New Candy Flavors, A Necklace, and Some Progress

So I finally got around to using my new candy flavorings last night.

The purple squirrels are Raspberry Vanilla, and the brown are Dark Chocolate Coffee! I haven't tried the coconut flavor yet, but plan on making owls with Chocolate bodies and coconut details.

Last night I also finally put this necklace together:

Super super simple, just how I like it.

And today I sewed more letters for the Alphabet Quilt.

I have almost all of the other letters cut out and ready to go, its just the actual sewing that takes a while.

Alright, back to work!

Cupcake Plush

I have been so exhausted lately! I took a few days to regroup and am back in full force.

A friend at work has a son who is turning one this week! For the first birthday photo shoot, she didn't want real cake, and couldn't find any fake cake that would fit the scene. Enter: giant felt cupcake.

Look at all those delicious icing layers!

For size reference, each of those squares on my cutting mat = one inch.

Happy first, little one!

ABC Quilt

A friend asked if I could make modern, funky ABC mini-quilts for her son who will be born in a couple months! I finally got the time to start today. These are each going to get batting and a backing, so each letter will be its own mini-quilt. She's going to hang them on the wall in the baby's room. Super cute idea!

Every once in a while, there's a little picture of something nature themed.

 Bird!

Flower!

Cloud Scarf

Apparently that is the name of this type of scarf. Who knew!

I couldn't decide if I like the ruffles or not, but they're staying on this one.
I basically cut strips and strips and strips of fabric, braided a lot, and sewed a bit!

Maybe an item for my Etsy store?

What do you think?

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's the year of the Rabbit and to celebrate at work, we had this:

Awesome.

Overdue Update

I'm disappointed that I haven't posted more stuff this week, but I've been so stinking busy! I've had 3 custom orders on Etsy since Monday (yes!) which are officially all finished and shipped as of today. The biggest one was an order for 24 Owl Pops, which doesn't sound like much, but considering I can only do 4 at a time... yeah, it was a lot! But I finished right on time and they looked pretty stellar. See?

I don't know about you, but I would be pumped to get a box full of chocolate/ peanut butter owls in the mail! And you can by placing orders on my Etsy store! (A girl's got to promote herself, right?)

I also got to go on a mini-adventure earlier in the week. I typed an address into my GPS so I could go buy clay for work, and I selected "Street" instead of "Ave" for street name, and go figure, it took me about 20 minutes out of the way from where I wanted to go. I finally got there, but across the street I noticed this:

I've been to the Clay Place a zillion times and somehow never noticed this church! It is directly across the street from them. Kind of awesome, isn't it?

I've been shopping a few times this week as well, mostly for supplies for projects. I had to go buy candy for the owls, and fabric for my next project:

I am making alphabet mini-quilts, similar to my Quilted Coasters, for a friend who is expecting her first baby in April! There will be one block for each letter, and some awesome nature-inspired details throughout.  I am really looking forward to this project since I have some more freedom with it than I did for the last quilt. Should be fun!

I want to be clear for this next portion: I never spend money on myself. I'm always making things to sell and give as gifts, but it is extremely rare that I make something with the intention of keeping it. Then I ended up at Michael's. I really should take a chaperone when I go there, because I got a little out of control this time.

Granted, everything I got was on clearance! And these things had to have been specifically made for me, because I can't imagine who else would buy this stuff! C'mon. There was a pirate cutlass, a sewing charm set, a giant awesome royal looking key, a Japan themed set, a London themed set, a Travel themed set, and then a Victorian themed set, which I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo, but it includes two chairs. Little known fact: I am obsessed with furniture design. Mostly, the design of things you sit on. Furniture design was my inspiration for going to college.
There are a few charms missing from that photo because as soon as I got home, I made this:

I've recently started wearing necklaces. I typically never do because I'm crazy allergic to most metals, but this one is perfect! See those silver chains? They're actually just silver string! A-mazing. Whoever thought of that is brilliant and my new favorite person. And the charms that I put on it are perfect for me:

From right to left: Tokyo, Airplane, Big Ben (the clock, not the Steeler!), Camera, Eiffel Tower, and Scissors.
I've been to Tokyo, I fly everywhere to see my best friend, I'm going to London next month, I take pictures everywhere I go, I've been on top of the Eiffel Tower, and that last one... yeah, I use scissors a lot. That one will get replaced once I find a Cuckoo Clock charm to represent Germany! I want to get a charm to represent each place I visit for the rest of my life. Hopefully one day my necklace will weigh a ton.

Today I bought some more for myself. I filed my taxes and got a crap refund, but I couldn't even help myself. I went to a fabric store in the Strip District today and I find myself never wanting to go to Joann's again. This place has an amazing selection of fabrics and I could've easily spent a million dollars and a million hours in there!

I couldn't decide between the pink or the white, so I clearly had to buy both. It was a bit more expensive than I'm used to, but I love it!

Today I also got some candy flavoring oils. More options for the Etsy shop, since apparently I'm a chocolatier now!

