Technicolor Teddies

I guess it's all about felt for me right now. Feltapalooza up in my craft space! I just can't get over the yummy colors and the simple pleasure of the material. This is a rainbow of yet-to-be-sewn delicious little teddy bears I want to make for my etsy shop. They're really simple in design, perfect for the simple material they're made out of. I can't wait to stitch them up and get them into the shop (keeping one or two for myself, of course). I swear I have one made out of every color of felt sold in the county. And I realized there's no variety of red when it comes to felt. I have one scrap of a deep red in my stash, but it was too small for a bear. Guess whoever gets the only red-toned one will be lucky. Okay, I think I'm done going on and on about felt now! Anyone else out there have awesome stuff they want to show off made out of craft felt? I wanna see!!

A Special Visit!

My sister's coming home to visit all the way from England! I'm sooo excited! I got to visit her in September for a couple of weeks and I had such a wonderful time, and now she's coming in mid February for almost three weeks. Even though most of the time she will be down at my mom's house, I'll still have here here a few days and I'll take her down south and spend the weekend there. I can't wait! This is sis and her corgy Soso at Lake Buttermere. We did a hike through this chain of lakes - aptly named the lake district - and it was so beautiful!So in honor of sissy visiting, I thought I'd share some traditional English recipes that I picked up in postcard form while I was over there:

My Favorite Fabric

Today has been a very wonderful day. I feel like I got a lot done. I've finally made a book I want to sell on etsy, I'm going to list it tomorrow. I stopped off at the craft store for some more cover paper and was struck by these felts they have. I especially like the one that looks like alligator skin. I bought a couple sheets of each, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them. Maybe purses? It would be a simple construction, just fold them in half and stitch, maybe line it with a piece of red felt, add a snap closure and voila, a clutch. I'll have to give that a try, maybe give some instructions in a later post?
There's just something about felt that makes me happy. I guess because it's so inexpensive (the craft felt that is), and it's perfect for hand sewing because it doesn't fray. I guess thats why there are so many adorable little plushies, patches, pins, etc. made by people on etsy. I'd love to give it a try, I just want to add some of my own style to it.

I also finished a sweet stuffed elephant named Gertrude:All hand sewn and super cute. She's for sale in my etsy shop right now, though I'd be secretly happy if she didn't sell, I'd love so much to keep her! All and all it's been an inspiring day.

Busy, Busy Life

Sorry for the posting drought lately. Things have been a little crazy around here. First of all, after all of my hard work trying to ween myself off of World of Warcraft, I'm addicted again because I stood in line in the freezing cold and got myself a copy of the collector's edition expansion pack. So that's been wasting a lot of my free time, but hopefully I'll burn myself out on it and get back to important things.

On another note, I finally quit my horrid job as a "microcleaner" (really just a well-trained, glorified janitor)! It was nice to have that extra money and all, but honestly, I'd rather be poor. I'm hoping to get a new little job somewhere like a coffee shop or boutique, but I'm in no rush and I promised myself I would not take just any job. I can afford to wait a while until I find a job that I really like.

Etsy's been a little slow, mostly because I've been very bad about listing new things lately. Before the expansion came out I was posting one thing a day in the early morning and I was selling one thing a day too. But now I'm playing a video game instead of using the time to make new things, and I'm staying up way too late to get up early and list things when people will notice them. Bad, bad, bad. But also terribly fun, fun, fun. I'm sure I'll get bored with it soon and get back to work.

Luckily the classes I have this quarter don't require too much out of class time so I'm not hurting when it comes to homework.

Oh, and I finally signed up for flickr. I couldn't get ohthecuteness as the url, so I chose ohthecutenessshop.

Check it out here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohthecutenessshop

Gifts from the Post Office!

One thing I really love about etsy is its sense of community. Even though we're all on there to sell the things we've made, no one's above a kind gesture. I really admired a fabric in someone's shop: And they were the ones who bought the first thing I ever sold. So I asked them if I could buy some of their fabric, and they just gave it to me! I have to make them something special as a thank you gift. Also, I did a trade with someone who sent me a convo and asked if I would be willing to trade her for an owl and a wrist warmer she liked. I fell in love with her plush snail, Claire, and I added in my grey earrings to make it an even trade. I think it turned out perfectly, I love this little snail so much! So please visit their etsy shops (just click on the pictures), I have to give them props for their beauitful handmade goodies and their awesome kindness!

Spread the Love!

I have a fan! Huzzah! A woman named Therese sent me a convo on etsy to let me know she liked my little bird amigurumis and yesterday she featured me in her wonderful blog, Softies Central. It's so nice to know people like what I do, it really inspires me. Speaking of inspiring, her blog is full of awesome pics and ideas from softie makers all over the place. Definately go check it out.
On another note, there's a lot of V-Day colored goodies up at my etsy shop, including another cupcake. But you know what I recently realized? I hate beading. I absolutely hate hate hate it. It seemed like it was taking me so long to make a relatively simple cupcake, but I realized all my time was going into beading their faces. And while I love the cute faces I put on them, I'm definately not going to be making a ton of those. I have one eye done on one and it will eventually get finished, but my new ones just have one simple red faceted antique glass bead as a "cherry" on top. Much easier on me and my dislike of beading, and still just as cute if you ask me. I need to get going on some more birds and owls, but it's slow going now that school has started again. More on that later...

Another Contest... Ho Boy...

So here I am, entered in another crafting contest. This time on Etsy. The last one didn't go so well because I got the entry in so late and missed out on votes. This time the judging is up to the 8 or so people at Etsy, which is good because I never seem to win popularity contests. The contest is all about recycling things, and making something useful out of stuff that would otherwise be thrown away, aka Upcycling. The only new things allowed are glue and fastners, and appearantly paint too. I've entered three things, but the one I'm banking on is this:

It's a purse made from an old Breyer's ice cream container, some scrap metal, and a piece of strapping. I've also entered another purse and a garland, but I'm sure they're just in there for fun. I've gotten so many views on that purse, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for second place, that's all I need.

The first place prize is a booth as Bazaar Bizarre in San Francisco this coming May, and they pay up to $1000.00 for air fare and hotel. Since I live in the area I could take Michael with me and stay in the fanciest hotel ever, but I'd honestly rather that the first prize go to someone far away who otherwise couldn't make it out here, because second prize is just the booth, no air fare/hotel money. And that's all I really want, just a chance to do my first ever craft fair. Keep your fingers crossed for me, ok?