Nice, Zowie January 11, 2011

Over the summer, I went into overdrive buying bags of crochet thread at Goodwill, to stock up on colors for amulet bags. The problem with the way it’s sold is that it’s rolled onto a huge cardboard tube – with a ton of wasted space in between, it’s really hard to store in bulk. So one day when I was bored but feeling ambitious, I dragged it all outside and sat in the sun, rolling it all onto cut strips of plastic canvas. The results were great, I now have all my thread in one set of drawers. Only problem is, for some reason these little swatches are now INSANELY tempting to Zowie. It’s like a game/treat, trying to get to the crunchy plastic on the inside… How dare I leave one out in plain view?

I will admit though, that I take a slightly sick delight in untangling things like this. I do it at work too, a lot of times when yarn gets tangled beyond recognition by too many grabby hands, I’ll be the one to volunteer to sit down for 20 minutes and work through the mess. It’s somehow relaxing to me, and so satisfying!

It’s a good thing this little jerk is so cute.

Holiday Bazaar Tabling November 27, 2010

The bazaar went so well! I met a lot of great people, including one lady who recognized me from my work whom I’ve helped before, ha! She also had a table. There was a real diverse selection of products for sale, from cookware, scarves, jewelry, and Christmas items.  While the tabling deposit was a little steep (for me at least, I mean I’m definitely still a “small time” tabler) I still made out pretty good in sales after recovering that deposit. While of course, first and foremost, for me it’s all about the crafts and the process of making them and keeping busy, it’s always nice to come home with a small wad of cash to spend on more supplies, and new endeavors!

I slaved for weeks preparing for this bazaar. I got the idea for my biggest project about a month ago, when we had a great sale with a ton of coupons at work. I loaded up on covered buttons and eighths of fabric, and set to work making these barrette sets. They were my biggest hit by far at the bazaar. It was interesting because most of the shoppers were older ladies, and a lot of them kept saying “oh, these would be so cute for my daughter/granddaughter/friends 9 year old” etc. All the fabrics I chose were fun, bright, and defined prints, and I guess some would consider them more juvenile. But I would wear any of them! It’s just interesting to see what kind of audience you think you are preparing for, and who actually ends up favoring your style. I would like to do at least one more bazaar before Christmas, and I’ve discovered I need to try and target an audience with younger teen girls and women with daughters.

I developed a pretty good system for the barrettes – I’d cut all my circles out, then line them up to make the buttons, then line them up to attach the pins… I love setting up assembly lines!

I’m completely proud to say that I made the design for this packaging in Microsoft paint.  While I’ve had a few changes to work with Photoshop and InDesign at school when I was working on the literary magazine, but at home I have little to no budget in terms of technology so I’m always trying to find ways to make due  with what I got. Someday when I’m sure I’m a successful artist and business woman with my own studio and one of these keeping me warm at night, I’ll let myself splurge on a great camera and software to make everything look professional. But for now, Tim Gunn would be proud, I’m “makin’ it work!”

A secondary project for this bazaar I dreamed up are these knitted and crocheted flower headbands. I absolutely love this book and used it in several ideas for designs. I then added some beads to give the pieces a little more texture, and glued them onto headbands using felt circles.

These were absolutely a last minute idea, created the night before the bazaar. I got glittery holiday picks in the floral section of a craft store, cut off the stems, and sprayed them with a coating to keep the glitter in place.

And now, the table! I divided my table in half, with hair things on one side and a sampling of everything else I have made on the other.  As an afterthought I think next time I will devote most of my table to hair things, as they seemed to be the big sellers, and I think my table was so full of stuff that it was a little overwhelming.

To create these headband holders, I covered oatmeal canisters with purple velvet, and pinned them so they look a little drape-y. You can see on the left I also included some feather pad headbands I have made as well.

I dotted the table with a few crocheted friends to keep it approachable, ha.

I look forward to setting up for more bazaars, I’ll post more updates when you can expect to see me out and about!

Cutie Crafts September 11, 2010

I realized I have yet to make a post about the epic visit I had from my nieces a few weeks ago. The girls are extremely crafty, and can spend hours cutting and glueing, so needless to say we all get along very nicely…

Our first venture included a round robin story-writing conference, where we put my many typewriters to good use:

Next, the girls helped me by modeling many new things I have been meaning to put on my Etsy, but haven’t gotten around to taking good pictures of. Maybe their adorable faces will help me sell out of my Etsy slump!

(custom manicure by yours truly)

In a random fit of what some might call insanity, one night while we were sitting around at 11pm Lily asked me to make her a little owl she found in one of my amigurumi books. I started messing around with it and it came out pretty good! I later made Ashley and Emily these two cute little eggs, with a top and bottom shell. Inside is a little ball shaped chick with a beak and eyes. I didn’t get pics though, I was working on those until the morning they left to go back home.. ha!

with the colors she picked, I think it looks more like a parrot.. but cute all the same.

While at great grandpa and grandma’s for dinner, I showed Ashley and Emily how to crochet. They wanted to learn how to make a ball, so they could make some amigurumi too, so we started with making a square and worked our way to 3D. Ashley took off, but Emily couldn’t quite get in the groove things, until we switched her from crocheting with her right hand to doing it with her left. All the sudden it clicked! So interesting.

this picture cracks me up because they have the EXACT SAME EXPRESSION. concentration face!!!

Here’s a video I made of Emily explaining how to start out, when crocheting.

I really wish I hadn’t stopped the camera when I did, because at the end of the video she says “now, should I show how to start?” as in start crocheting. When I said no, or shook my head, she goes “GOOD, UGH” and everyone laughed!

Last but certainly not least, I broke out a bunch of clearance paper I bought from work for this exact occasion and we all went to town. I had been working on my knitting zine and the girls were very intrigued by a few paper punches I had lying around. And who can resist a pair of decorative-edged scissors??