Boxes, boxes, boxes!

         I've been working on organizing the new studio and starting to empty Shawn's tiny old bedroom that has been a storage room for everything we needed out of the way for the craft show.  Here is a view of the wall packed to the ceiling.  I couldn't get the whole wall because it was too small a room. 

The second pic here is the rest of the wall, across from the doorway.  You can see the closet and a black shelving unit to the right that just fits the wall. 

        Did I mention it was a small room?  It didn't seem this small when it was a bedroom! 

          My dear friend Amy has been helping me unpack boxes by doing the lifting. She's awesome!  Amy establish a small path down the center of the room.  It makes it feel like there is hope to finish so I can start creating again.

       Oh- under all these boxes are boxes with books.  I have 2 large book cases that currently have things on them that need to go to their rightful homes, but the homes are blocked with boxes. What a surprise! 

    

    

 

   Down with the flu- the best thing to do is watch art videos on You Tube.  Currently I have watched hours and hours of Maremi Small Art.  She does a lot of mixed media journal pages.  She has an Etsy site, an Instagram account and 2 Facebook accounts, the second called Maremi's Creative Café where viewers like me can post finished works as well as works in progress.  Then she turned me on to Lindsay who has The Frugal Crafter Blog.  I just watched a long video where Lindsay did a beautiful water color gal and complemented her work with colored pencils.  If you don't want to watch a long video she taught me about the small gear icon below the video.  It will speed up the show but I hung out for the whole thing as I've never been keen with a brush.  I guess I need to try again.  She also turned me on to "pencil extenders."  It's a little tube you slide your short pencil into that locks the pencil in place and you can use it until it is a tiny stub.  I found them at Dick Blick for close to $5.  I have a few colors I depend on and get tired of buying new ones.  I think I need a couple of these!

       Anywhoo, if you are down with the flu OR stuck in the house due to below zero temperatures check out these sites.  I think you'll have a good time and probably try out some new techniques!

       My thinking cap just turned on as no caffeine yet, but I think I actually own a pencil extender.  I wondered what the heck it was and hope I didn't pitch it!

Looking for a unique way to celebrate Valentine's Day without spending a ton of money?  Try my "Fiber Delight!  Valentine Postcards" workshop on Doll Street.  Getting a  card in the mail these days is something special, especially when it is hand made.  AND you can actually mail these postcards without an envelope as long as they stay under 1/4 inch thick.  There are quite a few postcard designs to get you rolling and to sweeten the deal, the  workshop is 20% off! I hope to see you in class!

What's a postcard without a place to place your loved one's address?

You'll never guess how I made this "tin" heart!

       Well, the craft show went really well.  I can't believe it's taken me a month to get back here and tell you about it.  Saturday was pretty steady all day long.  Sunday had the after church crowd and was a bit slow after that.  I think next year we need to add 2 or 3 additional vendors.  We didn't use the bedroom we had planned to use, so we would have the room to add people.

        I didn't take photos (dopey me!) so I'll share with you an older one.  This pic is of a face that I made on a cloth covered button, then used to embellish a mini purse.

        This pic is the face of Master Ferryman.  He was designed to sit on a string mohair turtle and he would carry a fishing rod with a snail on it.  Together the piece was called, "The Hurrier I go the Behinder I get."  The turtle had a weird combination of colors: purple and yellow, pink and green for starters.  I didn't have any fabric that would go with it so I made my own using FME (Free Motion Embroidery).  I layered small scraps of fabrics and fibers on one piece of fabric and stitched over all of it in random patterns to lock everything down.  Then I cut the jacket pieces out of the new fabric.  He had hand sewn leather shoes, beadwork and lots of lace as well as facial hair.  A woman came to the show and only wanted my doll and not the turtle.  She paid me more that I've ever made on a doll.  So here is Master Ferryman.

   Lastly, I want to share Heliotrope.  There was an alphabet challenge with the on line doll club called, "Doll Street".  I was given the letter "H".  I created the letter by using the doll's arms and legs, and after dressing her in purple, called her "Heliotrope."  She sold almost immediately at my next show.

