chaos and cute video

ok so blogger doesn't want to let me upload any images.. again... so i bailed last couple times and did something else, either didn't update or the vespers thing... so heres a cute video i am in love with. Perpetually stuck in my head!



on other notes, i am yet again blogged down by final projects and christmas orders... so you might not hear much of me! sorry <3

Yarn shop adventure

So we went to lake george new york for the week. And i have been crocheting like a mad woman. I decided to only make stuff i want to... Because well, its vacation. Pics of those soon to come!!!

Of course though i had to hit up the local yarn shop!!!!

The Yarn Angel had so much luscious yarn!!!! I wanted it ALL. I only took away 3 skeins though!! ^_^
I will definitely stop in next time we are in the area.

The Vespers

So i want everyone to know about these awesome people!  The Vespers, an amazing band  who I have had the pleasure of meeting.  They are in need of help for their second cd to raise funds, and if you help you can also get their next album before it comes out!!! ( only till the 25th so hurry!!!!!)   Check out their website to listen to their first cd and their music video for their second and support them on kickstarter!
http://thevespersband.com/
 www.helpthevespers.com

IKEA ponies and loot and new clay!!!!

I mentioned in the last post that i had an adventure to IKEA over the weekend. My dad and i drove the hourish down to Pittsburgh to grab a bookcase/ desk thing i picked out online. I have never been to IKEA before and wooow is it huuge!!! I think we got lost at least 3 times in less than 15 minutes! It was well worth it. We only picked up the bookshelf/desk thing, because dad needed to get back but it was well worth it! I spent the rest of the evening, with the help of Mr. handie-dad, and we got the thing put together and set up1!!! （≧∇≦）



it has been hard for me to get anything unpacked since we moved because i only had a couple of tiny bookcases. No room for anything. So this and the shelves i put up helped tremendously, but alas off to school i went again before i got much of anything done. but i am really pleased with how it is all turning out! now there is plenty of room for my yet to be organized ponies!!!
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧…

This is the stash I got from the library today!!! (•̪┌┐•̪) I am so pleased!!! I try to use recycled mailers for my etsy. I always feel bad for the still usable envelopes that students throw out, and looking at the trashcans and recycling bins is just sickening how many of these are just tossed. It came in good timing (thank you God!) for i had just run out of mailers and have a couple of orders to get into the mail ! (which will be out by the weekend! promise!!!) On top is a lovely book on botany who's covers are just screaming for art. I just cannot resist a blank canvas...

Getting ready to start a new doll for drawing class... I know sounds weird but as the prof pointed out, you need to have drawings for most any art, sculpture, paintings, even pottery. You don't always need drawigns, but it helps you work out all the details. I decided to try some new clay i had picked up for a steal at Jo-ann's a while back. It is an airdry clay called Stonex. It is fun to work with, being more like traditional pottery clay, but more plasticy in feelign when dry, and is alot heavier than my usual paperclay. You can carve into it when semi and all dry which was great for my tastes.

I built it over Styrofoam, and didn't pack it on to hard, expecting some shrinkage. What i got when it dried was well a little bit more shrinkage than hoped for.... (●´― ｀●) sad panda...





Well at least it cracked in the back and the eye does look cool... i didn't even carve there... it just happeded, which made it all the more neat... but i don't think this is the clay i will be using. A friend suggested that i use the foam you buy to put inside of cushions, and i may give that a try; wrap the foam in plastic wrap, then put the clay on... it should work in theory...

so much to do, so little time!

I have been overwelmed the past 2 weeks or so. Between school work, etsy orders and the continuous unpacking i have had little time to get stuff done. But it has been worth it!!! I have dyed over 15 yards of fabric, made a felt sculpture doll, done many drawings, made 3 cows, put up shelving and unpacked almost all of my My Little Ponies and built an IKEA desk and shelving unit... just to name a few... ^__^ponies ponies ponies o how i love them!!!!

3 self portraits and another drawing... all for one class in one day!!! WOOPED!!!



My prof was talking about making parfaits (the dying kind... not the food kind) and said you put 3 or 4 in a batch. I asked if you could do more and she said she didn't know, no one had ever tried. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. this is an 11 part parfait of the rainbow!!! I wish i had either stuck another red on the top so i could get a burgundy, or put yellow on top because it all but disappeared!


my needle felted doll with hand made clothing and a moss and felted stand... WHY OH WHY DID I PUT OVER 45 HOURS INTO THIS PROJECT??!! BECAUSE IT WAS SOOO WORTH IT!!!!



I also stuffed some hand spun cotton yarn i had acquired into the dye when dyeing my fabric.... such a good idea!!! I love the results!!!<3

More on the IKEA adventure laters!!!

AWE NUTS!!!!

Mustachio is now available in green at my etsy!!!!
ENJOY!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/57740709/mustachio-the-magnificent?ref=af_shop_favitem

CHRISTMAS ITEMS!!!

so I am getting ready for the Christmas season.... it still feels too early...
I am so excited I thought I should share!!! I will have PDF files of patterns, I will upload one a week at least! It all depends upon my schedule. I have also been working on momma and baby sets! so the giraffe and elephant will have companions soon!!! Here's a sneak peek at the baby giraffe!


also will be a skeleton, hopefully not too too late for Halloween, a foot plus tall lion, pocket ninja jewelry and phone charms, squirrels, and of course glittery Christmas pandas, bears, and bunnies, just to name a few! I've been working hard, making a stash of stuff so hopefully I don't have the same last minute craziness combined with finals like what happened last year. Sorry buyers!!!

