simpletruths

Crafting Hope

It's one thing to craft.  It's another to craft hope - out of yarn, out of fabric, hope.  it's great.

 

 

Craft Hope is one of my favorite organizations. Over the years I've been able to participate in many different projects - Craft Hope for Haiti, scarves for foster kids,  and bracelets that made their way to Russia.

 

It was great.  Now there's a new project  (project 16 to be specific).  Beanies and Bags!  

Can you knit, crochet, sew?  If so Craft Hope is spear heading the collection of beanies for children undergoing cancer treatment and pillowcase sized "overnight" bags for their trips to the hospital.

For more information (where to send everything, when to send it by) take a look at Craft Hope's Littlest Warrior post.

Ok.......GO!

 -- check out some of my past 'do good' posts here --

 

*Don't forget to visit me over at The BackLoop

Secret Projects

I'm working on three Top Secret projects right now.

 

Do you want a peek?

...

...

 

and....

 

 

and then there's this...

 

tee hee hee

 

Craft night!!!

Sorry for all the exclimations  - wait, not I'm not.  I'm way too excited because I'm hosting the next craft night at Modern Mouse, Thursday August 11th.

 

I'll be showing how to turn thrift store bangels into adorable bracelets like these

So, if you're in, or near Alameda, make sure you swing by craft night from 5-7

 

 

Renegade

via www.etsy.com

I want to sell every bag I have just so I can own this one.

 

Seriously.

 

So this weekend I went to Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco with a couple of friends (you may recall our previous trip out to Renegade a couple of years ago).

I went in without anything specific in mind by way of purchases and a personal cap of $40 (unless I happened upon the perfect birthday present for my mom).

Anyhow, I completely caught off guard by this beautiful piece of workmanship.

Seriously.

 

Side note - Cynically Delicious and their amazing cupcakes were in attendance. If anyone from Cyncally delicious is reading this - please, open up a store front already, in the east bay....perhaps in Alameda (just a suggestion).

 

Modern Mouse

Do you see what I see??

 

That's right, those are my neclaces in an almost professional looking display tag.

Why?

Because simple truths is in a store!!!!! wooooo hoooooo!!! do the running man, do the running man...uhh uhh yea!

OK - I just had to get that out. Here are the specifics - for those of you who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, if you haven't checked out Modern Mouse in Alameda, you should. Everything they sell is handmade by (mostly) local artists - now including ME!

The first batch of merchandise includes: spiral (regular and mini) and hoop crocheted earrings

 

and my beaded necklaces.

I'm hoping to also add my recycled T accessories and the coffee cup cozies later this year.

The packaging part was somewhat difficult. I knew that I wanted the necklaces to hang, but finding hang tags for necklaces is not easy. So much so that I ended up making my own. For the earrings I used my tiny hole hole-puncher and turned my moo cards into earring cards.

The best thing about the earring display is that when someone buys my earrings they automatically have my business card and a photo of another type product I make.

winner!

Thanks for hanging in through a few weeks of spotty posts while I got everything prepped.  

In other news - why is it still raining? We doing usually get rainy, hot chocolate weather in the middle of May, but that's exactly what I'm about to make; a mug of spicy hot chocolate mmmmm

Look up in the sky.....

via llevoelinvierno.blogspot.com

These wings are just wonderful!

If I add them to my list of "things i want to make", I might actually get them done before Little Miss turns 3.

Do keep in mind that this Wednesday she'll be 4 months old.

It's a pretty long list.

sewing bug

I spent some time browsing DIY section over on Design Sponge (which I love) and came across two projects that really make me want to bust out the sewing machine:

 

via www.designspongeonline.com

 

 

and this one

 

Plus, with pic-nik and play ground weather coming up I'd really like to make some more snack bags in different sizes...and perhaps some out of oil cloth so they could be wiped off easily...But in order to do any of these, I'd first have to clean off the table; again.

 

On the horizon

With only one more week left in February, spring is upon us (although truth be told, it seems like winter JUST arrived here in the Bay Area).  I've been busy thinking, planning and working on the spring/summer 2011 items for the shop. 

It's gonna be fun.

more recycled t shirt accessories - necklaces, cowls, bracelets...

granny square fun - necklaces, key chain charms, bracelets...

beaded strands that can be worn as a necklace or a bracelet...

hair clips..?

rings...

 

As always, I'll make sure I have a few cowls and scarves in the shop for folks who are coming up to their cool weather season.

 

 

 

 

 

Homemade Valentines

Alternative title for this post is "crafty mommy goes overboard on valentines for 2 year olds"

At the pre-school Little Mr. goes to they're celebrating Feb 14th as Friendship Day. Instead of going to Target and buying a box of Valentines featuring the ever popular Diego, Dora, or Sponge Bob... we made ours (yay).

I gave the little guy two pieces of white paper, a red marker and some red, pink, and purple crayons and let him go at it.  Meanwhile I folded 10 mini-envelopes.

Together we used the paper scraps to punch out heart and star shaped confetti.  All the fun was tucked into the envelopes and sealed with puffy stickers left over from Christmas crafts.

 

So, why do I say I've gone overboard? Because this was all done for a class of 2 and 3 year olds.

 

Happy Valentines Day!!

 

More photo props

A couple of weeks ago I discussed my new found photo prop for my scarves and cowls - the wooden hanger.

 

Now here's another photo prop that I use (and a new product for the shop)

yes, an envelope

 

Nice right. But if I flip it over to the other side....

