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? :)

Owl Be Seeing You!

I got a request for more owl pins in bright colors from Love & Glitter in Ellicott City, so I spent some time cutting and sewing 35 new hoot owls!

It was fun to come up with all of the color combinations. It had been a while since I made a batch of owls (partly because I tend to make 50-100 at a time) and I actually had forgotten some of the shortcuts to sewing the pieces together.

In honor of my 35 new hoot owls, here's a bad joke:

Q: What kind of books do owls like to read?
A:  Whooo-dunnits!

:)

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 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!

Some birdies to welcome the spring!

Between a bunch of parties and other fun things this weekend, I found time to work on a few new pins for my etsy shop. The first pin came out exactly as I had imagined it...two cute little birds in love!

The second pin was kind of an experiment, to see if I could even make a cockatiel that small on a felt pin. It actually did not come out the way I was expecting, although it is still kinda cute.

 

More pins coming soon!

Valentine's Day...or "You Are All"

I spent this past Saturday making valentines with my friend and her 6-year-old daughter...what fun!

I used to love making special valentines when I was a kid. These are the ones I received on Saturday...my favorite is the heart person which says "You are all" (or "You are all heart," depending upon your interpretation).



Like most kids, we usually got some cheapo box of generic valentines to give out to the whole class. My brothers and I found it vastly amusing (in a toilet-related way) to save the valentine that said "You wipe me out!" to give to the kids in the class we did not like. It had a picture of an alien on it, which I never understood...maybe they intended this in a "aliens take over the world and wipe out humans" sort of way? I prefer the toilet interpretation.

I had a couple of etsy treasury features this week--Never Tired of a Snowflake, Sunny and Bright on a Gloomy Sunday, and  Sunny Spring Flowers.

Also, I worked on some more heart pins on Sunday and have one up in my etsy shop already--go check it out!

Custom Order--Purple Heart Pins

Mike, who I used to work with, put in a custom order this week for some of my purple heart pins to give as gifts. He wanted two pins so I made a bunch for him to choose from:

I haven't made these in a while but I'm thinking they would also be nice to sell in my etsy shop for Valentine's Day. Yay for custom orders!

What's new...

First, a sneak peek at my octopi purses! I have selected lining fabrics and will be working on the stitching this evening.

Also, I just posted a bunch of new items to my etsy shop! More flower pins, hoot owl necklaces, a birdy felt tag, and some woodland bookmarks.



New pins up on etsy!

I just put a few of my new embroidered pins up in my etsy shop...go take a look!

Also, pictures of several new octopus purses coming soon! The octopi have been stitched on and I'm currently picking out lining fabrics.

Yay! The winner of my December giveaway is:

TanyaMcGuire

Congratulations!

Thank you all so much for entering!

December crafty giveaway--embroidered flower pin!

Good news--my next blog giveaway is finally ready! This month, the prize is one of my new embroidered flower pins.



It's easy to enter--just leave a comment on this post below including your email address and what color pin (from the picture above) you'd like if you win.

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

The lucky winner will be chosen at random on Tuesday, January 4th...I'll announce the winner here on my blog, so stay posted!

Craft fair takeaways

So I ended up doing two craft fairs this week, one at NPR and one at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in DC. Both were internal craft fairs, not open to the public, but they went pretty well.

I always bring materials so I can work on pins or other projects if things are slow at the table for a while. Yesterday this worked out great! I had a few potential customers come by who were interested in the pins I had, but wanted something specific--usually different sizes or colors. I was able to take their orders and make their pins right there, so they could pick them up at my table later in the day.

One of the requests was for a set of pins to wear for holidays--a pink/red one for Valentine's Day, a black-and-orange one for Halloween, a pink/yellow for Easter, and yes, a GREEN one for St. Patty's Day. Recall an earlier discussion with Brie where she thought no one would want a green flower pin? And I said they would for St. Patty's Day? Well I do...haha. So there!

I also got a few ideas from folks who wanted to see other animals/themes:

• ladybug bookmarks
• turtle pins
• butterflies (wouldn't a monarch be cute on orange felt with black stitching)?
• seals and frogs (a man came by who said he ONLY purchased things with seals or frogs on them!)

So my takeaways for the week?

1) Always bring projects to work on while you wait.
2) Make what your customers want! I seem to get a lot of requests for pink and purple pins for little girls...must make more!
3) Let visitors to your table know that you are happy to do custom work.
4) Brie is wrong about green things. :)

You can dance if you want to...

I'm a bit behind on blogging and crafting lately, I've been super-busy with dance rehearsals and other stuff! Yesterday was the Southern Region Oireachtas (Irish dance competition) and it was a lot of fun. It was local this year, which was nice...we got to hang out at National Harbor for the day, plus I didn't have to fly anywhere :)

Our ceili teams did great...my four hand placed first (out of 7!) and my eight hand placed third. And our school got both 1st and 2nd in ladies AND mixed ceilis! A good day overall!

Today it's back to crafty, I have a bunch of felt tags and things that I need to get ready for a craft fair this coming Friday. And of course, a few more owl pins...

This week's batch of hoot owls :)

Hoot owls--new colors

Here's my latest batch...I've been working on my owl pins and pendants in dark reds, browns, purples, and grays. I especially love the brown and gray ones.

Ok so it has been pointed out that I am a bit obsessive about the owls--I keep cutting more and more of them. I think I've made at least a hundred at this point, in various colors. I think I just want to try every possible color combination, and keep working on them while I'm on a roll. They're fairly quick and easy as far as projects go. I do  have a craft fair coming up in two weeks though and I should get to work on other items soon...

More exciting news--now at VisArts Too!

As of last week, my crafty items will now be sold at VisArts Too! in Rockville Town Square. The VisArts space is really cool, I explored a little bit while I was dropping off my artwork. It's a brand-new space filled with lots of light and fabulous art! VisArts Too! is the retail store on the round floor. Upstairs, they have great studios, and you can walk around, explore, and ask the resident artists questions.

The shared studio of a group of 8 fiber artists upstairs was particularly interesting...they had great woven, dyed, and printed fabric pieces of all kinds. Definitely inspired me to go to December's meeting of the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild. My friend Krista went last month and had great things to say. I've been meaning to go for some time, and at the December meeting they're having their annual sale/auction/brunch so it should be fun!

This all came about because I went to Strathmore's Museum Shop Around this year and fell in love with pretty much everything at the VisArts booth! I bought a few things, including a gorgeous floral ceramic tray for my parents, made by Wandering Trail Ceramics.

Anyway, some of the items I have at the VisArts Too! shop are my handwoven chenille scarves, owl pins, felt tags, leaf coasters, flower barrettes, and felt purses. So if you're in the Rockville area, go check it out!

HOG (Hoot Owl Giveaway) winner!

Yay! The winner of the giveaway for a free Hoot Owl pin is....

bldrnrpdx

Congratulations!

Thank you all so much for entering, and a big welcome to the new folks reading my blog for the first time! Please stay posted...I will do another giveaway in December! :)

My first blog giveaway!

I've been thinking of doing a giveaway on my blog for some time, and here it is! Hoot Owl Giveaway (HOG?)!

That's right, you can get yourself a FREE owl pin! (Or pendant, if you so choose.) It's super easy...just leave a comment on this post below including your email address and what color owl you'd like if you win.

Keep the free hoot owl for yourself, give it as a holiday gift, or just wear it to make people jealous :)

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

The lucky HOG winner will be chosen at random on Thursday, November 18th...I'll announce the winner here on my blog, so stay posted!

Owls and updates...

I've moved on to purple owls now...just posted a few of them to my etsy shop. Take a peek:

Dark Purple Hoot Owl barrette ('n friends)

Purple Hoot Owl barrette

Dark Blue Hoot Owl pin

Helen suggested I use more photos of the backs of the pins, so I'm trying to do that consistently again in my etsy shop. I guess I got lazy about it somewhere there...

I have two new requests for pieces, one is an octopus purse for Gleb's other niece and the other is a piggy collage (or several small piggy artworks?) for my friend Emily for a baby girl's room :) Exciting!!

More hoot owls--now in blue!

Ok so I've been working on these owls for like 3 days now, and surprisingly, I'm not tired of them yet. Today I worked mostly on blue owls, making both pins and pendants.

Next on my list to do:

1) Finish sewing princess purse.
2) Make felt cupcake pins & pendants. I couldn't find any I liked on etsy, which is shocking. Clearly this is a void I must fill.
3) Something holiday or winter-themed for the Washington Post Holiday Crafts Contest. I'm thinking something featuring images of either snowflakes or candles. I'm not really much of a snowman person though...can you see me carrying or wearing anything with a dang snowman on it?

Little hoot owls!

So after my first few attempts at owls, I have come up with a template I love, and also managed to fix the problem with the eyes being overly googly. I just cut pieces for about 20 more owls in various colors and I finished 8 of them while watching Frontier House (one of my favorite PBS series) last night...they came out so adorable!

Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!