Another little bear in progress

I spent most of yesterday working on this little guy; he still needs a bit more felting work, some shading and embroidered details---and I'm sure he'd like all his limbs firmly attached as well :o) 
He will be finished and up for adoption later today!

♥

Lots of new stuff for Autumn...

Good morning world! I've been busy with lots of new stuff, so this is sort of a catch-up photo post :)

Curious Bear in progress  - I'm thinking he will have a wool plaid scarf and come with a little felted pumpkin like the ones in the next photo. He will be part of my Ebay endeavors :)

These felted pumpkins are new in the shop:

This slightly spooky wool pumpkin pincushion  and the sculpted black mushroom pins are also new--

I'm definitely enjoying gearing up for Autumn, and I'm SO ready for sweaters and boots :)

Wishing everyone a great weekend!!

♥

Sneak Peek WIP - Mountain Chickadee

Happy Sunday :)
With all the obsessing over the birds in my area lately, I knew it would eventually come out in my work somehow....here's a peek at one I'm working on at the moment. This little chickadee still needs eyes, some more coloring, and some embroidered details, but I think he's coming along nicely. This is the first of a series that will be going on Ebay.

Wishing everyone a creative and happy week!
♥

Customer photos - LOVE!!

I was thrilled to get a message today from the lovely customer who ordered the tree stump with mushrooms to display in a library. She included photos! It's the first time that I've seen one of my creations in its new environment...so neat! This is the tree stump that was created in this post.
She put it under a glass dome and attached it to a vintage book (she said the glue was still wet here, but will dry clear)...so creative and I think it looks wonderful.

Simply awesome.

I am currently waiting for some little clay mushrooms to cool off so I can paint them, and of course I took pics of the process :)

Have a wonderful weekend and a Happy Easter to those who celebrate :)
♥

Sneak Peek - new clay goodies

Hi there!

I've got some new goodies planned for next month's shop update, and I thought I'd share a couple sneaky-peeky photos :)

Stay tuned :)

♥

Finished! Tree Stump WIP photos part 2

Yay! The tree stump and mushrooms display is all done and it shipped out today to go to its new home :) If you missed part 1 of this, you can see it here.

I took a few more photos this time than I did for part 1, you can click on them to make them larger. Here goes!

Here I'm starting to shape the base with core wool (this is where the tree stump will sit). I pretty much just make a coil and keep felting it together with the needle as I go, adding more wool until I think it's large enough.

Tree Stump WIP photos

Hello there! I'm up at 1:30 a.m. working on a custom order (I seem to work so much better at this time of night, I don't know why!). I'm making a needle felted tree stump with mushrooms growing from the side, and it's going to be displayed as part of an exhibit in a mushroom library. I've never heard of a mushroom library before...what a neat place it must be! Anyway, I thought I would take some photos of my progress; the photo quality isn't too hot since it was at my work table instead of in my fancy-schmancy (read: cheapie) light box, so please overlook that! :)

This is the tree stump I made from core (un-dyed) wool in all its nakedness. I start out by making a basic cylinder shape and then add bits of wool for the roots, and deeply needled lines to represent the texture of bark.

Here I'm putting the first layer of brown wool over the core wool stump.

Almost ready, sneak peek!

Hello and Happy Saturday!

I think I'm finally happy with the painting techniques I'm using on the mushroom cap pin toppers. Here are a couple shots of the ones I particularly like:

The ones in the top photo have a matte finish and seem more realistic to me, which is what I prefer. However, I know that not everyone loves the same styles that I do, so I also did some that are glossy with lots of spots (bottom photo)...they seem to belong in more of a fairy tale setting somehow. :)

You may notice that a little green leaf found its way in the group as well...I sculpted a couple of those and they were so much fun that I'm sure I will make more.

Some of these will be available in the shop by Sunday night once I get some proper photos taken (for those kind souls who are patiently waiting) ♥

Also, I'm excited that it's Daylight Saving Time here this weekend...I LOVE it when the days are longer and it's still light out at 8 p.m.! Makes the day's possibilities seem endless.

Have a wonderful evening!

How I spent my morning

Seems I'm a bit mushroom-happy lately. I spent most of the morning sculpting these caps, and I used a sewing pin for the details. These are waiting to be painted, photographed and listed as accessories for the pincushions in my shop.

A fun way to spend my first day of self-employment =)

♥

Quick photo of orders in progress

I've been so fortunate to have several orders for my pincushions the last few weeks! Here's a shot I took while I was in the middle of a pine-tree-making-frenzy...these little guys are waiting to be added to pincushions and then they will be shipped to their new homes.

Oh, and after I made the texture tools I talked about in my last post, I couldn't seem to stop sculpting little cottages...these are in various stages, some need paint or other finishing touches, but I like how they look all together like a little village :)

Time to get back to it so everyone can have their goodies by Christmas =) Bye for now!

♥

Returning to Clay - making texture tools

It's been so long since I've really dug into my clay, aside from making tiny eggs for my bird's nests. This week I had a dream about adding some clay elements to my wool pincushions (don't you get the best ideas from dreams??)...so I broke out the stash of clay in my studio and have been having lots of fun the past few days :)

I wanted to make some tiny little cottages, and I wanted them to have a nice rocky or sandstone-type texture. Time to make some tools! I looked around the house and found several odd things to help me:

Embroidered linen wrist-cuff DONE!

The embroidered wrist cuff is done! This was definitely a learning experience...there are mistakes I made with this that I'll know to avoid next time. And I just may have to consider getting a sewing machine sooner or later just for basic construction stuff...even though sewing machines and I have never gotten along.
*kicks dirt and grumbles in Homer Simpson voice*  Stupid bobbins...