(don't worry - I'm not planning on using that picture in my etsy shop).

 

Now - I wouldn't ever ship something to someone like this.  When it comes to shipping, this felt ball garland will be wrapped around a piece of nice white cardstock.  But for now, thank you junk mail!

 

 

New life, new year, new goals

This is what's been going on over here...

 

we celebrated a first Christmas

 

getting aquainted

 

checking out the outside world

 

being amazed - or maybe bored...

 

And after they all go to sleep I've been finishing these

 

I'll be back with regular posts soon.  Something new I'm going to be doing this year are occasional how-to posts.

Stay tuned!

 

 

Giving

Of the many things I want to do this year, near the top of that list is donating more of my knitting and crocheting.

Last year I was able to make a scarf for the One Red Scarf Project and I was able to donate a few items to the Craft Hope for Haiti Etsy Shop.  This year I'm hoping to do another charity project - or two. 

One thing I'd love to do is find an organization that donates handmade hats to newborns in hospitals and communities that really need them.

Anyone have any suggestions?  I'm open to programs anywhere in the world.

Etsy Artists Of Color Holiday Gift Guide

via treat.typepad.com

Team EAOC (Etsy Artists of Color) has put together a great online gift guide with links to each shop from the pictures. There are truly some amazingly talented folks featured - I'm on page 10 :).

What are you waiting for? Go check out the EAOC's Holiday Gift Guide

Gawker

So craftgawker is one of my favorite crafty eye candy sites.  I was just browsing the other day and came across these beauties:

Awesome felted soap from SoFino

 

 Turn your mason jars into soap dispensers with an easy order from Post Road Vintage.

 

And you already know that I'm a fan of bitty nests so there's no way I could pass these by from Made in Lowell

 

This ring from MaaP studios is porcelain perfection - as is pretty much everything in their shop.

 

ohhh and these calendars

 from Olive and Ruby

 

Mini Crustless Quiches

In preparation for Little Mrs. arrival I've been thinking of things that can be made ahead and frozen both for me and for the boys.

These little guys are my favorite so far:

Mini Crustless Quiches - one batch with just zucchini, another with zucchini and smoked turkey.

The recipe I ended up going with is actually a mini frittatta recipie  that was less recipe and more hmmmm what's in the fridge...

One downfall to going the muffin pan route (both mini and regular) is cleaning.  There's just no easy way to clean a muffin pan.

 

I've also gotten a bunch more button scarves finished and folded, and I just finished a couple cowls - one blue and one purple that aren't pictured. I feel like, come 10pm - I do nothing but weave in ends for an hour...and I haven't even started adding the hooks onto the earring yet...

 

Organized Chaos

This may look like a mess of yarn to most people

but to me, this is progress.  Take a look at the few close ups....

This little sparkly circles are going to be the brilliant focal point of a Christmas garland

 

One yet-to-be-stiffened snowflake

 

 

earrings galore

 

 

And I didn't even get into the assorted neck warming apparatuses....apparati?   

I also have a few new designs in the works.  No pictures yet but I can say that felt is fun :) 

shhhhhh.....

shhhhhhh......

everybody is asleep.....

not that there isn't stuff to clean...

 

but this is what I worked on instead

 and this

 and this.  I need to take some photos of these without the house clutter in the background before I can post them to the shop.

I'm not really sure about this last one. 
I was playing around with some chain and yarn and this is what I came up with.

All-in-all it was a very productive nap time :)

Finishing touches

I must say I haven't been great this summer about posting new products to my etsy site, or marketing myself for that matter, but sales keep trickling in.  

I just sold the last pair of rosette earrings yesterday. 

 Looks like it's time to make some more.

 

The silly thing is that I actually have several items that are sooooo close to being finished, including more of these rosettes in different colors.  But right when I get to the point where all I need to do is add a button to scarf or a clasp to a necklace - I start another project.  *sigh*

Maybe I'll make this weekend my 'finishing touches' weekend.

Strawberry Pillows

When I was a little girl I LOVED Strawberry Shortcake (both the dessert and the little girl with the rainbow sprite friends). My grandmother found out and, as grandmothers are want to do, after a few gift giving occasions, my room was outfitted with Strawberry Shortcake sheets, blanket, pillow cases, curtains, a little card table AND a record player....
Now that I think about it, it don't think I actually had a Strawberry Shortcake doll - or a rainbow sprite for that matter.

(Ms. Shortcake then and now)

Since then I've grown out of my Strawberry Shortcake obsession (the character....not the dessert). But now that I know I'm having a little girl I've been thinking about all of my little girly things (though for a long time I was vocally against all things 'girly').

Anyway - look at these adorable strawberry pillows that I found over on the purl bee.

via www.purlbee.com

These will now need to be added to the ever growing project list.  Luckily, newborns have no use for strawberry shaped pillows so I can put these on the back burner for now.  Unless I happen to stumble upon the perfect fabric.....

A little less plastic....

...a little more cute.

 

yay for snack bags!

We've been trying to use less plastic - in an attempt to balance out the amount of plastic that seems to arrive with the birth of a child...I've had glass storage bowls and reusable snack bags on the brain for a while now. 

 

snack bags - check

These are pretty perfect because they take just a few minutes to put together - including the cutting, and there's no velcro involved. I wanted to find/make something without velcro because I was looking for something that Little Mr. could open with little to no assistance.

Perfect!

Amy over at angrychicken posted a fun (and funny) video tutorial on sewing your own snack bags. I'm going to be making smaller ones in a few days.