Busy Busy

You may be wondering what happened to me last week, it seems as if I almost disappeared, but I assure you, I am still here.  Last week was super exiting for me, my instant cemetery was featured in the Storque (etsy’s blog) and as the main picture of the article!

There was a wonderful flood of sales and convos and it has been very exciting.  I have been busy cutting out tombstones and deco-podging cans and going to the post office.

I am almost caught up, I’m just waiting for more supplies, they’ll be here tomorrow along with some new fun stuff to try.

I have fabric prewashing now and I am hoping to craft up some household stuff this week and I am also expecting a new crafting book to review and oodles of other things, so I’ll see you later this week!

I Was So Cool

It was the early 90’s and I was so cool, look at my senior pictures and see.With my jeans that had chaps sewn on and my leather biker jacket and my spiral perm.  I still have that jacket, it’s to small, but I have it.  I think I have that flannel shirt too, I wore it until the back split from being washed to many times.  Did I ever mention that I have a problem throwing things out?I also still have the black and orange sweater pictured on the top right and most of the jewelry I’m wearing in these photos.

I have been doing a little cleaning and I am finding some wonderful and weird mementos.  I have love notes, journals, letters, and a lot of strange bits and bobs.  I have a list with all the code names my friends and I had for everyone, so no one would know who we were talking about, ex-boyfriend jewelry, weird ephemera hand made to illustrate personal jokes and my green velvet prom dress.  I can’t throw it out, but what should I do with it, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

The Letter of the Day is K

You may remember a while back when I made decoupaged storage jars like Alexa from The Swell Life.  The first time I followed her instructions using random letters and numbers I cut from various magazines.  When I finished I wondered how it would look if I only used one color.  For my second try I used only red numbers and letters.  After finishing the red jar I wondered how using just one letter would look, can you see where I’m going with this?

I have to confess that I cheated and printed out all my letters.  K is a difficult letter to find and I wanted to use some of the fancy fonts I got from dafont.com (Thanks Lisa).  I picked a large variety of fonts and sizes.  I cut everything out and sorted them out by size. I start by applying the large letters and filling in with the smaller ones.  Once I used up most of these I cut out my smaller letters, some of them were tiny.  I used them to fill in any tiny gaps or to break up space. I really like how it turned out.  This is definitely a great project with many options and uses, I’m sure I’ll be making more of these…oooooh how about a theme like Halloween or roses or eyes, just when I thought I was done exploring the options of this project I get another idea!

Day of the Dead Figurines

I know the Day of the Dead is a different holiday than Halloween, but since we are big skeleton fans the decorations overlap for us. I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I found it over at the Anticraft, they have a lot of great alternative craft projects, make sure to check out their archives! I have been wanting to try this project for a while, so I have collected several different figurines. This one is from the dollar tree, for a dollar I figured it would be a good one to start with. The good news it that if I mess up I can just repaint them black. I have three others waiting to be painted, but I need to wait until my little “helpers” are in bed before I start working on these, the wings are going to be “boney” too!

I also hit the jackpot today at Hancock Fabrics, their Project Runway fabric was on clearance, over half off the original price!!! I stocked up, they won’t be getting more and this fabric is perfect for the craft room.I’m planning window shades, a new ironing board cover, sewing machine cozy, crate covers, and who knows what else, yeah I got a lot of fabric.

Unusual

I did some more thrift shopping this weekend, Goodwill had their $.99 clothing sale and I just couldn’t resist.  I always check the kids clothes, although since the new CSPCA laws passed there is never anything good.  I noticed this top right away, it was very colorful and odd.  When I looked at it closer I couldn’t believe the pattern.

(Yeah, I already ripped it apart.)  Look closely, there are Russian nesting dolls, Russian buildings, cabbage roses and woven rug patterns.  The fabric is almost like a photo and to top it all off it is velour!!!

Sadly the tags had been cut out, so I have no idea what brand or even what size this top was.  The good news is I have enough for three zippered pouches. 

So what do you guys think, is this a treasure or am I a bit weird?  Does anyone recognize this fabric, where is it from?

The Crafty Chica Bag Challenge Results

The results are in, I am one of the runners up! (read the full article from Craft here).  What did I win you ask?  A Crafty Chica bobblehead and a gift card to MakerShed!

Image from Amy Cluck of Peptogirl Industries photo stream on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/peptogirl/3579765791/

It was really exciting to be a part of the contest, of course I wish I would have won, but I was recognized for my efforts, so yay!!!  The winner was my favorite (besides my own bag).  I love the dimension of the ruffle and the ball fringe!

