunday.  So as part of her birthday gift I did a pencil sketch of her.  It's officially finished and framed.  I can't believe it's already been a year since she was born.  In no time my little Willow will be one.  It's pretty crazy how fast time really flies when you are having fun.  Here's a photo of the finished product.

SWEET N SALTY
We are nearing the end of our two week salad challenge, but really hasn't really been a challenge at all.  However some seem to think poor Marty is starving to death.  I just happened to mention that some were mentioning having a week of steak on the drive home from work last night.   Low and behold what does he decides he wants for dinner....STEAK...yuk!!!  I'm not a red meat eater so that idea was not so appealing to me.  I figured I had tortured him enough with salads, so I allowed him to break the streak and have steak and cheese sandwiches (with a side of salad of course).  I myself went ahead and ate my really delicious fig salad.  I would have to say this one was my favorite of all of them.  So many combinations of flavors that all worked really well together.  
I was also told that It was mandatory that I post photos of his steak...so here are the pics.

CAKE POPS!!!
I recently discovered these cute little creations all over the internet and was surprised I had never heard of them before.  For whatever reason they got me really excited and I couldn't stop talking about wanting to make them. My friends little girls 1st birthday is this weekend and we were asked to bring a little something to eat.  What better opportunity then a birthday party to make cake pops!!  It was a really fun project and they taste really good too.  A little bit time consuming, but hey...I'm on maternity leave!  
Very very easy to make too.  I just used a chocolate cake mix and some chocolate icing.  You simply bake the cake and then crumble the entire thing in a bowl.  Mix in a tub of icing and form balls.  I froze the balls for about 4 hours (sucker sticks in before freezing).  Then I melted some pink chocolate pieces (bought at Michaels) and dipped them in.  Sprinkled a few little sprinkles on them and voila!  I'm geek so I went all out and wrapped them in individual sucker bags and added some ribbon.  Hey, I have a lot of decorations left over from the candy bar that I had at my wedding last year.  Here's some pics of the process.

WATERMELON...HMMMMMmmmm MY FAVORITE!!!

Every since I was pregnant watermelon became one of my all time favorite foods.  It's just so refreshing and juicy!  I don't even want to begin to think about how much of it I actually ate when I was pregnant.  I guess it's better then being hooked on ice cream.  I'd have a hell of a lot more weight to loose right now if that was the case.  

A while back I was watching one of the many shows that I enjoy on the food network.  They had an episode dedicated purely to watermelon and things that you can make with watermelon.  Who knew it would be delicious in a salad!?  Every since I've been making different variations of watermelon salad.  This one was super delicious and here is the recipe for you.  

Ingredients

Watermelon (of course)

Lettuce of your choice, I used baby spinach

Grilled chicken breast (I marinated mine in a bit of olive oil, lime juice and honey)

Crumbled goat cheese

Toasted sunflower seeds

Fresh mint

Balsamic Vinegar (simmered on medium heat until it forms a syrup)

Sea Salt 

Black Pepper

Olive oil

Fresh lime juice

WEEK TWO, SALAD ONE....COBB!
We are now officially into week two of eating salad every night for dinner.  I'm actually not sick of eating salad at all and I'm kind of looking forward to the rest of the week.  My thoughts today were that I might potentially try out a two week period of eating only vegetarian meals for dinner.  Does anyone actually know if statistically speaking vegetarians end up having better health???  
I found some really great vegetarian entrees in the LCBO magazine that I might try out.  Speaking of LCBO and it's magazine, has that some how been taken off the press???  I haven't seen one in a very long time and it is quite disappointing.  I love the recipes out of it and always look forward to the new one coming out.  
Anyways, back to salad....tonight's salad was probably one of my favorites out of all of them so far.  It was a light cobb salad with a really great dressing.  Here is the recipe...I did substitute a few of the ingredients.  I am NOT  a fan of blue cheese, I find it quite repulsing.  So I used an applewood smoked cheddar, my favorite cheese.  I also stupidly forgot that the avocado that I had bought was for that salad and used it making guac this weekend.  So simply there was no avocado.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 head of romaine, coarsely chopped
- 1 cucumber, chopped or sliced into small pieces
- 1/2 head of Boston lettuce (or Iceberg), coarsely chopped
- 2 hard-boiled large eggs, separated, whites and yolks finely chopped
- 5 slices of extra lean turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled
- 1 ripe avocado, cut into small pieces
- 6 oz chicken breast, cooked and diced
- 2 tomatoes, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup blue cheese

Dressing
- 1/3 cup red-wine vinegar
- 2/3 cup olive oil
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 small clove garlic, crushed
- Salt and pepper

Directions:
Combine chopped lettuce in a large salad bowl.
Arrange the chicken, bacon, tomato, egg and avocado over the greens.
Whisk vinegar, mustard, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Add the oil in a slow stream, whisking until it is emulsified. Serve separately.

COLD, FLU AND KNITTING
It has now been two weeks that my husband, daughter and myself have been suffering from this never ending cold.  It seems as though one of us is getting over it and then bam it's back again.  That being said it's been really hard to get things done creatively.  I've been working on knitting a lot lately and I just finished a tuque for my husband today.  It was a very simple pattern and only took me two days to knit it, not too bad considering the babe has been super cranky.  Other than that not much to report.  Oh yes...we did make caramel apples today, that was challenging but fun! 
Here's the hat!