Scallywag Makeup Bag

Here's something I made for a friend today!

If you want to make one, here is a super wonderful, easy to follow tutorial:

Straight Sided Triangular Cosmetic Bag Tutorial

I used some fabric that was on clearance for $1/yard, and for the inside I used picnic table cloth stuff -... waterproof, easy to clean up makeup spills!! :) The only problem with that is now I can't iron the bag! At least I ironed the fabric before I sewed it.


So, what crafty things (or not) have you finished today?
Now that I have the bag done, I am going to go work on a wholesale order.... today I'm sewing on 40 little eyeballs! Lots of little eyeballs!

First week of SPRING!

Well, it's been almost 10 days since I last posted. That is entirely too long! Here are some little tidbits on my life:

• My husband is now the proud owner of a Wii! I wasn't too excited about getting it, but I have to admit... the first night we had it, I stayed up 'til 3am playing Lego Star Wars. Making all the Miis was a lot of fun, and even K was excited to play. He is really good at the boxing (which is almost like working out!), and he giggles the whole time. I can tell I'm going to have to set a daily time limit on this or he'll want to play it all the time! I am really, REALLY good at bowling... which is odd, since my average score at *real life* bowling is about 60. Oh well, I'll take it! :) I haven't played Nintendo for a billion years. I used to LOVE it... all the good old games like Zelda, Turbo Challenge, Mario Kart, and Donkey Kong. I think some of these games are downloadable on the Wii. Just what we need, something else to keep us indoors! Don't worry, I set limits that many children and husbands would claim were unfair. And, the Wii is on my side. It suggests quite often to take a 15 minute break and head outdoors. They do care!

• It is Spring already, even tho the weather might not be cooperating. The days are getting longer, the chance of snow is still there but I can see a glimmer of hope that one day it will be warm enough to go outside in shorts and a t-shirt again! Fall is my favorite season, but Spring comes in a close second. It is just so nice to get out of the dreariness of Winter. Here are some pictures of some beautiful flowers from my sister: Coincidentally, today is National Chocolate Covered Raisins Day!!! Those are one of my very favorite indulgences, so I think I will have to celebrate.
  

• I have been working on some wallets (both girly and guy types), business card organizers and holders, needles and pins keepers, and some other fun things. Once I get my designs down, I will start listing some on Etsy! I also just finished a new design for my BusyFingers BabyBuddies. He is the green dino, and he is so cute: It is so incredibly exciting for me to see my little business start to grow! My things are being featured in more treasuries, and one of my sock monkeys is even on the first page of the Children's Gift Guide!! I also got my first potential wholesale order! All of this makes me so happy, because being with my son and crafting are two things that are very important to me! It is great to see that it might be possible to stay at home and earn a little bit of money at the same time.
  

I'm off to do more fun "at home" stuff, like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, and such! TTFN! :)

Sonic the Hedgehog

Last Christmas, when we drew names within my family for gift giving, I drew my sister's name. Surprise! I have made her so many things, why not one more :) I wanted to make her something one of a kind, and I searched the internet for a long time looking for just the right pattern. I finally found it here: Silver Seams- That link takes you to a free plush hedgehog pattern! Looked easy enough, but I had never made a stuffed animal before, so I started with some muslin. It was a good thing I did, because it turned out absolutely horrible! It took me forever to figure out how to sew the pattern pieces together. Sewing 3-D creatures is a lot harder than it looks! After fiddling with the pattern and making three more deformed muslin hedge-things, I was brave enough to start on the real thing. I used some white faux fur fabric that I had gotten off Freecycle (I have received lots of great fabric from Freecycle!) for the tummy, arms, legs, and face.
I used neon green fleece for the back.
I hand cut little felt hands and feet:

I used felt for the nose, embroidered the mouth, and used safety eyes for the first time!
I trimmed the fur around the face to make it a more defined area.


Now for the hard part. Little did I know that they actually HAVE long, bright blue fun fur fabric. I almost died in the store when I saw it a week after Sonic was finished. I have a knack for always choosing the hard way, though! Instead, I went to Ben Franklin and found some bundles of bright blue eyelash yarn with specks of pink and neon green. Perfect! I bought three. They were normally $10 apiece, but I found them on sale for $2 on clearance.

