Cell phone cubby

I finally found a home for the ice cream patch I made! A cell phone bag cubby! It needs a handle or belt loop as right now, it can only live in my pocket or in my bag since it has nothing to latch onto with, but it came out fairly well and it holds my cell and any notes I write or camera cards I need to carry, or anything else small that I want to keep close by. :) The sewing is terrible on the edges, as I did it by hand and haven't mastered hiding my stitches or making them at least look good, but so far, it's help up well. I also used a spray glue to mount the ice cream to the felt baggy since I used very few stitches to hold it to the bag. It's been working great so far. I have yet to wash it so I guess that will be the ultimate test, but since this was something fun just for me, it turned out pretty good. :)

More felted fun!

After making so many jelly roll felted necklaces, I had some left over, and they inspired this little ice cream necklace. This is the second one I did.




And here is the first. It came out a bit top heavy as the beads tend to weigh it down quite a bit, but it still looks pretty cute. To me anyway. ;D





You'd think with making all these ice cream items, I'd be a major ice cream fan, but honestly, I rarely even eat ice cream. Perhaps I always view it was a face which makes it harder to eat? LoL!

Sharing

I recently scanned this, but drew it ages ago. ;) Not sure what the celebratory cupcake is for, but at least this little guy is willing to share it with his fluff friend. :D




I also have some updates on my felt work, but that post will have to wait.

Semi-handmade purse

This is only a semi handmade dainty purse. I found some really cute pants for teens at a local store that were on sale at a VERY cheap price. So I bought a couple of pairs because the fabric was so wonderfully soft and had a great feeling to it. I guess you could call it spandex? I need to read the label, but for lack of energy to do so at the moment, we'll call it a form of spandex. It's stretchy and very soft and silky like on the outside. The bottom of the pants were bunched up so that they created instant capri like pants. I simply cut off the end of one legging and created this little purse. I did have to sew the bottom and everything else, but my part ended up being mostly easy. :) The perfect way to do a purse, in my opinion. LoL! I guess the hard part will be figuring out what to carry in it. Anyway, here's the finished one. This is the one I created for my neice. Hers came out alot cuter then the one I made for me, so I'm only going to share hers with you all. :)

Some post cards?

I did these awhile back and haven't really done anything with them or went back to them. Not even sure what I did with them actually...

Felt Ice Cream

This creation was born after creating several jelly roll jewelry items here and here. I'm pretty sure someone was eating ice cream in the house at the time, which also helped bring this into creation. It's made of felt and was really rather simple to create.

I'm just not exactly sure where to attach it to now. :/ Guess that means I'll need to create something for it. LoL!



Here are some more detailed pictures. Hopefully they're not too small.

Jelly Roll...matching necklace

I almost forgot, I made a matching necklace to go with my jelly roll earrings!



And speaking of earrings, here's a set I made some time ago. They're rather wonky, but I like how they turned out. I haven't been brave enough to wear them out yet though. Hopefully soon.

Jelly Roll Felt Earrings

Here's another project from the book I was telling you about in this post. They're called Jelly Roll Candies, but they look like potato candy my grandmother used to make when I was a kid.

The book gives detailed instructions on how to make these cute little candies, but I won't bore you with the details. You'll have to find the book for that I'm afraid. ;) But here's what I created with the ones I made. Cute little earrings!

Here are the jelly rolls made out of felt. After these were dry, I sewed on little green beads.




And here are the jelly rolls as earrings. They came out really cute and I can't wait to wear them. :)

DIY: Felt Dying!

I was gifted a wonderful book entitled, "Pretty Little Felts" written by Julie Collings. It has a wonderful assortment of craft projects for felt. I've always loved creating with felt, despite my terrible use of a needle and thread, so I decided that I would try out some of these handy little projects. Some really don't even need a needle and thread, which made them all the more appealing. What I wanted to try first was felt dyeing. I've never been able to find any really nice felt colors I like. They're always too bold or too dark or too dull for the color I want. My selection has mostly consisted of felt squares as well. I hope to one day try needle felting, but have yet to find the materials in any stores nearby. The book also shows Wool rovings, which I would love to find. I may have to try to order it online though, as no one nearby seems to have it so far. :/

Anyway, I decided to try coloring some felt just to see how well that might work. The book consists of instructions that were pretty simple and easy, so I took a couple of pices of white felt and decided to try it out. Here are my pictures below.




