Happy Halloween

Pumpkin plushie I made for my niece, Allie, for Halloween this year.

Here's wishing all of you a very happy and safe Halloween!

A Gift from JMKit

I received this gift from JMKit yesterday. Yesterday was a really rough day to say the least and finding this in my inbox was a very welcome surprise.  This is my MiKit holding my two cats, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash.  Thank you JMKit for brightening up my day! :) 

If you're not already familiar with JMKit, do yourself a favor and visit their site.  You'll find tons of cute characters, free downloads and printables, games, and awesome merchandise.  So go already! :)

The Blooming Thread

Fourth on my list of retail addictions (behind craft supplies, handbags, and shoes) are pouches. I don't what draws me to these little mini zippered bags, but for some reason I can never have too many. I recently won the cutest little pouch from The Blooming Thread. I've been entering a lot of giveaways lately in order to stock up on Christmas presents since I'm still unemployed, and was thrilled when I saw that The Blooming Thread blog was offering up this little goody as a prize. (Of course I knew if I was lucky enough to win it, I wouldn't be gifting it to anyone. This entry was purely self-serving).

I just love the fabric that Ryan, the talent behind The Blooming Thread, chose and the zipper placement on this pouch. Ryan's shop is full of these modern looking little pouches. It's refreshing to see this different style and fabric as Etsy is currently inundated with top loading zippered pouches made of Amy Butler fabric.

The Blooming Thread also carries other hand stitched items such as totes, handbags, pin cushions, sachets, and wall art that are also quite fabulous.  Ryan also has a cute little blog and Facebook fan page, where she sometimes offers deals to her fans. 

Thanks to Ryan for this giveaway prize!  I'll definitely be back to your shop in the future.

Thank You Mr. Churchill

I made this after having a cruddy week and even cruddier weekend.

The Shark Hoodie

I'm super stoked about this creation! I received a request in my House of Plush Etsy shop the other day from a customer who wanted a shark hoodie as a Halloween costume similar to the monster hoodie I currently have listed. At first, I wasn't going to take the order because of my lack of confidence in my abilities, especially when it came to making the fin. While mulling it over, I googled "shark hoodie" to kind of get an idea of how this thing was supposed to look and I found a tutorial for a children's shark hoodie by Martha Stewart. Her instructions on how to attach the fin made of "industrial felt" (which I had never heard of) did not help me in the least, but I found her templates for the eyes and fin to be quite useful (I referenced it while making the eyes and fin for this hoodie).  

After discussing it with the customer, I finally committed to making it, but let her know that if I encountered any problems with the fin; I'd let her know immediately so she could make other arrangements for Halloween.  I went shopping for supplies the following day and was thrilled to find the illusive industrial felt that Ms. Stewart had mentioned in her tutorial.  It was a different color grey than the hoodie, so I sewed regular charcoal colored felt on each side of the industrial felt to make sure the fin had a more uniform look when attached to the hoodie.

I wanted to find a way for the customer to be able to attach and remove the fin easily.  Velcro seemed to be the easiest answer, but would be really noticeable if the customer wasn't wearing the fin.  I opted for sew on metal snaps instead and they worked really well!

I shipped the shark hoodie off yesterday and I can't wait to hear back from my customer!  I've already gotten a lot of positive feedback on this project from friends and family.  I hope my customer is as thrilled with the results as I am!

If you'd like me to make you a custom shark, monster, or creature hoodie, feel free to contact me and we'll work it out!

Free Stuff at Kat's!

My good pal, Kat, is hosting a giveaway over at her blog, Kitkat's Katchat. Kat is giving away the lovely earring and bracelet set pictured above which she made. The giveaway ends on 10/31. So head on over to Kat's blog to enter. You can also check out Kat's Dawanda shop, Woodle Doodle Dandy Designs,
for more of her awesome handcrafted jewelry.

Marvelous Minnie!

I was thrilled to see a red Royal Air Mail package sticking out of my mailbox this morning because I knew that it was my Cut Out + Keep swap from the fabulous Minnie Burton! I was elated after opening up the package and inspecting the contents! Here is the awesome swap I received from Minnie.

A robot candle.

A felt appliqued tote bag with a sloth on it!

A Pac-Man resin bangle bracelet

English Candy including two Kinder Eggs!

Thank you so much, Minnie! I absolutely love everything you created! If you'd like to see more of Minnie's crafty goodness, you can visit her blog, Minnie Burton Craft.

Inspire Me Please

Currently, I have a ton of orange fleece (well what seems like a ton to me since I usually create in miniature) and no original ideas as to what to do with it. I want to make plushies out of it, but I'm running out of ideas. I made Patchy the Owl out of it this morning.
I'm currently working on a boy in an orange bunny costume. Other ideas I've had are pumpkins (not too keen on this idea), dinosaurs, monsters, foxes, and goldfish. Does anyone else have any other ideas as to what I could make out of orange fleece?

Laurel's Halloween Bag Giveaway!

My friend, Laurel, is giving away this awesome Halloween bag to one lucky follower! To enter, head on over to the World of Loulou blog and try your luck! She's got a fabulous crafty blog, so I'm sure you'll want to stick around.