Image from dntblvedahype 's photo stream on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wisdm1979/3750938269/

Congratulations to all the other winners and thanks to all my friends for all your support.

Thrifting at the Goodwill

Yesterday I stopped at the Goodwill that near my house, I hadn’t been there before, it’s a smaller store, but it really nice and everything is sorted/arranged very well.  It must have been my lucky day, I found all sorts of treasures!

The one is my favorite, this beautiful cut paper (???) picture, I snatched it up the moment I saw it.

It is really hard to photograph, the glass gives crazy reflections!  Here’s a better detail shot.I got all other sorts of stuff, clothes to recon, a purse, some shoes, and some extra special stuff for the 13 Days of Halloween Swap.  There was also some great chairs from the 70’s that were in great shape(I bet they spent their lives covered in plastic), I may have to go back for those.

Here’s a preview of what I’ll be working on next week.  All this stuff is getting repainted.I also have a big weekend ahead of me, it’s time for Little Miss to get here own room and I need to paint everything, including the ceiling.  The kids are spending the night at my Parents house, so hopefully I will accomplish a lot, see you next week! 

Always Exciting

I still get super excited to be on the front page of etsy, its only happened a few times and last night after or LNKHandmade crafty meeting I came home to a huge jump in views and hearts.  I dashed over to craftcult and find this:

The front page and the Halloween gift guide!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am so excited, front page exposure is better than almost any advertising that you can buy and it’s free!  I’m off to cut out some more cemeteries and maybe list a few new Halloween items.

I’m Going to Call Him Steve

No reason, he just looks like a Steve. The details I added were some black stitching and some color.  The pattern recommended felting, I currently do not have any felting equipment and I didn’t want to buy any, so I used sharpie markers to color in the details.He also has wood bead eyes and bone teeth.   I think he turned out pretty gruesome.  The really great thing is that you can use him as a purse or stuff him a bit and you have a great decoration!

I Will Shrink Your Head

I’ve done it before and here is the proof:I’ve been  working on this shrunken head bag for a couple of days.  I have fulled him a little and now I need to decide if I want to full him some more before I add the voodoo.  I will be adding some decorations to his hair and some stitching to his eyes and mouth and some jewelry.  I think once I finish everything up he should be pretty creepy.  Here’s what he looked like before, more homely than scary.I found the pattern on ravelry, you’ll have to become a member if you want to download it, don’t worry it’s free and there are a lot of really great patterns to see!

I’m also still looking for spooky Halloween patterns, so please leave me a comment if you know where to find a good one!

Etsy Halloween Gift Guide

It’s what we’ve all been waiting for, well at least I have, the Halloween gift guide! There is a lot of really great stuff this year, so go check it out.  I am also excited to report that my Instant Cemetery is featured in the guide this year, Yay!!!

What I Do with My Free Time

As most of you know I love Halloween and the season has officially started, there are decorations and crafts in the store.  Every year I see some really great stuff, but it’s the same stuff everyone has.  This year I wanted to get something different, something crafty.

Last year craftster started a 13 days of Halloween swap (similar to the 12 days of Christmas), but because we were moving there was no way I could join.  This year I’m in, I missed the swap deadline altogether, but was able to pick up an angel spot and I am super excited!!!  You can read all the swap-y details here.

I have warned my partner that I will be posting projects to this blog, so if she wants to be surprised no peeking.  I have my days planned out and I am working on two projects (more on those later this week).  I am hoping to make duplicates of some of my projects, so I can keep one for myself, but we will see how that goes.

I also have been busy with new house stuff.  Our neighbors are going to tear down this adorable shed.They have said we could have it if we can move it.  I think we are going to have to rent some heavy duty equipment to pull this off, but I really like this shed, doesn’t it look like a chicken coup!  A coat of paint and a tin roof would make it super cute and maybe some window flower boxes.

I have been anxiously awaiting the announcement of the Crafty Chica Bag Contest winner.  I feel like I’m stalking Kathy on twitter hoping that any day they’ll say who won.  She tweeted yesterday that they were going to decide, but they haven’t announced anything yet!

And my son is going to start kindergarten this year, so we have been getting physicals and shots, it’s been fun!

If you have any Halloween suggestions or links please let me know and if you know the best way to move a shed I’d love to hear from you.