Early Cuyler Plush

My sister is a big fan of the Adult Swim show Squidbillies. Her favorite character is of course, Early Cuyler. Knowing this, her fiance and I conspired to make a plush Early for her birthday.

I did some research both to get an idea of his facial expressions, and an idea on how to construct him.  I came across vikangaroo, who had made a custom plush Early too. I got a better idea of how to construct his head, but decided to go with my floppy tentacles and to use different techniques for the face.

Here he is all stuffed. I'm using my hat to get an approximate measure for his head, so that I could make his hat.  Also this is before his mouth was embroidered.



I actually really like him like this, he's almost like a Clockwork Orange octopi.


And here is the finished piece with hat and his mouth sewn on:



My sister loved it! And a few weeks later when we both went up to my parents, Early came up with her. He road shotgun all the way to PA from NC, telling everyone along the way, "Don't touch the triiim!".

Ninja Santa ornament

Its pretty obvious that the story of Santa with a sleigh and reindeer is a lie. I mean flying reindeer? Come on!  The truth of the matter is that Santa is a Ninja. That's right, a Ninja.  He uses his Ninja training to sneak into all the houses of good little girls and boys and leave them presents. That's why he doesn't need a chimney to come down. Ninjas can find a way into anywhere!

This is my last ornament design for the season.  I got started late and look!, Xmas is almost here. I'm hoping to start a lot earlier next year and come out with a few more new designs. He's for sale in the shop now.

Keyka Lou clutch attempt

When people ask me what types of things I make, I find it hard to give a straight answer.  See, I have something I call Craft ADD.  I get really interested in some craft and will be completely absorbed by it. Then something clicks in my head, or I see something, and all of a sudden I'm like "oh I want to do that now!" and I go off and do that.

I've been knee deep in ornament and plush making. I was trying to think what I was going to get for my boss for our Secret Santa at the office, when out of nowhere (that I'm conscious of anyway) I decided I wanted to make her a cute little purse/clutch. So that's exactly what I did.

I bought the Curvy Clutch pattern from Keyka Lou. This is my first attempt at any kind of purse making, so it took me a while to complete since I was learning while doing and working with new materials like stiff stabilizer.  I'm pretty happy with it, and only have a few things I'd change for next time. Since I used a much heavier stabilizer than is called for, it was a lot harder to turn, but I eventually managed.  I may try a drop-in lining next time to see how that works, because I really like the heavier stabilizer. It gives it a nice professional feel/weight.




I can't believe its 10 days until Christmas.  I'll be finishing the last ornaments for the season I think, and listing them in the shop tomorrow. The rest have all sold out online. Then I'll be wrapping up gifts for friends and family. I'll be one busy bee until Xmas day, I'm sure.

More ornaments on the way.

So it seems a lot of people like my little owl ornaments. I'm super flattered by this.  I have a few more color variations of them that I wanted to photograph and put into the shop today. Unfortunately its raining here pretty steadily. I could take pictures inside, but I think they look so much better setup with the trees and natural light.

I also have another cute little ornament I've made that is waiting to be photographed.  I usually like a nice cold rainy today, but this time I'm hoping it lets up for a little bit tomorrow.  *fingers crossed*


I'll be wrapping up my Xmas crafts this week both for my gift giving as well as for the shop. Starting Dec 21 I'll be on vacation until after the new year. I have a lot of neat things planned for 2011, and will be starting off the year working on some art for the Soundry Members Show. 

Well I guess I'll work on some other things now while I wait out the rain.

Sweet little owls

I came up with some super cute owl ornaments just in time for the holidays. They are completely hand-sewn, and made out of felt, thread and a wee bit of poly-fil to poof out their bellies a bit. I'm totally in love with their cute little embroidered sleepy eyes.

These will be listed in the shop later today, and can also be found in the Soundry starting later this week.

More colors coming soon!

Commissions and Christmas

Yes, its already time to start thinking about Xmas.  Especially when most of the gifts and goodies you've planned are handmade.