1. Gather your materials. I took two pieces of white felt, although you could use any color you like. However darker colors may not be affected much by the dye. Choose your dye colors and kinds. I like liquid dyes and only had three available at the time. One is a lettuce color, one is like cranberry? And then the last was eggplant I believe. I ended up leaving the cranberry one as it's own color, but mixed the eggplant and lettuce a little. Be sure to use quite a bit of a dye with your water. Several squirts anyway. Too little color won't change the felt much and will just wash out with you rinse it out. You can use bowls, jars, or whatever you like to hold the dye. You will need a container of water for your dye mixture,make sure the water is slightly warm. You'll also need a class of clean, warrm water to rinse your felt in. It may be easier to rinse these under running water. I had to keep cleaning out my clean water after each use to keep the colors left behind from mixing. It may depend on your brand of dye as well? If you're looking to dye any felt, be sure to experiement first and use several practice pieces. You'll also need an old towel or paper towels to dry the felt on afterwards. Make sure you use something you dont' mind changing the color of. Paper towels are probably your best pick.
2. Once you have your supplies ready, take one of the glasses of water and drop in several drops or squirts of your dye. In the picture, I think I started out with only a few drops and ultimately added more, so feel free to experiment with how much dye you want to use. The more dye you have, the darker or stronger your colors will turn out. Put your dye in (might want to wear gloves to keep your fingers clean) and let sit for a bit. Sitting longer means darker, stronger colors. When you think it's done, take out the felt and rinse it in the clean water.
3. This pictures shows the cranberry felt after it has been rinsed in clean water. Notice how pink the 'clean' water becomes?
4. This is the pink/cranberry felt and the eggplant/lettuce felt next to their original counterpart. Notice the changes? The cranberry/pink felt came out alot better and stronger then the other. I also had to keep dyeing the brown colored one as the color kept fading out of it when it was rinsed. I may not have left it in long enough. If you want your felt to be darker, leaving it in the dyed water longer helps. This was just my first attempt, but I am pretty pleased with out it came out.

The whole process was fairly simple and hopefully I can get some other dyes that will help me get more colors that will be closer to what I'm looking for. I have several other projects to post that I've tried from this book, so stay tuned!

Happy Mother's Day!

This is a bit late, but Happy Mother's day to all the mom's out there. :)

I created this as a sort of cover art for a dvd I created for my mother. Something simple based on another photo I saw somewhere online. It was simple so decided to keep mine simple as well. :)

What items do you create with?

Just wanted to dedicate this post to some of my favorite craft items. Here are a few that I adore and use fairly often:

1. Buttons!
2. scrapbook paper, or paper with designs
3. Fiskars Cutter Bee Scissors (these are seriously the best thing I've ever bought. Everyone should own at least one pair of these.)
4. stamps (Love so many, I really don't have any particular fave brand or design really.)
5. sandpaper

Sandpaper? Yes, sandpaper. It was years before I discovered it's multifunctional use for art. Have a lumpy chipboard piece? Use sandpaper to buff out the chinks! Need a distressed look but don't have a distress tool handy or can't find one you like? Sandpaper works well!

Oh, and I suppose a number 6 item would be art/craft/scrapbook magazines. These really are priceless for ideas and projects and techniques. My favorite so far is Scrapbooks, Etc. They work best for me because they offer multiple projects, such as art projects, diy projects, gift ideas, card ideas, scrapbook layouts, and so much more! However, there are many to choose from, so the next time you're near the magazine aisle, be sure to check out what's out there! :D

The princess and the pigeon

Just doodling in photoshop and created this. Thought I would share it while I have a chance. ;)

...and then it rained....

It's been raining quite a bit this week, which I guess is what perhaps partly inspired this piece? Although it was more inspired by this talented artist I came across recently. Either way, here's what my head came up with.