I'm quickly realizing that hand-sewing isn't all it's cracked up to be (what it IS cracked up to be, I'm not quite sure, but you know what I mean). But if I plan on doing any larger sized projects, sewing everything by hand is sure to become tedious and a huge time-suck. I like to get to the fun details as quickly as possible! :)

Overall I'm pretty happy with this cuff and I'll wear it for sure...and I learned a lot so, yep! Time well spent!

Any suggestions for a somewhat simple sewing machine that won't suck the fabric into the bobbin plate thingy? Yes that's happened...is it just me? :o)

♥

Embroidered linen wrist-cuff WIP No. 2

Just a quick post tonight to show the progress so far on the embroidered wrist-cuff. The main stitching and beadwork is done (freshwater pearls and tiny 2mm tiger's-eye beads); I just started adding a blanket stitch around the edges. Hopefully I'll get it finished after work tomorrow...right now it's bedtime :)

'Nite! ♥

Happy Dad's Day and an Embroidery WIP

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there! I hope you're having a wonderful, relaxing day :)

I've got yet another kitty pic for everybody--- I caught Toby going nutso with the quilt on my bed (he always seems to think there's something underneath it that he MUST get to). I grabbed the camera and walked in, and he immediately flopped down like he was just innocently lounging there the whole time, and what was my problem? :o)

This weekend I set aside some time to work on an embroidered linen wrist-cuff that's been in my head for a while now. I'm still in the newbie stages of embroidery so I thought it would be good practice. Here's a sneak peek; I'll add more stitches, maybe some freshwater pearls, and I thought I'd crochet around the edges in the same color as the linen.

I hope everyone has a good week! I know I'm looking forward to the 3-day weekend off work for July 4th.

♥

Tiny unfinished needle felted bird's nests

Wow it's really late already...where did the day go?? But I wanted to get this posted tonight before bed.
I really love the woodland forest-y feel of these little needle felted nests. I have a couple in my second Etsy shop as stick pins, but I've been making more the past few days just because they're so much fun. I'm weird...I like having these tiny nests everywhere! These are nests in various stages of doneness; the eggs are made of polymer clay that I baked and then painted with little brown flecks (click on the pics for full-size)...

I was playing around with my camera's settings, determined to find a way to get those awesome shots that have great depth of field (DOF).I think I did it! I also have one of those fabric collapsible photo-cubes that I've been using for a long time now, but I was never quite happy with it. I just didn't like the shape and it was too constricting, so tonight, I cut out the back and the bottom of it. Now it's 3-sided and I can just set it over whatever I'm shooting, and my backgrounds don't have to fit INSIDE of it. Why didn't I think of tearing it up before? I like it much better, and I'm pretty happy with the way these photos turned out!

Ok, time for bed! I have at least 4 kids coming over tomorrow night for a Halloween sleepover. I'm really going to need all the sleep I can get tonight  -o-

♥

New fiber sculpture series: Fantimals! More pics added-

What is a Fantimal? It's simple....Fantasy + Animal = Fantimal. Ok, yeah, it's a bit silly but it seems to be the perfect name for the things I'm working on.  Needle felted fiber goodness with no restrictions :)

I've been having a lot of fun making the Costume Kids and various little animals...but lately my imagination has been getting restless. I want to make animals that don't exist!

They will most likely be loosely based on a dinosaur/dragon theme, but I want to mix things up and add whatever features pop into my head. Could be cat ears...a mohawk...horns...

I have really been stifling my creativity by sticking to how things are "supposed" to look, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens when I just let imagination completely run the show.

The first one has already been started...I've taken a few work-in-progress photos. I'll take more pics as I work on him, and I'll keep adding them to this post.

Have a great day!!

Ok I got more done! He has legs, feet and a tail...here he's just waiting patiently for his toes, which are being held captive by the evil felting needles:

 

Ahh, that's better! You can see in the pic above that I had originally made six toes, but after putting only two on each foot, I decided I really liked how they looked with just two! So that's how it shall be, because there's no right or wrong with animals that only exist in my head...I'm liking this more and more.

Next I'll be adding the base color to his body...it's a soft sage green that I dyed last night. You can see a little bit of it up there on his head...see that little stripe? I was impatient and had to test it out :)

♥

Needle Felting - A work in progress Part 3 *Done!*

The final set of progress pics, I think he's done! This cutie will be entering the world of Ebay soon...I'll post a link when I list him.




As promised in my last post, he's getting a nose :)

Needle Felting - A work in progress Part 2

Ok I finally got some time to do some more work on this little guy! Click on the pics to see them a little larger. Here we go:






I decided he's going to be dressed as a bumblebee, so here ^^ I'm using black wool and needling it into somewhat of a cone shape for the body.

Needle Felting - A work in progress Part 1

Hi there! I'm going to show you how I made this little guy:

One of my all-time favorite ways to create things---by using super-sharp, barbed needles, repeatedly stabbing into fluffy wool until the fibers interlock and form shapes. Ahh...definitely a great stress reliever, and FUN.

It had been a while since I'd done any needle felting and I was really starting to miss it. Then the other day an idea popped into my head to make some tiny little art-dolls...but different than anything I've seen done anywhere else in needle felting. Cute little kid-faces peeking out of hooded costumes...I've got so many ideas swimming in my head with these, I'm having a hard time concentrating on anything else.
I've already finished a "practice" one (or prototype if I want to sound all fancy) so I could get a feel for how to approach it, what to do and what to avoid. Now I'm making one for REAL :) Here are a few photos taken at my worktable tonight (click on any photo if you want to see it a little more closely)...