Jane Austen Swap

This is my second Jane Austen Swap... needless to say she's quite a favorite of mine. :) For this swap I decided to go big. The requirements were a large item and two smalls but since my partner had decided to make me a period gown I wanted to make my package to her reflect my thanks.

The first items are a simple pearl beaded necklace and bracelet. Nothing too fancy, as simplicity was a key theme in the Regency period. I decorated a small round box to put them in.


Next, one of the items that was requested was a journal. Yay! One of my favorite types of projects! This one was fun too because I got to find a Jane Austen quote. She's so sassy! I'm always surprised when people think of her as prim and proper. :) It's a bit mixed media (once again trying to branch out here). I used a print out of the silhouette that is supposedly Miss Austen herself, acrylic paint, gel medium, rub ons (thank you 7 Gypsies!), and a few bits and bobs.

Finally for package #1 is the large item - a shawl. It's my very first completed knitted shawl so I'm pretty proud of it. It's a lovely color and pretty cozy. It's large enough to keep your shoulders warm when worn as a shawl and small enough to wear as a neck kerchief for a more modern look.



So here it is, part one of two! Somehow the color red became an ongoing theme in this package, which I guess is appropriate since it is Valentine's Day weekend. :)



I have two other items to send out but I didn't want to hold up the whole package so I shipped this one off on it's merry way. Part two will come as soon as I've finished the final piece!

Not crafty but it's cool!

Evan came over tonight to trim my hair a bit. Well, I got a little more than a trim. :D He was talking about ideas he had for my hair so I said just do it!


Here's the boring before:


Here's the sassy after! I think on Thursday we might do some fun color.

Both sides are short like this , but with the top pulled over to the left you can't tell from these pictures. Basically I could mohawk it if I wanted too. hehe It'll be really sweet in a couple weeks when it's grown out a teeny bit though.

Altered bits and bobs...

I made this little tin a while ago. It's full of mini BH sketches and it's made from a Camel cigarette tin.
I love the way it came out, and it's great to just toss in my bag for when I go to crops.

A little modge podge, a little emphera and we're good to go!


An oldie but a goody, it even won "Best of Craftster 2007"!!



I'm cheesy, yes, but this is a 4x4 minibook of cutesy texts from the ole boyfriend. Back in the day people would send love letters... now we flirt via email and text messages. My, how times have changed!
At least when I'm old and gray I can look through this little book and remember how silly we were when we first started dating. :)



Aaaahhh... from the crazy altered clipboard craze!!




This is one of my favorite pieces in my room. It's from the Scraplove Altered Puzzle Swap. My theme was medieval romance. Not surprised, are we? I think my friends did a wonderful job with the theme and I love having a little piece of everyone's art hanging on my wall!

Labyrinth Swap

I haven't posted in a while with all the swap stuff I've been working on. I've been anxious to post some of my items too, but due to possible spoilers I have to be good and wait, at least until I've sent out my packages. :) I'm not sending this one out until tomorrow but I just can't wait any longer.

So first off, I've finally finished with the Labyrinth swap, and what a bunch of fun it was! It's probably been one of my favorite swaps so far. I received a really great package from Pupper. Here's the lot all together:

First there's a felted William ( I heart him - but unfortunately so do my kitties so he must stay hidden for now) and a fantastic miniature felt Jareth doll. Just look at those killer cheekbones! A Labyrinth inspired necklace and cool "bubble" earrings, both of which will go with a lot of my clothes.Here's an amazing Door Knocker jewelry box. The clay sculpting is fabulous- I could never even dream of trying to make one of the door knockers!

Then there's a gold necklace and dangle earring set which will be great for faire.

Finally here is a William the Worm "Ello" sign and a William mini calender. Can you tell he's one of my favorites? :D

There's also an owl candle (not for lighting- he's too awesome), but I somehow forgot to take a solo picture of him.


Now for my package to Pupper. For starters we have a couple of knitted items. First off is the requisite Owl item! :) I love owlies, especially the one in this film. Barn owls are so beautiful. Here are 2 cotton owl potholders, pre-blocked. For the eyes I used some glittery copper ribbon. When you're dealing with the Labyrinth, you always need a little glitter! :-D

The next item up is the William scarf I made. I used Wool-ease for some warmth and I think the color works well. It's a simple garter stitch scarf with fringe and has a great "squish" factor. I do wish however, that I had made it a little longer. I didn't have my second skein of yarn with me though and and I was getting anxious to finish it. There's really nothing wrong with the length but as a personal preference I wish it were longer.


This is the largest item. I wanted to try my hand at a mixed media painting. I've dabbled in it before but I wanted to try something on a larger scale. I really didn't want to go 20x24 but I started playing around with some ideas and it just kind of happened. :)

I started off with some stucco, acrylics and gel medium...

It eventually made its way to this, with the addition of printed images, glass bead texture medium, foam & rubber stamping, Stazon, and a LOT more acrylic paint and gel medium. :) I love the way the colors came out, although the pictures do it absolutely no justice.

I think my favorite bit is the goblins in the bottom left corner. The words surrounding the picture say "I wish the goblins would come and take you away...)" Other quotes include: "What's said is said" and "What a pity". We all swoon over Jareth but for this I really wanted to showcase his meaner side.


Next is something I had commissioned for my partner by my best friend and an amazing artist, Jeanne Hunt (jeannebaby on Craftster). She's been working on some watercolor paintings and I was absolutely blown away. I really wanted one for my partner so I asked if she could do a small 5x7 Ludo painting. It truly puts my work to shame, but here it is anyway. :D The color and detail are absolutely perfect and the fact that she painted them without even referring to a photo is rediculous. She's seriously amazing.



