Rose's Eclectic Garden

cross stitching

2011-08-22T23:42:00.001-07:00

Here is something completely pitiful...until this past Saturday (my birthday, happy birthday to me and many more), it had been OVER A YEAR since I last cross stitched. Seriously. More than twelve months.

I decided several days ahead of time that come hell or high water, I was going to get a few stitches in. But I literally had nowhere to stitch, so I spent the majority of my birthday cleaning and organizing. My office was such a wreck that this was actually fun. And then at about 10 pm I finally sat down and spent about 45 minutes working on Mother's Arms. Woo hooooo. Now I just need to find a way to carve out 30 minutes to an hour a day for stitching, or Kate will be holding her grandchildren before I finish her 'welcome to the world' cross stitched piece.

Etsy search...

2011-08-19T05:02:00.001-07:00

So I didn't pay much attention when Etsy rolled out their new search engine changes, but now I'm starting to get a bit concerned. My sales on foxwise have dropped considerably. I know that part of it is due to more and more people jumping on the hand-stamped bandwagon (and a few of them deciding to carry 'geeky' bracelets like mine), but this past week has been pretty dismal in comparison to the weeks before. Evidenced by the fact that I suddenly have time to blog. ; )

Anyway, I suppose it's a good thing that they've updated their search but it does make me a bit nervous. I've gotten used to being very busy! And despite sometimes feeling completely stressed out, I *like* being busy. I suppose I need to just buckle down and start tweaking my tags and such in my listings...but honestly, I hate doing that sort of thing. I'd rather spend my time making stuff!

craft fair

2011-04-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a craft fair this weekend! Or rather, it's actually called a flea market, and will be a mix of vintage and handcrafted items. I'm excited as this is my first attempt at a craft fair since my completely disastrous Rose Bowl Flea Market experience a few years back. (I made one sale). (For $2).

Anyway, it's being hosted by Native LA, and I'll be selling my stamped jewelry, regular jewelry, soaps and craft kits. And maybe some buttons, too. I'm actually bringing an extra table so I don't have all my stuff crammed together, though I'm going to feel pretty silly if I have two huge tables and no customers.

Here's the link to the flea market info -- it's this Saturday, the 9th, from 2 - 8 -- just in case anyone local happens to stumble across this post: Flea Market Info

Fingers crossed!

Google revisited

2011-03-28T06:01:00.001-07:00

Okay, I probably spend way too much time playing on google to see which search terms bring up something from one of my shops, but this morning I discovered a happy little thing...if you google 'Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff', my Doctor Who spiral necklace shows up at the bottom of the first page! If you replace 'stuff' with 'quote', my bracelet shows up in the middle of the first page. And if you just google wibbly wobbly timey wimey, the necklace shows up near the top of the second page! And if.... oh, okay, okay, I'll stop.

well...

2011-03-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, clearly my bright idea of blogging every single day in 2011 took a bit of a nosedive. Between getting the flu bug and being busy, the blog got bumped to the back burner. And I'm suddenly feeling smothered by the letter B.

But (ahhhh! go away, B!) I *will* try to blog a little more often. Maybe three or four days a week. And sometimes every day, when I have time.

My god, you should see my office. It looks like it was hit by a tornado, No, really. I'm tempted to post a photo despite the extreme embarrassment it would cause me, just to prove to the three people who might read this post at some point that no, I am not exaggerating.

Do you ever want to put a second R in exaggerate? I always do.

Okay, I have orders to pack up. My foxwise shop is keeping me so busy! It's awesome!

sterling

2011-02-26T21:52:00.001-08:00

I received a few blanks today that I ordered last week, so went ahead and stamped a custom order for one of my 'wibbly wobbly' 1" cuff bracelets in sterling silver. MAN, was it nerve-wracking. I'm used to stamping on cheap aluminum blanks, and if I mess up, I'm out maybe a dollar or so; if I'd messed up on the sterling blank I would have been out a whole whole lot more than a dollar.

But, I am happy to say, I didn't mess up (yay!) and I am really pleased with the end result. I love aluminum because it's cheap and malleable and shines up pretty, but silver sure is pretty. I won't be able to get a decent pic of the bracelet til tomorrow when there's daylight, but I'll try to post one then. Shiny! -as they say on Firefly, though of course I mean it literally...

Speaking of which, I have been trying to come up with a good Firefly quote for a stamped bracelet, and have come up blank so far. My favorite Firefly quote is Jane's "You can't change that by getting all...bendy", but even people who remember that probably don't think it's as completely hilarious as I do.

fingers crossed...

2011-02-25T20:11:00.000-08:00

This seems to be just a run of the mill cold, and not the flu (knock on wood, and any other superstitious good luck action that might work...), so hopefully I'm not going to be really sick, just kinda miserable.

Which is good because the to-do list is growing. Got to dye more fabric tomorrow, hurrah!

I finally found a good source for sterling silver blanks for my stamping. I know I'll eventually have to invest in a tumbler, jeweler's saw, etc., but I'd really like to hold off as long as possible, and honestly, I'm kept busy enough just stamping the blanks. I'd rather make less of a profit and have time to sleep occasionally. ; )

Anyway, off to watch the next episode of 24 with hubby - we're slowly but surely plowing through season 8.

Here's a bracelet that I made on a whim; not many views so far, so maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's awesome? The quote - "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly / What is essential is invisible to the eye" - is from The Little Prince:

The bracelet can be seen HERE.

sick...

2011-02-24T19:55:00.000-08:00

So with hubby being sick and then the Buggle getting sick, I should've known it would hit me eventually. Bleh. I'm afraid that by morning I'm going to be full-out sick; right now I just feel icky, and my throat feels like I could use it to polish up and smooth my metal bracelet blanks, ha ha.

I haven't been sick since the week I had Kate -- I kind of got used to never getting colds. I still remember being in the OR right before the c-section and telling the anesthesiologist to wait so I could blow my nose first. Then I didn't know what to do with the tissue, and ended up handing it to a nurse, who didn't look pleased...but what else was I going to do, hang onto it until after they wheeled me out of there?

Off to eat some potato leek soup and drink lots of OJ...

frustrated...

2011-02-21T17:17:00.000-08:00

So I was really happy that my order from Metalliferous showed up today as I'd been looking forward to adding hand-stamped solid bangles to my shop after several customer requests. But I'm a big dummy...I don't have anything to anchor the bangles to before stamping them, and I can't make a good enough impression! I've tried my wooden bracelet mandrel, a soup can, my ring mandrel (obviously too small, but because it's steel that one actually worked the best), the edge of my little bench block...I'm stumped.

Time to go do some research in google-land. I'm guessing the solution will involve forking over money for yet another tool. Booo... and just when I was getting ready to take the plunge and buy a tumbler.

stamping...

2011-02-20T16:40:00.000-08:00

The metal stamping is keeping me busy! I think I was definitely right to open a new shop just for my stamped designs, as I've already had eight sales! Woo hoo!

