Yule Swap!

So I did a Yule Season Swap on Craftster and here are the treasures I made for my partner!

Sorry for the blurry cell phone photos!

Contents:
Lemon-Sage Soaps
Orange-Clove Essential Oil
Tree of Life painting
"Yarn Ball" Knit Earrings
Bronzed Oak Leaf w/ Tiger Eye "acorn" Necklace




Blurry shot of the dark green yarn ball earrings.















Real bronzed oak leaf and "acorn" made of a tiger eye bead.

























Tree of life, with the roots wrapping down under the painting


All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how the items came out, I hope my swap partner likes them!

Kermit Costume

So my sister called asking if I could make her a costume for her college Theatre Fraternity's Masque. The theme was someone who inspires you. And my family is a little obsessed with Jim Henson.

My sister, creative as she is wanted to be Kermit in tribute to Jim. So I ran to the store and whipped this together in a few hours. I'm sure with more time, It might have been a lot better, but I'm still pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I made the spats, collar and head out of felt and made the black part of the mouth out of black nylons, so she could see and breathe but it would still look like a mouth.

I have to say I'm pretty pleased.




ACTION!!!



















Kermi-ttude






















Here is a shot of the T-shirt, with my favorite Jim Henson picture on it.


Hope you all like it!!!

Fairy(?) Grandmother mostly done!!!

So as I posted on craftster, here is the story.

Okay, so over a year ago, I had decided to try and make a fairy doll.

But, I had never sculpted anything with that kind of detail. So I made a silly face. Then I set it down for a week. then I made an old, saggy torso. I added it to the head and left it for a few more weeks. Then I made hands. But didn't know how to attach them. So the head/ torso and the hands lay on my craft desk for a few months. And the story goes until she was slowly pieced together.

My next anguish was making clothes for her. Everything I have on her is made by me, down to the knit shawl.

Tonight, I decided to finish by adding a wig of alpaca hair.

Here she is almost 100% finished. Now to decide if I add fairy wings or leave her be! Help!!!

This is not the best set of pictures, but I'm sleepy and pleased at the same time!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will be adding a wigging tutorial soon.

Sculpting + Chocolate = Best of Both Worlds!!

So, I just finished sculpting with modeling chocolate!!

I'm helping Joe make a cake for our friend's birthday. She is into Victorian themed stuff and so I thought I'd try to make an edible cameo silouette.

First the recipe:

White Modeling Chocolate

7 oz White Meltable Chocolate
2 tbsps Karo Syrup

• Melt Chocolate in a double boiler until completely smooth.
• Take off the fire and add the Karo Syrup and stir until it starts to thicken.
• Put into a ziploc bag and set into the fridge for about an hour.
• It should be hard when you take it out of the fridge.
• It should soften in your hands and should be workable like a really pliable clay. (Sidebar: if yor hands are generally warmer, it will soften considerably, set it aside for a moment and it will harden up again, the reverse is true for folk with cold digits)
• Once it's pliable, sculpt as you like on a piece of foil or another non-stick surface. It should be pretty easy to work with.
  
• When finished, place back into the fridge to harden.

Tips:

After you sculpt, if you are looking for a smooth surface, apply some water to your fingertip and apply and smooth the area. It will make it pretty smooth and rather hard.

Secondly, the experience. I couldn't figure out why it was SOOOOOOO hard to work with until I just typed out the recipe. I forgot until right now, that I doubled the chocolate but forgot to double the syrup!!! DOH!!

My hands are notoriously warm, so the chocolate kept getting all squishy. But all in all I got it to look vaguely like I wanted to, which was a vaguely cameo-like silhouette. Even though it's kinda Pebbles Flintstone.

Anyways, here she is!!

Please support Handmade Holidays!!!

My etsy shop has been added to a directory of handmade gift sites.

Please click on the image to support handmade gift-giving this season and the crafters who put their time and love into their work!!!

I forgot halloween costumes!

How could I have forgotten Halloween Costumes?!

Most of my costumes were made from Upcycled thrift store items.

The witch was brought together quickly from previous costume pieces.

But the Kodex costume from "Wanna Date My Avatar" was actually painstakingly created from thrift store finds and sewn together over the course of 3-4 days.

All in all, one quickly thrown together Beggar's Night costume and one agonizingly detailed Halloween Party costume completed!!! It was fun!






















(Bonus, because I love this picture)

New items on the etsy site!

I would really love folk visiting my etsy site.

I have some new items up and I'm working on more handcrafted items for stocking stuffers and for the holidays.

Please feel free to visit and send me a message about things you like, things you'd like to see or you know maybe buy something while you're there!!!

If you see something you'd like in different colors, please feel free to let me know!

I am happily crafting away, I hope you are too!!!

~Magpie