Wednesday, July 31, 2013

CC Makes Galore!

One of my one hundred mini-goals for 2013 is to do every Crafty Creatives kit. I'm a bit behind, and box 13 threw me a loop by having not one, but five kits in it! I've been managing to fit them in to free time here and there, especially as I wait for things I need for my main polymer clay business, as well as a few other things. I still have two left to do, but I thought I'd share what I had done so far!


The first two I did were the paper and the stocking flowers. Actually, my 7-year-old daughter did the paper one, which I think looks pretty good considering I only really helped her glue it! When she saw my stocking flower she wanted one for herself, so I made her one:


As you can see, by the time I'd photographed it, it got a bit squashed from riding in her handbag to and from her grandma's house! The kit has enough to make at least 2-3 more, so I'm sure I'll be drafted to make another, soon!



I learned from my mistakes when I made the french beaded flower! I made two to start and let my daughter choose which one she wanted. She correctly chose the one on the left! I used some bigger 8/0 sized beads that I had for the stamens since my colours were similar. I'm definitely going to be making more flowers, especially since I bought this-


a bead spinner! I beaded about 3ft of wire in about 20 minutes. It's great and I love it. The kit had enough beads for two flowers but probably not enough for more unless I mixed the two colours together, but that didn't stop me playing with the bead spinner some more.


I made these triple-wrapped bracelets with some of the remaining beads and some that I'd found in my stash! They're 21" long wires that wrap, or I suppose could be worn as a necklace as well! 


The hummingbird pendant from the box was made into this simple necklace with some turquoise flower beads. Going to give this one to my mom, I think!


I also finished my cross stitch from box 12. I'm definitely going to be making at least one more of the four patterns supplied with the box, but this had to be the first. 


And I'm mid-project on this one- I didn't sew the outer beads on correctly and need to go back to reinforce them, so I of course set it aside for now. I have a lot of clay work to do this week now that I can get into it again, but this was a lot less daunting than I thought it'd be, so I'm not worried about catching up on it.

After that, and the other two flowers, I'll have just the blue bird mobile to do and the dreaded crochet mouse way back from box 5! I can make a very lovely chain... and that's about it! I will have it done though, and as another of my goals is to make a simple but nerdy amigurumi, I'll have to do it soon!

I'll have the other two flowers up to show you guys sometime next month- if I can stop making the beaded ones! 


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Update- my busy workspace!

It is probably not a surprise to learn that I am not a very organised person. Oh, I don't tend to forget about my obligations, but it would be a lot easier if I could learn to somehow put them in some sort of order! I love diaries, I'm just terrible at using them.

Anyway, sometime last fall I was messing around and I made some starfish!


At the time I thought I'd keep them until summer came back around because they weren't very wintery! Well suffice it to say, I forgot about them.


This is my tub of spare charms and things that haven't been made into anything (the bag is full of unvarnished stuff). I was sorting through and found all my starfish, so hopefully I'll actually get them up and listed because OOPS!


This is the current state of the back of my work area. The worst it's been for a while, to be sure. I have a bunch of little commissions on the books right now- not huge jobs, but for some reason I've pulled out everything I need for all of them! Ha! Also pictured are random things I've used in the past few days for other non-clay crafts, and confusingly a pot of Lush. Would someone like to come organise me?

But anyway, as I mentioned, I have lots of little commissions to do right now, and some of them will be good for tutorials. I'm going to be playing with mica shift, and if it goes well I will be sure to share the results.

<3

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Happy Birthday, Crafty Creatives! with CCBox13

It seems like I was just writing last month's Crafty Creatives blog post yesterday and here we are with another! I am seriously behind on my making- busy is good but not when it cuts into my crafty time, growl! This month marks the 1st birthday of the subscription craft box, and to celebrate it, we got something definitely unique compared to what we've seen so far!


More after the jump!

Saturday, July 6, 2013

June in Review

Why is it that the first week of the month always gets away from me so quickly? I barely have time to adjust to it being a new month before it's all over, it seems! As it is, I debated posting my monthly goal page for June and decided not to as there are a few carry-over goals that will spoil some things I have to make this month! I'll post both June and July pages in August, and instead show you what I *did* get around to making and doing this month.


The big theme of June was getting ready for the opening of a new crafty shop local to me- Crafty Mums. I've been lucky enough to secure a shelf in this cute little shop and am hopeful for lots of sales and success! There are some great things in the shop and some great ladies crafting their butts off to fill it.


My shelf at the shop- the displays I had didn't quite work so I ended up making this one overnight! I have a good idea for a better display and I'm just looking for the right materials to make it with- I have almost all of it collected up and will give you guys an updated picture when it's done. 


And of course, I left you with a bit of a teaser of what was coming next- here's my completed Wimbledon necklace! These were really satisfying to complete as they had so much to them and ended up looking pretty much just how I wanted them to. 



Summer also means my fruit things come out again and I've made a few new things this year, plus adding some posts to my strawberries! The grapes were so much fun to make.


A new fruit that I'd hoped to have ready this month but couldn't quite get - dragonfruit! This slice pendant captured the spirit of the dragonfruit, but I am not quite happy with them yet. Maybe by next month I'll be posting some pieces I'm truly proud of, because I really love the look and colours of dragonfruit.


I also made a bunch of twisty marshmallow things and they've been a hit so far! Getting them smooth and 'perfect' was actually harder than it initially seemed it would be.


I also finally made some earrings and pendants with my spade canes from a few months back. I think they look quite cute. They're over at my sister shop, JustPlainAwesome.


And finally, not really a new item, but I made some bigger cookie pendants and they've convinced me to go even bigger. Little and dainty is good, but I think some big chunky pendants are in store, very soon.

It's always nice to look back on a month and feel like I got some things done and I'm glad I'm able to do that for June! I also was able to cross off some of my 2013 goals, and am going to be crossing off even more this weekend. I still have some catching up to do on my tutorials, so if you're eager to see any in specific let me know in the comments.

<3 S