Happy holidays and new felt cuff bracelets

Hope everyone is enjoying a lovely holiday weekend!  Being sick and sitting around has been at least somewhat productive...I finished six more felt cuffs and have more in the works (as well as some more sets of felt leaf coasters).

Trying to come up with some new color combos for my next bunch...any thoughts?

Now at Love and Glitter!

Hooray! My accessories are now available for sale at Love and Glitter on Main Street in historic Ellicott City.   It's a great place to start some of your holiday shopping and find unique, handmade gifts.

Some of the pieces for sale there include my felt leaf coasters, decoupage frames, owl pins, flower barrettes, felt purses, and floral cuff bracelets. Please make sure to stop by and check out all of the cool handmade stuff in this lovely shop!

While I was there, I bought a couple of these fabulous pendants...and they have a variety of necklace chains and ribbons to pick from. What fun!

Fall inspiration: apple picking!

Yesterday I spent a fantastic afternoon picking apples at Larriland Farm in MD. What a great autumn activity!

Stayman and Braeburn apples were available to pick yourself...and yes, I did get on a ladder. Other types of apples (Golden Delicious, Jonagold, etc.) from local MD orchards were available in bins as well.
 

 

 

I was inspired to create something apple-related so I started work on an applique purse.

I'm keeping the stitching minimal on this one to emphasize the apple's shape and color. So cute!

My next creation? Some delicious apple crisp or pie to use up the bag of fruit I bought! 

Fall is here...and projects in progress

Yay fall! The leaves are just starting to change and it's getting cooler finally (man I hate the heat). Other things to love about fall:

• Boots weather! I can finally wear all the awesome boots I bought this year.
• Halloween. Jenny and I purchased some crazy costumes online so we can at last go as ABBA...although I'm not sure if we'll get any guys to agree to dressing up as Bjorn or Benny...
• Candy corn season! I always forget how much I love candy corn until it hits the stores again in the fall. Along with some coworkers, I ate a whole bag of candy corn this week and it was delicious!

This inspired me to finally start on a project I'd had in mind for at least a year--a candy corn purse.. Here's the purse in progress...I decided to go with a variety of candy sizes.

Picking out the fabric for the lining should also be interesting. I'm thinking either a black/white print or something with both yellow and orange. I want to finish it this week to have it in my shop for Halloween.

I finished my second felt cockatiel softie in time for Bill and Allison's wedding a few weeks ago...

This one presented a little more of a challenge as I was trying to make it look like a pearl cockatiel. I used sticky felt to make the white spots on the back.

I also managed to stitch a bunch of new pins this week (while watching lots of bad tv, of course--current favorites are Say Yes to the Dress, What Not to Wear, and Millionaire Matchmaker).

I should have the new pins available in my etsy shop shortly!

Not-so-simple Simplicity Christening gown

On Monday, Kate and I decided we should attempt to make our own christening gown for her newborn, Isaac. We had searched a bunch of thrift stores and consignment shops with no luck, and most of the gowns were ridiculously frilly (not to mention overpriced).

Neither of us has ever made a christening gown, but we figured it couldn't be too complicated, right? Kate found a Simplicity pattern and we used the sleeveless "slip" part of the pattern to make a simple gown.

I was NOT a fan of the instructions in the pattern. Lots of ambiguity and confusion. I ended up doing my own thing about halfway because there was so much cursing about the directions.

We did find some cute lace and other trim in my ribbon stash so I hand-stitched those on as an accent. Overall, it came out pretty decent. If I had to do this again, I'd use a simpler cotton fabric for the gown though...the stuff we used was stretchy and somewhat annoying.

And here's baby Isaac, tired from all the crafting...

aww...

Meditations on moving

Yes, I have in fact noticed that I haven't posted anything in about a month. I have an excuse! I was moving! Haha...I know the move didn't take a full month (most of it was done in two days) but between the packing, unpacking, cleaning, perfectionist lining of my kitchen cabinets, organizing, and getting rid of stuff, it's been super busy.

My thoughts on moving:

1) It will always take you at least 50% longer than you think, and you have at least 50% more stuff than you think. Yeah, I had no idea I'd be packing 100 boxes. (And now unpacking them...)
2) Friends are awesome! I used movers for my furniture, but my friends helped by providing boxes, packing boxes, moving stuff, unpacking my shoes and clothes, and organizing my movie collection. (Jyoti did this last task and she made categories such as "movies I like" and "things with non-humans." haha). My friends also supplied me with so much bubble wrap and packing paper that I didn't need to buy any, even with my extensive dish collection.
3) Start early. Man, I was still packing boxes when the movers arrived. I should have started waaaayyy earlier.
4) Unpacking is at least more amusing than packing. I keep finding things I packed and thinking, "What IS that?" and "Why did I keep it?" and "What was I thinking when I purchased it?" Case in point--the wooden pirate ship wheel pictured above. Where the heck am I going to put that?
5) Make lists! I had a list of my boxes, which ended up being not that necessary...but I could see how with a larger home or several people it would be important. However, my moving list of all the places I needed to change my address was crucial!
6) Moving in the summer stinks. Almost all of my past moves have been in the summer and even if it's not awful outside, I always end up lying on the floor somewhere thinking "ughhhhhhhh I'm gonna pass out."
7) Remember to drink water and eat! I was way behind on the day of the move and forgot to eat lunch. Luckily there was a Chipwich in the fridge in my old place so I devoured that :)

Overall, I have to say the move went really smoothly though. And I love the new place! Even if it does still resemble Boxland a little bit.

May Craft Blog Giveaway Winner

Yay! The winner of my giveaway for the Pink Leaves Felt Cuff Bracelet is:
MommyWantsToRead

Thank you to everyone for entering! Have a great day :)

May Craft Blog Giveaway: Pink Leaf Cuff Bracelet!

