Yes, I still exist

I know, I know... it's been about a hundred years since my last post. Well, okay, its only been a few months, but it sure feels like a hundred years. I promise I have a good excuse though! You see, shortly after my last post I found out that I am pregnant with my first! And due to being pregnant, I got very very very very very tired and nauseous for the first few months, so blogging was the last thing on my mind. Now, I'm a little over 6 months along and no longer nauseous (though still very tired), and I've gotten a chance to catch back up to almost normal. So here I am, at least for the time being.
Of course, I'm back to working on about a million projects as usual. I somehow got the brilliant idea that my Christmas gift to everyone this year is going to be a family recipe scrapbook that I am currently attempting to put together. It really is a great idea, and what I have so far looks lovely, but I only just started a couple of weeks ago and I think I really should have started back at the beginning of the year! I would have started earlier, but I only started thinking about Christmas recently, when this idea came to me. Right now I am no where near finished, but I am determined to make it in time for Christmas.
On top of that crazy giant project, I am also working on preparing some mini baby scrapbooks for gifts to relatives. I figure that I better have them prepared now, so that after the baby is born all that I have to do is take the pictures, print them, and drop them in the slots. Hopefully I won't be too hella tired to do that, but I'm sure it will be a while before they get finished.
And somewhere in between both the recipe book project and the baby scrapbook project, I managed to knit a couple of pairs of booties for baby, do some origami, and participate in a swap. *Wow, I guess I've done more lately than I thought!* Anyway, I do plan on posting some pictures of my recent craft activity in the near future, as long as I don't have a nervous break down trying to get that recipe book finished in time for Christmas. So, don't despair! Photo goodness will accompany my next post.

Kitschy Shadow Boxes

I made these kitschy shadow boxes for Craft Challenge #12- 'Kitschy Craft Contest' on Craftster. The rules included that your entry had to use at least three materials from this list: pipe cleaners, dried pasta, gimp (a.k.a. plastic lacing), popcicle sticks, plastic easter grass, pom poms, and potholder loops. From this list I chose to use popcicle sticks, pom poms, and pipe cleaners. Materials I used in addition to the ones on the list include craft felt, plastic toys (from the dollar store), wood glue, hot glue, and wood stain with polyurathane. Now, here are some closeups:

Although I did not win the contest, I was very excited that I did get 12 votes. There were a lot of good entries, and I will admit that my entry was not at as high a level as that of a few others, including the winner. Really, I was just glad that someone out there liked my stuff, because I was really proud of how these turned out. They were relatively simple and easy to make, but I feel the results are pretty clean and professional looking considering the materials they are constructed out of. I think this would be a great project for both children and adults.

*Tutorial coming soon

My husband also entered the contest and his creation is known as the Lord Gawd King Elephant of Kitsch. He also selected popscicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and pom poms as his materials from the list. He also added a very unique material to the inside of his elephant . . . fireworks. A few months after the contest, he lit this baby on fire and it exploded and burned down to a charred mess. Here it is, pre-burning:

Sorry, there are no burning and post-burning pictures available. I seem to have lost them.

Scarf Sweater

This sweater is a project that I made for a graduate class I took back in the fall of 2005. I can't remember the name of the class, all that I remember is that it was one of the most awesome classes I have ever taken in the Apparel Design department at OSU and it was taught by one of my favorite teachers ever, Vince Quevedo (Props to the prof!).

My idea behind this project was to take something simple and make it complex. Also, I wanted to make something that's design was free-form in style, because my usual designs tend to be very structured and exact. I decided to begin by making several simple scarves in various lengths and widths, which I planned to somehow turn into some sort of sweater-like garment, but I did not really calculate measurements or plan out how I was going to arrange my pieces (except for the 2 sleeve pieces). Once I finished creating the scarves, I began arranging them on my dress form until I found a composition that I liked. Then, with a tapestry needle and some yarn, I stitched the whole thing together by hand.

A few months later I posted a pic of my sweater on Craftster and then forgot about it for a while. Recently, I decided to comb through some of my old posts and was surprised to see the amount of postive comments I had received on this sweater. I was so flattered! I was also having a bit of a bad day that day, and seeing all those nice posts really cheered me up. Many of the comments posted mentioned wanting a tutorial, so here it is:
Download Scarf Sweater PDF Here!

Poring from Ragnarok Online

My husband and one of my brothers like to play RO, which is loaded with all sorts of cute little creatures. Somehow or another, I stumbled upon a pattern for one of these creatures known as a Poring. So I ended up making two of these things, one for each of them.

If you are interested in making one yourself, here is the pattern that I used:
http://iro.ragnarokonline.com/irobackstage/2004_05/iroback4.htm
However, I did do a couple of things differently. I only cut out the body and the eye pieces. As for the eye highlight and the wierd little pieces they give you to patch the top and bottom, I just skipped those. To get the bottom and top to shut nicely, while the piece was inside out, I just ran a needle and thread through the fabric near the edge by hand, pulled it snug, and tied off my thread. For the mouth, instead of sewing a cord onto the body, I just embroidered a mouth with some black embroidery floss. For the eyes, I just stitched the felt circles flat onto the body and did not stuff them at all. For the eye highlight, I put a dab of fabric paint on each eye, which is much easier than trying to cut out a stupid little piece of felt that small.

Items Received from Ornament Swap

Since I posted the items that I sent out for the ornament swap, I thought I should show you all the lovely ornaments I received in return. Here they are:

First Post Ever!

WooHoo! This is my first post ever! For this first post, I will start out with some fairly recent, but not my most recent, crafty creations. I will play catch up and post the rest of my creations up to date later. Anyway, I participated in a and ornament swap this past Christmas, which involved creating ornaments to decorate a tree that may or may not have anything to do with Christmas and could be made using any medium desired. Well, I kind of went off the deep end and made mine kind of, well... some might classify them as anti-Christmas, but my intention was really Fantasy. My theme was 'Myth and Magic' and my medium was polymer clay. I guess I should have chosen a theme that was either more neutral or closer to Christmas, because the person administrating the swap had to get in touch with the other participants to see if they would be comfortable with receiving one of my ornaments. Which, I thought it was very nice of her to be concerned with my ornaments getting a good home. Now, without further delay, here are the ornaments:

VOODOO DOLL

JACKALOPE

DRYAD

MERMAID

SELKIE

Okay, so now that you've seen them, I just have a few final comments about them. The jackalope was my favorite. I was kind of mad at the selkie because she ended up with a squashed potato nose. The dryad was my second favorite and looks much better in real life. I was only mildly satisfied with the mermaid because she ended up with sort of a big weird head and bug eyes, and then she went and died in transit. The voodoo doll was the easiest to make, but in the end I felt maybe he was a little to creepy for this swap, even though I do like him very much.