Almost Finished Treasure Box

Found this in progress project while organizing recently. I'm going to have to make a section for "waiting to be finished" projects. lol
This came from a set, I think, of little paper boxes, round, square, rectangle, and this oval one. I painted, and poked holes, and strung cool beads onto the pieces.
Next step is in the thinking process. I want to secure the strings, and maybe line them, but not sure.
Oooohhh!
Just had a good idea, this one might be getting finished sooner rather than later.

Next

Stamp kit found at the thrift store for under $3!

In thinking about what kind of a business card I might want, I knew it would need to be something different, a little weird, memorable, something to represent me, my ideas, my art, my photographs. Something that the card itself will remind you of me.
One of my favorite ideas was to use something upcycled as the card itself, and collecting old board game bits led to the idea of using board game money.
Eventually, I will have a customized rubber stamp made to look like a business card, with my blog address, and store(s), stamp it on the back of old board game money, and cute, unique business card.
But until I actually have all the addresses, and get all my stuff figured out, I'm not going to NOT hand out cards, right?
I found this rubber stamp kit at one of my favorite thrift stores for $2.98! It seems to have come from a set, everything goes together, though there was no box or instructions, and it appears to be almost complete. There are two trays with lids with two font sets, one all caps; two rounded and two rectangular stamps to put the letters in; a stamp pad and a plastic tweezers thing.
Until I get the letters sorted out and the stamp made, I've hand written a few business cards. So...
NEXT is sorting out a bunch of tiny, tiny letters. Good thing I have a good light!

Show & Tell @ Work Day

Evidently it is. Happy Friday.

Crafty Family: Sudoku Quilt

Here is the quilt wall hanging that my Rubber Stampin' Auntie made for my mom and dad to hang in their camper.
My parents really like sudoku puzzles, and other number and word fill-in kind of games, and they've tried to introduce sudoku to this Auntie a couple times, but she's just no that into it.
But she did figure it out enough to make a perfect sudoku grid for this cute little quilt.
She made it out of several old ties that my Grandma had taken apart.
I love the connections, the patterns are cool, and the orange makes it pop!
And yes, I knew about it before it was done, but not knowing if this would end up being a "Muffin", I didn't mention it. ;p

Blast from the Past

Duct Tape Hat with Display Stand
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Here's an old project I had never fully shared. A few years ago, I wanted to try to make a duct tape hat, and to start it, I decided that putting a strip of tape sticky side out, around my head would be a good base. Even sticky side out, it was getting stuck in my hair a bit, and then I remembered a recent gift my kids had gotten, this alien head lamp. (the word ALIEN is cut out, backwards, in the back of the lamp, so when you turn it on, the word shines on the wall)
Turns out, the alien and I have the same sized head. Whoda thunkit?
So I was able to use the lamp to create the hat, and display the hat. This is the hat I'm wearing in my avatar photo. It's a bit too hot to wear all the time! But I wore it to work once, on hat day, when I worked at an adolescent hospital, and it was a huge hit!
On the last couple episodes of Lime & Violet, they talked about ordering a display foot to photograph socks, that reminded me about this lamp. I may have to start taking hat photos on my friend here.

The End of 2007

Do you make New Year's Resolutions? I usually don't, the first day of a new year is pretty arbitrary, we can start good habits (or work on squelching bad ones) on any day. And there seems sometimes to be a pressure about making a resolution at the beginning of the year, pressure to make it last, make it work, too much pressure. I really prefer goals. And I can set a goal any time.
Last year I made a short list of crafty resolutions, with the best of intentions, but my creativity took me in different directions than where I thought I was headed on January 1, 2007. Two from that list have been in my mind all year, working towards one, trying to eek out time for the other.
One, Etsy, I've mentioned before that I am working on things to get started. I am still nervous about getting a shop set up, and am looking for more how-to help on the business part, I am so bad with the business part! On the making things part, I have several things ready, and have been working on lots of ideas, trying out lots of different ways to make a few things. Trying to decide which ones will be the most fun for me to make. Etsy is definitely one of my 2008 goals!
The other, my 'retro craft project' is one of those things that I think will need lots and lots of time dedicated to it, so as much as I want to do it and share it, I've felt overwhelmed with the amount of time it will take (or that I think it will take, anyway), and I've let that overwhelmed feeling freeze in my tracks like a deer in the headlights. So another goal for 2008 is to just do a little at a time, on anything, not let myself get overwhelmed and frozen. To get started on that goal, and the 'retro craft project', here is a photo to serve as a reminder to me, a teaser for you:

Plushie Software

You've probably already seen this if you read Boing Boing.
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen!! It's a program to design plushies! Go watch the video even if, like me, you're a mac user and can't actually try it! But the video is sooo cool. Link
If anyone tries it, please let me know!

Felt Tissue Box Cover

Felt Tissue Cover
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

I have the most recent photo program now (thanks Honey), but for a couple weeks, I was between programs, and couldn't upload anything to flickr. In getting ready to upload the photos I've taken in the last couple weeks, I realized that I hadn't posted a finished shot of this. I blogged about starting it, I blogged about how I got the idea to use polka dots, but I hadn't blogged the finished product.
Well TA-DA, here it is!
Each circle was bead embroidered on separately, after the sides were stitched together making one long piece. Then the top was added, and the last sides were stitched together.
Each side is a bit different.

Zombie Recognition

AND I almost forgot to share: my Zombie bag got featured on Feeling Stitchy!!
How awesome is that?!

Angel Pin

Angel Pin
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

I've been doing lots of felt embroidery, in the form of pins. I've discovered that a small felt pin is a perfect thing to work on. I can get a lot done durning my work breaks, often I'll do the cutting out of the pieces during that time. And while at work, when there are little waiting periods, waiting for the computer program to finish processing, I can get a few stitches in. I'm keeping the current pin pieces and embroidery thread and supplies in my little lunchbox, so it easily goes from work to home, and I can sneak in a few stitches waiting for my computer at home, too. It's fairly easy to pull out the little lunchbox anywhere, and I'm getting better at 'crafting in public'. So far that's been my grandma's house, a game day, and (not felt, but still in public) a coffee shop.
This little angel was made specifically for a work friend who is moving out of state. I was her 'Secret Santa' last year, and I remembered that she loves angels. The angel is made up of three pieces, a heart, triangle, and circle. The pin itself is 2 3/4", which is a little big, I think for regular wearing. I figure this size pin will be good to put on a coat, hat, or bag.

The Story of the Polka Dots

Row of Beads
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

When I finished the sides and top, I had a small delema: I didn't know what I was going to put on the sides for decoration. Since I had used golden hues, and because autumn is probably my favorite season, of course fall leaves came to mind first. But I didn't want the project to be seasonal, I didn't want it to be something that was put away. So even though I could picture cute leaf shapes all over the sides of the box, I really wanted to think of something else.
I went to visit my Grandma a couple weeks ago, something I definately need to do more often, and I brought the project along, to work on while we chatted. I didn't realize until I was there, but I was almost finished with everything I could do before adding the decoration. I wasn't my Grandma's only visitor that night, my cousin A, and her youngest daughter were there for a while, too. I always think about how cool it is to have a large family when I see my cousins. Here was my first cousin and her daughter, around 5 or 6, I remember when A was about that age, and I was in Jr. High or High School, and would play games with her and put makeup on her when we visited Grandma and Grandpa on the same weekend. And when I was young, A's mom, my Cake Decorating Auntie, babysat me sometimes. My mother is enough older than my Cake Decorating Auntie that Auntie was just in elementary school when my parents got married. My kids are teenagers, and my little is cousin all-grown-up and her little daughter is just learning her alphabet.

