BIRD swap goodies!! bags and skirts and lots of fun stuff!

okay, catch up time!!

i joined the bird swap on craftster, and then promptly forgot the send date (i was SURE it was friday, but it was really monday...). luckily, i'd been planning my ideas for a while, so it was just a matter of completing them, not thinking them all up from scratch!

i was so incredibly happy with everything i sent! this was seriously such a great swap - i've been feeling kinda eh about swaps lately, because i felt like things weren't being appreciated and such. i think part of that is because i'm in several on-going swaps (the tip in and the chunky 4x4), and on going swaps always seem to lose the excitement after a while. this swap was awesome though, my partner LOVED everything i sent, and posted pics right away in the gallery, and she sent me super awesome stuff that totally suited me in return!

so, enough babble, pictures!

sparkly bird canvasses

these were RIDICULOUSLY hard to photograph!

here's another attempt.
i was really excited to make these, because i've been obsessing about doing vinyl canvasses for well over a year now, and i finally had an excuse!

a glittery skull tote!

i know, i know, this isn't really bird themed! but i knew my partner would love it, and i had so much fun making it. it is so bright and cheery. the bag is made out of the same vinyl i used for my octopus stuffy, and it's slightly metallic and so very cool. and i just adore my new glitter vinyl!

it's lined in hot pink twill, and then i added a pocket that matches the main vinyl. i added the bird stamp to make it somewhat bird related(!) and then i figured if i was stamping anyway, i might as well stamp her name too.

i also sent her a blue crow tote, like the one i have in my etsy.


and the black owl skirt
i'm really happy with this skirt. this is actually a design i've been thinking of for a while, because i have all these great cottons that i want to use for skirts, but i LOVE skirts made out of knit fabric. the fabulous thing is that tanzie and i are close enough to the same size, so now i have the pattern all drafted and ready to go for me as well!

this was my plan, with the ruffles on the sides. it's a bit fuller than i wanted, i'll probably adjust that when i make my own.

i think it looks really cute with the ruffle on the front as well!

my partner's is changing a lot due to health stuff, so she wanted the skirts to be flexible. i made this one with maternity elastic and sewed a button on, so that she can adjust it as needed.

and this is the skirt that i REALLY love!!
white taffeta with black flocking and black owls stamped on!! it's a bubble skirt, and it's so damn cute!


(if you look closely, you can see two black eyelets in the waistband here - it's so that if the skirt gets too big, she can add a drawstring to tighten it)

i used BIG elastic.... i love 2-3" elastics!

and how it looks underneath. the lining is white stretch cotton. the inner skirt is a lot narrower than the taffeta, so i used stretch to allow for more movement.

LOVE it!!

and for the non-sewn stuff....


i am SO UPSET that there are bubbles in the finish.... i love the necklace so much, it came together so well.... the base is a metal piece from the scrapbooking section at the dollar store (i used them on a tip in page that i posted a while ago as well). i spraypainted it black with krylon. the image is a piece from a russian/german dictionary with a black cardstock bird. the necklace part is from a necklace i took apart, and the hanging feather is from an earring (i buy stuff when it's on sale at the accessory store just to take it apart!). i LOVE this necklace, and i'm so glad i thought ahead and did all the prep work for it in batches of two!! the one i'm making for myself just needs to be asembled. love it!

i also sent her one of the pewter skulls i cast a few weeks ago.

i just strung it on suede-ish cord.

and then i remembered that i had some of the super trendy owl beads (i love them even though they're trendy!)

and so i made this. it's just a lapel pin made out of buttons, with a butterfly clip back.

and then, i made stationary, which i had been seriously obsessing about making for this swap but didn't think i'd have time to go buy the paper. but i did, yay!

i made up the base for the stationary in word, using two columns and typing out the lines in a lighter colour so that they'll print grey. then i printed them, and stamped them. then i scanned the stamped page, and reprinted a whole bunch of them!
there are 5 different colours, 6 sheets of each colour.

i did go A LITTLE bit overboard, i know! but my partner did as well, we both agreed to send extra, so it was okay!

coming soon!

it seems as though there's been a big dump of mail lately, and EVERYTHING i've sent out in the past few weeks has arrived in the last few days!

that means i have a bunch of stuff to post, now that it's not secret anymore!

i'm hoping to do that within the next few days!


in other crafty news, i spent sunday cutting out fabric for a few future projects for MYSELF (that never happens!). i cut out 3 skirts and 2 pairs of drawstring pants, so i'll be able to sew them as i have time in the next few weeks (hopefully!). i also started on a new embroidery project with the aforementioned Julie West patterns, and i'm loving them!

embroidery!!

i'm on a bit of an embroidery kick at the moment - partly because i've felt so horrible that it's pretty much all i can do! i joined a 55+ yoga class (i had to get special permission to join the senior class, since i'm about 30 years too young!), and the first class seriously kicked my fibro butt! i anticipate much more embroidery until my body can get more comfy with my weekly classes!

luckily, a few weeks ago i caved to temptation and ordered the new sublime stitching craft pad. i already have the sublime stitching book, and while the craft pad has lesspatterns, it has way more patterns i'll actually use, they're so much funkier. i'm so excited to embroider stuff out of it. and while i was at it, i ordered more patterns (they were on sale, okay? and i don't feel as bad about paying shipping costs when i'm buying more stuff!) i ordered forest friends, the tattoo alphabet, lisa petrucci and julie west. while i don't think the julie west patterns are usually my style, i ADORE them! i can't wait to use them, they're just so damn cute!

they arrived in good timing, because i was just finishing up a set of embroidered baby bibs that i started back in december. though i'd already started stitching the "born bad" baby from the mitch o'connell transfer set, i immediately ripped it out and used a design from the craft pad instead! i just wasn't feeling the baby - i couldn't decide on colours, and i was feeling lazy, i just wanted the set to be finished. and finished it is!!

here they are, all 5 of them.
they’ve been my sitting-in-front-of-the-tv, I-feel-too-crappy-to-sew project, so they've taken a while.

