Let it Snow! Penguin Mini Mixed Media Art Quilt

I promised more penguin stuff, didn't I? :) Here is a mixed media art quilt that I made from all sorts of scraps of fabric of different kinds. It always feels good to use up scraps, but my scrap bin level seems to NEVER go down... Someday, I've gotta make something huge from my scraps.

 For the lettering, I used acrylic paint to write "Let it snow" and then used my sewing machine to stitch over the letters once the paint had dried all the way. I thought the effect was pretty cute, and I'll have to do it again. I'm wanting to make a toucan art quilt wall hanging with a nice encouraging quote on it. I think I might have time once the holiday rush has died down. There's a spot above my fireplace that has just been begging for a big ol' piece of art.

Anyway, I hope you all are having a fun December so far... I'm finding myself wishing for a little more cold weather. Today was super muggy, a little rainy and almost 80 degrees out. It doesn't feel like Christmas! Heck, I didn't even need to wear socks today, and socks are one of my favorite things about winter :) That and sweets.

Until next time, friends.

Toucan Felt Badge and Bird News

I sat down to make this little badge tonight after doing nearly nooooothing all day... I got a ridiculous headache yesterday morning in the middle of a cardio class, then came home and dry-heaved and sat in the dark all day, curtains drawn, feeling nauseous and awful. I think it was a migraine, and I did not enjoy my day! Today I'm feeling better, but still sluggish and tired. I was feeling up to making a little toucan out of my new felt (from Etsy seller SweetEmmaJean) this evening, but after I cut out the pieces, I was 2 minutes into needlefelting the pieces together and my one and only felting needle snapped. Boooooo! I did give up, but came back to it about an hour later. Lo and behold, I have finished it just now with stitching and about 2 minutes worth of needle felting. I wanted to share :)

Also, take a look at this smug, tricky bird. There is bird news in my house, that isn't huge news, but my world was rocked nonetheless. My beautiful Peanut Button birdy boy is NOT a boy, but indeed, a big fat HEN. I got the DNA test results back on Tuesday, and I was a little upset. I know, I know, Peanut is the same sweet, kind bird and I still love him... uh, her... just as much. It's just going to be weird adjusting to the new feminine pronouns after 6 years of "Mister Peanut". I'll be honest, I'm probably going to continue saying "good boy!" to him...DAH! her... for a while. Well, it was 50/50 and we just guessed wrong when he was a chick. In my defense, she never ONCE corrected me. I'll cope.

Happy Thursday to you all, I hope it's been a good week for you so far.

And! Don't forget to enter my Hey Hey Crochet Giveaway Yay, if you haven't already. It's as simple as leaving a comment :)

Owl Felt Badge and Others

I just got back from Girl's camp today, and I am one tired lady. Little women and little sleep sure can tucker a person out... But I had a good time, and I'm not too tired to share some crafts with you :) I made these felt badges for round 2 of the Craftster.org felt badge swap.

This beaded birdie felt badge will make a superb hair clip. I was sorely tempted to keep it, but I ended up making another similar one. It didn't end up as good-looking as this one, however. Still cute, though. The felt I used for this one was a nice thick felted sweater, The pink wing is the same material as my rotund cannonball monster. I had an itty bitty scrap of it in my felt scrap bin, and that gave me a little happy.

This little sequined fish badge was pretty fun to make. The little sequins are iridescent pink/white, but it's hard to see that in the pic.

Favorite of the bunch. I have had Totoro on the brain since I made those cardboard cutouts last week, so you may be able to see this owl channeling some of that bug-eyed Japan flair.

And finally a little house scene! I used a double blanket stitch to finish the outer edge, and it ended up a little lumpy, but I liked the effect anyway.

I came home to lots of goodies in the mail today, too. So expect some projects! After a week away from my craft room, I am so ready to make some serious THINGS! Happy Friday! Have a wonderful weekend.

Silly Rabbit Felted Felt Badge

Another felt badge! I mostly used needle felting to make this little rabbit badge. I did four different layers of felt on the bunny (back legs, body, front legs, head) to try to get some dimension to it. It's a little hard to see, but easier to feel.

Then I embroidered a little colorful silly on his rump for good measure. It's about 2.5x2.5''.

I'm back from camping in North Carolina! Bobby and I had a great time mining gems, going to gem shops, cooking over the fire, and pretty much just having a good adventure. However, it's SO nice to be home in the air conditioning and with access to a soft bed :)

Felt Badges! Stitch, the Lorax, VW Bus and a Monster

 I made all of these for the Craftster.org felt badge swap :) It was such a fun little swap, that I really couldn't resist. They're all done with a combo of needle felting and embroidery. it was my first time using my needle felting tool and I think I'm hooked. It was way easier than I expected! I totally love how the stitch one turned out, and I've got to make one for myself now. You all know how I love Stitch...