The Harry Potter designs are definitely the biggest draw, though the Dr. Who stuff is getting a lot of attention as well. I've also added designs inspired by True Blood, Lost, Pirates of the Caribbean, LOTR and a few fun, random things, like this:

Next up: Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly...and maybe Buffy?

This is really fun.

found her home!

2011-02-19T05:56:00.001-08:00

We found the little dog's people (or they found us, rather; they saw one of my posters yesterday morning), so she's back home safe and sound!

And I forgot to post yesterday because the Buggle is sick (a virus, but she's on the mend), so today's a two-post day...

little old lady

2011-02-17T17:26:00.001-08:00

We have a lot of dogs in our neighborhood. And unfortunately, a disproportionate number of them are allowed to roam about, despite the leash laws. I have learned to just ignore the dogs running about, because I know that the vast majority of them have homes nearby and if I started 'rescuing' them, we'd either have dozens of foster dogs or a lot of angry neighbors (or both). This comes from experience...we have taken in four dogs in the past few years who lived within a block of our house. We had one of them for a week before his owners put up signs (they never even noticed the ones we'd put up).

Anyway, there are certain situations under which I'll still pick up a dog, and unfortunately I encountered one today....on our way home from the Bug's My Gym class, we saw a tiny dog in a blue coat limping across the road. I thought it was hurt, so had Miko get out to look at it. She wasn't hurt...she was blind. And ancient. And miserable, because of some sort of terrible skin condition. We figure the coat was there to keep her from scratching.

And of course, she has no collar.

I don't believe in hell, but I think that the universe would create one just for me if I had left that poor little dog in the road. So we now have another foster dog (we JUST found a home a few weeks ago for our last one), one who is absolutely unadoptable. My guess is that she's about 16 years old. She weighs maybe ten pounds. I hope so much we find her family. Someone cared about her, to put that coat on her. I hope, I hope, I hope...

new shop

2011-02-16T20:05:00.001-08:00

So I really felt that I'd reached my limit of new etsy shops and wouldn't be opening more, but it's sort of an addiction, you know -- and anyway, in this case I really do feel that I needed to open a new one. My hand stamped jewelry has basically taken over Eclectic Garden, and it's doing so well that I feel justified in giving it its own home.

Yes, this means I now have ten shops (but only seven are mine exclusively).

I had hoped to name this one "clever little fox", but some mean, nasty and hateful lowlife stole that name long before I ever thought of it, so I had to come up with something else. I finally settled on "foxwise". I hpe I don't grow to dislike it, the way I got sick of tinybird's name about two days after setting up that shop. But I love foxes (& did even before they were "in") so I think I'll stay happy with it. Here's the shop (though only a few items there as of yet): f o x w i s e

I need to add another etsy mini or two to the sidebar here. Not one for every shop, because that would be excessive and weird and a little embarrassing, but at least one more.

The Buggle is still feeling under the weather! I thought it was from her shots last week, but if she's still sick tomorrow I'm calling the doctor. She's supposed to go to her My Gym class (we just signed her up) tomorrow afternoon but she can't go if she has a fever. : (

too sleepy

2011-02-15T21:09:00.001-08:00

zzzz...a real post tomorrow, I promise, o invisible reader.

Speaking of invisible readers, no one won my giveaway, which is a bit depressing. I suppose I would have a better chance of attracting readers if I put a bit more thought into letting others know this blog exists...

valentine...

2011-02-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Buggle has been fussy all day (probably a reaction to her immunizations last week), and I had a fair number of orders to mail today (lots of stamped bracelets, hurrah!), so I'm wiped out and inspiration-less. Rather than trying to come up with some clever and interesting topic, I'll just post a photo of what happens when hubby
decides it's a good idea to store all of Homer's toys in a basket under the piano bench...

okay, random giveaway #1

2011-02-13T17:50:00.001-08:00

Since I've already got to pack up a bunch of free soaps (I donated six items to http://helpinghands.bigcartel.com and they all sold right away), I figured it'd be no trouble to ship out one more free bar of soap. So, on the off chance that anyone ever stops by here - leave a comment on this post and then send your mailing address to rose@eclecticrose.com and I'll send you a free bar of soap from Three Lucky Ducks! It'll be an almost-full size bar (I sometimes cut them a little too thin, so the oops bars are either converted into guest sized soaps or rebatched) in my choice of scent, vegan and handcrafted!

Oh, but the catch is that you have to leave the comment no later than noon EST on Tuesday, February 15th, and only the first person to comment will get the free soap.

this and that

2011-02-12T20:37:00.001-08:00

Haven't found time to scan my new fabrics, but hopefully tomorrow... I really, really want to start redoing the FaeryFire site; it's been so sadly neglected.

My big adventure today was going in search of Kate's shoe. Yesterday, we went to Michaels to pick up a few things (well, it was supposed to just be an antique silver chain, and they didn't have the right kind, but lo and behold I managed to find a few other things I just had to have), and when we got home I noticed Kate was missing one of her little shoes. How I got her into the carseat without noticing that is beyond me. Anyway, I called Michaels and they confirmed that they had the runaway shoe, and promised to hold it for me because I said I couldn't come in til the next day. Fast forward to today - we go to Michaels (just to get her shoe, of course, and I have NO IDEA how those items snuck into my cart, nor did I have any control over the weird seizure that caused my hand to whip out my debit card), and I ask about the shoe...and get a blank look. Nobody there knows anything about a shoe. They offered to look for it. I thanked them and waited. Nope, no shoe. I explained that the girl on the phone had verified it was there just the day before, and received a blank stare. I was then asked if it was a baby shoe. This is after I had told them that it was Kate's shoe that was missing, gesturing to Kate, who was resting on my hip doing a remarkable impersonation of a baby. I confirmed that yes, it was indeed a baby's shoe, and not my own, that I had come looking for. I asked them to look again. They did. No shoe. Sigh. By this point, my arms were tired because Kate was getting heavy (not the bag, because I didn't get that much stuff) (really) (well, okay, I did, but it was lightweight stuff), so I thanked them and left. We now have one slightly scuffed black shoe. At least it was the pair I bought her, and not her cute converse sneakers that hubby bought her, or the impractical little brown ones with the pink butterflies that don't match anything but are so cute.

