Work in Progress: PYOP Ornaments

Yesterday Brie and I went to The Pottery Stop to work on pottery for the first time in months. I'd been thinking about doing some smaller pieces...something manageable where I can work on several at one time while I wait for parts of them to dry.

I'm using my usual wax resist technique on these ornaments but I thought I'd try something a little different and not just use a black background (which will turn into the outlines of the drawings on my piece). So on some of these I am experimenting with dark brown and gray backgrounds, for a softer outline.

So on the top right is an image that may look familiar...I've used Whaley on a few items before but I love him so I painted him again. The bird in the tree also may look familiar...

The two bottom images are Tuscan scenes I've been thinking about painting for a while. Just reminiscing about Italy a bit...

The fifth ornament, on the top left, is still blank...wasn't sure what I wanted to paint there yet. Brie (always helpful) suggested Sean Connery in a red diaper a la Zardoz (if you haven't seen that movie, it is totally bizarre, but worth checking out for his outfit alone!)

I was thinking more along the lines of an elephant with a pretty blanket on its back, or perhaps a pirate ship, or a little city scene. If I'm gonna do Zardoz I'll definitely have to do some practice sketches first and not just freehand it.

More pictures to come when these are done...and they will be for sale in my etsy shop!

Owls in progress (or ghosts)?

Here's a bunch of the felt owl ornaments I've been working on, in various stages of completion. Some of them resemble colorful ghosts rather than owls at this point...

Red owl ornaments

To go with the stellar bright red sunburn I got on my feet today, here are my red and pink owl ornaments. I was helping Jyoti with a yard sale this morning...nice to be outdoors but forgot sunblock on my feet! It itches!

 

Also here are some of the other owls I'm working on...

 

 

 

Outdoor owl photo shoot!

There are lots of pretty cherry blossoms near my place, so I figured I'd re-photo some of my owl ornaments outside.

 

Next: new red owls!

Holiday happenings

This year, I spent Christmas Eve baking cookies and pizza with my brother...mmm pizza...

 

 

...and then a few days visiting with friends. I went to visit Gleb and we ambled through downtown Ambler and did a little shopping.

 

And even though the holidays were over, the owl ornaments were not! I made a large batch....most of these are now available in my etsy shop.

Winter projects and downtime

It's nice to have some downtime this week. I've taken a break from a lot of my other activities over the past month or so to try and relax from all the craziness. I had a bunch of crap go wrong: one of the birds got sick (repeatedly), I got sick (also repeatedly), I got in a minor car accident, etc.
 

Just for the sake of amusement, here is the email I wrote to the rental car/repair/insurance people about the first car they gave me. To their credit, they did replace it with a car of my choice that was a major improvement.

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Hi Dave,

Thanks for sending this and thanks for your message as well. Your service has been great and I was very pleased with how fast and easy everything was the other day!

Quick question (maybe you know or the Enterprise folks do)...is there an "air freshener" hidden somewhere in the rental car? It is very strong and smells horrendous, like a toilet, and I'm having to drive with the windows open even in the cold to keep from gagging. I looked around in the car but couldn't find the source--I would REALLY like to remove whatever has created this nasty smell if I'm driving this car for the next week.

Thanks!

 

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I also finished several new batches of coasters, some elephant ornaments (including a custom order for a mom with baby elephant--how cute is that?!), and a crapton of pins. These are mostly available in my etsy shop right now.

Green leaves coaster set

Autumn heather rainbow coaster set

  

Brown and tan woodland flowers pin

 

Elephant mom and baby custom Christmas ornament 

 

Green woodland flowers felt pin 

 

Pair of gray elephant Christmas ornaments

 

Purple poppies felt pin

 

 Zen black and gray leaves coaster set

New ornaments, necklaces, and other items in my shop!

Check out these new listings in my etsy shop!


Elephant felt Christmas ornament



Three purple hearts and flowers felt pins



Set of 4 felt owl Christmas ornaments



Pretty posies medallion felt necklace in shades of gray



Pretty posies woodland medallion felt necklace



Purple heart felt pin



Red poppies medallion felt pin



Woodland flowers medallion felt pin in light green



Woodland flowers medallion felt pin

In other news, I seem to be sick again...but I also got a really cool custom order for 15 felt flower pins last week, so that kept me somewhat busy.

I tried to make each one a little different. Didn't they turn out nice? :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday today! I spent a nice leisurely morning doing photos of some of my new creations. Hoot!

 

 

My Thanksgiving plans include going out to FANCYDINNER, which is something my friend Brie and I have been doing for 5 years now...we pick a different restaurant each year and get dressed up and go out for a really nice meal. Most places have traditional Thanksgiving fare on the menu (which Brie likes but I don't much care for) in addition to their regular menus, and something hilarious and awkward always happens.  Two different years, the the lights went out in the restaurant! So I'm looking forward to some great food, good times, and no dishes to wash! :)

 

materials for hoot owl ornaments: Eco-felt, DMC, thread, ribbon, quilt batting

Elephants, owls, and pendants!

I've been doing a lot of sewing lately and working on a variety of new felt creations!

These are a bunch of pendant necklaces I made earlier in the month while traveling. I'd seen a metal/glass pendant in JoAnn several months ago with a picture of lollipop flowers and thought, I can make something cuter than that...so finally I got around to it!

Since I love (ok, am sort of obsessed with) experimenting with color combinations, I also made more of these (ok, like 30) as pins/brooches. The necklaces and pins should both be up in my etsy shop later this week. My favorite color combinations are the red flowers that look like poppies, and also the yellow/orange/white/gray pendant (cockatiel colors, as my brother suggested I make!)

 

Another project I'd been thinking about for months was felt Christmas tree ornaments...I decided to start with my usual owls, since I've been working with that image so much and therefore knew exactly how I'd want it to look. And it came out exactly as I imagined!

 

Once I made the owl, I decided to branch out and make some cute little elephant ornaments too!

 

I've been doodling elephants on everything for weeks so I think they were trying to come out and play :) What do you think?

 

Materials: Eco-felt, DMC, thread, ribbon, quilt batting, jump rings, Darice faux suede necklace cords

Votes and other notes

The results are in! It looks like I got some late voters yesterday on my "next craft project" poll...we had a tie between Solar System felt tags and something containing owls. The percentages don't add up to 100 for some reason though. I will have to brainstorm something good with the owls on it. Some options:

• Felt purse
• Coffee cup cozy (not that I drink coffee)
• Eyeglass case (Brie has been telling me to make one for months)
• Necklace pendant
• Hairclip or pin

In theory I could make all of those. In other news, Glebby has requested a princess purse for her niece, who likes girly things! :) I had this purse already designed in my head so it was quick to start--here it is with the pieces cut, while I was still playing with sequins:

The front will have a crown and Gleb's niece's name embroidered on it, the back will have a magic wand and some more sparkly sequins, of course. I finished stitching the front last night:

Love how it turned out but stitching words freehand in cursive is NOT easy!