Thursday, November 18, 2010

gah...

okay, well, I don't really have time to blog right now, but I NEVER have time and I am really annoyed with myself for never blogging, so just a couple of random notes.

I've been making felted acorns! They're really fun to make (and easy). We don't have an oak tree nearby so I bought some acorn caps off of Etsy. I've made a few sales, and also added a needle felted acorn kit to my newest shop, and it's going to be featured on a DIY Gift Guide on a blog (a real blog, not a pretend blog like mine, ha ha) on Monday. Yippeee! The blog is Obsessions of a Renaissance Woman

Here are my little white acorns; aren't they cute?



I have also started making little rings. These are quite addictive because they're so simple to make, and even though I'm probably too old to wear stuff like this, they're totally my style and I love looking at them.



they're in my EclecticGarden etsy shop.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Treasury

I've been having fun making 'Treasuries' on Etsy...this is probably a big time-waster, since there's not really any practical purpose that I can see. I don't include any of my own items in my treasuries, so it's not like there's any promotional benefit. But it sure is fun. This is my latest, inspired by the song 'I Can see Clearly Now':

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4ca0b43591c78eef982534fd/i-can-see-clearly-now?index=0

Monday, September 20, 2010

ArtFIre

So, a real post soon, I promise, oh invisible readers...but for now, a plug for ArtFire, which I would probably plug even if I weren't trying to win an iPad in their new contest.

Right now ArtFire is offering upgraded accounts at a discounted price, but 20,000 people have to opt-in for the pricing to become live. So, if you're a crafty seller like me, check them out...http://www.artfire.com/groupdeal

My ArtFire shop is here: http://www.artfire.com/users/eclecticgarden

Saturday, September 4, 2010

farm sampler

Just a quick note, because I really am trying to be better about posting (it occurred to me that if I actually posted on a semi-regular basis, people might be more willing to read my blog!), with an update on the custom farm sampler. I am REALLY going to try to get my behind in gear and finish this up over the holiday weekend. It's been fun to stitch, and I really hope my customer will be happy with it.

Just a few more things to add...some more vines, a couple of critters, and maybe a pumpkin or three...



By the way, I don't know if I mentioned before that this is done on one of my fabrics. It's a new color, but I want to try it on linen too before posting it to the Faery Fire site.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

food

Every now and then I get a wild urge to be creative in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the things I like to cook rarely fall into the 'healthy and slimming' category, so unless I've been able to successfully avoid mirrors for a couple of days, the urge is usually suppressed due to my fat ass fluffy curves. But alas, I recently stumbled across the awesome site foodgawker.com (actually, I didn't stumble across it; my oldest daughter forced me to look at it knowing full well that a foodie like me would be helpless before its siren call), and I HAD to try out some of the recipes I found therein.

The weirdest compulsion thus far: homemade marshmallows. I blame the photo (the source of all evil on foodgawker.com is the photos), which made the marshmallows look like confectionery heaven. The thing is, I don't like marshmallows. Toasted, sure, they're okay, but I'd rather have just about anything else, and plain marshmallows make me gag. Literally. But I couldn't stop thinking about the challenge of making homemade marshmallows, so I finally caved, ran to the store for corn syrup and gelatin (ugh! two nasty ingredients! honestly, it's like I was possessed) and set about following the instructions. I am, at best, a competent cook, so I was more than a little surprised when my marshmallows turned out like, well, marshmallows. They tasted bleh to me, but hubby - a true marshmallow aficionado - says they're "awesome" and much, much better than the store-bought kind.

Dunno if I'll ever make them again, but it was a fun experiment. I even choked down three or four of them, in the vain hope that just because I'd made them they would suddenly taste yummy. Actually, they tasted fine; it's the consistency I hate. But hey, if I've just got to cook fattening, gooey sweet things, better that they should be things I won't eat, yes?

Here are the darling little things. Mine aren't nearly as pretty as the ones on foodgawker. But I made them all by my little self. Go me.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Fabric

Here's the fabric I dyed for Rachel Anderson's Lily of the Valley:



Okay, so it's a little wrinkly (I am just never going to master the art of ironing; I think it's time to admit defeat), but I'm happy with how it turned out. It's being shipped out today!
I also dyed the fabric for L Victoria's Balloon Dragon, but the picture just doesn't do it justice and it's even more wrinkly, so I'm going to skip posting that photo.

Dyeing fabric has really put me in the mood to stitch. Its been months (literally!) since I've had time to stitch for myself, and I'm really missing it, but I am getting little stitching time in because I was hired to stitch a poem with embellishments for an Etsy customer. Here's my progress on it so far (yes, I stole the house from Elizabeth's Designs):



I am going to try to finish it up by this weekend...I am running woefully behind!!