I have also learned about organizing and planning better and hopefully this "write everything in one book and color code it" will work! I'm praying so!

the journey of a bjd artist

so it is not a recent thing that i have taken up sculpting dolls. I have been doing so for many years but I have never realized that I could actually make a moving doll! I have been fascinated by ball jointed dolls and with being a poor university student, and an art major, I have taken up doll making once again. My first attempt was last winter/spring. She is a creature I had come up with in 4th grade and mostly forgot about. I came across some old drawings and decided it would be fun to redesign her. I tried crocheting and that failed. I could not get the detail I wanted. I had other projects I had wanted for bjd making, but I needed a simple design to test out how the joints work, since I don't have one in my hands as a reference point.

She came out a little frightning. The white polymer clay was sticky beyond belief and the only tools I had were a toothpick and my fingers. none the less... she's scary. I found out that I could carve the polymer clay easily and I loved it! (always loved carving). So I ended up frustrated then realized this was a test piece, and it didn't matter, so I had a blast and failed at joints, gluing them together in places so that things wouldn't fall apart (ie her knees) but even though she is frightening, I still love her!

This summer, before going to Japan, I was messing around with some polymer clay while watching tv and made a face. The skin tone is waaay less sticky. So this poor head was just sitting there looking forlorn, so I decided to attempt another doll. This one worked out a lot better. I had done much much more research, and had it pretty well under control... till I had to get the styrofoam out.... I forgot polymer clay is plastic... so I melted the styrofoam out from her innards with fingernail polish remover. This works great for stone based and paper based clays, but not for polymer. She still has a strange odor. It made her very brittle. if the clay was thicker it wouldn't have been such a problem, but after 4 months can tell the chemical reaction is still going on. She gets brittler every day. So I tried to make her fast. which was fine, but the clay kept chipping, so I'd fix it and bake it again... that doesn't work well for small extremely brittle dolls. her crotch has broken out in about 6 different pieces at least a dozen times, and her knees are shot.

she only needs her arms and hands, minus elbows and she'd be finished, but for her protection, especially over my Japan trip, I had to pack her safely away hoping to make a mold and cast her in resin ( a kind of hard plastic) and work from that piece to finish her.

In coming home from Japan I find out the house is on the market and my parents had packed everything up... ok not everything... but most everything but what i had taken with me. So being bored and such I ended up grabbing some paperclay at Pat Catan's. I also decided I had nothing better to do than try again! so I again redesigned my Mom-Tom, as I had none of the originals because they were packed, and set to work!

I am having a much better time with the airdrying paperclay as i can let things dry and add things on top and carve and all kinds of fun things! so it's my new fav clay! She is turning out much better than my past attempts!


Check out more pics on my flicker! http://www.flickr.com/photos/hlbmlp/

I'm old!

as a birthday celebration I am giving you all a 25% off coupon code for my etsy site!!!
I am also updating with one of a kind creatures! come and get em!
Enter Celebrate when checking out!!!!

back from Japan

I am back from Japan. First off I want to thank everyone for their support, financial, encouragement, and physical support! THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

This trip was a doosie, both good and tiresome. Nothing was as it was told, but that made it very much full of surprise, which is fun when you are not pooped.

I did have internet, but I never had the time to use it. We were busy from 5:30am till 11:30pm everyday and man did I sleep well when I came home!

We went to help with the tsunami relief. It was hard labor but fun. My half of the team mainly tore out damaged parts of the houses that were left and safe, leaving only the skeleton so that the families could rebuild them. the other team ended up "mudding out". The tsunami dragged in a couple feet deep of "mud" made up of sand, mud, household items, fish, sewage, anything and everything that the water picked up and dropped, inside of houses, outside of them and everywhere. And MAN did that stuff stink! I am glad that I was on sweeping duty, both vacuum and broom.

My team worked with Samaratin's Purse in Kesennuma, our base being a small ball field in Sumita. I think I spelled those right... ^_^ they are about 8 hrs away from Yokohama, to the north, and Yokohama is about 2 hrs away from Tokyo.

I will be posting my photos to my flicker account but here are some in the meantime!

waiting to get on a plane!!!

First of all I want to thank everyone who donated money so that I could go on my missions trip to Japan for a month!!! I am waiting for the plane to Texas and after will be flying to Tokyo! I hope to update as much as possible with info, pics and all around awesomeness!!! unfortunately I do not know if i will have internet...
<3 u all!!!

Magic Circle

This is my diagram of the magic circle or magic loop used in amigurumi patterns. I thought I would share it with you!!!
This summer I have planned to put my crochet patterns into pdf format. This would mean new items in my store!
Things have been crazy with school and my computer and camera have been acting up.
been thinking of making a web comic. well, more than thinking. I am making the comic, just don't know if I am going to put it online.

Paper Yarn!!!

I have read about spinning paper, but I never had a reason to try. So tonight while brainstorming for my paper vessel project I decided to make some and see where that takes me! I thought it would be much harder than it was! It was really easy and the yarn is really strong!

ok wow... It's really been a while!
So anywho.. I have been printing like a mad woman today! I am making tshirts and postcards to sell for a fundraiser to go on a missions trip to Japan! So I used a speedycarve block and some screenprinting ink and made an utter mess!!!!

Postcards!!!! $1 each

my lovely workspace after finishing! and cleaning...

and some shirts $15 each

more shirts!!!

scrap rag of funness!!!! dunno what I will use this for but I love all the practice prints on it!!!

a sketchbook for MEEEE!!!!!! yea!

and a drink cosy that failed!!! $5

I think I may put some of these up on my etsy! I dunno yet though!!!