Finally we have my favorite piece for this swap. The Junk Box. My apologies for the drawn out description but I LOVED working on this piece. My partner loves the character of Agnes, the old woman who lives in the junkyard outside the gates of the Goblin City. I really wanted to make something to represent her so from my love of altering boxes I came up with a little treasure chest.

It started off as a cast off in the $.99 bargain bin at Gabriel Brother's (and you better believe I stocked up on these awesome little boxes!). From there it got covered in Barbie doll toys, buttons, and other odds and ends found around the house. Hey, it is after all a junkyard scene!

For some texture on the sides I went the way of toilet paper and egg shells. I know it may sound weird but it really gives some great effects! Finally a layer of gesso topped it all off and it was time to get down to the fun part!


I once again broke out the acrylics, gel medium and iridescent paints and went to town. I wanted it to have a dark and ugly feel about it so I went with grays, blacks, and greens. I didn't want it too ugly though so shimmery purple and golds helped with highlighting. I used 3 flat backed marbles to mimic Jareth's crystal bubbles and finished it off with some black glitter (not in the pics though :( )


I wanted to inside to really *pop* so I stayed with the purples and painted the inside. Finally I added a quote from Agnes and felt to the bottom.


Edited 2/8/10
Okay, okay. So I have to admit that for some reason, when looking at all of my swap items together it didn't feel like it was enough. I decided to make one final item right before I packaged everything up to ship off. Every goblin friend needs to feel like they fit in with the crowd, right? Of course right. So I made these:
This was my first attempt at horns and I think they came out pretty well. Granted they look a little more "devil" like and I really wanted to add some texture but I was on a time limit since I still had to make it to the post office by 5:00. You can't tell in the picture but they actually are a slight shimmery copper with a more matte, muddy color over top.



I really hope she likes everything! It was such a blast to work on this swap!!

Card Box

I love handmade cards.

To get something that you know took time, care and effort- well, it makes me feel loved. That's why I like to keep my handmade goodies safe and sound in their own little spot. I have another of these boxes for regular store bought cards as well.

When I'm having a rough day it's nice to go through them. It always puts a smile on my face, thinking of how lucky I am to have so many wonderful people in my life.

Thank you GeekCrafts!!!

I was pretty excited yesterday when I received a message from Shayne of Geekcrafts.com. It turns out they wanted to feature the little crocheted Underpants Gnome that I made for the Craftster Fairytale Creature swap on their blog! What?! Heck yeah!! :-D Thanks again Geekcrafts!!!

http://geekcrafts.com/crocheted-underwear-gnome/#comments

Please go check out their site- even if you aren't all that geeky or crafty you'll get a big kick out of it. You want to see a toaster made from a VCR? How about a Barbie turned into a zombie? Or maybe a full size quilt featuring scenes from Lord of the Rings? Well folks, you'll find them all here on Geekcrafts!

http://geekcrafts.com/

Carded, Covered, and Paged

They started out as just scraps of paper, leftovers from someone I was cropping with. I was in Texas for a big weekend get together and my luggage was lost in transit. Making these kept me somewhat sane...at least for a little while.



Wanting a travel planning journal I came up with this fun little number:

Here's a random scrapbook page. Not one of my favorites but I do like it...so yeah...

Swap time!!

It had been so long since I'd done a swap that I couldn't help myself when I saw so many great topics posted on Craftster. I ended up signing up for 4 of them! They're spread out perfectly so I'll be able to complete them each on time. The themes I signed up for are the Labyrinth, Jane Austen (yes, again), the Princess Bride and a Handspun & Handcrafts swap.

The Labyrinth swap is almost complete. I can't post too many details since I don't want my partner to know what I've made her yet. This has been a really great swap for me so far and I hope my partner likes what I've made her as much as I've enjoyed making them. One of the items is sort of a new craft for me, though it's a variation of things I've done in the past. Just one more item and the package will be ready to send. I have already received the package from my swap partner but I wanted to get everything of mine done before I opened it. I should be all ready on Monday! I'm really excited to see what she's made for me!

I just got my partner for the Jane Austen swap last week and I'm soooooo very excited!! My partner has offered to make me a Regency dress! I was absolutely floored when I read her message! I have some ideas as to what to make for her in return but I'm waiting to hear about some of her preferences.

I received my Handspun and Handcraft swap partner today. This is going to be a quick, but fun swap. I get to make some lovely handspun yarn for my partner and they will craft something fabulous for me. I'm really excited about my partner - she seems really fun and her talents with polymer clay are just amazing. She has her hands in all sorts of crafty pies so I can't wait to see what she comes up with!

Jumping on the bandwagon with this one but they're so cute I just couldn't help myself. One of the many things I made during the holiday season this year was a new ornament for our tree.

Styrofoam ball? check! Random red yarn? check! Ribbon and a couple fancy toothpicks? check! Ah yes, the perfect recipe for a yarn ball ornament.


It's so simple but I love the color and the way it came out.

New on the Wheel

I bought 4oz. of Superwash merino roving a couple weeks ago from Knitting on the Square. At first the colorway, called Thieves, struck me as pretty but in a sort of ugly way, if that makes sense. I had to have it.


Once I cleared off my bobbins of the Redwood and Corridale and started spinning it I was so glad that it had jumped in my bag come home with me. :) The colors are spinning up beautifully with lots of twists of blending colors. It's so much fun to watch the colors coming together. Even after drafting a bit you still can't really tell how it's going to look in it's yarny stage.