Felt Circle Placement
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

My cousin's daughter was coloring intently during our visit. She was drawing T's, big fat T's. I asked her why she was drawing T's but she didn't really have an answer. Her name doesn't start with T, I mentally checked off her immediate family, nope, no T names. I asked her if it was "T" week at school, and it wasn't. And then I just realized that T's are just cool to draw. And she wasn't just drawing T's, each T had it's own world, with backgrounds of cities and trees. Fat T's with stripes or polka dots. So when I brought up my delema of what to put on the box for decoration, my cousin said polka dots would be nice, just like her daughter had been drawing.
Perfect! Before I left that night, I had cut out and sewn on the first dot.
The next day at work, I cut out a bunch more dots. I felt like that old comic book character, Dot, putting dots on everything.

The Next Felt Project

The Next Felt Project
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

When I finished the Zombie dice bag, and especially because I finished it so quickly, I wanted to keep up the momentum and start something new right away.
I didn't have anything planned, only a couple things I am still designing, that would take too long to start. Well, I've always wanted to make a crafty, kitchy, cutesy tissue box holder for my work desk, so I thought I'd jump right into that.
I checked at home for a pattern, just for the size of the squares, but I didn't find anything in my quick search before work. Somewhere in there, I realized that I could just measure the tissue box on my desk and figure it out myself. Duh!

Yellow Felt
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

So still in get-something-started mode, I looked at the felt that I had, mentaly measuring to see what color or colors would satisfy my embroiderlust. I had gold and yellow, each enough to make two sides of the box, and an orangy-gold for the top, and leftover bits of all three for decoration, whatever that was gonna be.
I've done the random bead in a beaded blanket stitch, and liked the results. I did the finger puppets and barrettes all with random regular (can't see through them--what's that word??) beads, but I had random transparent beads, too. So I mixed a bunch of the transparent and a bunch of the, er, non-transparent beads into this little mint tin.
(Note to my fellow tin collecting folks: Walgreens sugar free intense wintergreen flavored mints. Also in red in cinnamon, but I haven't tried those yet. Good mints, awesome little tin!!)

Close Up
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

I used all the random browns, oranges, reds, yellows, and golds that I could find. In the sets of cheapo random beads, there were several of each.
Most of my beaded embroidery projects so far, or maybe all, I've used a contrasting color for the blanket stitch, to make it stand out more. On this project, I decided to use a similiar yellow/gold-ish color on the whole project to tie it all together.

Zombies!

Zombie Dice Bag Teeth
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

As I mentioned earlier, I took some felt and thread to the gaming convention to have something to work on. While there, I only got the eye socket sewn onto the dark green, but the next week, I got the whole project done.
When I started, I only had a couple Zombie faces in mind, wasn't sure what they were going to end up being. RawkStar suggested a dice bag, which was the perfect idea!
When I finished both Zombie faces, I sewed them onto a felt piece, after folding down the top and stitching to make a tunnel for a gathering string to go through.
"Teeth" is a Zombie who's face is falling off, and his teeth are showing through his face.

I'm not the only one embroidering Zombies these days... This awesome Zombie gal has been shown on some top blogs this week, and this guy is also awesome!

Zombie Dice Bag Brain
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

This side of the bag features the Zombie "Brains". I did the brain stitching in backstitch, and did the whole brain randomly.
When it was mostly done, ExtreemeArtist gave me the idea to make a dangling eyeball. I'm very happy with how that part turned out. One strand of grey embroidery floss, and three of red, connected the eyeball to the face, and I used a macrame weave to make the cord that attached the dangling eyeball.

Miniature Painting

Miniature Painting
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

This is what the table looked like where we could do the 'paint and take'. Bunches of miniatures to choose from, plenty of paints, brushes, plates for pallettes, everything you need.
The little block of wood in the front has gummy stuff on it, you can stick your miniature on the wood so you don't have to hold onto the miniature itself. That saves painting your fingers. ;p

Gamey Vacation Report. The Final Chapter

Skeleton Miniature
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Here's the other miniature I painted. I learned that skeletons are super easy to paint if you use two techniques: a wash, and drybrushing. First, you wash the whole mini in dark brown or black (I, of course, can't follow directions and had to use dark purple), using a wash of miniature paint and water. When that is completely dry, you drybrush your cream or white (or in my world, orc flesh green). The trick to drybrushing miniatures, and I think this trick goes for any kind of drybrushing, is to make sure you don't have too much paint on your brush. This means you have to go over it several times, but that's better than too much paint.
Keeping my eyes peeled for creativity and artistic ideas, I noticed the beautiful fountain the campus had. The campus was in general very beautiful, and it was way cool to be outdoors in the middle of the night after gaming into all hours, and walk through the campus.
I was also very inspired by being able to join in some playtesting of new games. Games that may some day have beautiful bits, while in playtesting mode are just on index cards with self-laminated chits. Very fun to play games while they are still in their infancy. I am inspired to work on my own games soon.