Personally, I'm really excited for the Coffee flavor. I'm taking a break from candy making tonight, but maybe tomorrow I'll test it out!

Super long post for a super eventful week. I'm going to try to get back on track with posting daily, so be on the look out!

T-shirt Quilt

I've been busy with so many projects this week. It's a wonder I can keep them all straight! I've gotten a few things listed on Etsy, and now I'm trying to work out everything else in chronological order. I was in a painting mood yesterday, so did that for a bit and put 3 paintings up for sale. Worked on the T-shirt quilt, now that's 90% done (we'll get to that in a moment.) I've only been back on Etsy for a few days and already have a custom order from someone I've never met! 24 Owl Pops for a baby shower. Awesome. I'm busting those out and plan to get them in the mail by Friday. Wish me luck. Also working on candy keys for another order. Those ones are just about done! I also purchased tons of fabric for ANOTHER custom order, this one for a real life friend! Quilted Alphabet squares to hang in her baby's room once he's born. The list keeps growing, but its making me feel really good about what I do!

Now, this is my second commissioned T-shirt Quilt since November. This one just needs the finishing touches, minor quilting to hold the layers together, some stitching around the edges for pretty's sake. It should be done by tonight for sure. Then it will be off to Ohio to its unsuspecting owner! Moms are cute when they sneak around to get their daughters really personal gifts. I'm glad I can help!

There were 20 T-shirts this girl had collected over her first 15 years of life:

This one was from her first xmas. It was sooo teeny tiny, I had to piece it out.

It turned out bigger than anticipated, which is great because it will definitely fit a twin or full sized bed!

 

The back has fun pink and purple polka dots all over:

Pretty excited to finish it up and send it off! But that has to wait until after class. Tonight we're making lunch boxes! I'll post pictures of that tomorrow.

It's a Start!

Finally started putting stuff on Etsy again. I'm finishing up a bunch of projects tonight and will add them as soon as they are done. But for now, I guess this is my mini-launch of the new store. Buy things! Tell friends!

Upcycled Book Journal

I finally found a tiny book to turn into a pocket sized journal. 50 cent project? Yes please! Here's how:

Gather all your supplies. Book, mod podge, pant brush, embroidery floss,  needles, ruler, scissors, awl, plain paper, printed paper, and self healing mat.

First you need to get rid of the pages in the book. This book was well loved, so they came out easily.

Mod Podge some pretty paper over the now ugly inside cover of the book.

Cut desired amount of paper into the correct size for your book.

Fold a few sheets of paper at a time in half to create your signatures. (Signatures are sectioned paper. I folded 4 sheets together to create 8 pages. If you folded 20 pieces at once, you'd have a wonky book!) Then use an awl to punch holes along the crease.

Make a template and use it on each of your signatures so the holes on each page are identical. This is important later. Once you've got all your signatures, sew them up!

Now you've got to sew all the signatures together. Basically, you just zig zag between the thread around your holes and pull it tight!

Punch holes in the spine of your book. I honestly just winged this part because I usually cut the spine off. The thought was to sew through the signatures again, snug against the sections I just did (the black part), and then sew through the spine. It worked, but the process was a little weird (and impossible to photograph) and I'll probably do it differently next time.

 

Ta-da! Finished book. There are a lot of pages in there!

 

Projects at Work

At job #1 I wear many hats. Studio Specialist, Museum Educator, Exhibits Personnel, Performer, Fabricator. Simply put, I do a lot. Yesterday and today were no exception. I've been busy creating backdrops for our Theater stage. Currently, its a terrifying, dimly lit, black room with a few costumes on a rack. Its intention is for kids to be inspired to put on a play and have fun. I can't imagine anyone ever doing that in the current space. So I've taken it upon myself to create three or four backdrops that can be pulled out at will and used to liven up the space. I just got my fabric in the mail yesterday and started sewing. Let me go ahead and point out that a standard, personal sewing machine is not intended for sewing together 15 yards of heavy canvas. I didn't really think about that when planning this project.

So, like I said, I had 15 yards of heavy canvas to work with. The widest canvas you can buy is 60", but the backdrop I'm working on needed to be 10' x 19'. Which means sewing together two panels of 19' long canvas along one edge. This required some help, but my lovely assistant managed to snap a few photos while I was working. Apparently I always make a funny face when sewing... at least, I did while working on this.

I took over the whole office with this mess! It still needs to be hemmed, but I needed to give my poor machine a rest before I do that. The thing nearly overheated because the canvas was waaaay too heavy for the feed dogs to do anything with! Oh well, tomorrow is another day. After it is all hemmed, I'll project an image I drew onto the canvas to trace out, then kids will get to help me paint it! I'm pretty excited about the whole process.

Today, on the other hand, I worked in the shop all day. Cutting and nailing and stapling and epoxying. I was asked to make paper making screens and frames for use in after school classes. They actually turned out quite well for the most part, and next I'll be making them for use in the studio since the ones we have are very, very worn.
New frames:

 

New screens:

Used together:

 Ready for pulp!