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!

:)

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! 

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!

In progress: new flower cuffs for spring

After making the felt leaf cuff bracelets, I decided I wanted to do more of them, but with a springlike theme.  Here are a few of my felt flower cuffs in progress...

I probably will have to get some more ribbon (as if I didn't have 1000 spools already) because the kinds I currently have didn't really suit the cuffs. I do have some yellow grosgrain ribbon with daisies that I'm going to use for the one on the right.

If these come out cute, I want to do some purple and pink ones next!

Leaves and bugs and Robin Hood

Ok so I'm still fairly sick but at least yesterday I recovered the use of my brain! I've been working on some new felt accessories for my etsy shop.

All of the blog reading the other day came somewhat in handy, I got some new ideas for crafty items to make, and different ways to list them.

I started by making this ladybug gift set, which I adore!

I've also been thinking about making a felt cuff bracelet for a long time, I keep seeing them in craft books and online. I wanted mine to be all forest-y so I did leaves (and an acorn, on one). Why foresty? Because of this:

Yeah, that's Jason Connery (yep, son of Sean!) as Robin Hood in the 80's TV series. I've always liked Robin Hood things and I must admit I was mildly obsessed with the show, even as a kid. Check out his fantastic armband wrist-cuff things!

As I recall, Kevin Sorbo had some pretty sweet armbands in Hercules as well.

Although his armbands usually had lots of metal hardware and stuff on them. (For what? Did he attach things to them, and pull like a boat trailer or something?)

In any case, here are my felt leaf cuffs.

It was a lot easier to photograph on a towel than on my own wrist! However, it made me think that these might make nice napkin rings too :)

 All three cuffs (the acorn one is not quite finished):

The ribbon is kind of thick, I think for my next batch I would use something smaller.  

A look at the backs. You can see a little stitching, but not tons.

What do you think?



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!

Etsy items for the week

Just posted some more appliqued felt tags to my etsy shop...here they are!

Kind of a woodland, forest-y set.

Kites! Ready for warm weather and spring breezes!

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!

Octopurses!

Today I finally finished my two new octopus purses!



I love how glam the blue/green one looks with the sequins. The orange one is just kind of plump and cheerful.

It reminds me of when I was in middle school, and we had the opportunity to get pen pals in French class. My best friend asked for a boy pen pal from France. When he first wrote to her (in English), he said, "My name is Sebastian and I am quite plump." I love this.

I just listed the purses on etsy as well, go take a look!
 

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.