Craft project vote winners: Solar system felt tags and owls

I've been working on the items selected as my next craft project from the poll. My solar system felt tags are finished and I plan to post them to my etsy shop this afternoon!

I also got started on the "something containing owls" craft project. I started by sketching the owl I had in mind (along with a candy corn felt purse that came to mind):

So on Friday I made my first owl...which is a little bit batlike for some reason...perhaps the eyes? Otherwise cute though, I like all the detail stitching.

Right now he's just an applique and I haven't decided what to put him on yet...maybe an eyeglass case?

After the first owl I decided to try a few without tails and made these adorable little guys, which are actually pins.
 

I think I'll make some into barrettes and pendants as well. It would be super cute to have a necklace with an owl pendant and also some felt leaf pendants attached.

Help me pick fabrics!

Ok I've finished all the embroidery on the sides of the Princess Purse and now I'm trying to select a fabric for the lining. I've narrowed it down to my three favorites, a light pink with tiny hearts, dotted yellow, and dark pink with swirls. But I cannot choose! Please help by adding a comment below to tell me which one you like best!





Usually what I do to select fabrics for the lining is I narrow it down, and show a selection of 5 or 6 to my friend Brie. She picks one and I usually end up doing the opposite of what she suggested! Haha. She says the space purse was the first time I actually listened to her on my fabric choice. So getting the feedback really does help!

Space purse (SPURSE)

I entered my Solar System purse (or "spurse" as Jay calls it) in the NASA/Etsy contest earlier this week. I went over to Jay's and we had an amusing photo shoot for the purse, during which he spoke in Russian accents a lot (to mock my poor English) and we ate leftover pizza. Good times.

   

We had some lighting challenges since it was evening but otherwise everything went fine. I'm excited about the contest--I'm really hoping my spurse will at least be a finalist! I think there is some kind of voting after finalists are selected...I will be sure to post info about that later!

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!

Decoupage project (aka book ruining)

Yesterday I was procrastinating from some not-fun tasks and so I decoupaged a few mini composition books with these images from A Tale of Two Cities and The Mutiny On Board HMS Bounty. I used those cheap abridged versions of the books that you can buy in craft stores for like three bucks :) I'm calling these
"Law steps & sails minibooks."



Here's a picture of the backs of the books:



I don't have any more minibooks but I will probably work on decoupaging some boxes/sets of drawers with the same books this afternoon.

PS Only 23 hours left to vote (on the right-hand side of this page) on my next craft project! And your vote actually does count because right now it's a tie between 2 and 3. Please vote! :)

Sneak peek--solar system purse

I have been inspired by NASA & Etsy's 2010 Space Craft Contest, which sounds fun and exciting! Winners may get their works sent up in a space shuttle, and the grand prize winner gets to go see a space shuttle launch at Kennedy Space Center! How cool is that?

I've had the idea for this purse for some time but this contest presented the perfect opportunity to get me to complete it :) I used the images at nasaimages.org for inspiration, particularly the Solar System Montage and All Planet Sizes--since I'm a dork, I wanted to be as accurate about the planets as possible, within the limitations of my available scale and felt.

What I really wanted to do was get all the planets on one side of the purse, but as Brie pointed out, my standard-size felt purse is not big enough and I may have to split them in half. I think that is what's going to happen. I cut out and arranged the planets on both sides of the purse in a way I'm ok with. The purse will be lined in a star-print cotton fabric and I'll use a brighter blue for the blanket stitch around it.

Now I'm just trying to decide if it is worth going to the craft store, getting more felt, and trying to make this a large purse so all the planets fit on the front. Suggestions?

New barrettes on etsy

This evening I put up a few of the new barrettes in my shop:

Bright Orange flower felt barrette

Autumn colors flower hair barrettes (set of 4)

Barrette frenzy!

I just counted--over the past week, I made 55 new felt flower barrettes! I spent a lot of time sewing them while visiting my parents. I tried a few new minor variations and have ideas for more later. For now, I'm just happy to have been so productive!

I'll be posting some of these to etsy shortly!

And here's a picture of some of those green ones, just to prove Brie wrong--they did come out kind of cute. So there.

Toadstool Tuesday

I loved the way the toadstool bookmarks came out, so I made a bunch more... and a couple of felt tags, too. The green tag is going to be part of a woodland-themed tag set--with also an acorn, leaf, and a third thing, which I have forgotten!

Exciting news--now at Vivo!

Vivo!, an awesome shop just off Main Street in Historic Annapolis, will now be selling my felt coasters, sewing kits, bookmarks, and hair clips. They have the coolest things there--when I first brought my stuff by last week, I could not resist buying some gorgeous big felted/beaded flower pins for myself.

Here's a big batch of newly-made coasters in a basket, getting ready for the shop this morning.

So if you're in the Annapolis area anytime soon, please stop by Vivo! and check it out!

New bookmarks!

Here they are...I think the toadstool and fish are my favorites. More coming soon!

Trip to JoAnn's & lots of new craft projects!

So coming soon I will have a bunch of pictures of the new things I've been working on:

1) 60 more flower barrettes in a variety of colors/styles
2) bookmarks featuring toadstools, acorns, bees, falling leaves, snails, and fishies
3) felt tags--some of the same themes
4) more colorful collections of coasters!

I also went to JoAnn's today and picked up some plain tank tops and baby hats that I'm planning to embellish with fabric appliques. I swear that place is dangerous...I went in with a very specific list of things to buy and walked out with like 25 other items. Lots of good ideas though!

And here are some books I saw at JoAnn's that I have now added to my wish list: