Little Adventurers!

Hello, Lovelies!  Remember when I told you about The Toy Society?  Well, I had so much fun with it before that I decided to start making things for it again.   I whipped up a quick pattern using some poor man's templates (aka plates) and got to stitching.  I was inspired by a cute pillow I saw on instagram but it ended up looking much different.

The one in the front was from the second time around, but I think I like it better.  Although I do want to experiment with the kerchief idea more.  Just a quick little project, but it gave me lots of practice time with Ol' Bessie.  Perfect for smaller pieces of fabric, too.  I have a ton of fat quarters that I never do anything with, so I see more of these in my future.  I've already prepped some cute little doggie ones!  

These little adventurers will be out in the world soon, hopefully finding wonderful forever homes.  It's supposed to rain for the next few days though, so I'll have to think long and hard about where I'm going to leave them.

Bye, I'm off to play with some new stitchy stuff I got in the mail!

Won!

Here are the little brooches I sent to Alwaysinspired and Corvus Tristis for my giveaway.

The gals just mentioned some color combos they might like to see and I ran with 'em.  Alwaysinspired  (she got the purple one) mentioned that she sometimes she might pin it on a headband.   So she can wear it in her hair too, like the barrette style.  That clever girl!

I added a few more of these little guys to my shop and there is about a half a dozen more I need to list.  My to-do list is about 50 miles long at the moment, however, I'm feeling very determined to keep at it, full speed.  I'm proud to say that I've been pretty darned productive lately.  I just finished a huge embroidery and I can't wait to show you!

See you soon, I hope you have awesomely productive day, as well.  Ta ta!

Poofy Clouds!

Hey, guys!  Just checking in on this rainy Saturday.  I have to make it quick, I'm on my lunch break!  I wanted to show you a custom piece that I made for my co-worker, Liz.   

She's going to her family reunion this summer and every year an auction is held to fund the next year's reunion.  Isn't that such a good idea?  Well, she wanted to bring something handmade, as a lot of her family is into Art and crafty stuff.  She commissioned me to make something fun.  She told me to surprise her and this is what I came up with:

I was experimenting quite a bit with it, but I'm quite pleased with how it came out.  She loves it and that's all that matter.

Ok, I'm back now.... 5 hours later, didn't finish on my lunch break.  Dillon wins that bet, but I tried! 

Anyhoo, on this piece I used lots of different techniques and materials.  A tiny bit of machine stitching to join the blue and green fabric and attach the label to the back.  Then some applique with felt and fabric, a little bit of poly-fill stuffing and tons of hand embroidery.  I even used some divine twine for the mini-bunting....I love that stuff.  I wish I had a huge crafting budget, I'd get it in every color. Someday....

Here's a close-up for a little more detail.

I finished off the back by sewing a label to some oilcloth and gluing it to the inner frame.  Check it out!

So, I can't decide what my favorite part is, the mini-bunting or the poofy clouds.  What do you think?  

Hoping to check in with you again before the weekend is out, lots of projects and silly photos to share with you guys.  Enjoy a craftastic weekend!  See you soon!

Shop Talk

Today I'm listing some little things in my shop.  All handmade... supplies will be next time.  I still have the yo yo barrettes, remember those?  Well, I took better photos of them.

I also whipped up some tags in my signature style.




These are barrettes but I also make them as brooches.  I'm selling a few of the ones shown and there will also be listings for custom color combos.  Think of all the possibilities!

Now for the tough part, making it all the way through the long etsy process- ha ha.  After all, there aren't very more hours left in this day.  Besides upping my productivity level tonight, I'm also looking forward to one other thing.  It's burrito night!  I can't wait.  I'll be honest- nothing makes me feel better than guilty pleasure food.  Yummmm!

Have a lovely Friday night all.  I'll be all bundled up at home, but if you venture out into the wild and crazy world, be safe!

C is for Cookie!

We picked a winner for the cookie needle book!

Since I'm mad as a hatter, this is how we chose:

Everyone's in there!

We swirled it around and poured out a name.

The winner is:

She said:

Yay, Sherri!  

(Please contact me, MafiosaGrrl(at)aol.com, with your info.  You can also contact me through craftster, flickr, or whatever network you found this giveaway on.)

Thanks to everyone that entered, this one was fun.  I'm going to have to tally up all the cookies you guys mentioned and break it down by type.  I'm not 100% positive, but it seemed like Sugar Cookies were winning. If anyone would be interested, I was going to whip up some printable recipe cards for the cookies that people were nice enough to include links for.  In my opinion, one can never have too many cookie recipes.

Thanks for looking.  Have a craftastic day!

p.s.  My favorite cookies are Snickerdoodles.  However, I don't like to leave anyone out so I enjoy pretty much all other cookies too.

My Bag o' Fun!

Last Thursday, April 1st, I filled up a bag with goodies and set out to beautify my neighborhood.  Armed with toy and flowers, it was a feel good kind of day.  The weather was gorgeous after raining on and off all week.  I figured a break in the rain was a good day for the flowers to come out.

I live in an historical neighborhood located near the local Junior College.  I love it because in spite of the flurry of activity going on a block away, our neighborhood is nice and quiet.  Walking across the campus, I decided that was where I would leave my flowers.

Don't get me wrong, most of the campus is beautiful and it has lovely grounds- check it out.  It's a great mixture of old and new, brick and tons of greenery.  It's a very lovely place should you make your way to Santa Rosa.   However, there are a couple spots on campus that aren't so nice to look at.  Thankfully there are very few, but they do exist.  So, that's where I put my flowers.  Like attaching a felt flower would really negate the ugliness before you but hey, it makes it more interesting to look at.  You'll see what I mean by ugly...  Their placement is random but you can only do so much with a staple gun.

So, you're walking along.  Pretty, pretty, pretty then BAM!  Ugly, gnarled telephone pole... I mean it doesn't even have interesting posters or stencils or anything.  It's in serious need of some yarnbombing but since I'm not that cool, I whipped out a flower.

Ugly brown wall that doesn't match any other place on campus.  

(Tune in later to see the awesome found object of the day.  It was located here.)

Hideous restrooms located near the baseball fields.  Even a flower can't help this one.

Okay, so now that I feel really bad about making my local school look terrible.  I'll show you some nice pictures of it because it really is a wonderful school with great teachers.

If you go the site that this one is from you can see other places on campus too.

The new library.

Burbank Hall- The Drama Department is located in here.

Ok, enough with the school. I'm not trying to subject you guys to an infomercial.

One more flower picture!

I used wire on the back to attach these.  I liked that method a lot and will do more of it next.  I didn't realize how limiting the staple gun would be.  There are a lot less staple friendly surfaces than I thought.  Oh well.

There is entirely way too much barbed wire on this stretch of the road.

So, yeah, I thought you guys would want to see where I put my silly flowers.  Hope that wasn't too boring for you.

Thanks for looking!  See you again soon.

Felt Up. Part 2.

Somehow, making flowers out of felt turned into this:

I'm chubby- if I'm not eating cookies, somewhere in my head I'm thinking about them.


It's a needle book!  (One word, two?  I'm not sure.)  Inside there is a total of four white pages for storage.  One each, in the front and the back.  The the two in the center were sewn together with a blanket stitch to create a little pocket.  You can just see the edge of the stitches in the center.

Since I don't need any reminders about cookies, I would happy to send this off to a good home.  Anyone want it?  Just leave a comment telling me what your favorite cookie is!  I'll pick someone to give it to on April 5th.


Tune in tomorrow for more felt fun when I bring you "Needle Book Madness!"