Gamey Vacation Report. Part 2-Electric Bugaloo

Sketch of Miniature
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

One of the activities at the gaming convention was a 'make and take' paint your own miniature. You could paint one per day, free paint and miniatures provided by Reaper. If you've never seen painted miniatures, you're missing out. First of all, they are tiny little sculptures, which I mistakenly thought were origionally carved much larger then the molds were shrunk down. So who ever is out there carving these tiny things, those folks are amazing. Secondly, there are some people who paint minis as a hobby that paint these tiny things so fantastically. I have only painted minis at conventions, so I have just a handfull.
On Saturday, there was also a painting miniatures class, which it worked out that I was able to go to. That is where I painted the miniature in the last post. I learned a layering, a wash, and a drybrush technique that are secrets of the wonderfully painted minis, and these techniques work translated into other mediums.
Another thing that was advertized that piqued my creative interest was an "Artist's Jam". It wasn't scheduled at any specific time, and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I brought my sketch pad and some pencils.
I guess I was maybe imagining that there would be something at the "Artist's Jam" to sketch. Like a model of some sort, not necessarily live, but I'm not really the sketcher that can just sit and draw whatever, so I dug the mini I had painted to use as my tiny model, and the picture here is the result of my "Jamming", just some figure sketching of the mini.
After a few more games, I came back to the "Artist's Jam" area, and started on my felted Zombie. It wasn't specifically about sketching, I had realized, and although I am very proud of myself for sketching in public, and with others, the "Jam" was more about being together each doing our own thing, and I was more comfortable with my needle than I was with my pencil that day.

Gamey Vacation Report. Part 1

Painted Miniature
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

When we last left our hera, she was about to head out to a weekend game convention, complete with tiny new purse.
Well, the purse has lasted quite well, with only a few small issues about it's, well, smallness. But more on the tiny purse another time.
On to the report from the Game Convention!!
I took off the whole day Friday, tho we were leaving town around 3:00, and finished the shopping and packing Friday morning. One thing I needed to pack, to figure out, was a small project. I really wanted something that I could work on quickly and easily, and would fit in a small space. If I were a knitter or crocheter, I imagine projects would be easy to take along, but even those would be bigger than what I wanted to take with me this time. Since I've been doing the felt embroidery lately, I decided I could easily take some cut pieces of felt, tiny scissors, and a few colors of embroidery floss, and they would all fit in my small (4x5) tin lunchbox. But what project to start?
After looking around Crafster last week, I saw this awesome zombie doll, and it made me think, Hmmmm, I could felt embroidery a zombie!
So, in a rush, because by the time I did the errands I had to do Friday morning, I was somehow behind schedule, I cut out some free form shapes based on a couple zombie face sketches I had done. At the last minute, I realized I had forgotton to bring home the needle from work that I had been using, and had to dig out an old needle that was bent, but at least I found one!

I didn't end up having a lot of time to embroider, but that means I was busy with other things, but I got one eye socket done while I was there. Other artsy/craftsy goodness of the weekend included the artist's jam, painting miniatures like the one shown, and tons of great ideas and inspiration.
More on the specifics later.

Mama's Got A Brand New Bag

Felt Flower
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

For the last maybe 3 years, I have only purchased my purses at thrift stores. Kinda a nose-thumbing at fashion, and our spendy society. Plus, I love the thrill of the thrifty hunt!
Unfortunately, each purse seems to have gotten bigger and bigger, until I felt like I was walking sideways and always have neck pain. So I decided to get small! I've been looking for a small purse for the last few weeks (I thrift probably on average of 1.5 times a week), and one issue has been what to do about the wallet? I've been 'in progress' on a cool duct tape wallet, but I don't want to wait on that because I'm paused at a couple design dilemmas and who knows when I'll get those worked out. So I decided that a little purse with wallet area built right in would work great. For now. We have to be flexible about these things.