3 Days

Hey it's only 3 days to the Craft Show at Skeelhaven.  All the goodies have arrived and boy oh boy are you going to love shopping! No pics- I just encouraging you to attend.  We've got jewelry, oh have we got jewelry!  Buckeye jewelry, too. We've got home dec goodies and we've got mushrooms- you won't believe the mushrooms but you'll just have to have one!  Of course I'll have some dolls as well. And of course there is more!

I am working on displays today and having fun moving these delights into different locations, then rearranging to make it look better or basically to make me happy.  Anywhoo, I hope you will join us.  Sat. and Sun., noon to 6., 6881 Tussic Street Rd., Westerville, OH 43082.

There Be Gnomes at Skeelhaven!

       So I'm getting ready for the Craft Show at Skeelhaven and I'm currently making gnomes.  I still have some hand sewing and beards to apply then I'll have 9 of them.  If I should actually find the Mache cones I bought forever ago for a class that got canceled when I was recovering from Sepsis, then I'll make a bigger family, but just now, it's 9 gnomes.

       

        Years ago someone gave me a bunch of fabric and stuff.  I mean like 2 trash bags and 2 paper boxes full.  Some of it was country not my taste, which makes it perfect for craft show stuff because I can make things with fabrics I don't care for but that shoppers might love.  It wasn't ugly fabric, just not my taste.  Included in that hoard of goodies I found very thick wool felt and I wondered what the heck would I ever do with that.  Well some of the different colors went to some if the gnomes.  Also included was a bag full of partially done snowmen, everything was precut and ready to go.  Several of the snow men were already made, some had their legs pinned on but there were probably about 20.  She had done shows before and was moving so needed to downsize.  Yea for me!  I have several friends give me things.  A huge box of leather and several boxes of jewelry that was either damaged or only one earring, or grandmas stuff and no one wanted it.  A box of evening gowns was given to me with lots of bead work that I could use for embellishments (if I can convince myself to cut into it.)  And of course, I've been given loads of fabric.  I am blessed with generous friends and students.

       So, I need to get back to creating.  I can finish sewing the base of the gnomes while watching TV, then do the beards.  The beards send fur EVERYWHERE!  I'm wearing a navy shirt today and it was practically covered in white just from doing one beard.

       I haven't decided if next come the snowmen or bath bombs.  I'll have to think on that one!

Last Week

      

My friend and mentor, Inez Brasch

        I missed posting last week, sorry.  A week ago Wednesday I left for Chicago for the Windy City Doll Workshops, which just so happens to be 20 minutes from my sister Kathy in Romeoville, who I met for lunch on Sunday.  I went a day early and enjoyed the quiet, room service and someone else making my bed.  I hooked up with my new friend, highly talented Gayle Wray, one of the new teachers.  Returning teachers were both fabulous: Dawn Schiller and Inez Brash, who doesn't have a web site of her own.  There's only so many hours in a day, right?

       I took Inez's workshop to make the character Roxie from the movie Chicago, played by Renee Zellweger.  Well it was an intense class!  Quite often there was complete silence as we layered batting and created muscles, knees, butt cheeks and such.  Then we hand sewed these layers in place.  Eventually we started gluing but then the "skin" layer came and I chose to hand sew rather than mess up with glue.  That meant my doll never got a head, breasts, the wonderful mask face Inez had in our kit and so my doll is not worth photographing yet.  I won't be touching her until after the craft show in November as I need to focus all my time on getting the new studio presentable for the craft show and make more stuff.  My doll is however very neatly sewn!

       I made a calendar spelling out when I work on what for the next few weeks. Today was the first day and I blew it.  I went back to bed instead of changing sheets and doing laundry.  I was also going to work in the studio while waiting for laundry, but instead I created fliers for the craft show.  This afternoon I will help Craig get the stray items in the studio upstairs.  there's odd things still there like my desk chair, a work table and the cool containers I have for supplies like paint brushes and such.  Again, there's only so many hours in a day.  Sigh.

       For some reason I cannot control the font size in this blog.  There seems to always be a wild section that wants to do it's own thing.  I try resetting the font, but keep failing.  If anyone can help me out here I would LOVE to hear from you!