I made the furry back by wrapping the yarn around 2 fingers about 10 times, cutting, tying the center, and sewing onto the hedgehog.
Repeat hundreds of times. Run to the store to buy SIX more bundles of the yarn.
Get cramps in your hands.
Slowly grow to hate the hedgehog, as you work on it for hours and hours and only seem to get an inch of work done.

And then one day, he was done! I used the *very last inch* of all that yarn I bought to cover the last bald spot on the hedgehogs butt. I was tricking myself thinking he was done, however. Next, I had to cut all the loops so the yarn would stick up like soft spikes. There were lots of loops. After that, I had to give him a haircut so he could see. That created a pile of blue fur on the carpet about 5 inches high, which got the attention of K's potential mess radar. He ran through the pile before I could stop him and now, months later, I am still finding blue fur in weird places.

I am just glad I got him done before Christmas (barely). Sis gave him the name Sonic, since he's blue, and he has had a happy life ever since.

Getting stuff done

This week has been a big week for finishing projects!

I completed the bag my sister ordered from me. It turned out just like I hoped it would (which usually NEVER happens, so I was surprised!) The back has a huge full size pocket, with a corner opening, trimmed with the cute Japanese twill tape. The inside is the teal fabric and has 3 pockets plus a loop for sunglasses or keys. My sister picked it up yesterday and was really happy with it, which is all that matters, really!

And after that was completed, I made another Owl Messenger and started three sock monkeys. One is already up in the shop. I'm not much of a pink person, but I love this yummy monkey! I also started work on a whole new idea that is quite exciting. It's still in my head right now and I don't want to say much about it before I get it figured out, but I will say this: it is soft and involves the alphabet!

Today my sister and I took K and my nephew to see this movie:



Horton Hears a Who was the cutest movie I have seen in a long time! I am glad I have the excuse of having a child as the reason I go to kiddie movies, because I would go anyways :) I'm just a nerd like that. It was my nephew's first movie at the theater, and I was worried it would be too loud, too scary, or too something... but he loved it too! The only problem he had was staying in his seat. On the way home we stopped and got chocolate milk for the boys. K was in the back seat yelling, "oh NO, the WORLD, it has FALLEN into the chocolate milk, what EVER will they DO?!?!?!" Actually it sounded much differently, but I, the translator, have translated it for you so you don't have to do the work.

Just now K woke up from a nap and told me he had a "ho-bibbo" dream where the fish bowl squirted water into his eyes and the frog got stuck under his eyelid and I told him he could get it out so he put his head really close to the fish bowl and opened his eyes really big and the froggy went back into the water (that is the short version).

He is still sitting there on the couch, shaking his head, saying, "it was soooo ho-bibbo. I am sewious, so so ho-bibbo. You know what sewious means? It means a LOT of ho-bibbo."

The Ultimate Blog Party 2008

It's time to party!

You are all invited to this great event hosted by 5 minutes for mom. My blog is very new, and I need some bloggy friends!!! So join the party, or just leave me a comment and say hello! The blog party is a great way to get your blog seen, and to find new and interesting blogs that you will want to visit regularly! The party banner will remain at the top of my blog until March 14th.

_______________________

As per blog party instructions, here are some of the sweet prizes I would absolutely love to win! My first three choices:

91 — Burt’s Bees Naturally Ageless skin care line, provided by Geggie
60 — $25 Gift Certificate, provided by Judy
136 — Knitting Goody Bag, provided by Craftymom

And if those are taken, here are some more choices:
14, 15, 21, 22, 55, 59, 64, 70, 129, 79, 116, 117, 140, 145

_______________________

Now on to the party....
Here are a few things that made me happy during the past couple days! I hope you get a smile or two out of them as well :)

"I will take care of you when you grow old" By Sam Brown



I want this barrette! The seller is MelBell, which is a nickname of mine as well!



Sure, it may be cheesy, but the cats give me serious giggles every time.

One of my new favorite Etsy sellers, Carambatack!
(photo via Carambatack's Etsy shop- click on picture to go to the listing)


One of my new favorite artists, Liam Finn. This video is so amazing, I have already watched it multiple times!