Purse Hacking
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Last Saturday, the ArtistExtreeme (my younger son) and I had a little outing while most of the rest of the house was still asleep. Coffee shop, thrift stores, foreign food store (with Kinder Eggs!), it was a great morning. And I found this adorable little purse. Mostly adorable. I love denim, so that's a bonus. And it does have the wallet area, but not really a lot of other room. It had an area that must have been for make-up that I had to overhaul, and I wanted to take off any/all brand name.
The felted flower patch was one priority before I would carry it, as there was a metal logo stuck on right there that was not coming off without ruining the pocket that it's on. More hacks &/or decorations will follow, as now I'm considering the tiny purse a tiny portable canvas and a great way to continue working on my felt embroidering.
But I got the flower patch done yesterday, just in time to load it up last night. I'm off this morning for the last minute purchases that always accompany a vacation, and we leave this afternoon!
Nothing like baptism by fire! We'll see how the purse fares on the vacation. Of course, I will still be carrying a tote bag also most of the weekend, because I need my sketch pad for the Artist's Jam, and my coffee cup, and my camera, and a tin with more felt for the next project, and whatever I pick up at the convention. Oh, and dice! I'm sure I'll be carrying lots of dice!

Silhouette

Silhouette
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

Several years ago, I took a parents class at my church. We got together on Saturday mornings, in the cool fall like now. I don't actually remember a lot of the specifics of the class itself, I think we talked about creating rituals with our kids, for one, and we did a few creative projects in class that we would be able to do with our kids.
One of the things that we learned about ourselves in this class, was that we really enjoyed getting together as a group. We were maybe 10 women, and one man, with kids all right around the same age, who all really felt inspired by and connected to each other. When the weekly class ended, we didn't want it to stop. We came up with a plan to continue meeting, on a monthly basis, to explore more creative ideas, and share ideas with each other, we'd each take turns leading.
That part, the getting together after the official class was done, that's the part that stands out in my mind the most. We made plaster casts of our faces, learned some yoga, wove, and danced. We enjoyed our time together. The group shrank every week, unfortunately, the spirit was willing, but the families were busy.
One week, when I think we had only three of us show up, we made silhouettes of ourselves. We commented that it was perfect that there were three of us, one to hold the light, one to trace the shadow, one to sit and be traced. I think the plan all along was to make a collage out of our silhouette, but that morning all we had time to do was the tracing, and my posterboard with pencil sketch outline stood in the back of my closet for a while. I pulled it out a few months later to color in the outline, another year later painted the background. All the time collecting possible pictures. A couple years ago, I collaged on the pictures that you see in this photo, complete with 'art car' painted lavendar and covered in seashells, these pictures being the dreams or goals or ideas that were in my head at that time. I hung it up then, and I have added a few things since then, sometimes just jotting a note as I walk by. So many things have changed since I hung it up, and many more have changed since the origional day of group silhouetting, but I am still me, and the 'things inside my head' haven't changed too much in all that time.

Welcome Collage

Welcome Collage
Originally uploaded by seeshells.

The first of a set of functional collages. Created at work, for work. I've been interested in exploring collage recently, and actually have been working on this piece, and the rest that go with it for several weeks, on the breaks at work that I just can't stomach working on the 'thing for etsy' anymore. I love picking through magazines with the sole purpose of cutting them up! My guy gets EW (among other mags, but this one is easily disposable), and he gets me House Beautiful, so most of the images I've come up with so far. I love finding color, texture, and patterns. And cutting out the letters makes me feel like I'm sending a ransom note!

The background image, if you can't quite tell is a couch that was in two pieces because it was at the binding. I liked the idea of the couch was welcoming, but didn't quite match up, to show an off-beat kind of welcome.