for the moms

For Mother's Day this year I decided something cute and small would be fun. The Purl Bee's flower sachets have been on my to-make list for a while so I picked them. I had all the felt and fabric I needed so I started playing with colors last week. Both my mom and David's mom like teals, blues and purples so their sachet sets turned out very similar. The pictures here are of David's mom's set. The ones I made for my mom all have a solid dark purple squares with white, dark and light aqua petals, backed with teal and white fabric. Theirs are pretty much just opposite teal and purple.

They're filled with rice and I added drops of scented oils: cinnamon, lavender, strawberry, and vanilla. The cotton fabric on the backs is thin enough that the small comes out enough to make any small space smell yummy.

The moms loved them. Now I need to make some for our home because they smell so good!! I've been working on a lot...stay tuned :)

Getting festive

Hey hey hey!

19 days till Christmas!!!

I've been keeping busy with crafting, decorating, gnoming, singing and perfecting my bangs. It all sounds so interesting doesn't it?! A truly glamorous existence over here, I promise you.

I made some cute little bunting to hang in our bathroom to decorate for Christmas without it being too shiny and tinsely.  I love how it turned out! I made another in green/yellows/greys for a friend who is away from home for a while and needed something cheerful to hang.









I've also been perfecting my little gnome pattern redo and sending them off to journey around the world. These little guys just make me so happy, especially all grouped together. I'm working on finishing the re-done Christmas tree pattern that can go with these guys so I can complete my Christmas Santa set. We'll see if I get around to making them available for order. I might be able to crank out a few sets if anyone is interested.








Christmas time is here and I love how our home feels now. Christmas tree up, stockings hung, twinkly lights and glittery ornaments up, and the apartment is actually clean...this is huge.

I'm working on some fun tall, skinny, felt Christmas trees for the mantle. Hope to get those done this weekend.






I found these adorable skull and crossbones buttons at the craft store last week and immediatly knew I had to get them to make something for these 2 girls at my church. I even got some sparkle pink felt and used some sparkly black and pink tulle. They scream hardcore girl! So excited to give them to them soon.


Chuy is becoming more snuggly by the day. He normally hates anything on top of him but the other morning he stayed in bed like this until we were ready to walk out the door. He's just too cute. Love my little poodle.



I plan to write some wordier posts soon. I even have some topics swirling around in my head, just need to find the motivation and the mood to write to get them done. I'll leave you with the topics so you can wait in anticipation (because I know your life depends on what I write here.....riiiight), and I'll feel more obligated to actually write them.  :)

• Why I got a tattoo
• Our love story...and how it almost wasn't (several posts)
• How to knit a gnome

New items in the shop!!

I'm really bad about updating my etsy or keeping it stocked.  Right now I have 12 items listed which is a big deal, guys! Go check them out and buy everything :)

The latest additions are these great felt feather and button hair clips.  I just love them.  The newest one below has some fabric incorporated in the large feather.  There is so much versatility in such a small object and I've been having fun with that.  If you want one but don't see a color combo you like just let me know, I'm all about custom orders.

purple & silver & polka dots

all five together like a happy little feathery family

 Here's what I've been up to this past week.  I finally got over being horribly sick for two weeks so I was enjoying not being in bed or stuck in front of a computer.

I worked on a new hair clip idea and love the first few examples.  I've made five so far and now I need to go shopping for some more jumbo buttons! Let me know what you think, they'll be going in the shop this week as soon as I get some better pictures.

coral, aqua and grey feather clip

plum, goldenrod and grey feather clip

here's what it looks like on for size reference

sported some serious sparkles

Chuy in his new Halloween bandana being lazy

helped redecorate our Sunday school room | chalkboard paint is awesome!

beautiful downtown from my drive to work this morning

day 15: felt

wedding flowers

Today I am thankful for felt.  It's just so good!  You can manipulate it to be so many things.  My favorite thing to make with it is flowers.  With Whitney's help we made all the bridesmaid bouquets from yellow, gold, white, and gray felt.  I made my bouquet out of white, gray and aqua felt with buttons and tulle to accent it.  They were all just so fun and cheery.  Since felt doesn't wither and die I still have mine sitting in our room.

