More Halloween

My lazy person Halloween craft this year was a painted pumpkin. All it took was: one mini pumpkin, one small paintbrush, black craft paint and a Sharpie. 

Simply outline the stripes on the pumpkin using the marker. If the pumpkin is small you can do this by hand. It is easiest to just follow the natural grooves. If you are painting a larger pumpkin, I would recommend breaking out the painter's tape.

Next, full in the lines with black paint. This may take a few coats. Any mistakes can easily be scrapped off with a fingernail. If your lines are messy you touch them up using the marker.

TADA!

The above picture has nothing to do with crafts, but I thought our costumes were neat so I thought I would share. Dare I say Christmas card?!

p.s. 

We are fancy show horses-  just in case you couldn't tell.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Blog Name Change?

Perhaps it is called for. Other name to consider: Damn Enough with the Needle Felting!  Just a thought..

p.s.  Click on the images to see HUGE detailed pictures courtesy of the Canon.

p.s.s. There are more crafts on the way, and yes, some of them may be needle felted.

More Felt Friends!

I haven't blogged in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Last week I completed a felted dog, and this week I finished a felted bear as a gift for my husband. Check them out below:

Meet the Camera

My new Canon has arrived. I can tell it does great things, but I have yet to read the manual so I know very little about all the cool features.  Here are some pictures of our adventure at the pumpkin patch. They aren't great (my fault), but they aren't too bad for just pointing and shooting. 

Never look at your skin this close

Pumpkin Bug

Pumpkins

Some of My Best Friends are Stuffed Animals

Saturday was another family crafting afternoon with my sister Molly and mom. My mom and sister spent most of the afternoon trying to make Molly some Oompa Loompa pants for Halloween. Although they got a good start, next year I think Molly should go as a ghost.

I set my sights on more adorable projects. I was super excited to finally start using all my new books, and after a supply run on Friday I was ready to go. Let the fun begin!

 The first project to share is my stuffed "Sprite" from The Cute Book.

He is pretty adorable and was really easy to make. He is made of felt, some embroidery floss, thread and poly-fill. He was also very cheap. He does not contain any actually Sprite or other lemon-lime flavored soda.

I was able to do all of the stitching by hand, although next time I will be more careful so he doesn't look so much like Frankenstein. 

Molly made a rather adorable bunny. I am sure she will post him/her over at her blog.

My second project was my first shot at wool felting! It was really easy to catch on, and it turned out better than I expected. The book Little Felted Animals that I blogged about last time was a pretty good guide. It was rather time consuming and those barbed felting needles are a little dangerous, but it was well worth it. One word of caution, I was not able to find the right kind of eyes at the craft store, so my little friend is eyeless. With no further ado, here is my FIRST wool felt creation....

Bunny!!!!!!

And because an eyeless bunny is disturbing, I drew some pupils on some pins for a temporary fix...

Bunny with Eyes!!!!!

Admire the Quality.

Well it is 'tock-tober

I will definitely be making more stuffed animals, and I have already started my next felting project (although my pup Hannah helped undue some of that project earlier this morning).  

Until next time...

A Little Retail Therapy

Well, the last few days have been crazy busy and insanely stressful on both the personal and business front. It does make me feel a little bit better to know these puppies are on the way:



I am excited to get started on both stuffed animal creation, as well as wool felting. Wool felting seems a little scary, but the finished products are so amazing. Check out the image below!

Hint: the felt dog is on the left. The image is courtesy Cute Overload (of course).

I just checked Amazon and the books are going to arrive super quick! I am one step closer to my master plan: move to the White Mountains, become a hermit, and make stuffed animals. Wish me luck!

It Runs in the Family...

Sunday my mom graciously agreed to give Molly and I a sewing lesson. We started with something simple: a tote bag. After 3 hours and $30.00, we had 2 fabulous totes. Mine was the "test" tote, but as long as you don't look too closely it turned out rather well. This was my first real attempt at using a sewing machine, but I declare it a success!

The Tote on the Floor

Close up of the Fabric

My sister made an equally, if not cooler, dinosaur printed tote. Perhaps she will

post it for us to all enjoy!

Time for a New Camera!!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my beloved Canon is no longer with us. Technically it still takes pictures, but the LCD screen is kaput. It is time to put this horse to pasture.

This is the tricky part! There are so many options out there. I plan to invest in a nice digital SLR so that I can toy around and try to take some artsy shots, but I also want to have a convenient point and shot camera. I am 80% sure I want the BRAND new Canon Powershot 990 IS. In black, of course. The thing doesn't even come out until tomorrow.

To be fair, I have heard some awesome things about Nikon cameras. Introducing the contender, the Nikon COOLPIX P6000.

The Nikon has a really cool vintage look to it, the Canon not so much. It also has the ability to manual focus. The downsides are: it is larger and heavier, the performance seems just about the same even though the Nikon is about $100 more, and it is call "COOLPIX"- so uncool.

Any opinions on the matter?

Glitter Skulls

Tuesday night, my sister Molly, Hellen, and I all got together for a craft night. Crafts were made, and Kraft Mac n' Cheese was consumed. I decided to glitterize some skulls. See my inspiration from Pottery Barn below:

Not to toot my own horn, but I sorta think mine turned out better. I haven't actually seen the Pottery Barn ones in person, but I am sure "German Glitter Glass" means "Fancy Named Glitter That is Going to Cost You $19.00 a Piece."

The supply list was easy. Styrofoam skulls of any size; mine are about 4 inches in height. Spray adhesive glue. Assorted color glitter. Craft paint in the same color as your glitter. I also needed a paint brush as well as a pair of rubber gloves (the think kitchen kind worked well.) It cost under $20.00 at Michael's.

Directions:

First, paint the skulls in whatever color you like and allow them to dry. You are only looking for minimal coverage so no white shows.

Second, spray small sections of the skulls with the spray adhesive. Wear gloves and avoid gluing your hand like I did. That adhesive is brutal! Also, please spray outside so you don't give your friends and family cancer. Thank you.

Third, quickly cover that section in glitter.

Repeat until fabulous.

Please keep this in mind, I am working with my rather sad back-up camera because my good camera died. Also, glitter is damn hard to photograph!

Why Hello

Having a Moment

The Whole Gang's Here!

More Wedding Images

Below are a few more images I took of crafted wedding details. After this, I promise the wedding talk will be over. 

A close-up of the tissue packets. I wrapped tissues in purple tissue paper and wrapped it all up in raffia. It looked much better than plain old Kleenex!

The table numbers were hand painted wood. All of the pieces except for the stands were readily available at craft stores. Paint was an easy and cheap way to coordinate the wedding.

A much better picture of my favor boxes. The ribbon was glued to the box so they could be opened without deconstructing the whole thing. They were stuffed with Bailey's Chocolate truffles from a local chocolate shop. The truffles were wrapped in parchment paper and the same purple tissue I used for the tissue packets.