I'm having a Holiday Sale!

Hi everyone! I had a really good Thanksgiving which put me in a super good mood so I thought I'd offer everyone the same discount code that only my newsletter subscribers were getting.

 Everything in my website shop and my etsy will be 20% if you use this code above.
I'm currently adding things to both shops over the next few days so keep checking back!

Ornaments are Coming!

I finished my 2015 Christmas Collection of ornaments. There are 5 designs total with a possible 6th if I get enough interest.

 Beginning designs.

 Male Deer, Female Deer, Santa, Snowman and Male Elf.

I took a poll on social media if I should make an Elf or Ginger Cookie. The Elf won, but I did make 1 Ginger Cookie that I'll giveaway on Small Business Saturday, 11/28/15 cause he's so darn cute.

I am taking another poll to see if I should make some Girl Elves with pink hats. What do you guys think? Yes or No?

 These are soooo cute in person! I've already sold several and I haven't listed them in my shop yet. I hope you enjoyed seeing them!

The Reveal!

Ok my client has now seen the piece she commissioned me to make and it will arrive at her house tomorrow so I can finally show finished pics.

First let me say that there is a huge difference between a commission piece and a custom piece. 

A commission is a piece of art that has not been created before, completely one of a kind, requiring hours of research and multiple prototypes to get the design right. This took me almost 5 weeks from start to finish.

Now a custom is a change to an already designed piece. Say you wanted a pink deer ornament instead of the dark brown I'm currently making, easy to do and that piece is now a special custom to that client.

I've only made 2 commissioned pieces this year and here's one of them. My client requested a soft sculpture of her chihuahua with Day of the Dead designs and flower motif. This piece is 11.5 inched high and 12 inches long. 

Links to the work in progress posts are at the bottom of this post.

My muse, Rio.

 Side view.

 

Flower crown. 

 3/4 view.

Back design.

Full back.

My littlest chihuahua for size.

My bigger chihuahua for size.

I'll do another post soon showing the wips for this project. Thanks for looking!

UPDATE: I'm linking this post to the making of this piece. PART 1, PART 2, and PART 3 

Monday's Worktable.

I have finished my commissioned soft sculpture piece! My client hasn't seen it yet so I can't show it until she does. But here is a sneak peek I put up last week.

 I can show wips of my 2015 Christmas Collection which I'm pretty excited about.

 Beginning sketches, turn into tighter sketches which turn into paper patterns.

 A young deer is my first design, I think I'll put a bow on it and make it a girl.

 I have a deer with little antlers and a red nose too. I'm currently working on a snowman and a Santa, what else should I make?

I'm Still Here Just Super Busy!

For the last few weeks I've been working on my commissioned piece. It's taking longer than I thought which with me is par for the course. I always forget how much time is required to create something brand new that I've never done before, especially a soft sculpture piece.

The body is done and is stuffed and the back legs are complete and sewn on. The front legs are done but I need to figure out how to sew them on without messing up my embroidery. So while that issue is slowly churning away in the back of my brain I'm working on the head. I had to redo the pattern for the head and make it slightly larger and add an additional gusset to get the shape right.

Now I'm trying to decide if I should do plastic animal eyes or my own sassy packrat eyes style. It's always a work in progress even when I "think" I've got everything figured out.

Here's 2 wips that don't give away too much, hopefully.
 

 I blurred the last pic a little so you can't see the details too clearly. I promise you'll see the finished piece as soon as the client does.