I'll be visiting my sister and her husband, and my nephews this weekend.  We're going to have some Xmas Crafty Time, since I think its something that they really haven't gotten the chance to do much of in the past. I figured I'd whip up some patterns and we'd make some cute felt ornaments, as well as make them each an ornament with their name and birth year on it (sort of a tradition in our household).

Speaking of ornaments, I'm working on creating a line of ornaments to put out for sale both at the Soundry, and online in my Etsy shop. More on that later.

Besides ornaments, I'm diligently working on making and finishing crochet afghans for my parents. I just learned to crochet a few months back at the Maker Faire in Brooklyn New York. I started work on an afghan for myself soon after, and decided it would be a great present for my parents.  They are both older so its hard to pick presents for them, as they do not use any kind of gadgets (they still have a rotary dial phone line) and aren't very materialistic. They also don't like it when we buy them stuff, because they feel we shouldn't have to. But, super cozy afghans that I made, that I'm sure they will like.

In addition to all the Xmas projects I have in my crafty queue, I also have a couple of commissions on the horizon. A friend asked me if I'd be able to make a custom plush based off a made for tv horror movie for him to give to his gf. I just finished up the sketches this weekend.  Also, some of my coworkers saw the plush girls I was dropping off at the Soundry and asked about getting some custom ones made as presents for friends.

Looks like I'll need to stay organized and on task through the holidays!

Not bad

Several months ago, I stumbled across Spoonflower's website. Its a custom fabric printing shop. That's neat enough on its own, however, they also hold lots of contests for new designs, patterns, etc.  I had thrown my hat in the ring, and came up with a cute little idea for their Fat Quarter Puppet contest.

After voting was over, they announced the winner and showed the top 10. I wasn't among them, which I actually wasn't that disappointed about since it was only my first time ever trying to do fabric/pattern design.

Today I just happened to be looking through their blog and noticed that you can see what place each entry came in for the contests.  I checked out the contest I had entered and I was 20th out of 46!   I honestly didn't expect to be that high up in the rankings.  Weee! Perhaps I will try to participate in some of their future contests when I can find the time.

There is some crafty news coming, but I'm holding off on that until I wrap up a few loose ends. I can hardly contain myself.

Halloween 2010 Swap

So I finished and sent off my swap for Craftster, and it should be arriving soon. I'm going to go ahead and put up pictures because I'm a cheeky monkey like that.

The first thing I worked on was the biggest and newest to me. Bunting.  I had never heard of the stuff before, but once I looked it up I recognized it. I don't know what I used to call this stuff before I knew the proper term, probably something like "little flags".  I found a tutorial at Joyful Abode and it was really helpful, and I really liked the results. Using the bias tape gave it a nice finished look.

Here is my Halloween Bunting:


I made and attached little felt appliques...by hand.  I forget how many ghosts and skulls there were exactly, but by the end I thought it was a lot!

The next two things I made were a spooky paper-cut, and a felt embroidery hoop decoration. I hadn't actually done either of these before either, but at least had done enough similar things that I was pretty confident in being able to pull them off.

The Spooky Paper-cut...



and the Felt Embroidery:



I wanted to make it a little unique so I added the dangling bats to make it a bit more than just a plain hoop.

One swap down, two more to go! Then I'll have to take myself out of the swap ring for a while for personal projects and other exciting happenings.

An almost tragedy!

I'm still here, I've just been a bit busy.

I'm participating in a few craft swaps, which I'll show my work from once they are received by my partners. All are Halloween Swaps. One is through Craftster, and its pretty open-ended as far as what to craft, so I've tried to focus on new things to experiment with. The other 2 are through Swap-Bot. These are both Halloween Stuffie swaps. YAY!

