PYOP (Paint Your Own Pottery) Part 3

I went back to pick up my latest pottery piece from The Pottery Stop and was sort of surprised with the results. The vase turned out great on some sides...on others the design did not come out quite as I intended...but overall it was a pretty successful experiment!

 

The side with the red bird is the one I'm happiest with. Even though the branch near the top didn't come out quite as visible as I would have liked (I underestimated the darkness of the dark blue I used for the top), it looks pretty close to what I had in mind. The birdie is so fat and cute!

 

 

Here are some of the other views...

 

I'm not thrilled with how the side with the monarch butterfly below turned out...I think I was rushing to finish on the leaves and they didn't come out quite right.

 

The colors on the leaf were not what I was expecting for some reason! Haha. Otherwise I am happy with the dragonfly panel though. 

 

 

This side has a bird on it but you can barely see the top because I used too dark of a background, unfortunately. Otherwise it looks really pretty...sigh.

Vase bottom...I guess it got a little scratched in transit to the kiln?

Overall the vase was sort of an ambitious project for a beginner at PYOP so I'm fairly pleased with it...and ok with the slightly imperfect results. Hey, I can always go back and do it again! It was lots of fun to work on :) What a great crafty activity to do with friends!

Paint your own pottery

Check out what I made!

 
I recently tried one of those paint your own pottery things for the first time at The Pottery Stop. I wasn't sure how my piece would turn out since 1) it took me a hundred years to do, 2) I was trying a wax resist technique that seemed iffy, and 3) I made up the design as I went along. I also experimented with putting a ton of different paints in some of the areas which gave it a cool marble effect (but could equally have come out as a disaster for all I know).

But I totally love how this switchplate cover came out! The leaves look pretty cool. I would totally go again--and next time I want to make:

• a larger switchplate
• a round trinket box (maybe with a monarch butterfly on it?)
• a large rectangular vase

A big thank you to Juli for introducing me to this fun crafty outing! :)

Leaves in all colors!

I finished lots more batches of leaf coasters and have posted them to etsy...go take a look!

Brown, Tan, and Ochre Leaf Coasters

Leaf Coasters in Shades of Blue

Burgundy and Brown Leaf Coasters

Gray and Black Leaf Coasters

Any other ideas for color combos?

New etsy listings: felt flower and leaf cuffs

Happy New Year to everyone!  The past few days have been...uh...somewhat productive. Haha, I spent a lot of time reading books and watching HGTV instead of doing anything useful. Sometimes you gotta relax and do nothing though, right?

Today I did manage to get the new cuffs up on etsy!

Felt Flower Cuff Bracelet in Purple and Lavender



Felt Flower Cuff in Red, Black, and White

Felt Leaf Cuff in shades of green

Felt Flower Cuff in Blue and Turquoise

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?

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!

Some spring inspiration

Sounds like a lot of folks are having a tough week, so I thought I'd post some happy/inspiring spring pictures. I took a walk around my neighborhood this afternoon and it was so darn pretty out!

is that broccoli growing out of the planter?

blue jay in the tree!

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?