Speaking of baby shoes, the last time Kate and I flew to Texas, they told me I had to remove her shoes when we went through security. For some reason that struck me as really funny. She wasn't even walking yet, but I had to take her little shoes (the brown and pink ones!) off before we went through the xray thingummy.

google (again)

2011-02-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm not going to keep nattering on about google and my rankings therein (herein? thereof? oh, whatever), but I thought this was cool...when you do a search for Harry Potter Bracelet under google shopping, my stamped bracelet comes up on page 2 - which is cool in and of itself, but what's neat is that the part of the title that shows up is: "Hand Stamped Cuff Bracelet - Harry Potter 'I solemnly swear I am ..." and then just above that is my photo, which shows the part of the bracelet that reads "up to no good". I'd love to claim that in my cleverness I set the title and photo up that way, but it's just dumb luck. Neat, though.

dyeing

2011-02-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

Dyed up a little batch of fabric today...a few pieces for orders, and then a couple of sample pieces for some new 'favorites' on FaeryFire. I'm really hoping to have the site updated this month with all of my new colors, most of which I haven't even gotten around to adding to the site yet. I got some new dyes in from Dharma and the colors are really nice, especially the two purples: eggplant and lilac. I have to be careful when dyeing that I don't just dye up a bunch of purple and green fabrics (well, and brown; I really love brown), since I always think they look the prettiest.

I also dyed up a few lengths of silk for more wrist wraps. I ordered some different types of silk fabric and can't wait to see how they turn out. I may end up liking one of them better than the dupioni, though the dupioni really is very well suited to the wraps. One of the new types is an extra-nubbly silk (I've gone blank on the name) that I think will look very interesting.

Will post scans of the fabric tomorrow, hopefully.

Oh, and I got my printer set up! Hubby's sick so I set it up all by my little self, even connecting it wirelessly, so I feel intelligent and accomplished. Go me.

printer...

2011-02-10T20:25:00.001-08:00

After yesterday's customer troubles (I guess I did lose the sale because I never heard back from the customer), I was expecting today to be a bit brighter. But just as I was printing out a tutorial for my sugar scrub kit, my printer died. And I don't mean it had a small hiccup or got a little tetchy -- I mean it died. With one of those errors that Canon says means you have to take it in to be serviced.

Well, I've had this printer for about five years now, so I've gotten my money's worth; I decided it was time to retire the old workhorse and get a new one. So, what could have been a really rotten day turned into a pretty good one, because now I have a brand shiny new Canon all-in-one printer, which is extremely cool because I've wanted a copier for AGES (can we talk about how much of a pain it is to use a scanner as a copier?). The scanner won't be much help because I've already got a good one that I use frequently for my fabric, and it's bigger than the one on my new printer. But the copier is cool. At least, I presume it will be - I haven't set it up yet, and now I'm sleepy so I'll probably wait til tomorrow.

I'd complain about how living with a toddler (though I am clinging on to her babyhood for as long as I can, since Kate still seems like a baby to me even though she's charging around the house at full speed) causes one to be boring and go to bed early, but the truth is that I like going to bed early, because it means I can get up at 4 or 5 in the morning, which I've always loved to do. I even went to bed early and got up early when I was in high school. My mom says I'm a little old lady, and I suppose I am, though the little part isn't very accurate, and will be even less so if I don't stop stealing Kate's animal cookies.

aaargh

2011-02-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, someone bought one of my soulbound bracelets and sent me a very nice note saying how much she liked the bracelet, and could I please ship it to her new address? I wrote back and said of course I'd be happy to, etc. And then I shipped it today, to the old address, because I forgot that she'd written. So now I have to make a new bracelet, get it shipped tomorrow and hope it still gets there in time for Valentine's Day, and then write her and tell her what an idiot I am.

Sigh.

Then, tonight, someone purchased one of my soulbound rings and added a note asking for it to be personalized with extra initials, which is something I offered in the listing for $2 extra. I wrote to say of course I'd be happy to, etc, and refunded her payment, then sent a revised invoice. Except that she made the original payment using a credit card without an actual PayPal account, and she accidentally put down the wrong email address, so she didn't receive any kind of notification from Paypal and I have no way to 'prove' that I refunded her money (at least, I don't think I do...I don't really know how all that works, or if her refund will show up on her account right away), so of course she hasn't paid the revised invoice. I think this will end up being a lost sale, but I'm not sure how else I should've handled it...the refund/revised invoice has always worked smoothly in the past.

Sigh, again.

It could be worse...I could be making no sales at all, and then I wouldn't have any shipping or payment problems to whine about.

ok, google weirdness

2011-02-08T19:08:00.000-08:00

So right after my last post I decided to check google to be sure that, in fact, I really did have one of only two bracelets listed in google shopping. I'm talking literally one minute. I typed soulbound bracelet in the little search box and guess what popped up first under the regular google search listing? My blog. (cue Twilight music).

Back in my day, you had to wait a long time for things to show up in search engines...

a busy day in metal-stamping land...

2011-02-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

Got some new blanks in yesterday, so I had to make some new items! I've bought blanks from several sellers on etsy and have been pleased with all of them, but for my bracelet and ring blanks I'm sticking with Liz at gottagettadeal (no, not affiliated with her and she has no idea I'm posting this), because her blanks are pre-finished, which saves me time, and good quality.

I had a customer ask a few days ago if I had any thinner rings in stock, so I decided it'd be a good idea to get some thinner blanks. And by thinner I mean narrower - these are heavy gauge blanks and not nearly as easy to curve into shape as the ones I've been using! But they look great, I think.

Here's one of the new ones:

It's a magic ring! (Yes, it really does say 'my magic ring'). Here's the description/story behind it, copied (yes, I'm too lazy to rewrite it) from my shop: A nifty ring made from bright, shiny aluminum, hand-stamped with the phrase 'MY MAGIC RING'. Here's the inspiration behind this one (no, it's not just my usual nerdiness): years ago - more years than I care to count - I attended a gaming convention and was given a very thin, rustic handmade sterling silver ring by one of the artisans manning a booth there. We'd been players together in a D&D tournament, and his character had stolen my character's ring of invisibility, and I guess he felt he had to make it up to me. Anyway, I ran into the ring again a couple of years ago when we moved; I'd forgotten all about it, and it took me a long time to remember what it was -- I just knew instinctively that it was important for some reason. Once I remembered, it really cheered me up and brought back a lot of fun memories.

Okay, so maybe it is my usual nerdiness...regardless, my magic ring has given me a lot of happiness, and it occurred to me that not everyone has a thief-turned-artisan hanging around waiting to present them with a magic ring, so I offer this one up for your magical shopping pleasure. It's aluminum, not sterling silver, but on the plus side, you'll never forget its purpose.
--

I also made another Mischief Managed ring and an Expecto Patronum ring, and a soulbound ring (World of Warcraft thing).

Speaking of WoW, if you go to google and type in 'soulbound bracelet' in the search and then click 'shopping', you will pull up only two listings for a soulbound bracelet in the entire google universe. And one of them's mine. I feel quite exalted.

addendum

2011-02-07T18:58:00.001-08:00

Okay, so right after publishing my latest post, I checked my main etsy shop and found that I'd sold the two felted soaps I blogged about the other day (scroll down to see pics). Heh. So, there is a bit of practicality to doing so many things. I think.

new wrist wraps

2011-02-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

Back to the topic of being overextended and having too many shops... the thing is, if one of my shops were clearly the most successful, it would be a simple matter to focus most of my energies there, but just as I start believing that one thing is going to be the best investment of my time, I suddenly make a nice sale, or a couple of sales in a row, from another shop and have to go back and rethink my strategy.

The past few weeks, I've been focused primarily on my hand-stamped jewelry and my soaps, etc. And it's true that both are doing pretty well. But then yesterday, I made two sales from my SeeThatGirl etsy shop (and one of them was for three pieces!). So, I certainly don't want to just let that shop fade away, and not just because my wrist wraps have done pretty well -- I really enjoy making jewelry, and I especially love making my wrist wraps.

Here are the two new ones I added to my shop today. The lavender one is a duplicate of one of the ones that sold yesterday; the orange is new.

I am temporarily without a model, as Miko is in Arkansas all week with her dad (and I'm not going to put my pretty wraps on my chubby wrist), but I think I did a fairly good job with the pics. Here's the direct link to my SeeThatGirl shop: http://www.SeeThatGirl.etsy.com

I have two more wraps that I need to photograph and post, but I am out of silk and waiting for more to come in, so I think I'll work on some other jewelry. I have some new pretty yarn in and want to make another crochet/macrame bracelet...maybe I'll get to that tomorrow...

overextended?

2011-02-06T19:33:00.000-08:00

I stopped and counted up my etsy shops today -- I have nine. NINE. And the truth is that I think I actually need them all. Though to be fair, one of them is shared with my mom (Mindred and Shebaas Bead Emporium) and one with my daughter (Beautiful Magic). (Unfortunately, those are also the two slowest shops, so the ones that keep me the busiest are the ones I run solo).

I actually had some more thoughts on this, but the Buggle is hollering at me. So, another time...

Valentine felting

2011-02-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

So I had all sorts of grand plans about all the things I was going to make for my shops for Valentine's Day, but I ended up just adding a few bath/body items to my new Three Lucky Ducks shop and a couple of felted soaps to Eclectic Garden. But aren't the soaps purty?

These turned out so well; that I think I'm going to start being more adventurous with my felted soaps. I love the combination of practical and pretty -- while I like making needle-felted miniatures (and also like that people want to buy them!), they're not something that I would ever make for myself because I already have too much stuff everywhere. But everyone needs soap!

2011-02-05T05:08:00.000-08:00

Man...does running in here at 5 a.m. because I remembered that I did not, in fact, actually post yesterday count as a blog post for yesterday?

Spent the day dyeing fabric -- I had a couple of custom orders that I was VERY late in getting done, but so far they're looking good. One of them is a custom piece for Mirabilia's Fairy Idyll, which is on my 'I want to do this someday' list, though I don't have the chart.

Sometimes I miss cross-stitching so much that I get really depressed. But I hope that I can become more organized in the coming months and start finding a little more time for myself. Fingers crossed...

stamping

2011-02-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

I think investing in metal stamping tools will prove to have been a very good decision (which alas I can't say about every crafting investment I've made). While I needed yet another ~~hobby~~ business venture about as much as I needed the leftover pasta I ate for lunch today, I justified it to myself by figuring that it fell under the umbrella of jewelry-making and so wasn't really something new, just an expansion of my existing business.

I made a few sales around Christmas and had fun making some personalized gifts, but the smart thing I did was making bracelets tailored to people as geeky as I am. Aren't these fun? (The Harry Potter one says 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good'). And I've already sold quite a few through my main etsy shop. Yay!

RIP alchemy...

2011-02-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

I am so bummed about etsy's decision to get rid of alchemy. They've said that it will be replaced with a 'new and improved' alchemy, but I really can't understand why it wasn't possible to leave the 'old' alchemy up in the meantime. I have gotten quite a bit of business through custom requests on etsy, and that will end, effective tomorrow.

To make matters worse, the etsy admins don't seem to have any interest in responding to the hundreds (literally) of upset responses to their announcement. This just seems like poor customer service to me, and not in keeping with etsy's general philosophy and business model. I'm a huge fan of etsy (well, obviously, with 9 shops and counting!!) and always recommend it to people, but now I'm starting to look more closely at some of the other venues out there. I haven't had any luck with Artfire but I do have a shop there, and I may start to tend it a little more carefully now. I think the people threatening to just leave etsy permanently are overreacting, but I am pretty annoyed. And disappointed.

For anyone reading this who liked to use etsy to request custom items, there is a new group etsy specifically for custom requests. Obviously it's not going to be as streamlined or simple as alchemy, but better than nothing, I suppose! It's here: Custom Requests Team

resolutions...

2011-02-01T17:09:00.000-08:00

I rarely make New Year's resolutions. That's because I end up keeping them even more rarely. But every few years, I decide that I'm going to do something a little different, or change something about myself that I'm not too crazy about, or try to accomplish something that I haven't managed to do in the past.

This year, I made a resolution. And, setting a new record, I broke it within 24 hours.

The resolution? To blog every single day of 2011. That's right - I intended to post here on my poor, sad, neglected little pseudo-blog every single day. In case you don't get the joke, peek down to the entry before this one. That's right...I didn't even blog on January 1st.

But, you know, I decided today that this was a setback, not a failure. Who says that a year of blogging daily has to start on January 1st? MY year of blogging daily will start today, February 1st.

I'm not going to pretend that every single blog entry will be a scintillating, fact-filled journey through creative wonderland, complete with gorgeous photos and fabulous tips. In fact, there's a very real possibility that on most days, the blog entry will be even more boring and rambling than this one (and quite possibly shorter as well). But there will be a post. Every. Single. Day.

At least, that's the idea. Now let's see if I can actually do it...

gah...

2010-11-18T19:23:00.001-08:00

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.

Treasury

2010-09-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

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

ArtFIre

2010-09-20T12:58:00.001-07:00

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

farm sampler

2010-09-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

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.

food

2010-09-01T16:42:00.001-07:00

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.

Fabric

2010-08-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

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!!

soapy stuff

2010-08-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

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!

buttons

2010-07-25T16:52:00.001-07:00

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.

whining...

2010-05-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

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.

zippermania

2010-05-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

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

owl

2010-04-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

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.

pincushions

2010-04-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

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.

reproductive craftiness

2010-03-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

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:

Ornaments

2009-12-06T11:34:00.001-08:00

So this year I'm focusing more on needle-felted ornaments, rather than stitched ones. I still think stitched ornaments are probably the prettiest kind (I would love to someday have a Christmas tree decorated with nothing but hand-embroidered ornaments; wouldn't that be gorgeous?), but they are awfully time-consuming, and as usual I find myself racing against the clock as Christmas approaches.

I put a few felted ornaments up in my Etsy shop and have been encouraged by the response, so I'm going to make some more over the next couple of days. If I find time, I also want to write up a quick tutorial on making simple felt ball ornaments. They're so quick and easy to make that they're a fantastic last-minute gift idea for crafty folks.