Happy Friday everyone!

I know it's been a while since I did a giveaway so here it is! My May giveaway is for one of my new felt cuffs--this one with lovely pink leaves. I made this piece while at a craft fair last week in an attempt to brighten the dreary gray day.

I hand-stitched this bracelet out of two layers of recycled felt, with a bright pink ribbon sandwiched in between. This cuff will fit most size wrists and is quite sturdy.

It's super easy...just leave a comment on this post below including your email address. So enter below and get yourself a free piece of my hand-stitched felt jewelry!

You can leave your email address in this format if you like: pickychickybird AT gmail DOT com, just to avoid spam.

Last day to enter is Monday, May 16th...I'll announce the winner here on my blog the following day, so stay posted!

A few more pics of the prize:

Good luck to all my giveaway enthusiasts!

New Felt Cuff Bracelets and Hobo Craft Fair Recap

I was playing around with my felt the other day and came up with this new blue/cream/peach color combination--I love how it looks on the felt cuff bracelets!

These would look awesome with jeans, or as the "something blue" in a bridal ensemble. I made the one on the blue ribbon with a long ribbon so that it could also be worn as a headband. I love the way they look together as a set.

  

In other news, the hobo craft fair on Sunday was not too hobo-y...until it started raining at 2pm. The rain wasn't going anywhere, so I packed up shortly after that. The morning was pretty good though--good temperature, nice people, decent traffic.

Some of my new crafty items out on display.

Lots of pins and barrettes!

People seemed to really like the MOO business cards I had available--they're really pretty and a great way to show lots of your different projects. Plus, they're inexpensive and super easy to make. I think I have only one left--time for another order!

Getting ready for craft fair--and spring flower cuffs!

Reminder--tomorrow is the Riverdale Park Arts Festival! Please stop by and see me if you're in the area...it's from 11am to 6pm. I make no guarantees as to the hobo-ness this year though :)

I'm currently packing up for the fair and just finished a new batch of my flower felt cuffs for spring!

Happy spring everyone!

Decoupage frenzy! Baskets, plaques, and boxes

I spent most of the day yesterday working on additional decoupage projects. Here are the ones I finished!

Close ups of some of the pieces...

Small ship tins--I have about 100 of these cute little circle tins lying around so I thought I might as well decoupage a few.

Castle wall art--love the fairy tale look!
 

Ship wall art--I never get tired of this image.

The backs of the nesting ship boxes are painted with a palm tree on a beach.

I'm so excited to be using up a big chunk of my stash of wooden and other boxes, frames, trays, drawers, etc. More coming soon!

What else should I paint on these? Flowers, octopi, leaves, Sean Connery?

Hobo craft fair this weekend! Plus projects in the works...

A quick side note: today is the 226th birthday of John James Audubon...please check out the Audubon Society and what you can do to help birds in your area!

Over the past few weeks, I've been working on a bunch of new items for the upcoming 4th annual Riverdale Park Arts Fest--yup, that's right, this is the craft fair Brie and I refer to as "Hobo Craft Fair" (due to the rain, cold, and our other assorted hoboness from the last time we did it).

It's going to be this Sunday, May 1 from 11am to 6pm and there's food and live music too--and hopefully no rain! Last year I was sick and couldn't make it so I'm excited about attending this Sunday.

The main projects I have in the works right now are my felt flower and leaf cuffs, and more decoupage wall art.

Three of the cuffs here were ones I finished while in New Mexico...the other three are still in progress.

And I have a bunch of the decoupage wall pieces ready to be painted. I draw in the pictures with my favorite Faber-Castell Pitt brush pen...and then they will be colored in, and sealed with another coat of decoupage finish.

On this last piece, I am still deciding what to do with the middle square. My original intention was to draw an anchor in that box, if I can manage to make it look normal. If this was going to be a personalized piece, I'd paint a big colorful letter for the person's first name in that box.

Shopping and inspiration from New Mexico

A few weeks ago I was visiting Albuquerque and had a great time relaxing, visiting birdfriends at the zoo, eating, and of course a bit of shopping! 

We spent an afternoon strolling Canyon Road in Santa Fe and checking out all the cool galleries...my favorites?

• Brigitte Bruggemann's gorgeous flowery abstract paintings at Mill Fine Art
• Jim McLain's turned wood vessels
• Robert Highsmith's photorealist watercolors at Marigold Arts

I also bought these fabulous vintage parrot (I think they are rosellas?) candlesticks at Canyon Road Flowers.

We also stopped in Night & Day, one of my favorite bedding and bath shops--and I could not resist buying this framed bird illustration:
 

 
There were also some luxury custom sheets by Bonjour of Switzerland that I fell in love with, but those will have to wait as they generally run $1000 for a set! 
 

We had a delicious lunch at Bumble Bee (I loooove their quesadillas!) and then took a look through Santa Fe Greenhouses.

Inside they have lots of cool garden stuff and even some kitchen goodies...coasters, dishes, etc.

 

Gardening gloves in every color! 

I don't know why, but seed packets make me happy.

And Vinsy, this photo is for you! Heron legs!!!

Some of my other favorite places in Albuquerque:

Hey Jhonny: a small and exceptionally beautiful shop with fantastic, unique home decor and accessories

Jackalope: a giant warehouse of eclectic furniture, accessories, home and garden decor, pottery, etc.

Flying Star: stop in one of their many locations for delicious baked goods, lunches, or breakfast all day....mmmm.

Hanayagi--The Japanese Garden Shop: awesome Japanese art and other unique finds make this tiny shop well worth the visit!
Bookworks: independent bookstore with a great selection of craft books, funny magnets, and other cool gifts!