Something that has caused a major interruption in my crafting has been a pretty upsetting accident. Because I have cats (4 cats), I try to be vigilant about not leaving lengths of threads around for them to eat since it is dangerous for them. I keep only a small bit of thread through needles, just so I can see them easily. While working on one of my swap items, I left the table for a moment to cut up some delicious fruits to munch on. I thought I put my needle with its 2 inches of neon green floss back into my pin cushion, though I can't be positive.  I was keeping an eye on the table that I was working on, or so I thought.

I got back to the table, no more than 5 minutes after getting up, and went to grab my needle so I could thread it and continue working.  But what's this, no needle. I instantly panic, thinking that if the needle fell on the floor, it could easily get stuck in a kitty paw. After 10 minutes of frantic searching, coming up empty handed I began to cry, and called for my boyfriend to come help. Two hours later, searching every single piece of anything I had out, and still no needle. Even after vacuuming the entire area, and using my boyfriend's super magnets to try and draw it out of its hiding place. At this point I was pretty convinced that one of the cats had eaten it. I called my vet's office, which has an on-call vet, and explained my situation. We decided that since I didn't actually SEE anyone eat the needle, and all the cats were behaving normally, to wait until morning and see if something should be done.

The next morning we get a call from the vet's office, and I'm really set on taking all the cats in to get xrays. I only have 2 carriers, so I could only take 2 at a time. I decide to take Wolfgang and Duff first since when I came back to the table they were underneath it. 2 of the 4 cats had their annual checkups scheduled for a few days later anyway, so we were going to knock those out too. They x-rayed Wolfie and Duff, no needle, but Wolfie did get a clean bill of health (though he is a little chubby) and his vaccine booster. I brought them back home, loaded up Spooky and Uma, and headed back.

As they are checking out Spooky for his annual check up, the tech comes back in. Spooky won't be needing x-rays, because Uma was the needle eater! For those who don't know, Uma is my youngest, and smallest cat. She's super petite, so the needle was as long as her face. Also, that very morning she was doing her typical somersaults, which is one of her specialties. Even though I had a pretty good idea that one of the cats had eaten it, I was still shocked. Especially seeing the x-ray. Also, I didn't even see her near the table. Though I should know better since she is the sneakiest and fastest of my kitties. She is a super ninja.



Next thing I know I'm signing surgery consent forms, and heading back home with one less kitty than I came in with. I was in a daze from the moment they told me, to later when I got a call that she made it through surgery. It had moved to her small intestine by the time they got in there, but she seemed to be doing ok, and if she made it through the next 4-5 days she should be fine.

Well its 4 days later, and Uma acts like nothing is wrong. Other than disliking to take her post op meds and the collar she has to wear, she is happy as a clam. In fact she thinks she should be allowed to do all the things she used to do, like jump, run etc, and doesn't know why I'm not letting her. I'm keeping a very careful eye on her, and she will have a check up to make sure everything looks good in a few more days, but I am so thankful and relieved. My precious baby. I don't know how I'd have lived with myself if this had turned out worse. I've been pretty unfocused on anything other than caring for  her and keeping the others out of trouble. I think my nerves are finally settling, and I'll be able to get back to my crafting projects.



Next time I'm taking no chances. I'll be getting one of those wrist pin cushions, so all my sharp objects come with me wherever I go instead of tempting sneaky kittehs!

Block Printing and Stamping

One of the many arts and crafts I want to do more with is carving my own stamps and block prints. I just really like the feel of carving away at something and watching a design or shape slowly unfold. Unfortunately for my Mama, I discovered that love at the age of 3, using a nail file to dig swirls into the nice wood furniture....  oops!

Several months back I did a little simple carving, using a cheap carving material based off a little doodle I had made YEARS back. Here is my little carving:

I found out that using the cheaper carving material is a little frustrating for smaller details. I'm sure for large designs its fine, but I did buy some nicer carving material for future work.

After finishing the carving, I did a test stamp of him onto a piece of bristol board using some regular stamp ink.

 I think he came out pretty good for my first try.  I have all sorts of designs in mind to carve. In fact, maybe I'll work on one over the weekend. . .