Anyway, here are a couple of the ornaments I've made so far:

SNOWMAN ORNAMENT

PURPLE BALL ORNAMENT WITH STARS (this one sold almost as soon as I put it in my shop!:

MUSHROOM BALL ORNAMENT (this one is probably my favorite; I think mushrooms are so cute...):

Another polar bear!

2009-12-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

Finally found time to get back to needle felting, which I've been missing. I found some really nifty tutorials on making felted soaps - here's the one I think is most helpful - so I've tried my hand at that, but I don't have any photos yet because I apparently don't have the hang of it yet (I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to have a big wad of wool hanging off one end, sigh).

I'm also working on some Christmas ornaments, but the first order of business was to make a new polar bear, since they always do well in my Etsy shop. So here he is! He's only two inches high. Awww...

He's up for sale here.

Busy...

2009-11-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

Wow, I have really fallen behind on posting! My excuse is that I've been pretty busy with work-related stuff and also NaNoWriMo (which I'm doing for the fifth year in a row, wahoo!).

I am currently stitching on Mirabilia's Poppy, which I'm doing on one of my hand-dyeds, but I need to get back to ornaments soon. She is not stitching up as quickly as I'd hoped, but that's primarily my fault because I ended up having to frog a big-ish portion of her after being off by one stitch (somehow that's easier to bear when you're off by a whole lot...being off by only one really sucks!!)

I did make some more jewelry this past week, mostly some new peace earrings, plus a cute (well, I think it's cute) little phone fob for my line of fertility jewelry:

I can't believe Thanksgiving is almost here. Christmas is coming way too fast!

More fun with chain maille

2009-11-05T11:26:00.000-08:00

I am really having fun making chain maille jewelry. The weaves (at least, the ones I've managed to pin down at this point) are not that difficult once you get the hang of it, and chain maille is so visually and texturally interesting. I especially like working with aluminum rings because they're so lightweight, and there are lots of pretty colors! (Always a good thing for a magpie like me).
Here's a set I made recently, using the Full Persian weave. I love this weave because it's really slinky and flexible. Both are available in my Etsy shop. I've also added a Chain Maille Jewelry section to my jewelry website, which will have some pieces not available on Etsy.

World Tarot - Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (HAED)

2009-10-28T11:29:00.001-07:00

It is bad, bad, bad for me to start a new stitching project. I have way too many WIPs already, and never mind all the other crafty projects on the back burner (I'm still playing with chainmaille, and I'm going to try to make some needle-felted snowman ornaments this week). But I heard a lot of great things about the 30-count linen from Passione Ricamo, so of course I had to order a couple of pieces to see for myself, and of course once I had it I had to test it out, right? It'd be downright wasteful not to!! And what better way to test it out than by starting a new Heaven and Earth Designs project?

I feel semi-virtuous for choosing World Tarot, because it's a small piece as HAED pieces go (meaning I should be able to complete it in under 350 hours, as opposed to the 600-700 hours I'll have logged into Gypsy once she's done). Plus, I really had to start another piece by Law, because she's one of my favorite artists and I loved how Lady of the Ginkos turned out, and I'm not stitching any of her charts right now (gasp! such an oversight! had to be remedied!).

Here's the original artwork of the piece:

and here's my progress so far - 20 rows done in just under a week:

Aren't those greens just to die for?

I've put her back in the storage box with all her little friends for now, and am currently working on Land of Enchantment. Hoping to get a full page done on that in the next couple of weeks...there's a lot of black on this page so it's going quickly.

Snowman Ornament

2009-10-26T10:01:00.001-07:00

I almost forgot to post a pic of this...it's 'Snow Wishes' from the 2009 JCS ornament issue. I made a few color changes (can't seem to resist doing that with every chart these days!). It stitched up pretty quickly...I just did it on one of my hand-dyed Aidas instead of the linen it called for, since I figured that if I'm going to go around plugging my hand-dyed fabric, I'd better do some projects on it myself.

Anyway, here 'tis. I haven't finished it into an ornament yet, but it'll be for my nephew Eric.

Chain Maille

2009-10-21T21:09:00.001-07:00

So I decided that I really needed to learn how to make chainmaille. I just love the way the weaves look, and they make such gorgeous necklaces and bracelets.
After looking over a few tutorials, I decided that it was probably easier than it looked, and I made my first two pair of earrings relatively quickly:

Then I decided to move on to the more complicated weaves, and discovered that no, it's not really easier than it looks. In fact, it's harder than it looks. But it's still a whole lot of fun to play with, and I did finally make a slightly more complex pair of earrings (no photo of them yet) which I'm quite proud of. The main difficulty is figuring out which ring sizes to use, because you have to calculate not only the basic diameter but also the thickness and the inner diameter.
Anyway, I plan to keep playing around with it, and may post a tutorial at some point in the future, because there aren't many free tutorials out there for chain maille jewelry.

Mother's Arms WIP

2009-10-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

So here's my progress so far on Mother's Arms. I'm going to put her away for a bit, but I feel confident now that I'll be able to finish her either before the baby gets here or shortly afterward, as I'm about halfway done and she's stitching up pretty quickly. She's a lot of fun to stitch, too...I love all the different colors.

Not sure what I'm going to stitch next...I think I may do an ornament while I decide; I still have a few that'll have to be stitched in time for Christmas, and I don't want to wait til the last minute the way I usually do!

Just Cross Stitch ornament issue

2009-10-09T16:45:00.000-07:00

I ordered this a while back, and just recently looked through it. I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed - there are only a few charts in here that I'm interested in stitching, and it really seems to me as if some of the designers just sort of recycle their old designs every year. And many of the 'ornaments' are really way too big for a regular tree ornament (in my opinion, anything over 4" is too big...one of the ornaments is over 6" long!!).

I tend to get annoyed when stitchers gripe about this or that designer, since my feeling is usually that if you don't like c chart, the easiest solution is to just not stitch it, but this is not the first time I've been disappointed in the JCS ornament issue and it really seems to me that they could make a bit more of an effort to have truly top-rate, gorgeous ornament charts. I know I'm not the only one to look forward to this issue each year, but one or two more disappointments and I'm going to stop buying it.

So this isn't a completely grumpy post, I will say that I DO like their new layout, where the charts for each section appear immediately after the photos; this seems more organized to me. And there are some good designs included - such as Oh Christmas Tree (Charlotte's Web Needlework), the adorable Santa's Buddies (Angel Stitchin) and Christmas '09 Stamp (Jeannette Douglas). But most of them are just...blah.