Baby bird update: starting on Sunday, he started to be less and less interested in getting fed! He wouldn't fly down to me for a feeding AT ALL yesterday! He's now eating seeds and drinking water all by himself like a big bird and more interested in flying around the room playing keep-away. In his opinion, now that I'm not a source for food, all I do is try to catch him. I think he's afraid of me, which makes me a little sad, but that's really how it should be. He is a wild bird! So next Tuesday, he will be moved to a cage outside to transition into release! :D Things are going according to plan! Happy Thursday!

Medieval Kitty Drawstring Bag

 I know next to nothing about tarot cards, but I do know a thing or two about kitties and fancy hats. I was asked to make this little bag for a birthday present for a special person who loves medieval things, cats, and needed a bag for his tarot cards.

 So I made this little drawstring pouch out of some tapestry material, which I thought felt pretty old and medieval-themed.

The kitty is my own design and I embroidered him onto felt using a split stitch.

So, Happy Birthday! You know who you are :)

And everyone else, have a wonderful weekend!

Fancy Turtle Beaded and Besequined Embroidery Hoop

 Hurrah! Who loves turtles? Who loves flashy sequined crap? Well, have I got a hoopla for you! I beaded and embroidered this little hoop for the Craftster.org IYP Swap with the lovely Ffrogg526 :) The turtle is just a doodle of mine. I split stitched the outlines, then used a 3-strand filler split stitch for the turtle's legs, head, and tail. Then I lazily used acrylic paint to fill the shell, since it was just going to be covered in sparklies anyway.

 The word fancy is done in metallic embroidery floss which is a real pain in the booty to work with! I swear, it must have taken me 15 attempts to even thread my needle. (No, I didn't use a threader... I'm too proud.)

And the turtle is bedazzled by hand with bead soup and mixed sequins.

And in unrelated news, my husband brought home this little fledgling sparrow on Friday. They were exterminating pest sparrow nests in the hangar where he works and this little guy didn't have much of a chance. So, I've been busy feeding the little chirp every hour 6 AM-9 PM for the past few days. He's learning to hop and fly after every feeding... I'm so glad he's feathered and almost ready to be released! I think he'll be ready to go in another week or two. Isn't he precious? Happy Monday!

Friendly Raccoon Embroidery

This raccoon embroidery has been kicking around my craft room for literally ONE YEAR with a tiny piece of the tail left unfinished! Finally, I took the 20 minutes to get this hoop done!

Here is the hoop that now has a place on my humble hoopla wall! I think this raccoon was originally intended to be a yeti, hence the yeti-riffic coloring, but as you know, projects often head in a totally different direction!

This is a close-up of that fill stitch that was so daunting that it took me a whole year to find the motivation to finish... It's 3 strands of embroidery floss just run back and forth, back and forth as a split stitch. The texture ends up being nice and thick and delightful!

Dia De Los Muertos iPhone case

I have been on vacation in Utah visiting my Bobby's family for the last little bit, so my crafting has been pretty slow! So I decided to scrounge my photos and see what I haven't posted yet. Lo and behold, it looks like I never shared this iPhone case I sewed for Lani!

I don't really consider myself an expert at sewing functional things, but I was pretty proud of myself with this thing. It's lined with felt on the inside and I made the strap long so it can be latched over a belt.

The skully fabric was from a kid's shirt that I dug up at a "fill-a-bag-for-$2" sale at the thrift store. SCORE! Then I embroidered it and added some sequins for a bit of shiny.

This is a close-up (duh). The fabric was stretchy knit, so I backed it with some iron-on interfacing so it wouldn't distort or stretch.

Anyhoo, my vacation was pretty good! We got to stay with Bobby's brother for a few days, then the family all rented a cabin at Bear Lake for a few days (31 people total, about 10 million kids, it was nuts), then we finished the trip off over at Bobby's sister's. Oh, and I got to eat at Tucano's, which was oh, so delicious.

But the unfortunate part was the very end of the trip when we got home at 1 AM to find the wood floors moldy in our house because we turned the air off. I guess now we know to never, never, never turn the air off when you live in humid, muggy Alabama. So, Bobby had to mop up with bleach after 10 hours of traveling. So sad! Oh well, it's cleaned up now.

In a related story: my next batch of Wicked Witch Bookmarks will be available in my shop tomorrow at 9 AM Central Time. The proceeds will be used towards buying us a flippin' dehumidifier :) Happy Thursday!!!!

