Call Me Dr. Frankendoll

I decided to make Little Miss a doll after seeing this pattern, dress and shoe pattern included. Plus it was a big girl doll, not a baby, she has tons of those. BTW, this is a Christmas present, yes, I’m actually planning ahead. I have been crocheting while I feed the baby so it only took me a few days. The hair took one whole day by itself, but it is nice and thick, so worth it.I stuffed her tight (perhaps too tight) and used plastic pellets to weight her body. I should also point out that I crocheted her in the round, unlike the pattern, I didn’t think the stripes jogging would bother me (it does bother me a tiny bit).Here she is all sewn together. Her feet/legs are definitely overstuffed, but that’s okay. She needs a hair cut and style and her face needs to be embroidered. I have her dress partially finished and I’ll need to do the shoes.

I’m thinking I might make another one and make a few changes. I didn’t make her thumbs from the pattern and so I think that her hands are a bit long and I think that I might like to follow the pattern and crochet her flat and stitch her up and maybe easy up on the stuffing a little bit.

I’m going to sleep on it and see what I think tomorrow. I could save the head and make her a new body, hmmm, anyone want to give me your opinion?

Quick Check In

I am training for a new job today and tomorrow, but I wanted to do a quick check in. I mentioned that my art journaling needed layers and that was exactly what I started last night, layer one. I was playing around with a new to me stamp (thanks ChristyNelson.net) and it progressed from there. I was thinking about it as I went to sleep and it came to me, it needed a 3, so here it is: I like where this is going and I can’t wait to add another layer tonight!

Art Journaling

I greatly admire art journaling and I repeatedly fail in my attempts.  I have the journal part down and the art part down, but when I try to put them together I fail.  I think it’s a layering issue.  I also think that I make them too sketchbooky (new word), more of just an idea and how to execute it instead of thoughts and feeling too. 

See, sketchbooky.  The left one is my sketchbook, the middle is the beginning of a collage style book for Halloween stuff, and the one on the bottom is some more just straight up sketchbook stuff, I definitely need layers!

I have a nice collection of books on the subject and I just bought another one last night, it was to visually inspiring to leave at the store.There are a lot of repetitive techniques in all of these books (packing tape transfers, watercolor washes, printing bubble wrap), but this one did have some good new ideas (a calendar and great prompt suggestions) and I really enjoy the artistic style of the journal pages in this book.  Maybe I should just work through it page by page making samples of all the techniques and see if that gives me the look I want.

I also really admire the ability of some artists to share their journal pages, it makes me wonder if they share it all or just the pretty, nice, happy, positive stuff.  I write about a lot of private things and I don’t think that I want to share all that (journaling is my therapy).  I want to get all of those feelings out on paper, but I don’t think everyone needs to read it.  What do you guys think? keep it private, share it all, or share some blurring out the private?  And if you art journal, who do you find inspiring?

Have a super crafty weekend!

Stuffed Animal Storage

Before I tell you about the fabulous “pet nets” that I made I have to announce that obviously I found the drill! I spent all day trying to remember where I had used it last and finally I remembered that I had put a can crusher in the laundry room. Once I knew the area to search I quickly found it, it was behind the washing machine. I guess a rigorous spin cycle had vibrated it off the back. Crazy, right?

Okay, back to the stuffed animals. If you have kids you have stuffed animals, it’s like these things multiply overnight. I swear I don’t even know where these stuffies came from. I also threw out a large bag full when our basement flooded and we still have a ton of them. I needed storage for the most beloved of the animals and so I was super excited to find this crocheted toy net pattern.This was a great project for using up some super scratchy vintage acrylic yarn. The pattern was easy and turned out perfectly, all those dc’s (double crochets) got a bit monotonous, but it was worth it. I think that I will have to make at least one more for Little Miss, there are stuffies everywhere in her room. I’m excited to have emptied a tote full of animals and used up four skeins of crap yarn, yay success! Now I just need to figure out what to do with the super nice, giant dragon stuffies that Grandguy (that’s what the kids call my FIL) got for both of them, I’m taking suggestions :).

I now have a date with the drill, you know, for those holes I was daydreaming about drilling.

Aarg!!! Curse This Mess

In the process of cleaning up and organizing the house (the looooong process) we have misplaced the drill.  It sounds stupid when I say it, but I had plans to drill holes in at least four places this weekend.  Yes, I plan to drill holes, in fact I daydream about it when I’m feeding the baby.This is today's blog post, yeah it’s kind of unimpressive lying there in a heap, but without the drill this is what it is.  These will be a great way to store stuffed animals once the drill is found, if I haven’t found it by payday I’m buying a new one (I have been searching for it for 2 days), I am sooooo frustrated with myself and this mess!

I was going to hang a broom/mop organizer and a pot rack too.  I’m off to do some more cleaning and searching, wish me luck!

Friday Favorites

It has been a busy week here, so many projects are waiting to be finished. Some just need an uninterrupted hour and others need one more trip to the store. Little Man has not been himself this week (I think he’s teething) and has not wanted to be put down and I have a hard time crafting holding a baby, good thing he’s cute :-). I expect to have oodles of things to share next week, in the meantime enjoy some of my current favorites from etsy.