A Mother's Arms

2009-09-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

I decided to pull out A Mother's Arms again and work on it for a while. I now have only 14 weeks until my due date, so I think it's probably not realistic to expect her to be done by the time our daughter is born (especially since I have ornaments to stitch, and I know I'll want to work on something else soon), but hope springs eternal! Anyway, it'll be good to get some more done on her, as I didn't have much more than her face, her gown bodice and the baby's face done.
I've put off working on her because she was first started two years ago, a week or so before our first miscarriage, and I guess a part of me felt superstitious about starting on her again. The weird thing is that when I opened up my little stitching book to record my stitching time, I realized that I was starting her exactly two years to the day since I last put her down. I'm glad that at the time, I didn't realize what a long wait we had before us.
I don't have a progress pic to post yet, but I'm having a lot of fun working on her, especially because this chart is perfectly suited to making little changes here and there. I'm not really doing a conversion per se, but I'm not stitching the background because she's being done on a gorgeous opalescent (not one of mine - a Silkweaver), and I'm changing a few little things, like the color of her hair and such. I also changed her hands somewhat, because they looked a little clawlike to me. And I added lavender blending filament to the crescent moon to make it sparkly. You can never have enough sparkle!
Here's the original design for those not familiar with it:

Fairy Flora

2009-09-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm putting Fairy Flora away for now. I feel like I've made some good progress on her...but of course, the bottom portion of her is the most stitch-intensive, so I still have a ways to go.
I started her before I began keeping track of my stitching hours, so I have only an estimate of how much time I've put into her. I *think* this is about 70 hours' worth:

I have never been crazy about the fabric that Mirabilia calls for in this chart, but when I started her (LONG time ago) I was still pretty new to stitching on anything other than Aida and didn't feel confident enough to go with a different choice. I really regret that now, because I've seen her done on pale green fabric and I think she looks best that way. Still, she's turning out nicely, don't you think? (Especially since you probably can't see all the mistakes in the small image, heh heh).

what to do, what to do...

2009-09-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

So I've been plugging away happily on Fairy Flora, but I don 't think I'm going to push through to a finish this time, as I still have quite a ways to go. I'm starting to get that vague, itchy 'time to stitch on something else' feeling, and I can't decide what should be next. Probably, I'll do a couple of ornaments (I really need to quit putting them off til December every year, since I always give three or four ornaments as gifts), and then switch to a bigger project...but I don't know whether to go back to Gypsy, pull out Land of Enchantment again, or start back on A Mother's Arms.
Really, what I want to do is start Mirabilia's The Stargazer as a color conversion on one of my own fabrics, but that would be bad. I have too many WIPs as it is. Bad Rose, bad. No new starts for you.
But that's what I REALLY wanna do....

Made some jewelry...

2009-09-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

The 'fertility jewelry' section of my jewelry site was getting awfully sparse, so I made a few more pieces. The only problem is that I'm running out of names for the different pieces; since each one is unique, I want them to each have a unique name, but it's getting difficult to come up with good ones!

Anyway, here are a bracelet and necklace:

I always forget how much I enjoy making jewelry til I sit down and start making it. My next non-stitching project was going to be needle-felting, since I want to start getting some miniatures made in time for the holiday season, but I think I may make a few more pieces first. I have some gorgeous Hill Tribe silver beads that are screaming at me...

Color Conversion Blues...

2009-09-08T14:09:00.001-07:00

After putting Marked One away, I decided to work on a Mirabilia for a while, so I pulled out Scent of Old Roses. I've always loved this chart, but I hated the brown in her dress and for that reason put off stitching it for a long time. But then I decided to do a color conversion a year or so ago, and happily started her, only to find myself not pleased with the result (you can see a pic of her over on the right side).

I thought that tucking her away for a while might change my mind, but I'm still not happy with the colors...so far I've just made a few changes, but it doesn't look right to me. I think the deep red in her bodice is the problem. Even though 814 is my second favorite DMC shade (500 is my first), I think it clashes with the blue. So, after working on her for a whopping one hour, I realized I was going to have to frog all the red I'd stitched, and since I'm feeling particularly lazy and self-indulgent, I tossed her back in the WIP box and pulled out Fairy Flora instead. I think my brain's just not up to dealing with a color conversion right now. Plus, when I looked at my stitching notebook (I keep track of all my stitching hours), I realized with horror that Fairy Flora has been a WIP for !!! SIX !!! years. Gah. Maybe I'll finish her this year...

Marked One

2009-09-06T17:31:00.001-07:00

I did another page on Marked One, yay! Only thirty-one more to go. ; ) She's fun to stitch, but working over 1 on 32-count gets a little tiring at times. I'm tent-stitching her (2x1), so that does make it go faster...it generally takes me 18-20 hours to do a page, which is a nice block of time for my on-again off-again rotation. Anyway, here she is:

Ornaments

2009-09-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

I'm so proud of myself - last month I went ahead and stitched the 5th TW 'Days of Christmas' ornament (I give one each year to my brother and his wife). I haven't done the finishing yet, but at least the stitching is done. This year's was easy...I was getting really tired of birds!!

The ornaments are pretty, but it's turned into something of a chore getting each one done in time for the holidays. Hopefully I've started a new habit, and next year won't go back to 'OMG it's two weeks til Christmas and I haven't stitched the $@^&! ornament yet!!!', which is my usual modus operandi.

Here's the unfinished ornament. I finish all of them as standups, because I think they're really too big to hang on a tree. My brother keeps them in his china cabinet all year round, which is great for my ego. ; )

It's up!

2009-09-01T13:00:00.001-07:00

My website has officially launched:

Faery Fire Fabrics

Now I just have to figure out the best way to promote it... I thought about doing Blogads, but they have only two (!!) crafty blogs in their list, and they're for those yarny people. Well, okay, I crochet (never could get the hang of knitting, and to be perfectly honest I have a slight resistance to learning now because it's turned into such a trendy thing). Anyway, I don't know that a blog devoted to knitting/crocheting would really reach all that many stitchers, so I'm off to put my thinking cap on...

Fairy Moon

2009-08-31T16:11:00.001-07:00

This is my favorite fabric out of the new batch...I think it'd be an awesome fabric for Mirabilia's Fairy Moon. But I really wasn't planning to start that one anytime soon (though it's in my stash, since, hey, you can never have too many cross stitch charts!), so I can't really justify keeping it.

Playing with fabric dye again...

2009-08-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

It's really hard to think of this as anything but playing; I LOVE seeing how the different fabrics turn out. This is going to be a big batch - I am finally ready to 'launch' my hand-dyed fabric website, so stay tuned for an announcement about it! : ) I'll also post some pics of some of the new pieces tomorrow. There's one that I am soooo tempted to keep for myself; it (all modesty aside) is GORGEOUS!

Gypsy

2009-08-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

I'm over halfway done with Gypsy now, woo hoo! She's going back in her box for a while so I can work on other projects, but I'm pleased with my progress. There's no way I'll meet my unrealistic goal of finishing her this year, but at least she now has more than a head. (See the gallery on the right for the 'before' pic).

2009-06-12T15:33:00.001-07:00

I can't believe that I've gone nearly two months without posting! Well, I'll blame it on all the busyness of moving in, plus being sick for several weeks (still not up to par, but at least I'm functioning again).