FIESTA! Dia De Los Muertos Art Quilt

Sooooo, between furious bouts of witch leg-crafting, I've been working on stuff for the Dia De Los Muertos/Mexican Folk Art swap over on Craftster. I was paired with the very talented Lanikins, so I wanted to make some good stuff. I decided on a mini art quilt for one of the projects (expect some more DOTD coolstuff posted later). This here is a detail shot of the embroidery and beading on the sugar skull.

The whole thing! It's aboooout 20"x12" roughly. Check out the little puffballs at the bottom. I thought they added a nice Mexi-touch :)

I used my Cricut to make a stencil to cut out the letter appliques, but first I stiffened up that red fabric with some Heat-N-Bond. It made them SOOO much easier to cut out and later stitch on once the letters were adhered.

Here you can see details of the quilting. Did this on my regular sized sewing machine and it was kind of a pain in the rear, but I liked how it turned out. I hope Lani likes it!

Update on the Wicked Witch of the East Bookmarks: The first batch shipped out this morning! WHEW! Another slightly smaller batch will be hitting my Etsy very soon. If you're not on the mailing list to be notifed when more bookmarks are available and would like to be, send an e-mail to kira (at symbol) oopsicraftmypants.com. Due to high demand, I'm not taking reservations, so if you want one, look out for my e-mail (I'll notify a day in advance) and be quick!

And I'm in the middle of moving to our dreamhouse, so that's pretty crazy, too. Happy Wednesday, friends!

A little stitchin' and I'm ready to go!

Hey hey! I've been in much higher spirits the last few days, just knowing that the surgery is ALMOST here! I actually did some embroidery (hooray for crafts you can do in bed!) So, I doodled this little blue tree thing over the last couple days. Chain stitch! French knots! It was SO NICE to be able to create something, as I've been going nuts just laying here, not being able to do anything but watch netflix and browse internet memes!

So, my husband is taking me in to the hospital for pre-op tests tomorrow morning, and then Thursday is the BIG DAY! I'm going to get my spine fixed! WOO HOO! :D Wish me luck, friends!!!

Poppy Embroidery for the Hoopla Swap

I told you I'd have a swap project to share! This is the hoop I embroidered for the craftster hoopla swap and sent to barbolot. With all the nutsy things happening lately, I forgot to take pictures before I sent it off (bad craft blogger! bad!). Luckily, she has superb photography skills and these pictures are hers.

So, it's a poppy, and it tells you to be happy! I hadn't really accomplished much satin stitching before this piece, but I'm glad I got a little practice. It won't be so intimidating in the future.

So t-minus 29 days until the surgery!!! (it is going to be an ALIF. Click that to see a fun little movie!) I'm going to try to accomplish as many sketchbook project pages as possible before then, because I guess that recovery is going to be a real you-know-what! Happy Wednesday!

Babysitting Papa Frog Embroidery

Here's a simple embroidery I finished up last night. Hehe, I hope the tadpole is recognizable as a tadpole! Papa frog doesn't look too thrilled at babysitting, but at least he does it in style with that blue hat.

I thought a babysitting frog was an appropriate theme for my day yesterday! I had my epidural injection (where they squirt medicine directly into your spine to hopefully aid healing), and my best friend Sarah so kindly kept me at her house and watched me for the rest of the day to make sure I didn't lose function in my legs, lol. I haven't been babysat in a long time, but hey we had fun. I'm pretty sore today, but the surgeon said that was to be expected until sometime next week.

Hey, I wanted to take a second to thank everybody who has been leaving such kind and encouraging comments. I want you to know that they really really make me feel loved, and they never go unappreciated! I'm convinced that I have some of the sweetest readers on the planet. Happy Friday, friends! Have a lovely weekend!

Bzzz Embroidery

A little bee guy embroidery... I guess he could also be some kind of alien on a rocketboard or something like that. It's supposed to be a tiny bee guy on a flower, though, but I decided against adding wings on him and a stem on the flower. Then I painted the filled in areas with acrylic paint.

Overall a super simple embroidery project I was able to finish over a couple episodes of Futurama on Netflix... Maybe that's why I'm inclined to see this as a little alien. Anyway, have a great weekend, everyone.

Winged Heart Emboidery

I stitched up this colorific winged heart embroidery for the Random Swap. I got this very satiny silvery smooth embroidery floss for the wings on this project and just fell in love with how shiny and bright it turned out. Fascinated by shiny objects and bits of string.

I filled the heart with some chain stitching which turned out kind of thick. I don't really know how to fill properly yet, but I'm hoping I'll learn somehow.

Here's the whole thing. I wish I had taken a picture of the back, because it was pretty cool :) It was a good colorful way to use up some of the shorter scrap threads. Have a great weekend everyone!