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!

Best Weekend/Worst Blogger.

Hey, guys!  So, who get's the "World's Worst Blogger" award for the month of May?  ME!!  I've done a pretty cruddy job of keeping up on things lately.  I've been feeling a bit "blah" lately and my poor blog and etsy has suffered for it. Thankfully, I've still being pretty productive with other things though.  New regiment in effect, hoping it'll make a difference around here.  Thanks for sticking with me guys!

Even though it's a bit overdue, I still need to tell you about the Stitching Party with the girls!  It was seriously the best weekend.  I got the opportunity to catch up with old friends and get together with others for the very first time, it was amazing.

To bed super late and up way too early, we headed out for adventures.  The guy to a boring symposium, me to a craft party- yay!  My gal pal, Josci, and I met up with Katy and Maureen of Sew Lovely Embroidery and Lisa of A Cuppa Tea with Me!  It was so great because we've been online stitchy pals forever now but this was the first time we got together.

Can I tell you, Katy and Maureen totally spoiled the heck out of us.  Check out the sweet decorations, it's it darling?!  (I stole this photo from Sew Lovely's flickr, it's chock full of gems like this.)  There was a ton of yummy food, tea, champagne...everything a girl could ask for!

They even gave us the cutest goody bags, I told you- spoiled.  Check out all the cute loot I got:

We stitched, we bitched.  Traded tips and quips.  All in all, we had a great time.  Here's all us girls together.  Yeah, I'm inadvertently giving you guys a glimpse of my bra...leopard nonetheless.  Classy, huh?  Someday I'll get it together.

It was a gorgeous day, the weather alone would have made the weekend fabulous.  Beautiful, isn't it?  I feel so lucky that I got to spend such a lovely day with great people.

Thanks again to Katy and Maureen for hosting a lovely afternoon, you ladies rock my sock's off.  From your patterns to your sweet words of encouragement, you are always amazing! xoxo

So, can you guys see why I had such a great time?  Thought so.  Tons of stitching lately, so lots to come.  Stay tuned.  See you soon :)

Winners!

So, yeah, I tried to post this yesterday but silly Blogger was not cooperating.  Figures, when I actually go to do something....  Anyways, with the help of my assistant, the winners have been chosen.

 

And the lucky ladies are AlwaysInspired and Corvustristis!  Yay!!  I'll be contacting you gals very soon to get all the details.

 

 Errrr, 3rd time's a charm, maybe?  The laptop died during my 2nd attempt to post this, possibly forever.  I'm working on our other computer and quickly getting frustrated with the awkward desk set-up.  *Breathe in, breathe out*  Ugh, guess it's time to bite the bullet and start saving some money.  New Macs don't just buy themselves.  I'm just grateful we have the other one to use still.

For the next few hours, I'm challenging myself to get a ton of things crossed off of my to-do list, so I  can have a nice relaxing weekend with the guy.  It's his birthday tomorrow!  Thanks to a trade, I have the weekend off...Yay!  It also means I don't have as much time as originally planned for this darned list.  Let's see how much I get done before work tonight!

Have a craftastic day, I'm off to be a busy little worker bee!

Caturday

In the evening and on weekends our neighborhood is really quiet, so Chunky is allowed to go outside while it's still light out.  He pretty much just lays on the porch and makes silly noises at the birds.  

While he's not doing that he plays his favorite game.  It looks like this.

He sits at the door and meows super loud....over and over again.  When you try to let him in he will turn around and ignore you.  A few minutes later, he will do it again.  It could really go on for hours if you indulge him.  After several dozen interactions like this, he will finally come in.  At that point he will saunter to the back door and demand to be let out again.  He scratch his favorite tree, then right back to the front door to play again.  It's a vicious cycle.  Like I've said, he runs this place.

P.S.  That's the roomie's new car in the background.  Every time I see it I expect Joe Pesci to come walking up the house with a baseball bat.

To Hold Me Over.