I have FINALLY gotten back to stitching. It seemed that one thing or another kept interfering or taking precedence, plus I didn't really have a stitching corner set up (still don't alas), and finally a couple of weeks ago I'd had enough, so I hauled out Gypsy and put in a few stitches. I haven't gotten much done since then, but most days I try to get at least 30 minutes in. Since one of my 2009 goals is to finish her, I'd better get cracking! The most recent pic is over on the right side of my blog. I think I'll work on her for another few weeks and then pull out Marked One again.

Speaking of HAED charts, a lovely stitcher in Italy is going to be stitching a Hannah Disney fairy on one of my hand-dyed fabrics! I told her that she absolutely MUST send me pictures; I'm really excited.

settling in...

2009-04-19T09:23:00.001-07:00

Moving is probably lots more fun when you can afford to pay someone to haul all your endless boxes of craft junk over to the new place, and unpack them in an organized manner. But what keeps me from being frustrated with how long this whole 'settling in' business is taking is the fact that A) I love our new house, B) We no longer have to deal with a landlord and C) I finally have my own office!
Now if I could just get it organized...

Here's a pic of the office before we started to move in:

and here it is with all my endless clutter (check out my awesome closet):

I have actually unpacked all but two or three of my 'office' boxes now (well, except for the ones I stuck out in the garage, heh), but it still looks so wretched that I'll hold off on posting an 'after' picture til I get things looking a little more reasonable.

skunk tutorial is up!

2009-04-13T13:13:00.000-07:00

I finally finished it. Now to get back to unpacking...(I can't believe I have so much stuff. Neither can my husband...I was so good at hiding my stash that he was quite shocked to see just how many boxes were labeled 'craft stuff'.)

moving...

2009-04-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

So moving is taking longer than I expected (doesn't everything?). I'll get the skunk tutorial up ASAP...by the way, Norman (the subject of the tutorial) sold last week, yay!

needle felted skunk tutorial

2009-03-28T09:18:00.001-07:00

This is my 'learn-as-I-go' tutorial...I took photos as my skunk progressed, in the hope that my learning experience would benefit others! (Note - sorry for the delay in getting this finished...moving turned out to be horribly time-consuming! Booo to things that get in the way of crafting...)

Here are the materials I used to create my skunk:

~Clover multi-needle felting tool
~Clover pen-style needle felting tool (I have one of these available in my eBay store)
~size 38 star-shaped felting needle
~foam felting mat (I bought mine from Joann's)
~black wool roving from Lavender Rabbit
~white merino wool roving from Little Barn Fibers
~a smidgen of pink wool (plain roving from Nordic Needle, hand-dyed by me)
~two black glass Mill Hill beads
~needle and black thread for attaching the eyes

Here are my tools and my wool roving laid out on my felting mat. You can see there are only two needles in my pen tool; that's because one broke when I stupidly angled the needle incorrectly (never try to change the angle of your needle when it's in the wool, or it'll snap!). But I usually use only two needles anyway, so it hasn't been a problem for me:

Step One: the body (click on photo for larger view)

Step Two: finishing up the body (click on photo for larger view)

Step Three: the legs (click on photo for larger view)

Step Four: Attaching the legs (click on photo for larger view)

Step Five: the little skunk head! (click on photo for larger view)

Step Six: the tail... (click on photo for larger view)

Step Seven: the tail, continued... (click on photo for larger view)

Step Eight: fixing the tail (click on photo for larger view)

Step Nine: the ears and face... (click on photo for larger view)

Step Ten: the final details... (click on photo for larger view)

And here's Norman, enjoying a bit of sunlight:

I hope you found this tutorial helpful! If you have any feedback, or requests for future tutorials, I'd love to hear from you!

moving really interferes with the important things in life...

2009-03-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

...such as stitching, and needle-felting, and other such worthy endeavors. We finally closed, and the house is now officially ours, but the title company waited until the end of the day yesterday to record, so the sellers don't yet have their money which means we don't actually get the keys until Monday. And this means that we're surrounded by boxes, and trying to figure out how we're going to move everything in only two days!

The good news is that now I have time to get my skunk tutorial up; I'm working on it now and hope to have it posted by the end of the day. Here's a picture of Norman the skunk - I just love him!

my new bunny - and more stitching blues

2009-03-24T07:38:00.001-07:00

This is Thomas - he has an Easter egg!

He's now up in my Etsy shop.
For someone who claims to not like cutesy things, I sure seem to be having fun making cute little bunnies and such. ; ) I'm working on a skunk right now, and am taking photos as I go to make a learning tutorial (that's a tutorial where I learn right along with you - I'm going to include photos of the mistakes I made along the way). I just need to finish his tail and face and then he'll be ready to go.

On another note...I was stitching away on Chickadee in the Pines, and I realized I'd forgotten to order two of the thread types I need. This really sucks because we have only a couple more days in this house, which is not enough time to pull out one of my BAPs, and I was really hoping to finish Chickadee before moving. Now I'm not sure what I'll work on in all the extra time I'm going to have the next couple of days, ha ha. Oh, I know! I'll get my hummingbird out...it's a Crossed Wing kit on silk gauze and is tiny tiny tiny. I haven't worked on it in a couple of years...glad I thought of it! I'll try to get some done today and post a pic.

jewelry

2009-03-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

Made some purty earrings yesterday...I'm really pleased with how all of these turned out! Of course it helped that I had some new awesome beads to work with...

amazonite & sterling silver:

black coral and sterling silver:

Bali silver and Swarovski crystal (these are my favorites...I luuuurve nubbly beads):

stitching blues

2009-03-19T21:03:00.001-07:00

I miss stitching. I've been so busy dyeing fabric and making needle-felted gnomes and such that I've had almost no time to stitch. My progress on the Brazilian embroidery piece is laughable, and I haven't stitched on a HAED in weeks! We're in the middle of moving, so it seemed simplest to go ahead and pack up my HAED lovelies, but I'm starting to have withdrawal pangs.

I think that tomorrow, no matter how busy I am, I'm going to put everything aside for an hour and work on Chickadee in the Pines. Here is my (minimal!) progress so far:

2009-03-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

Felipe sold this morning! I have GOT to get busy making more needle-felted animals.

Alas, I think I may be the only person who really likes my gnomes, as none of them have sold. : ( But I keep hoping...

happy happy

2009-03-18T10:42:00.001-07:00

I've sold two needle-felted miniatures! I'm pretty happy about this since I'm still so new to needle-felting; now I don't have to look at the pile of wool roving on the dining table and gulp uneasily, wondering if I've just plunked down a bunch of money on yet another hobby that will suck my bank account dry. I sold my little polar bear on Sunday, and my little orange cat Seymour today. I'm donating 20% of the sale of Seymour to FixNation, a really awesome group that does TNR work for feral cats. I'm definitely going to make more kitties like this!

