Meet George

I recently participated in a tea towel swap on Craftster.  My partner asked for Yeti’s to be the focus of the towels.  Man. You should have been in my brain when I read that.

WTF?! YETI’S ARE WHITE! TEA TOWELS ARE WHITE! WHAT THE HECK AM I SUPPOSE TO DO?

…was just one thing I thought during the beginning of the creative process. I searched high and low for something to spark my creativity and was really having a difficult time of it. I mean, I found a bunch of stuff. There’s no lacking for Yeti/Big Foot/Sasquatch stuff out there. Much of it very cutesy, gorey, ferocious…but that’s just not what I was looking for. I wanted something different.  Something that would just make me go…OH. You know?

I finally found it. A picture of Big Foot in a suit. I swear you never know when or why those creative synapses are going to fire!  My partner received today and so now I can post my pictures. All three are done on 100% cotton tea towels. Two of them were embellished after stitching using watercolor paints. The third one is embellished with acrylic felt.

George Sasquatch

Big Foot Xing

The Yeti

As is the norm, you can find more pictures on my Flickr.

Monsters and Things

I mentioned before that I was working on making monsters for my niece and nephew from their drawings.  Well, I’m still working on the monster for my nephew, but the one for my niece is finished so I thought I’d post it.  I’m learning ALOT about how to put things together by doing this.  It’s a great exercise AND the kids love the one monster I’ve made so far!

It’s funny because I wasn’t sure if my niece liked her monster, but the day after I gave it to her she came back to me with more monsters to make!! I swear they have a list of things for me to make for them.  Not just monsters. It’s great and helps me to continue to be creative on a daily basis.

I’m only posting the original drawing and a full body picture of the monster.  If you’re interested in seeing more detail please check out my Flickr! photostream.

Original drawing

Monster in real life

I’m also posting the last ATC that I was unable to post before because it had not been received.  Unfortunately it STILL has not been received and I had to make a new card.  I’ve completed the new card and hope to mail it tomorrow.  I can’t post the new card yet but I hope you’ll appreciate the one that was lost.

New ATC cards

All during the time I was packing to move and since moving I worked on five ATCs for swaps on Craftster.  Three for the Alphabet Swap (we’re doing STU this time around) and two for a Love/Hate Valentine Swap.  Unfortunately the move made my cards late, which made it so I’ve been sitting on pictures for a while now.  This is my third Alphabet ATC swap and my first subject-based ATC swap and I was very happy with how everything turned out.  I received some great cards and was able to turn out some pretty good cards as well.  Of course, I’m always excited to do swaps!

The cards for the Love/Hate ATC swap were my favorites overall.  Coming up with the subject of my cards was kind of stumping me.  I had a couple of pages with different potential cards…until I went to Walgreens and decided to pop into the card section.  That’s when I saw the phrase, “You will always be in my heart” at the top of a card..and that’s all I could see.  Immediately I had this image pop into my head and in the end I went with it.  I love it!  The other card came naturally from the first, and if you put them together, they almost make a whole picture.  I think I might want to try this method again.

On to the cards….

A close up of the robot in his heart.

The card “You will always be a part of me”

Now I can only post two of the three Alphabet Swap cards as one still has yet to be received.  So I give you…

S is for Snob

U is for Unibrow

All of the cards are embroidered and color tinted.

If you haven’t ever checked out the Craftster swaps, you really should check out these two swaps I was in.  Some beautiful work there.

Love/Hate ATC Swap

Alphabet STU Swap

Once the cards were done I felt a bit adrift with no pending embroidery projects, so I decided to start on something new.  I’ve been wanting to learn how to create softies myself and decided to create an exercise for myself.  I asked my niece and nephew to draw monsters for me so that I could make them.  At first my nephew did not want to participate but once he understood that I was going to MAKE what they drew, he was all in!

It’s been interesting to work interactively with the kids to make their creations come to life.  I’ve made it easy by using just felt to create the monsters; but I’m finding that this exercise helps me considerably to build my skills in practical sewing.

So far I’ve completed one monster and am beginning work on the second, more complicated monster my nephew came up with.  Once I’m done with that one I’ll post pictures.  Wish me luck!

Stumbling

My mom was suppose to bring my daughter and dog down this week, but unfortunately she came down with pneumonia. Now I’m worried about my mom and missing my daughter at the same time.  I guess I seem okay on the outside, but I think I cry every night before I go to sleep. She might be 13, but she’s one of my best friends and I miss her.

Two weeks and I’m finally done getting my resume together and am ready to apply for jobs in earnest. Oh what fun.  Cross your fingers for me.

