A New Christmas Stocking For My Daughter

It was one of those "unfinished" projects I had laying around. I actually started this last year but never got beyond cutting the stocking shape out. Well by golly I was going to finish it this year! And I did!

My daughter originally requested hot pink with zebra stripes. I was going to cut out a zebra pattern and sew it onto the pink, which would have been cool, but the amount of sewing and cutting required had me not wanting to take on such a time consuming project. Then on a trip to the craft store recently I found zebra printed felt! BINGO! PERFECT!

I sat down with my daughter and showed her different options of what I could do and she made the decisions and I cranked it out. For her name I printed letters out, then cut them from felt. I did double letters sewn together so the zebra pattern didn't show trough plus the letters are puffy and fun. My daughter's name is Seneca but we always call her Sen for short.

 It's slightly imperfect but handmade with love and she is crazy about it. And that's the important thing.


*in case you are wondering, the stocking is 4 layers of felt for strength and the toe and heel are an extra 2 layers for durability.

Worktable Tuesday and A Witch.

At the last minute I decided to add a witch to my Halloween Plush Dolls and finished her over the weekend. I think she's my favorite. She's a cutie, isn't she?

 The whole gang is now ready to list in my etsy shop.

 

Some Christmas worktable peeks.

A finished prototype peek.

And yes I went a little nuts last night and started cutting out Halloween owls. How could I not?!

Frank's Done

Decided to go ahead an show each doll as I finish it so it I feel like I am getting things done instead this bogged down molasses feeling I've had lately. So Frank is done except he has one detail I need to add once I work out exactly what that is. He's the first to be completed in a series of dolls I'm doing that I just love and hope you'll like too.

He has button joints so his arms can be posed in many ways and his hips are jointed too so he can sit. I had a lot of fun making him.

Etsy Score!

One of my favorite sellers and someone I talk to almost daily on twitter is having a $10 sale in her store so I was finally able to get one of her awesome creations. They are not hugely expensive I'm just broke most of the time, plus who can resist a sale?

Meet Walter the Walrus.

Look at hims face! Love hims tooths!

Walter is from a great shop called ArtTales and Mary's creations are called LEFTZ for various reasons but mostly cause they are missing their left eyes. All LETFZ are made from mostly reclaimed materials: thrift store finds, vintage buttons and fabrics given away. They are made without a pattern and stuffed with plastic shopping bags. Each one is unique and super eco friendly!

LEFTZ creatures were recently featured in the latest issue of STUFFED magazine. Please check out her shop and her great blog too.

ArtTales Etsy Shop

LEFTZ Blog

Making of A Queen

Don't know if you are interested or not but I wanted a photo record of the construction of my Queen of Hearts Doll and lacking anything else to post today I decided to do this. Hopefully you'll find it interesting. Warning there are naked doll boobs here!

 Original drawing of the face.

  
This is the largest doll or plush I've ever attempted so far. Her final height is about 21.25 inches tall I think. Her arms are button jointed and move but her legs aren't and don't since the dress I had in mind didn't allow her to sit. After making and attaching her bosom I thought they were too freakishly stripper large and thought I'd have to re-do them but in the end they worked out perfectly. I spent lots of time completely drawing out the doll and how everything would fit together and how her face would look but decided to just wing it on the clothes. HUGE mistake! I don't know what I was thinking! I actually cried at one point thinking I bit off more than I could chew with this one! But Sassy always gets the job done!

  
Here she is in all her naked glory! She was cold and upset that she had no clothes. She unfortunately stood this way glaring at me for almost 2 weeks while I racked my brains for a way to make her clothes and make them queenly enough! If you know anything about me you know I'm a hand sewer and his whole doll and her clothes are completely hand sewn which added to my anxiety.

 A doll friend of mine once told me to make clothes patterns using paper towels. It was a really helpful suggestion! My idea for her skirt was to have 4 flat sides kind of like playing cards stacked upright.

Somehow I didn't get any photos of the creation of the corset. Sigh! I am so proud of how that turned out! The thing about felt is it can be thin and something I've discovered to give it stability is to embroider on it. It's impossible to see in these photos but the front and back of the fan piece of the corset has decorative stitching on it as does the red inset of the corset itself. 

  
The corset, fan piece and the red lace trimmed panties required hours of work.

 When I finally designed and sewed the dress I realized she wouldn't be able to stand on her own and spent some anxious moments trying to figure that out. Did I mention I've NEVER done this before?! So my idea was to make a long tutu kind of underskirt thing. It has two layers, black underneath and red on top. Only because I didn't buy enough black but you can't see it anyhow so who cares?

 Once her headdress and jewelry were on she was ready to go!

A better view of her back. She's standing on a cardboard circle so her dress wouldn't get muddy. It's been crazy rainy here.

I would have done more detail to her dress but I was running out of time and still needed to make her flamingo croquet mallet and a down and dirty 1/2 an hour to make hedgehog ball.

I love her and learned so much in the making of her. I can't wait till next year for ADO's next blog event! I received so many lovely comments from some awesome "real" doll makers that I'd like to make more dolls.

Thanks so much for reading thru this long and rambling post! Will show a sneak peek of a new project tomorrow.

Trolls!

I'm not actually writing about these Trolls but since I am on the subject thought I'd show some of my Russ Troll collection. These were huge when I was a kid and I never had one and was jealous of my friends who had whole collections of them. So as an adult I started picking them up at yard sales etc. I recently found a box of them stored away and decided to give them a home in my studio. This is only some of them, maybe one day I'll share my complete Troll obsession with you! O.k. so maybe this post is a little bit about these Trolls! LOL!

