Sewing with Monster Girl

Emmalee chose to sew as her craft for today.  We grabbed some felt, needles, upholstery thread and went to work.  I forgot that Emmers has a fabulous set of Melissa and Doug sewing cards that she uses all the time.  I had no idea playing with them was preparing her for hand sewing, DUH!

I was sure we were going to end up with me doing everything and Emmalee running around bored as can be.

I let go of my perfectionism, locked my lips, and handed her the felt with the threaded needle knotted to it.  Away she went!  At first she was telling me how sewing is so easy...

So cute!  She did that whole thing herself!!!

She decided she needed an apple for the monster to hold since this week is "A" week at Kindergarten.  I handed her a flower that had been punched out of red felt {the only scrap of red I could find-time to go to the store :0}.  She cut this apple out and asked me to thread a needle with red thread.  

She picked out white thread for her mouth...all by herself!  She mastered it.  I am so proud!  She says she is going to make a whole pile of monsters.  Now instead of doing anything else, she will make monsters.  She decided we could then sell them!  LUckY you!!!  Her price is only $1 {so we can go to the dollar store lots of times}.  That said, get your orders in quickly.  I don't know exactly how long her attention span will allow her to make these precious little guys :)

We finished making our monsters just in time to eat a little of our favorite lunch, cheese sandwich with mayo, mustard, and dill pickles.  Want some :0}  It was all I could eat the first 6 weeks after I found out I was pregnant with Madison.  Yumm!

Mr. SewCakeMaker thinks I am nuts......he is right.

The other little guy is mine.  I started out with the same shape.  I just pinched the corners and roped them off with thread to make ears.  LOvE It!!!

Clippie Madness 2013

Here is the first set of clippie samples for 2013!

I have to admit, I TOTALLY dislike coming up with new ideas!

Basically I have to lock myself in a small dark room with an IV of Mountain Dew and chocolate for about a week.  

Here are the clips I came up with during last week's session of insanity.

I make my clippies, otherwise known as hair clips and ponytail holders, out of my endless drawers of stickers, clipart, photos, beads, brads, and charms.  Oh, and I use miniatures when they fit the themes.

I have two customers, both in Oman {country near Saudi Arabia}.  I will tell you, I have come to really be impressed with and Love the people of Oman as I have researched and created for these two ladies.

I make these samples, they ladies tell me which ones they like, and then I produce, usually 8 of each ordered design.  Both ladies have two daughters that wear 4 clips/ponytail holders in their hair at once {two clips up high, two ponytail holders at ponys or braids.

They only want specific themes, so other than the custom requests, I have orders to make school, sports, music, and technology related clips.

Whew!  I think I need a vacation now!  Actually, I really want to spend some time making valentine crafts!!!

After all that black and blue I really need to stare at some pink!

Hat's Off to Mini Hats!

For the life of me I can't remember what these mini hats are actually called, so we will just call them mini hats.

  Madison said something about us making a mini marching band hat and I decided to run with the idea. She wanted something to wear to school on the days that they performed like football players and cheerleaders do.  This hat might be a little over the top for some kids, but my Madison is a little crazy :0)  Gotta love her!

I made this hat out of two pieces of felt.  The sparkly blue felt was purchased at Hobby Lobby and the black at Micheals {I am in both often ;0}

I worked on the hat over a couple of days, whenever I was sitting waiting for kids.  I think I spent an afternoon stitching at the mall while Emmalee played at the playplace too.  Anyway, I guess I can proudly say I stitched the WHOLE THING by hand!  I wouldn't recommend it, but it worked.  I stuffed the hat with stuffing and stitched the bottom on.

Some days later, back at home I hot glued the sparkly ribbon just above the brim and the accent shape to the front.  

I glued a strip of the sparkly black to the back of the hat to finish hiding my crazy stitches, then threw some feathers in the top for the plume

In order to get the feathers in I cut a small hole with scissors, arranged the feathers and netting where I wanted them, then ran a thin line of hot glue around the base of the feathers to hold them in place.

Goofy picture, I know, but Emmalee just had to try the hat on.  It was so cute, I think I am going to have to make another one! 

Remember when I mentioned the trip to the mall?  Well I think that was one of the only moments I have had in weeks when Emmalee left me alone for a moment.  It was so fabulous, I finished the marching band hat, then used the scraps to make this hat too!  {that is why my witch hat is blue}

Anyway, stitched a few more things on there, added a poofy collection of ribbons and a dangly spider out of the top, and shaZaMMm! 

Tiny witch hat.  

I should probably tell you that I put the marching band hat on a clip and it was awful!  It wobbled around and was crazy.  Not sure how to fix that issue, I cut off the clip and glued the hat to a headband.  The witch hat is also glued to a headband.  Lucky for me, I had a stash in my ribbon box from some shopping trip to SAS fabrics in Phoenix.  Can you imagine it, headbands for $.25 each!  They are fabulous too.  Wide and snug enough to stay in place, but not too snug to hurt your head.   Man am I going to miss that place!

If I get the chance in the next couple days I will get the patterns printed up.

These two hats turned out so well, I really can't wait to make more.

Making Ourselves At Home

I have mentioned that we are living in a hotel for the time being, right?  Well, to prove my total craft-nerdiness, I made a wreath for my door.  It was really all spawned by this pin on Pinterest:

 I saw a couple weeks ago.  It showed how to make a wreath out of that fabulous shiny mesh stuff I found at Hobby Lobby.