I finally finished the ATCs I was working on before I moved. Two Valentine themed ones and three more from the Alphabet series. Once they’ve been received I’ll be sure to post. I also did some creative work on items that I want to create to sell. I’ve sketched out about 20 or so pins that could work out. Just need to get the felt and beads. Hopefully you’ll be seeing those soon.

I’ve also finally paid some attention to my Facebook account. I joined originally for my Toontown group. (We have a group there for members to keep in contact.) The last weekend alone I’ve connected with more than 20 old friends from high school and the Marines. Many in the Silicon Valley who I intend on being in closer contact with. Shoot. I was even invited to a party next month! This helped push my brother over the edge and make up an account of his own. Very cool.

Well. It’s late and I’d like to start getting up earlier. I’ve been such a slug lately. Wish me luck!

Etch-A-Sketch Ornament

The Etch-A-Sketch ornament I did for the ornament swap at Craftster.org has been getting a lot of attention since it was sent and then posted on Craftster and Flickr.  It’s been blogged about in several places from what I understand.  A couple of places I know it’s been posted are:  Craftzine, Crafty Crafty, Pimp Stitch and ThreadBanger. All very cool places to have your stuff posted.

It’s also been twittered, wisted, and Favorited on Flickr several times. All of this is awesome. I’m so happy that it turned out so well and that others believe it is worthy of their notice.

But last week I came across a contest over at Living Creatively.  It was their monthly contest and this month’s theme was handmade Christmas ornaments.  I decided, “what the heck!” and entered the Etch-A-Sketch ornament on a whim.

Well, today it was announced that IT WON!  *doing the Snoopy dance*

The Etch-A-Sketch ornament is featured on their website and I won a bit of money too. Very cool.

Someone pinch me.

So, if you didn’t already realize it, this was the exciting news of the day.  Hope you’re having as nice of a day as I am!

Part of the journey – embroidery

One of the things that I’ve found that I love to do is embroidery.  I know I’ve mentioned that I’m in a couple swaps over at Craftster this month.  For both of them I decided to use embroidery to express my creativity.  I’ve posted about my ATC cards, but last night I finished my first ornament.  I’m exceedingly pleased with the final product.  So much that I’ll be making one for myself after I’m done with the ornaments for the swap.

But I wanted to post something else today.  Last month was Breast Cancer Awareness Month and in honor of that I designed and stitched an embroidery piece.  I’m still not sure what I’ll do with it, but I hope someday to find it on a wall somewhere.  I hope you like it.

If you know of a non-profit group that would be interested in this piece, please let me know.  I am not looking for payment, just somewhere it can call home.

The Good And The Bad

I’m about half way done with my R card for the ATC alphabet swap and already in love with it.  I’ll give you a hint.  He’s naked! *shock*

I was able to do a paper mock up of one of the ornaments I’m putting together for a swap, while making a template of one of the others and designing the embroidery portion.  I also got my patterns ready for several other ornaments I’m making for Christmas.  That was the good part.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to get even more ready to whip up because I just found out that I’m out of a job after this week.  *sigh*  I’ve been in a very good temporary job while I was looking for/applying for other jobs and they gave me notice today.  So now I’ll either need to find a holiday job or another temporary job somewhere else.  Days like this makes my brain want to implode.

I’ll be sad to leave this job.  The people are really nice and the work wasn’t too stressful (most of the time).  I’m still applying for jobs here, but the hiring process takes so long that it could be months before anything else comes along.  So it’s some retail gig for the holidays probably.  Although it’s so late in the season who knows if I can find anything.

Okay.  I’m officially done whining about it.  I’m looking forward to more time stitching things up for the holidays, tidying up the house and…did I just say I was looking forward to tidying up the house?

Good lord someone help me now.  I’m turning domestic.

Crafty Update

I’ve finished stitching two out of three ATCs and I must say that I’m absolutely in LOVE with the second one. My Q card is stunning if I do say so myself.  I wish I could keep it and stare at it for days really.  I had to go out and get the color red embroidery thread for the third card, and since I only have the last card hooped, I’m going to pick out some pictures to stitch for xmas ornaments.  I already picked out one picture from the Hoop Love Flicker group for one of the ornaments for one of my ornament swap partners.

Since I’ve decided on the other ornament I need to figure out the dimensions so I can make a pattern and then cut it out and embroider it.  I have another week after this one but I really would like to get this done since I’ve decided to embroider several ornaments and tea towels for family and friends for Christmas.

I’m even designing some items for my brother and sister-in-law based on an online game we all play.  I’m making some tea towels to go in their kitchen.  They don’t really have a theme, but they LOVE this game so I know they’ll appreciate them.

I really love embroidering while I’m watching TV, so it really works out nicely.