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And finally, the little boy that makes me happy every single day of my life:

*My sweet baby K*

Floods, flaming tea kettles, and tattoos.

My sister came over last week and we took some fun pics, so I thought I'd share them! They were lots of fun, however, I think my neighbors are scared of me now. Plus, I live next to a major highway, so I'm sure lots of people happened to glance over and do a double take at two adult women and a little boy laying on their backs on the concrete with their feet in the air. Oh well, what fun is it being normal? :)

This picture is of me, tattoo is K's exact footprint from his birth certificate. He was so tiny once!

Couldn't leave K out! He was a bit of a camera hog, he wanted to be in every single picture with his auntie. Notice his stylin' hair and sunglasses, you can even see me and my sister in the lenses!
This is my favorite picture ever! Poor girl, I made her jump a thousand times. It was worth it though! I love how it seems she is 5 feet off the ground. She is a rock star!!


What else has been going on...

Well, there was the washing machine issue. My in-laws got a new stackable washer and dryer set so they gave us their nice heavy duty side by side ones. We installed them on Saturday, I ran my first load of clothes, and the washer drain overflowed. And overflowed. While I was trying to stop/clean up the overflow (our whole house is carpeted...), I forgot that I had been boiling water in the tea kettle for some cocoa. Did you know that tea kettles can catch on fire? And melt onto your burner? And fill your whole house with horrible smoke that smells like burning chemicals? Yeah, it was fun. I hope to never again have a fire in one room and a flood in the next. I will miss my wonderful giraffe tea kettle. It claimed to make the "sound of a giraffe" when the water was boiling. I had always wondered what giraffes sounded like.

I called the plumber on Monday, they were busy.

I made an appointment for Tuesday afternoon. They never came. My mom bought me a new tea kettle and toaster (Saturday had been a bad day for appliances at my house), which was really nice! It cheered me up quite a bit.

Wednesday I called plumber again, they apologized for not showing up the day before and made me an appointment for Thursday morning. They emphasized I should get the FIRST one of the day, to make SURE they wouldn't get held up at another job and not come again.

Thursday morning came and went, no plumber. I called them again, and they said no, I don't have an appointment. Oh wait, there it is, 9-11PM. I mentioned that I didn't know they worked so late, and they said that, in fact, they do not work that late. However, that is when they scheduled me. Hmm... I got a little frustrated on the phone and told them I NEEDED someone. Today. (Between Saturday and Thursday, multiple people had been over multiple times trying to fix the drain, to no avail.)

(I know you are sitting on the edge of your computer chair, exclaiming, "but what next??? Does the drain ever get fixed??
Is there no end to the insanity??"
Keep reading - the conclusion draws near!!!!)

Finally, Thursday night at eight o'clock, a plumber drives one hour to come fix the drain. He fills the washing machine with water, drains it.... and comes out to tell us, HOORAY!! there is no problem, it works perfectly!!! He's got the magic touch! After I fainted/pulled my hair out/insisted he was wrong, he tested it 3 more times just to make sure. Yep, it is miraculously fixed. Plumber leaves. I start a load of clothes. The drain overflows. I call plumber, who is halfway home, and he turns around to come back. He ended up staying until 11:30 that night, walking around on the roof in the pitch dark, cutting a hole out of my wall, and sawing off a section of pipe. I'm sure my neighbors appreciate all that late night sawing.

The drain is now fixed! I can't believe what an ordeal that turned in to. We still have a whole in our wall, too. It is conveniently covered up by the ironing board. Life goes on.

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In other news, remember that purse I am supposed to be making, from a few posts down? I am half way done and can't wait to finish it and post some pictures!

Also, my sister and I got tattoos yesterday!! That is her birthday present to me, it was SO much fun, and I couldn't think of anything sweeter to do with her!! Aside from a little guy I know STOMPING on my fresh new tattoo with his dirty shoes, it is healing really well. We will take pictures soon!

That is all for now, and if you read that, thanks!! I'll be back in a few days with more pictures and some new crafty things. Have a great weekend!