Intention flags

Kick-ass Artist’s Date

Took myself out today to a place where there are a variety of craft projects and supplies, and you just walk in and decide to make something. There was a yarn room, ceramics, a pottery wheel, leatherworking, etc.

I picked out a bisque vase, painted it with acrylics, remembered what a fanatical perfectionist I am, tried to just roll with it, and had a great, solitary time. After I was done they sprayed it for me to give it that shiny seal. Then, I got to make pretty papers.

Here’s what I made

Here’s how I made the paper

I picked color combinations of scrap papers, added them to a blender with water, and liquified it. Then I poured that into a mold submerged in a pan of water, let it settle, then picked to mold up and the water drained out. Then I took the screened bottom out of the mold and put it on a tray, then used sponges to collect some of the water from the pulp. After that I transferred the screen and pulp to another area where I used paper to blot up even more excess water. (Ok, as an aside, that blotter paper was called a couch, written pronunciation of ‘kuch’ but when the lady was giving me the instructions out loud it sounds like ‘cooch’ and this kept cracking me up. Especially when talking about moving my ‘cooch’ over to the ironing board. Lol) Anyhoo, after most of the excess water was removed, I ironed the paper on both sides to further dry it. And that’s it! 🙂

Here’s a few shots from the paper-making process

It was awesome! I made 5 sheets of paper. I’m thinking that a couple of the sheets will be used for the covers of a little poetry book I’m working on.

Later, I treated myself to some good Mexican food (avocado enchilada, omm nom nomm!) and then got some new books from the library.

Happies in my mailbox

Several days ago, while recovering from a seriously uncool stomach virus, finding a little package in my mailbox just made my day. It was from my Secret Santa in the Arkansas Women Bloggers Handmade Ornament Exchange.

My crafty friend turned out to be ‘Kelly Jo’ at Delta Moxie from waaaayyyyyy on the other end of the state (seriously, we’re about as far away as we could be). Here’s what she sent me.

A pretty little bundle with a sweet note tied up inside…

… that contained these 2 cute ornaments. Here’s the front…

… and here’s the back of the ornaments.

I love them, and I thought it was especially neat that she personalized one with my blog name. So, thanks a bunch, Kelly Jo, for these pretties!

I sent ornaments to Simple Words By A. You can read what she thought about them here.

Y’all can go check out all the other cool handmade ornaments that have crossed the state in the last week by going here and checking out all the link-ups.

Craft-tacular: Quiet Book Part 2

The other night I finished up my second page for Neffie’s quiet book. I used a template from Serving Pink Lemonade to cut out the boy and clothes. I stitched on basic facial features, added the underwear, and then stitched him to the felt page. The purple pocket at the bottom is for storing his outfits.

Felt Quiet Book

The felt ornaments I was making got me started thinking about making a little book for my Neffie. Apparently these sorts of things are called Quiet Books, and there are about a gajillion on the interwebs already.

I have several page ideas already, but I made my first actual page tonight — an animal abacus.

No one call the Sewing Police, I know the stitching is all cray-cray on the sides, but I was going more for reinforcement than looks. Neffie’s 2, he don’t care. 🙂

I sewed the ribbons threaded with animal beads onto a sheet of felt. In the interest of safety (so Neffie doesn’t get the beads off and eat them), I used some glue and some scrap pieces of felt on the back to cover over the sewing to hopefully give it more strength. Then I used strips of felt on the front to cover over where the ribbons are sewed on.

When I make another page I will sew the pages together so all the stitching and stuff on the back is covered. So stay tuned for more pages.

Bringing crafty back

It’s been awhile since I’ve made anything, so Saturday I cleared out a little space on my craft table (cluttered with partially finished projects, sigh) and made a few ornaments.

Coming soon to a Christmas care package near you:

Sifting through a box of felt I found printouts of clip-art in various shapes I’d printed off the Web last year, so I selected stars and cut out two sizes of paper templates. I just used felt, embroidery floss, bits of ribbon, beads and buttons. I had fun varying the colors of thread and trying out different details based on what I had on hand from those previously mentioned unfinished/unstarted projects.

There are a ton of felt ornament tutorials on the Interwebs, and I don’t claim to have invented this idea. 🙂 Check out Pinterest for more inspiration.