A few of you guys already know, but I'll let the cat out of the bag.  I have a huge giveaway in the works, I'm totally excited about it.  I can't wait.  While I work on that, I figured I would have another small one.  You know, just to hold me over until the big one.  Can you tell that the anticipation is killing me?

I've gotten so much positive feedback about my Arcade Barrettes and Brooches, so I thought I would show my appreciation by giving away a few of those. The winners may choose a style already in my shop (more to come tomorrow!) or I will make a custom one just for you.

I'll choose two winners on Wednesday, May 11th, 2011.  To enter, simply leave a comment telling me about your favorite thing to make lately. These are among my favorites right now.  So, what do you love to make?  Cookies?  Crafty Stuff? Loud noises?  Tell me, I need to know!

Be back soon to tell you all about my fabulous weekend stitching with the gals!

Over the Top.

So, round these parts we don't go all out for the holidays.  Unless it's Halloween or Christmas, there are no decorations, no fancy dinners.  It's just me and the guy, sometimes the roomie, so usually it's just another day.  A day that we happen to have off from work.  On the other hand, birthdays are pretty fun!

This year mine was a bit extravagant- over the top, if you will.  Food, thrifting, fabric, fun- all rolled into one fabulous weekend!  We kicked it off on Friday night with the most amazing Mexican food we've had in a long time.  And chocolate, there was a ridiculous amount of chocolate.  There were M&M's, Godiva Chocolate Pretzels and my sweet honey made me the yummiest cake.  I think it's pretty funny that I went on a chocolate bender, considering when I was a kid, I hated chocolate.

My guy also gave me this awesome Betsey Johnson Dia de los Muertos ring.  Yeah, I know, I have such conservative taste, huh?

Then we went thrifting at one of my favorite stores ever, the one that only sells craft stuff.  Just heavenly!  I bought a ridiculous amount of vintage fabric, about 11.5 lbs actually.  On the way home we scored some expensive dishes for next to nothing, it was just pure luck.  I knew that they looked familiar, so I looked into it a bit more.  They're a discontinued and highly sought after style of Denby Dishware.  I couldn't believe our luck when I saw replacement sets go for $95+ per place setting.  And we got 6 place settings for $8!  And that's not 8 bucks a piece, that's total for the whole set.  Craziness.

Back at home, when I started unfolding all the fabric for the laundry, Chunk appeared out of nowhere and burrowed in.  He didn't seem to mind when I kept piling it on, so I left him for a while.

So, yeah, I guess this is was 26.5 lbs looks like- 11.5 lbs of fabric and 15 lbs of cat.

After short stints of sleeping and failed attempts to burrow all the way to the bottom, he just resorted to planning sneak attacks on everyone nearby.

Followed up with the yummiest breakfast for dinner, celebration drinks, and cuddles with a movie, I had the best birthday!  A big thanks to my honey for making it all fabulous for me.  Love you, Cakes.

I had such a great time, I just had to share it with you.  Now I've really got to get ready for my stitching escapades this weekend!  I'm giddy with excitement.  I hope that everyone out there has a craftastic weekend, I know I will!!!!

Kitschy Kitchen

I finally got around to upgrading my kitchen a bit.  For the longest time, I've planned on making new curtains.  I had the fabric picked out, the measurements taken but no way to hang them.  I have to confess, we just had sarongs tacked up (I know what you're thinking....hippies.)  Well, they served their purpose but they had seen better days.  We finally got some "rods" that are actually super cool wires with clips.  My honey hung them and it was my time to shine.

I whipped out some of my favorite vintage fabric and transformed the place.  It was super easy, just hemming squares really, but I was still pretty chuffed with myself when it was all said and done.  It's so light and airy now!

Boris is giving me the crazy eye in this photo.  Since I wanted him to look, I asked, "Boris!?  Is that you?!"  He turned around and looked at me, as if to say, "Of course it's me, woman!  Who else would it be?  Great, my mom's losing it."  Oh, and please forgive the overflowing recycling, I can't very well be cleaning my kitchen and making curtains for it at the same time.  