Pushing Daisies Print from strawcastle

Original Oil Painting – Blue Wizard from folkcity

Laserkitty oyster card case from tinymeat

Hedgehog Yarn Wreath from KnockKnocking

The Wing Collector, 5 X 5 print from ThisYearsGirl

Shredded t-Shirt No. 4 from UrbanRevisions

Silver Dolly Blank Sketchbook from linguine

Rabid Hamster from DogDaemona

Antique Wood Type Mix 72 Letters from TurnersCollectables

Eco Friendly PDF dollhouse Pattern from DollsandDaydreams

Soar Pendant from robinwade

Webs, hand engraved candle holders from daydreemdesigns

Rock Hounds drilled Rocks from stonestudiostoo

Silenced, black and white 8 X 10 photo from Libertyimages

5 X 7 Augustina Foxiewicz Photo from GrandOleBestiary

Have a super crafty weekend!

A Great Idea

I saw this really cute PDF for a dry erase menu board and decided that was just what I needed.  Cute and organized, perfect, but wait, I can make one myself (famous last words).

I decided to make mine using watercolors and a crayon resist.  I had been making magic pictures for Little Miss to paint earlier and thought that this would be a great way to keep the negative space white.  I penciled in my design and started filling in all the areas I wanted to stay white with my crayons.  Once that was finished I washed the entire paper with red watercolor.  Uh yeah, not exactly what I was going for.  It’s okay, but not the look I wanted.  I decided to sleep on it and see if I liked it better in the morning (I do this a lot, sometimes everything is great with fresh eyes and sometimes not). Ummmm, well it’s dry and now kind of pink and blotchy. Surprise, I still don’t like it, but while I was drifting off to sleep I had another great idea of how make look like what I wanted.  This time I carefully measured out all of my lines and rounded my corners using a giant wiggly eye (it was handy, what can I say).  I used slightly diluted acrylic paint to fill in the spaces I wanted red.  Better, I need to add another coat of paint and, of course, I need to do some lettering.  I think that I will stamp the letters.  I just need to decide what color to use, oh, and I’ll need a frame.

I think I’m on the right track now, and I do like the clean, modern lines in this one.  I’m excited to have a menu board, I like planning my meals, but have gotten out of the habit since Little Man arrived.  The thought of looking at the menu in the morning and knowing what will be for dinner is soooo much better than waiting until four and trying to dash to the grocery store with three kids.  I always come home with a bag full of junk.  Do you like to plan out a weekly or monthly menu?  Does it keep you more organized and do you save money?

Unruly Hair Wrap

I have very long, thick, coarse hair and needless to say it spends most of the summer in a bun, braid or ponytail.  Now that I have bangs they hang down and make my forehead hot too.  I usually wear a bandana, but I was starting to feel a little rednecky and not cute.  Speaking of not cute, I would like to mention that taking a flattering picture of yourself from the side is really difficult, focus on the head wrap, not my face.  I found this really cute pattern for a larger head wrap on Susan In Stitches and crocheted one up yesterday afternoon.  I left off one repeat (I was using a partial ball and ran out).  It came out perfect and really holds all the stray hair and bangs down well.  Now I need to make a variety of colors, the orange is a little bright.  I’m thinking the the Sugar and Cream cotton yarn I used may have been a bit bulky for the pattern, so I might try a finer yarn next time too.

It’s back to the craft room for me, I will be sharing a booth with some of my Lincoln Handmade Team members tomorrow at the Festival of Rock and, of course, I’ll be sewing until the last minute.  Have a super crafty weekend!

Super Girlie, Extra Frilly, Deluxe Tea Party Table

As you know I have been working on Little Miss’s room, the walls have been painted, crates have been covered and the curtains have been made, but we needed a table. A special table for having tea parties and playing with all our little toys.

I have had this table for several years, it was rescued from the curb during city wide clean up. Sadly I forgot to take a before picture, but basically it was a stained wood table that was all banged up with several scuffs and stains. I started by cleaning it and scraping the gum, yes chewing gum, off the bottom. I set the nails back in, patched a few small holes with wood filler and lightly sanded the whole thing. Then I painted it brown using a latex “paint pod” (a little jar of paint used to sample colors from Ace Hardware). I thought it was kind of funny that I painted a brown table brown, but it is a special shade of brown.

I took some of the fabric leftover from the curtains to Office Max and had them make color copies of it for me. (BTW, the copies are awesome, you can see the grain of the fabric.) I knew I wanted to decoupage the individual flower motifs onto the table top and I didn’t want to deal with little strings from fraying fabric edges. I cut out a generous amount of flowers. I cut fairly close to the edges, but what made this turn out so well was that my base paint so closely matched the fabric background color. Using Mod Podge I applied all the flowers to the top of the table randomly. It looked great, but why stop there? it needed more. I thought about adding rhinestones around the edge or some puff paint “pearls” to the top, but decided that I wanted it to be smooth for drawing and writing. I decided it needed a tutu, a pink sparkly one! I bought a roll of sparkle tulle (25 yards) and, using my super special cording foot, zigzagged over yarn onto the tulle. If you make a lot of gathers a foot like this is the way to go, I won’t ever make gathers with two rows of basting again!!! Plus the yarn feeds through a hole in the foot and straight under the needle. I only have to worry about keeping the fabric straight. It took a while to gather it all up, but it came out perfectly puffy. I have it pinned into place because I want to finish the table with super glossy top coat and I have to have a non-humid day to apply that correctly. Yeah, a non-humid day in August, ha!

Now we’re going to need some chairs.