Monday, August 30, 2010

soapy stuff

Today's a fabric-dyeing day; hooray! I have two custom pieces to do, both for HAED designs. I'll post pics of the fabric when it's done (if I don't forget, which these days is highly likely, alas). I've been enjoying hand-painting fabrics to match backgrounds...it's different from my usual low-water immersion technique, and a little harder, but it makes me feel all artistic and creative and such.

Over the weekend, I finally got around to playing with my soapy stuff again. I made some oatmeal hand-milled soaps that didn't turn out so great (I think my base soap was a little old - maybe that was the problem?), and also tried my hand at making solid sugar scrubs, which were not only fun to make but also turned out great! At least, I think they did. I've already put them in my eclecticgarden etsy shop -- here are pics:



Vanilla Spice Sugar Scrub Cubes





Lavender Jumbo Sugar Scrub Spheres


As always, I really really wish there were more hours in the day...

Now off to start on the fabric, before Kate wakes up from her nap!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

buttons

I love it when the mailman brings me things. At the risk of sounding completely shallow and materialistic, nothing quite beats the joy of opening up the mailbox and seeing a little packaged goodie inside. Yesterday, I received some polymer clay buttons that I ordered from Tessa Ann on Etsy. Her buttons are ADORABLE, and once I saw them I had to have some. I ordered these:


and these:


I don't have any idea what I'm going to use them for, but they were so pretty I had to have them (the real challenge was limiting myself to only two sets).

In related news, I also had some Christmas-themed buttons made by Elena of Shimshoni Gallery. I'm planning to use them for ornaments, and also in little ornament kits that I'll put in my new etsy shop (or maybe on FaeryFire) (or maybe in both!).

Yes, I have a new etsy shop. It's like an addiction. But a little healthier.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

whining...

I have not been very good about blogging lately, and while I can fairly point to the fact that I have very little free time these days as an excuse, I think the truth is closer to this: I haven't been cross-stitching, and that depresses me so much that I avoid my blog because it's a reminder to me that my stitching projects are just sitting there gathering dust. True, I don't think of this blog as a stitching-only blog, but that has been its primary focus and it's really depressing to see the pictures of projects that have been so sadly neglected.

Part of it is little Kate; I would never for a second complain about how much time she takes up, not after battling infertility for four long years, but nevertheless, I had forgotten just how MUCH time a baby takes up. Also, I have pretty much lost my main source of income (selling items on eBay), which means that my crafting time has to be focused on making items I hope to sell, rather than stitching away on my lovely HAEDs or the Mirabilia I'm stitching for Kate. I still sell my own items on eBay (in fact I just made a sale from Faery Fire Fabrics, and the customer found me through an eBay listing, yay!), but I was also selling items for someone else, and the pay was pretty good. But he finally became fed up with eBay's new policies and restrictions, so, at least for now, that job is over.

I did state at the very beginning that this was a whiny post.

I just miss cross stitching. Oh, and I'm fat. Since I'm whining anyway.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

zippermania

How cool is this?



I didn't make it -- I just think it's really neat. It's one long zipper that zips up into a coin purse! So nifty!

You can get one from this lovely Etsy seller: http://www.etsy.com/shop/GrubbyFeet

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

owl

Here's my most recent needle-felted creation, Jedediah the Owl:



He's TINY - less than two inches tall! I think I'll definitely have to make some more needle-felted birds, because I'm so happy with how little Jed turned out. Next up, I'm planning to felt a bluebird. I think a little felted bird would look really nifty swinging from my car's rearview mirror.

I'm also playing around with the idea of using needle-felted miniatures as air fresheners. I'm not sure how well this will work, so I'll have to experiment. My plan is to use the scents that I have for soapmaking, and just add some to the felted miniature. I'm not sure who well or how long the wool will hold the scent, though, so that's where the experimentation comes in.

Monday, April 26, 2010

pincushions

I found a tutorial on making the most adorable little pincushions here the other day, and had to make some immediately! Here's my favorite so far:



Isn't it adorable?

Leah, who created the tutorial, was nice enough to give me permission to re-sell these, so I'm going to be making many more. Right now there are three up in my Etsy shop.

These are SO easy to make, that even if you suck at sewing [raises hand] you can still make one in under an hour.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

reproductive craftiness

So my latest and greatest crafty endeavor, i.e. having a baby, has proven to be even more time-consuming than I expected, and I've had no time to be crafty, let alone update my blog! But now that my new little princess is settling into something resembling a schedule I've pulled out my needles and thread and wool and beads and such and am getting back into things. In the meantime, here's a photo of my little snuggle-wiggle, Catherine Jane, a.k.a. Kate: