Caturday

When we got home from our vacation I was happy to ignore the mess we left by packing last minute and just snuggle for a while.  Nothing like coming home to all this love.

Snapshot Friday!

Since it's Friday, I know most of you are winding down and getting ready to have a fun weekend.  Like these guys...

I hope you have a great one!  For me, it's my Monday.  Blah.  Oh well, I can still put a smile on my face- thanks to this photo.

P.S.  Um, yeah.  Loving the shorts with the suit coat.  Or do you think they're laughing because he's partying so hard he lost his pants?  Don't get so wild that you lose your pants this weekend.

I'm Back!!!!

After a long, unplanned, unannounced, and unwelcome hiatus, I'm back.  Not a moment too soon, huh?! I seriously can't believe it's been over two months since I blogged, what a jerk! For a moment, I even considered just deleting the whole thing all together.  I didn't want to be too rash though.  A lot has happened, I'll tell you all about it.  Just as soon as I follow up with these mushrooms I promised...oh so long ago.

The ones I made for my Christmas wreath were yarn wrapped.  Since that's in the tutorial link, I'll spare you the reiteration. However, I will say that I had the best results when I glued the yarn from the bottom to the top. (Meaning, flip it over so that you are gluing from the stem up.)  While making those, I felt that the mushies had so much potential for personalization.  So I had to experiment, typical me.

First up, stake out your corks.  Hannah used empty spools, but I figured I could use painted corks.  Waste not, want not.  Right?  I drove pins through a piece of foam to hold the corks in place.  It helps you paint them quickly while keeping your fingers clean.  These ones are the bulbous end of Champagne corks.  I used the flared side on the Christmas ones, a little cuter that way but these work.

Then cut your styrofoam balls in half, I used the two inch size.  Go slowly or the styrofoam wants to break apart unevenly, I used an old bread knife.  

Next, cut your fabric.  You'll need two circles for each mushroom.  One large and one small.  Cut the larger piece just big enough to wrap around the styrofoam, with it being secured along the bottom edge.  Cut the smaller one to diameter of the styrofoam cap.

I cut slits along the edge of the top piece to help it fold under nicely.  I used hot glue but I sure you could use something else.  I just have no patience for drying time.  With that being said, too much hot glue will cause the styrofoam to melt a bit and smell funky.  I worked near a window for that part.

Once you have all the tabs glued down, add your smaller circle with tiny dabs of glue.  I found this method to work best.  If you cut the top circle to cover the entire underside, it's very bulky and looks sloppy.

Glue on your stem.  Admire your cute mushrooms!  At least one will turned into a silly pencil topper, you know, since I'm really five years old on the inside.  Then I'll still have about ten of these guys, so I'm thinking garland with the rest.  I don't know yet. 

To make them hanging I'm going to sew tiny strips of matching fabric.  Insert a flat head straight pin in one end, bring the other end of the strip around to the pin and cover it.  Sew in a loop, shove the pin in the cap.  Boom, hanging ornament.  I'm sure you could do the same thing with a piece of embroidery floss that's been knotted.  That would show the pin though, which wont matter if you're hanging it up high.  I think I want mine to line my desk though.

Anyways, super easy and really cute!  Great project for recycling and fabric scraps, too.  (Just in case you are wondering what they look like with felt, don't bother! ICKY!  The material was way to thick for this size of mushroom, it may have potential for large ones though.)

Geez, long enough post for?!  Told you guys, I'm back.  Long-winded, silly, sacrcastic me, coming at ya!  And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about "Snapshot Friday" after all this time.

Mushroom Love

After making some for my wreath, I couldn't resist making a bunch more.  I made ten of these little ornaments for my tree.  However, this photo was the last time they were all together.  After seeing them, our friend insisted on buying half of them for his family.  It was a tough decision, letting them go, but he won me over with his incredibly sentimental and touching story about how much they would mean to his family.  I was incredibly shocked that something I was just making for fun for myself was actually selling.

Since I love them and what I have left of these are all packed up for the year, I'm going to make a few more for my craft room. As I type this, I have a few stems drying.  Hey, ornaments aren't just for Christmas!  Like I mentioned before, I adapted a tutorial from Hannah's Blog.  Since I changed a few things, I'm going to take progress shots to share with you guys.  That way you can see a different way of doing it, as well as see some little tips that helped me along the way. 

Bye!  Have a craftastic evening.  I'll check in soon with some pretty ladies, more mushroom love, and a glimpse into my newest obsession.

It's Done!

My wreath is complete and I'm all hung up on it!

I ended up adding a lot more stuff than I originally expected, but I think it all works well together.  The toadstools where inspired by a tutorial I saw on knick knacks & ric rac.  However, I changed it up a little bit.  Instead of thread spools, I used painted corks.  I used felt for the spots, instead of pom poms.  Gotta work with what you've got, right?!  I liked the mushrooms so much I made a whole bunch of ornaments for our giant tree.  Those are up next!  

I'm enjoying a relaxing day, so it's about cocoa time 'round these parts.  I have one more day of work then a three day weekend with my honey!  I'm so excited.  And lucky.... a 3 day weekend in retail....over Christmas?!  Guess all those weekends in a row with crazy hours are paying off for me.  Oh, and New Year's Day off?!  I'm practically giddy over here.