 

BLOGtober Fest – Decorating

Aside from Christmas, I’ve never been much of a decorator. Then a few years ago I went a little crazy at a Hob.by Lob.by sale and next thing you know I had started collecting or making fall items. Being a keep-it-simple decorator (and by that I kind-of mean lazy), instead of choosing witches and pilgrims and whatnot, I decided to go with a harvest theme that I can keep throughout autumn.

Gourds and a candle hang out with my owl salt and pepper shakers on my dining table

Plump pumpkins and a variety of mums for outside

A grapevine wreath I decorated with picks and flowers

Pumpkins, sunflowers and candles for the mantel, with a candle warmer (currently with banana bread scent, yummmmmm). The wooden M was made for me many years ago by my grandfather and gets incorporated year-round.

This post is part of the BLOGtober Fest challenge over at AWB. Read Day 1 posts by other bloggers here.

Artist date

Saturday I took myself out on an artist date (a la The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron) to the grounds of the local art museum and later a park pond and fountain. An artist date is basically a trip you take by yourself to inspire creativity. It is important to do it by yourself so that you don’t feel pressured to behave a certain way or to hurry up. I took a little shoulder bag with a small notebook, colored pencils, a pen, a pencil sharpener, my wallet and phone. You never know what you might want to do with your time.

I meandered on some trails, followed butterflies around, looked at flowers and plants, took some pictures with my phone’s camera, sketched a little, wrote down a few things that came to me, sat on large rocks, got my feet wet, saw a family of deer, stopped to listen to flowing water, and practiced a little yoga near running water. It was kind of awesome to stand in Tree pose on large rocks at a little pond in the middle of the city but feel like the city was nowhere around.

A tiny snippet of my day:

 

Recent craftiness

Paper sack book

I based this off of this post from Our Daily Craft, though I didn’t really follow those instructions. I used wine sacks (yay for reusing!) instead of lunch bags, and I sewed my binding rather than hole-punching. I like the look of the sewn binding, but if you try it, keep in mind that it is really hard to punch through a stack of sacks. I used a huge quilting needle and after starting the needle I had to use the table for leverage to press the needle all the way through.

I’m using this book for collecting little things that make me happy or inspire me. So far inside I’ve included images I like, notes from people, and a little bit of very imperfect freehand embroidery I did that says “Hope is the thing with feathers…” I like the pockets the folded sacks create because I feel like I have a lot of room to expand and stash things.

Mice cat toys

I made 4 of these (the first one I made is missing from this picture because a cat has already played with it and stashed it somewhere) just for funsies out of scrap fabric. I just cut out a template from chipboard, traced it onto the back of the fabric pieces, cut them out, put right sides facing together, sewed it nearly all the way around, turned it right side out, stuffed it with polyfill, tucked the tail in there and sewed it the rest of the way shut. I liked that I was using up scraps and that because they are cat toys I didn’t feel like they had to turn out perfectly since they’re just going to get clawed and bitten and loved to death anyway.

The kitties really enjoyed them; Good Kitty brought hers over to play fetch, then took it to her bed later. Awww. I know, I’m edging closer to Crazy Cat Lady status, LOL.

The bitter in the sweet

It’s birthday time. Not mine, but the children I love most. My goddaughter, nephew and cousin all have birthdays within a 4-week period. There is also a baby due soon on Honey Bear’s side of the family, and the girl I previously wrote about announcing her pregnancy and baby name (my name) on FB just delivered her daughter. So, what does this all mean? Well, nothing generally speaking. To me it just marks the passing of more time. All the children who were conceived and born while I have been TTC are another year older. It means shopping for presents in sections of stores I try not to go into otherwise, and in the process seeing adorable little items I still have no need of purchasing. It’s fun to pick out princess or superhero stuff, things that I hope will bring smiles to the faces of my little people, and at the same time it sucks. It is parties and cake and celebrations of growing. It also is another year gone. It is what it is – sweet and bitter, bitter and sweet.

*****

In Crafty Crazy Cat Lady news, I made a pillow for my cats’ basket. It is mostly for Good Kitty, as she sleeps in the basket the most, but Naughty Kitty has been known to squish his giant self in there too on occasion.

I know, it really is crazy-cat-lady-esque to be sewing shit for your cats. But what else am I supposed to do with such adorable fabric! But if I start making blankets or anything for them, y’all please intervene. … Maybe at that point the universe would take pity on me and give me a kid that I would then have no time to sew for… I’d be cool with that.