I'm also happy because I made another bunny yesterday and I think he turned out really well. My first two bunnies were pretty funny-looking, so I'm relieved to know I can make a decent bunny rabbit. Here he is...his name is Felipe:

He's currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

dyeing wool

2009-03-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

While I'm sitting here thinking up ways to put off finishing my hemp chokers...when I was dyeing fabric last week, I decided to dye some wool roving just to see how it turned out. I was really happy with the result! The colors came out MUCH lighter than I'd expected, but I think they look like cotton candy.

Of course, I can't wash them in hot water and detergent, which you're supposed to do to set the color, because they'd get felted, so I probably need to look into other dyes to use with roving if I want to dye wool for things that'll have to be washed eventually. But for needle-felted miniatures, it should work fine.

Oh, and here's a pic I took of my latest fabric batch, all neatly bagged and labeled now (and I've sold one piece already, yay!):

hemp

2009-03-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

I forget how much I dislike making hemp jewelry until I sit down and start working on a piece. It was fun at first, but mostly now I just find it tedious. Because I get fairly steady orders for my hemp bracelets (and my best wholesale client orders bracelets and necklaces every couple of months), it'd be dumb for me to stop doing it. But I sure wish I enjoyed it more...I have to make two peace chokers this morning and I'd rather be needle-felting a bunny!

brazilian embroidery

2009-03-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

So Fairy Flora has been put back in her little storage bin for the time being...I didn't make as much progress on her as I'd hoped, but I did get some done; mostly I'm just glad she's not a UFO any more!

Now I'm working on a Brazilian embroidery pattern hubby got me for Christmas - Chickadee in the Pines from A Candle in the Cellar. I'll post progress pics once I get more than a couple of stitches in. I'm doing it on a piece of trigger cloth I dyed in shades of blue. Here's what it'll look like (hopefully) when I'm done (except of course mine will be on blue fabric):

fabric overload

2009-03-10T20:33:00.001-07:00

Since I don't currently own a serger, I found someone on Craigslist to serge the cross stitch fabric I was planning to dye. She came by Saturday and serged the 20+ pieces, and today I started dyeing them! I also dyed a couple of little purses and pouches that I got from Dharma Trading. I actually wasn't able to get everything dyed today...I forgot how loooong it can take. So I still have five more pieces to dye tomorrow, plus some muslin I want to dye to use in making gift bags or something like that.

Here's a pic of a few of the pieces after dyeing and rinsing, before I tossed them in the washing machine:

The greens didn't come out the way I'd wanted them to...I think it's because I used my new Caribbean Blue dye, which made the green a little too vivid. Some of the pieces turned out waaaay too bright for my taste; there are only one or two pieces in this batch that I'm tempted to keep for myself. I'm really happy with the new purple dye, though. Lookee lookee!

Dyeing's the fun part...what I hate is taking pictures/scanning everything and getting it posted on ebay and/or etsy. But since that's sort of the whole point, I'd better get cracking...

Meet Ted

2009-03-06T22:43:00.000-08:00

We're in the midst of moving, so there's even more crap lying around than usual. Today I cleaned out my cross stitch cupboard, a pretty little storage thing my husband bought me a few years back, telling me with innocent optimism that I could use it to store my cross stitch supplies (it holds about 1/14th of them). Among the things that were left lying out on the table was my telescoping magnet that I use to pick up needles I've dropped on the floor. Hubby grabbed it and claimed it was HIS telescoping magnet that he uses to grab bolts and nails and other man-things. I explained that no, it was mine, and when he asked me what I needed it for I explained that I used it to get needles - "I just wave my magic wand," I said, "and it calls them to it."

Hubby then gave me a look of utter bewilderment. "WHAT did you say?" he asked. I repeated myself, and the bewilderment was replaced by relief. "Oh, okay," he said. "I thought you said that you waved the magnet at the needles and it called them Ted."

stitching

2009-03-06T07:35:00.001-08:00

I'm supposed to be working on the fifth ornament in Teresa Wentzler's 12 Days of Christmas series; when I started Land of Enchantment at the beginning of January, the deal I made with myself was that I would stitch 2 pages and then get at least a little bit done on Day 5. I'm stitching the ornaments for my brother and his wife, and I always put it off until the last minute and end up having to mail it a few days after Christmas. Well, when I finished page 2 of Land of Enchantment, I started rummaging through my WIPs and pulled out Chatelaine's Convent Herbal Garden, which I hadn't worked on in well over a year (actually, I'm afraid it's been more like 2+ years). So I worked on that for a bit, but wasn't having much fun, and told myself that now I'd start the ornament. But when I put the Chatelaine away, I spotted Fairy Flora, which I literally have not touched in at least 3 years. I stopped working on it because there were so many errors, and I didn't have the motivation to do extensive frogging. But after looking over it, I decided that the errors weren't really that noticeable (I asked my daughter to find them, and she couldn't), so I started stitching on her again.

Really, I should have done about half of the ornament and have moved on to Gypsy by now, but so much for good intentions. I'm going to work on Fairy Flora for a bit and then pull out Gypsy, because I want to finish her this year and have yet to put in a single stitch. Maybe I'll get to the ornament by September...

Gnomes, cont.

2009-03-04T05:18:00.001-08:00

Here are the three gnomes I've made thus far: Gnoogle the Gnewbie gnome, Gnexxus the Gnecromancer Gnome and Gnilligan the Gnapping gnome. Yes, I know, I'm a gnerd...

Gnomes

2009-03-03T08:19:00.000-08:00

I am rapidly becoming addicted to needle felting; it is SO much fun. I love working with wool because it's so forgiving; if I make a mistake (which I do on a regular basis), it doesn't ruin the whole piece because it's easily fixed with a little extra wool or some targeted jabs with my needle.
I wasn't sure at first if I would like felting with a needle; it seemed that it might be similar to punch needle embroidery, which I tried a couple of years ago and didn't enjoy at all. I did finish one small piece, more out of stubbornness than anything else, but I doubt I'll ever do any more punch needle unless it's just to embellish a quilt or something. Needle felting, though, is completely different. It's really amazing to watch the fibers come together, and to be able to sculpt them into different shapes.

My first gnome was more or less an accident; I was trying to make a bunny, but the body shape just looked all wrong, and when I made the head, the little tuft that I was using to hold it ended up being bigger than I'd meant for it to be, and it suddenly occurred to me that it looked very much like a gnome hat. So I stuck a big nose on the face, added red wool to the pointed hat, gave him arms and a blue jacket and brown shoes, and added a big gray beard, and voila! Gnoogle was here!

I'm now finishing up my third gnome, and hope to start my fourth tonight if I can get enough other stuff done today (I have fabric that needs to be dyed soon!). I feel as if I have a dozen or so gnomes running around inside my head screaming at me, and they won't be quiet until I felt them into being...

First post

2009-03-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

After several years of starting and stopping more blogs than I care to count, I've finally decided that what I need to do is separate my blogs; one for personal rants and musings, and one for my crafty side. This one is for my crafty side. Stay tuned. : )