Fighting off the depression that follows leaving all that you know and love and moving across the country to live totally alone...I decide to begin my craft-therapy with a "home-y" type of craft, like a back-to-school wreath.  Here is my result...

I had it hanging on the door for a couple days, then took it down and hung it inside so I could figure out what was wrong with it.  It was just too plain.  After staring at it for days/weeks, I finally took another trip to Hobby Lobby and grabbed some fall sprigs I thought might go well.  

Honestly, I just wanted to scrap the whole mesh wreath and just use a grapevine wreath as my base.  I was determined not to waste the money already spent, so forward I marched.

I searched high and low for chalkboards and found not a one.  Funny how in the middle of August you can buy Halloween candy and Christmas ornaments...but not a single "Back-to-School" decoration!

I finally picked up this little frame from Hobby Lobby and just painted it to look like a chalkboard.  The smaller boards are from a pack of four wooden rectangles also found at Hobby Lobby.

***Now would be the moment to admit that I miss my saws TERRIBLY and have a new found sympathy for all you crafters out there that don't have saws of your own!!!***

Next up, I stitched together some felt pencils.  I cheated on the pencil lead.  I just dipped my pencils in black paint and saved myself some heartache.

Even after putting on the leave sprigs, it looked empty.  I just kept adding and adding branches until it finally looked good to me.  In case you are wondering, I bought 4 branches of the leaf sprig and three branches of the yellow bally sprigs.

There we go.  A "home-y" wreath on my door.  I hate to admit it, but I am seriously thinking about making couch pillows next.  The only thing left would be to crochet a fabric mat for the door :0)  Just kidding on that last one {although I am sure my mom doesn't believe I was kidding about that one}

Felt Like Some Light Reading

I got busy Wednesday making little books for a friend.  She couldn't make up her mind, so I just made a whole library's worth and let her choose.  This one is at the top of my list.

Who doesn't LOVE Lovable, Furry Old Grover!?!  I really want to get the "Monster At The End Of This Book" that has Elmo in it.  Maybe I can slip a letter in to the North Pole after I finish this post :0)

OK, so I shrunk down some books that we have, printed them onto iron-on-transfer, and ironed it onto felt.  Then I machine sewed felt pages inside.  I didn't go all crazy and print pages or anything like that, but don't you think THEY ARE CUTE!?! 

My girls won't stop playing with them.  I baby sat for a friend last night and the kids sat around forever just moving them around and stacking them up like blocks.

Notice anything weird?  Yes!  All of these books are in Arabic!  Yep, my friend reads Arabic :0)  Don't I have smart friends!  

Felt Clippies

I am just wrapping up my latest order of clippies.  I guess I haven't explained my whole craziness lately.  I put these hairbows on my etsy site back in August.  One customer contacted me and wanted the charm I had painted and placed in the middle of the hairbow, but not the bow.  Strange it seemed, the charm was surprisingly cute all by itself on a clip!  About a month later the same lovely lady contacted me and asked if I had any more ideas....

***BAM***

End of restful life as we knew it...OK, never restful, but certainly less complicated.

Since taking her on as a full time customer I haven't even had the chance to list another item on my etsy. 

I have loved the clippie revolution.  It has treated us well.  Here are the latest clippies ordered.  Many were felt, the new medium we are trying.  Still a lot of wood, but more 3D was the main request.  My disclaimer is that the only subject of interest is SCHOOL.  Anything to do with school is OK.  Not so interested in girly or brightly colored bows or things like that.  In fact, the request was that there only be navy blue bows, if any, to match the school uniforms.

Thus I comply.  I was particularly thrilled with how these clippies turned out.  While the felt took a LOT longer than I had expected, CUTE!!!

I snapped this photo while I waited to hear which pencil design she wanted.  Below is a photo of the options.  As I was sewing these felted scribblers I realized I didn't represent the metal strip between the wood and the eraser.  As I hadn't included the ribbon on the original sample, I thought I better let my customer decide.  I am partial to the one on the right. What do you think?

 

All those spiral bound notebooks were a bit tricky.  Not the spiral part, that was easy, but the painting was what vexed me.  I hand painted the samples, but when I started painting the order, I was having fits about how different my writing was on each book.  Finally I hit the computer.  I used my Creative Memories photo editing program to design the book covers to look just like my painted version.  Once I had them where I wanted them I printed them out in color, grabbed the modge podge and went to town!!!

The easels house a drawing I printed onto iron-on transfer paper.  I used the same stuff for the glue bottles, glue sticks, and my Dr. Seuss books from a previous shipment.  I thought I would try the stuff on felt and see how it went.  I bought the kind for light fabric and the kind for dark fabric.  The light kind is see through while the dark fabric prints everything as if you were putting an image on dark fabric and didn't want the dark color to show through the image.  Thinking about doing some transferring yourself?  Save the money-don't buy the light.  The "for dark fabrics" kind is much more hardy and works on light fabric as well as dark.

It has been so much fun to experiment and try new materials.  I am starting on a HUGE wooden clip order next week.  Wish me luck.  Hours and hours of miniature painting lie ahead of me for the next couple weeks.  It could be tricky with all the holiday stuff going on, but we will do our best to make it through.

Bunco on Tues. night with my old lady friends :0)  I lovingly refer to it as my "Old Lady" bunco group.  I am hosting and have some fun ideas in mind...stay tuned...