The black frames are coming down and the new wall art will match the new kitschy theme.  Speaking of matching, I made a Lazy Susan.  Dillon said it would be "a bit much" but I thought it would be perfect.  I used spray adhesive to attach the fabric, added a couple coats of Mod Podge and a clear coat.  Voila!  Matching Lazy Susan!  Using the spray adhesive and cutting slits on the edge before I tucked it under, made the fabric perfectly smooth.  Even on that ridge, it was super easy.

And check out my new candy dispenser!  Isn't it great?!  I've had one like it in my etsy favs for a long time and now we finally have one, just in time for the kitchen upgrade.  It was a surprise gift from a friend.  It was the perfect Earth Day, B-day, Easter pressie all rolled into one.  I love it!!  However, I am a bit frightened to think about how much candy that jar holds.  I poured in an entire bag of M&Ms in there!  I have to be careful with this thing.  Dillon said I'm not to fill it or my teeth will fall out.

Anyhoo, that's just one of the projects that's been keeping me so busy lately.  More to come soon.  Hope you have a craftastic day!  I'm going to be spending some time getting ready for the long awaiting Stitch & Bitch that's happening this weekend.  I'm so excited!

Flower Power!

Ok, so I promised Nicky and Becky that I would post this over the weekend.  However, I'm a fat liar.  My pant's are on fire as I type this.  There was just far too much celebrating going on for me to finish stitching it, so I didn't finish it until today.  Celebrating, you ask.... why, yes!  We were celebrating my birthday!  Not so much an excuse, but an explantion for my tardiness.

Yep, this pattern has been done a million times, but I thought I would try my hand at it.  The tinting was more of an afterthought, but it turned out ok.  My honey suggested it, and it did the trick.  Also, this was my first time using my new Q-Snap.  Baby, I'm in love!

Had to get that metallic floss in there somehow.  Always.

Not sure what I'll do with it.  Originally, I had intended it for someone who told me to surprise her.  However, it doesn't remind me of her at all.  It's much too Lisa Frank/60's.   I've been in pillow mode recently, so it'll probably be it's fate.

More on my b-day later!  It was such a fab time, can't wait to tell you.  Have a craftastic night, guys!

Caturday!

A few weeks ago, the guy bought fancy new sheets and pillows.  They are so comfy!!  I haven't slept this good in years.

 

Although I'm sure that I know someone who thinks the upgrade was just for him.  This pic is an oldie, but it's still Chunky's favorite way to sleep.

Spoiled rotten, I tell you!  Do your pets have the run of the house?

Cups and Saucers

You guys know Lisa, right?  Good!  For those you who don't, she's a fellow CA crafty lady who can stitch with the best of them.  When she's not stitching and scootin' around on her bright red Vespa, she's an expert on all things tea.  Talk about a Renaissance woman!

Anyhoo, I wanted to make her a little something, just because she's great.  I started something a long time ago, using the same materials, but Boris had other plans for that.  Grrrr, that cat!  I'd glare at him now, but it's been too long and he's much too cute.  Second time around, even with the same materials, I went in a whole new direction.  And I must say, his destruction was a blessing in disguise, because I think it screams, "LISA!!!"

It's not perfect, but I still loved the results.  Behold, "Cups and Saucers."

I also loved that everything came from my stash.  The vintage flannel I used to make the circles is one of my favorite finds ever.  I wrapped the whole thing with some vintage trim to finish it off, popped in the mail and off it went to Lisa Land!  It has made it to it's forever home and lives on the wall of her crafty room.  Yay!  I can't think of a better place for it.

Want to know a secret?  Each cup has a permanent smile built in!  The way I stitched the ridges on the bottom of the cup inadvertently made them perma-happy.  This is what they look like on the backside.

The piece is mounted on a painter's canvas though, so you can't see 'em.  That's why it's a secret!

Well, that's it for now, my computer time is just about up for the day.  Less computer equals a more productive Jackson.  Besides, all this talk of Lisa and happy cups has me thinking it's time for a spot of tea.  Have a craftastic day!