The bibs themselves came from ikea, and they seem to be decent quality. They’re not perfectly shaped which slightly irritates my OCD tendencies, that’s okay, it’s really only obvious when they’re ironed, and I doubt they’ll ever be ironed again! And they were a great deal, so it’s all good!

The crow/raven/black bird – this image is from the Gothic Grandeur transfer set

The baby’s mom is pretty goth, and not really into traditional baby stuff, so I wanted to have at least one gothier bib (as gothy as you can get with yellow bias tape at least!)

The swallow – I think this image is from the Tattoo Your Towels set, but I honestly don’t remember!

This was the first one I did, and you can tell. People keep saying that the longer you embroider, the faster you are, but I seem to be the opposite! The more I embroider, the more anal I get about embroidering, and I get slower! Since this was the first one, the stitches are bigger.

The sugar skull – this image is from the Dia De los Muertes transfer set
I LOVE how this turned out! It’s so bright and cheery!


this is the only one that isn't a sublime stitching pattern. the baby’s name is Torrin, and I printed it up in word in Old English Text font.


and the rocket, from the new craft pad. this one i finished up on wednesday. i LOVE it! it's so cheery and bright just damn cute!


All of the bibs were made using tearaway stabilizer (best shit ever!) the images were transferred onto the stabilizer, or in some cases, just traced right onto the stabilizer. It worked really well, and I didn’t have to worry about transferring the designs onto the stretch terry of the bib.




And while i'm posting pics, i'll post this as well, because i don't think i ever did.

i embroidered this back in the fall for casey, but never got around to posting it. it's embroidered on a fleece scarf (again using tearaway stabilizer), and the image is an outline of the fabulous kitty stuffies she makes!

and a photo, with more accurate colours

the scan, with more detail


i'm ridiculously anal about my embroidery - my stitches are super tiny and neat. it's wierd, because i have HATED hand sewing for years! but i'm really enjoying embroidery. it's very calming, and relazing, and i love the end result. i'm very proud of myself!

atcs and a chunky page!!

it seems like the mail is taking FOREVER lately, and i'm so impatient to post things! silly mail.

i've been working on lots of stuff off and on, i have almost 30 vinyl wristlets cut out, appliqued, and ready to be assembled, but they keep getting set aside in favour of higher priority projects.

i made a bunch of ATCs in the past few weeks, and they've all been recieved, so i'll post them. i made two tip in pages, and two chunky 4x4 pages as well, but only one of them has recieved, the others are apparently touring the world via the postal system!

and i also made a few custom orders, which again, are still in transit.

but! i do have atcs to share!

these were for the alphabet atc a,b,c swap i organized on craftster.org (it's just winding up now, and d,e,f will be organized next)

a is for aerial acrobatics, arabic and apple green



b is for burlesque



c is for clocks



they're all quite different, but i really love how they all turned out.

and a chunky page!



the quote says "Your past is not your potential. In any hour you can choose to liberate the future." I stamped it with a water based ink pad (the tim holtz ones from ranger), and it really didn't react well to the acrylic paint and medium mixture that i used to give the page texture before stamping, and everything i stamped lightened quite a bit. i overstamped a few of the images with my staZon ink (the lighter brown - is it saddle?). the little glass things are from watches as well, they curve up from the page. the watch pieces are adhered with glossy accents, which is usually clear, but on this page i very lightly brushed it with water based ink before doing anything, and you can see (especially on the lower left) where the glossy accents picked up some of that colour. the stamps are from an unmounted rubber sheet i bought in portland last month, it's the "time flies" set 8513 made by invoke arts. they were really cheap actually!


DO NOT go to that website if you're on a budget!! i'm practically drooling right now, their stamps are INCREDIBLE! a whole page of religious stamps! frida stamps! dios de los muertes stamps! lace patterned stamps! very cool atc background stamps! very cool crow stamps! i definitely need to save up and order some, i don't think i can resist!

and more atcs! these were for the fabric atc swap i organized (again, still finishing up, stupid mail system!). i ended up in two groups, so i made 6. i was on a vinyl kick, so they're all out of vinyl.

a stylized peacock feather


a russian nesting doll (the designs and the face were stamped on)


a kitschy toaster


kitschy kewpie dolls


the framed crow (again, the frame was stamped on)


and the anchor


as you can see, i've started using glitter vinyl. i LOVE this stuff! i picked up a ton of it in portland when i was down last month, and it's fabulous! it took a bit of experimenting, as my machine wasn't sure of it at first, but after learning that i must adjust both the tension and the stitch length, as well using the walking foot instead of my teflon foot, i'm getting the hang of it!