Christmas Cheer

Hi, guys!  How are you all doing?!  I'm pretty good.  Working my behind off, wish I could say literally, with tons of extra hours at my job to get ready for the holiday.  Although it's been decorated at my job for months now, I'm starting on the house now.  

This may not look like much now, but pretty soon all this stuff will be made into one of the cutest darned wreaths you've ever seen.  I can't wait to finish it!  Can I tell you that wrapping this thing is taking forever?!  Although Dillon did give me some advice that will probably make the next one go a little faster.  We'll see...

Besides being festive I've been busy stitching up a few things for my etsy.  This is a custom request I received, ready to head out to it's new home.

So, yeah.  That's pretty much what I've been up to lately, working and working on embroidery.  Exciting life, I know.  To make it a little more exciting, I think I'm going to give my blog a bit of a make-over.  Any suggestions?  I really want to change the layout so that I can share bigger pictures with you.  These seem a bit small for my liking.  I don't know, you tell me.

Be back soon, hopefully with a wreath!  (If all this wrapping doesn't drive me crazy first.)  Bye!

Quotable

Guess I should have made this a "Words on Wednesday" post, but you guys have waited long enough for me.

As promised, this is the quote I'm stitching techni-color dream style for my shop.  I laugh pretty much every time I think of it.

The lighting is a bit off since it's late here.  So, in case you can't read it well it says, "It's hard to stay sucker free in the land of the lollipops."  My guy and I were watching a prison documentary, one of those terrible "behind bars" type reality shows on MSNBC or Discovery when I heard this.  (And this is why I watch TV with my notebook.)  The interviewer asked an old pimp how he ended up in prison and that was his response.  I couldn't help but think it was hilarious and terrible, all at the same time.  Pretty much classic.

Yeah, I guess I'm pretty ridiculous for stitching the wisdom of a crazy ol' pimp, but seriously.... I love this quote.

Oh, Geez!

My goodness, it's certainly been a while.  Far too long in between posts lately.  I promise I didn't forget about you guys, I've just been busy.  I know that's a pretty lame excuse considering that some of the best bloggers out there wear a million hats at once.  Add to that feeling a bit down, and it doesn't leave much motivation for blogging.  However, there are a ton of things to share with you.

Here's one!

 I've been making a ton of stuff for my etsy, including some more "paper doll" pieces.  As soon as I can get a good picture of it, I'll share here and list it.

Besides stitchy stuff there is lots of other interesting stuff going on in my life.  I'm on the hunt for a new job and a new roomie.  I still have my current job, I'm just looking to move on.  As for the roomie, that's kind of a long story.  It's not working out with the current one at all, she's pretty much a joke.  After her black-out drunk incident that ruined my super nice Calphalon counter-top grill and filled my entire house with thick smoke....at 3 in the morning, we could no longer tolerate her stupidity.  It never ceases to amaze me just how far some people can go on empty.  Anyways, change is in the wind.

Enough about that business, here's a happy looking preview of something I'm adding to my shop.

Intrigued?!  I'll share the rest with you tomorrow.  It's a hilarious quote that I will probably never forget.

Bye for now!  I promise from now on I won't make you wait weeks in between posts.  Pinky swear.  Have a craftastic night, lovies!

Snapshot Friday!

This creepy little kid reminds me of a young Vincent D'Onofrio.

Speaking of creepy, anyone have exciting Halloween plans?!  Mine will be pretty tame.  I think the highlight of the weekend will be trying to dress up my pets.

In a Pickle

 Today's post is brought to you by the word, pickles.  Yay for pickles!  I love 'em, do you?!

When I found out my partner in the Phat Quarter Food swap had the nickname, Gherkin, I knew I had to go with it.  So I made her a pickle jar, with my attempt at a label.  It says, "Leslie's World Famous Gherkins.  Petites with a punch."  Originally it was to be a patch, but I think this came out better.  Now if I could have just got a good picture of it.  Taking pictures of round things is hard!

 I guess the fabric I used for the words was too thin, I've never had it stretch out like that before?  Any suggestions?  It didn't seem like that when it was one the hoop.

 I started by plotting out a pattern on the computer, mainly to play with all the different fonts.  And to get the oval shape even, I'm terrible at that sort of thing.  I transferred it onto the green fabric with my trusty Clover pencil and stitched away.  Somehow my stitching turned out a little crazy in the word, famous.  However, I'm learning not to beat myself up and obsess over every little thing, so I went with it still.  Once the stitching was complete I cut it out with pinking shears and stitched it onto the orange felt.

The jar is an upcycled Trader Joe's coffee can that I covered with vintage green linen.  I couldn't quite get the back seam right, so I used some coordinating ribbon to cover that up.  Not thrilled about that so I didn't take a picture, ha.  I finished up by attaching the vintage foodie trim with tiny dabs of hot glue.  Then I glued the entire patch onto the jar.  Added some felt to the lid, done!  I filled the jar with goodies and sent it on it's way.  My partner, Leslie, liked it, so I'm happy!

Ok, once I share pics of the foodie pieces I've received lately, I promise- no food posts for a while.