I use felt in all my hair clips, little key chain animals and even in ornaments.  The best feature is it doesn't fray so you don't have to sew any of the edges. 

Felt, you are amazing and I'm thankful for you every time I sit down to craft :)

flowers!

Aren't these fun?! I made them for David's mom for her birthday. She loves color like I do so I thought a brightly colored bouquet would be perfect for her. It was fun to play with colors and see how just a different colored button could change the entire look of a flower.

I want to make another one for myself and just carry it around everywhere I go. Why is it you can only carry flowers and wear pretty things in your hair on your wedding day?

I seemed to have gotten a lot done last night (not including school work..oops!) I finished knitting a market bag I started last week. I finally finished my little cousin Kenneth's Christmas present. Yes, I said Christmas. I made him a cute little drawstring backpack with fabric from the movie cars. I hope to mail it to him this week. Everyone loves a surprise package in the mail right?

I also managed to find these cute tin containers for an order of my magnets & tacks. The lid is clear and so cute. I have three more so I might store some of my notions in them.

Today I finished another mr bear jr keychain in lime and teal. Hopefully I'll get a picture tomorrow before I send it off.

I feel like there's more I need to be working on. Oh yeah, those two tests and paper due tomorrow. ugh.

finally finally finally!

I finally did it!

I set up my etsy shop a while back but never got around to listing any items in it. Well I just spend a few hours taking pics, editing pics, listing, describing, etc. some great things.

All 12 of my mr bear key rings are up and ready to sell. Remember those wine glass IDs I made forever ago? They're up now!


I'm excited/nervous/anxious to wait and see how they sell. If you liked any of them go pick one up. They'd make great gifts too! If you don't like any of the color combos let me know and I can do custom orders easily.


Aside from the shop, aren't these bears cute?! I love their simplicity and how all the different color combos make them look so unique and different.


Also, I'm making custom sets of my magnets & tacks for anyone who would like to order a set. I can do any combination of small and large magnets and tacks. These will make a great mother's day gift (19 days away!)


Ok now go and buy a cute bear :)

buttons

Fell asleep earlier while watching cartoons which in turn left me not sleepy now. I realized I hadn't made anything today (other than 2 papers and some seminary research...) so I set out to knit another flower hair pin. I also got caught up watching War Games. Now the movie's over and I have a new flower in my hair :) Both buttons are from my MeMaw. I love how the aqua one looks like it has stitches on it.

Some sneak peaks of some of the bears! I tried a few different color combos so I'm excited to show them all to yall soon :)

so much new

hmmm, what to post about first. I have three projects I want to show yall, but that would be way too long a post so I'll show one at a time I think.


First? Magnets and tacks! Exciting eh? I had to demonstrate how to make something in my class so I showed them all how to make magnets and thumbtacks with covered buttons. I had fun picking through all my fabrics to find some fun colors. I also embroidered two on felt. They're all so bright and cheery and random :)

the magnets...

and the tacks

foxxy jr.

My sister's had a hard semester with school, theatre, health issues, and stupid people in general. Some of you may remember the foxxy I made her in the fall to cheer her up when she hurt her foot. Well I decided she needed a smaller version to fit in her pocket or hang on something.


I pulled out the pattern I drew for foxxy and free-handed a smaller version. It's only about 2 inches tall this time. I decided felt was the best material; doens't fray, easy to cut details and great for handsewing. I stuck with her fave colors of green and grey.


He was pretty simple to make. Just drew the pattern and cut it out, traced it onto my felt and cut those out. Then I embroidered the face and heart on the butt (my fave part I think). It's all sewn together with a simple blanket stitch and stuffed with a little bit of batting.


I gave it to her yesterday (saturday) and she loved it! I've already drawn up a mini version of mr. bear and hope to whip up a few this week. If anyone wants to order one in come custom colors let me know, I'd love to make you one. I'm not sure on the price yet, I'm going to try and time how long all the hand stitching takes on the next one.

Hopefully pics of my easter presents will be coming soon!