V-Day Love

One of my resolutions as of this year was to swear off swapping. That held about as well as water in a strainer because I couldn't pass up swapping for V-Day!

J.Rose of the amazing Cheeseblarg  hosted a secret partner valentines swap. I received  (and was completely spoiled) today!

The card cracked my stuff up, the envelope had "Shhh! Secret Cupid Business Inside!!! on the outside as well as "2012 Cheeseblarg Valentinery Magical Friendship Extravaganza of Joy!!!" so my face at the awesome disapproving chicken inside was enough to make Hubb want to know what was going on. 

The box of chocolates only made it into the picture because I was nomming on a chocolate covered strawberry at the time (Hubb's V-day surprise which came earlier in the day...^_^) There's 4 amazing fabrics, a strand of delish beads, glittery buttons (oh so going into a necklace or something...I mean glitter!) and some tasty lip gloss. 

Not to mention the adorable heart tissue paper which was immediately flattened, folded and stashed in my paper file (Save da pappa!- yells Hubb) for later crafting fun. 

Thank you so much Natalie S.!!!  

Now to stalk for when my partner receives....*lurks around web* 

Anyone else get sideswiped by the holidays? I think I got the license of that sleigh, but I could have read it wrong. ^_~

The teacup pincushions turned out quirky and cute. I have not yet listed them as I just haven't had time to go through and give each one it's own photo time. There are around 10 of them so far! 

I love the colors of this one, it's got several siblings of different cup styles in the same fabric. 

Hubb and I made a deal to help each other with our New Years Resolutions, he would get up and run every day and I would craft one marketable item each day. So far so good! 

The first couple of days I made necklaces and have listed this one in the shop. My problem is I'm always creating something I'd wear and I don't always have the supplies to make two! 

My mother volunteers some time with a group called Ponies with a Purpose and they've decided to host a quick craft event on the 10th of Dec! Mom and I are going to share a booth and so I've been on the hunt for fun quick crafty gifts to make.

I decided to wander the goodwill around the corner as my craft room is giving me an eye twitch. I've gotten to the point where I want to go in and just start shipping things out! It's gotten a little crazy. I've been helping the boys do a craft swap with some other kids, so just about everything has been pulled and moved as of late.

I came upon some very cute white tea cups in from various sets and the wheels started spinning. I've been dying to make a couple of tea cup pin cushions with the squares of fabric I was given in a swap...so now I'm all sprawled out at my dining room table creating.   I promise to share the finals!

Tutorial: Interchangeable Headband Designs!

When I received an interchangeable headband in a swap recently it got me in the mood to make some more fun things for my quite useful headband. 

 So I decided I'd share this simple and yet great for kids who wear headbands idea! Of course this isn't just for those with kids, but any of us who love to add a little something extra to our outfits. 

First thing grab some printed fabric {or felt which I have here} that inspires you. 

After that you can just start playing with design themes or if one of your prints has a certain shape you like, go with that.  I had a piece of felt with hearts on it, so I wanted to play off that. 

Originally I had wanted to use the polka dot felt underneath the heart, but the print was too large. So back to the stash I went! 

 Deciding on something a little more wild, I cut out three heart shapes. 

Play around with your layering. My first thought had been to stack the three as they ascended in size slightly. However after stacking, I decided I didn't like that enough and went with something more off kilter. 

Next I grabbed my button jar. It's always full of goodies and I love adding them to projects. 

I thought about metal studs, or even rhinestones but decided to keep this one a little less glitz. 

After deciding how I wanted the buttons to sit on the hearts, I stitched them down. I also stitched the hearts together so that they wouldn't be too floppy but would still lay softly. 

The last step is to snip a hole/line just big enough for your headband of choice to go through. Mine is very slim and slick so I used my smallest scissors to cut a slit. 

After that, just slide it on the headband and wear! 

You can do this in any shape or size. Adding feathers, using fun foam, ribbon bows anything you can create a small space for the headband to slip through will work. 

A Grrrreat find.

Ok, so I love to thrift shop. And I'm usually one to pass by the frames/art section as I like finding little old illustrations for my bathroom which is dog themed. {It was the only place I could find that matched my golden retriever portrait when we moved in. It's just kind of grown since then.....}

I've been avoiding the thrift shops and the only shopping I've been doing lately is grocery, but today I had a donation built up so I of course went in afterwards ^_~

To my surprise I spotted a well drawn tiger cub illustration. Not dogs, so I passed it up at first. Something about it kept drawing me back though. I noticed that the signature on it was done in pencil first and since it was fairly nicely albiet old style framed, I googled the artist.

When I didn't even have to finish typing the artists name {read, got the first letter of the last name in and it found it....} I grabbed it. Scanned the google finds and decided it was mine.

Come to find out, at least from what I know so far, the artist{William Timym} was well known for his bronze sculptures in the UK. He even has one at the St. Louis zoo here in the US. A well known cartoonist in the UK during the 50's through the 70's his work even spun off toys.

Basically it's an awesome find for me. ^_^ I don't care if it's worth less than the $1.99 I paid for it. {Which I really doubt as it doesn't seem to be a print, I can see the pencil lines underneath the ink lines on the tigers not just the signature!} It's a piece of a varied artists history. And I love it.

Now I'm just trying to hunt down more about it. {skitters back to google}

Things around our house have been busy. So this is about what I feel like. *laughs* 

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I've been sketching more and more straight from my tablet rather than starting with my sketcbook. Which is good as it's taking me less time to do what I'd like to.

My goal is to be able to whip up an illustration in around an hour. 

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We've been working on our newspaper so we can get it up and running. If you'd like to stop by and check it out it's...www.centralarkansasfreepress.com 

Sign up and join in! 

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But enough shameless advertising. 

I've got a new shirt design sketched up and while it's based on a theme you don't have to know the theme to understand it. Hubb and I decided not to enter it in this round of voting at the site I normally do. Rather, were going to see if we can get it printed somewhere else. ^_^ 

It's really a kids design, and if I can find a way to get it printed I'll share it! 

A new design up for Voting!

As you can tell I've not done my illustrations for the past few days, I've been working on other things.

One of those things being something you can vote for, so I figured I'd pander for some votes ^_~

http://shirt.woot.com/Derby/Entry.aspx?id=49725

This weeks theme was the letter T so it was wide open. I went with the obvious sound, Tea.