Now on to the real reason for this post. For some reason, who knows why Trolls have been on my mind lately. I know I'm weird, but that's o.k. cause I like myself that way. Sitting watching t.v. I did a quick sketch (kind of embarrassed to show you) then made a quick pattern on the computer.

In the beginning Trolls were flat, without features or life.

They come into the world naked and grumpy.

(kind of like me in the morning, only not naked)

Even with warm tunics they still are not happy.

(Must be a Troll personality trait)

Please meet Granite. He's a Rock Troll. They live in

caves but prefer a good bridge where they can waylay

humans, play mind games, impose tolls and crunch bones.

  

They also have the cutest bums but hate to show them.

(this one bit me after I took the photo)

I have a forest Troll in progress so stay tuned for his debut.

Re-opened my etsy shop today

I've been really lax about working on my etsy shop. First I was ill then my ebay store needed attention and I also was discouraged by no sales during last year's holiday season. But lately I've had lovely blog readers and twitter friends telling me to go for it so I did. And I'm pretty happy I did it. Even if I don't sell anything I'm happy to have my little felt creations out in the world being seen instead of packed away in a box.

Today is my son's 20th birthday & Zombie day!

So today is my son's birthday. I'm not going to make the fuss I did last year. For some reason this birthday is a little easier for me but next year's 21st will be hard, especially since the youngest will be 18 that year.

I made this zombie doll for my son's birthday. We share a love of anything zombie & I knew he would appreciate the handmade gift. And he did. He's named the zombie and is going to hang it from the rear view mirror of his car. Oh and the pink thing in the zombie's hand is of course BRAINS!

Happy 20th Birthday RJ!

I Love Chihuahuas!

I love etsy and I love Chihuahuas so one day I did a search for Chihuahua related items and I found the greatest stuff! So many different mediums and ideas on this sweet little dog.
I hope you'll take a minute and check out the wonderful little "huas"

Funny "Tea Cup" Chihuahua Note Card Set by bubbledog. Carmelita's big butt never
fit in a tea cup, a cereal bowl but never a tea cup!

These little buttons are adorable and the card they come on are a keeper too!
Sweet and whimsical "I Love Chihuahuas" by zozocards.

Sweet Handpainted Pendant by wildthings. This artists work is just beautiful! I'd love to have a pendant portrait of my Carmelita, I'd never take it off!

Wish I could crochet well enough to make this little sweetie for my studio!
Great pattern by DeliciousCrochet

Cute Chihuahua Note Card by Shesocreative

Cupcakes & Owls & Etsy Oh My!

I re-did my etsy banner and am commited to loading lots of new items in my shop this weekend. I had so many great things for xmas but didn't have time to put them up. My stationery business on ebay has been taking off lately and I was swamped. Super happy about that but sad my fun felt creations didn't get seen.

So I'm super commited to getting something up for Valentine's Day. So here's what I've got going on.

These cute cupcakes are tree ornaments that never got put in the store. They could also be used as a gift tags or scrapbook embellishments. I've re-worked this design for valentine's day and also made it smaller for a cute wearable pin. I'll post photos after I get them in the store.

I'll have a St. Pattie's Day version too based on this one. Mmm mint cupcakes.

This is Old Man Grizwald. He's the oldest owl in the woods. He's a cute little felt pin for you to wear. More owl family pins will be put in the store when I have time to sew them up.

Just a small sample of things I've been working on. I hope you like them and I'll post photos here and on Flickr when I have everything ready.

Happy New Year!

Handmade Presents I'm Giving This Year

For my mom I made this Red Hat Pin. The pin is underneath so you wear it like a hat hanging on a peg. I used red sparkle and purple eco felt. I put 3 red beads on the front of the band for interest. This I know my mom will love. She's such a sassy Red Hatter!

A cute Hello Kitty pin for my son's girlfriend. Really easy to make after I sat down and drew out how I wanted it to look. I think it came out really cute and really hope she likes it. I did another one with a pink bow but I'm not sure if I'll give her both or save one for her birthday.

Etsy Store is Open!

O.k. I finally did it. The etsy store is open. I only have one item in there- this sweet little ginger man but more will come in the following days. 2 people have viewed this listing so far and I'm pretty excited about it!

I also promise to blog more often and hope to share my creative process with you as I transform my stationery designs to other fun items. I'll also share fun finds etc.

Some items coming up are scrabble tile pendants with my designs, more felt ornaments and other felt creations. I'm have a love affair with felt right now. Can ya tell?

Wish me luck!

Holiday Ornaments Prototypes

This is a terrible picture but I took a quick shot to show some holiday ornament ideas I've been working on. These are done in the new eco-felt that's made from recycled water bottles. I'm all about recycling and I love felt so it's perfect.

I'm opening an etsy store for a new idea I had to turn some of my stationery designs into felt pins and ornaments, etc. The gingerbread people is a design I've had for a while (reminds me of the cookie cutter we used when I was a child) but never put on cards. The ball ornament is the same design I have on cards and stickers in my ebay store right now. I have them in red, blue, green, yellow, purple and pink.

I also have a sweet idea for a baby's First Christmas ornament. Lots of designs for beyond the holidays too. I'll put a link once I get my store up and running. If you see anything in my ebay store you'd like to see turned into felt, let me know too. http://www.thesassypackrat.com/

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.