Owwwwwwwwie!

You have one. I know you do. Everyone does.
It could be a drawer, it could be a box, it could be a cabinet.. but everyone has at least one place that they throw all those odd bits and pieces that they don’t know what to do with, but want to save.

Yeah, I have a few of them.

One is a giant box that I throw beads into. See, I have this habit of collecting old necklaces, bracelets, or clothing that has some funky bead on it, and then pulling the beads off and throwing them in the box for later use.
The thing is a gold mine…
IF you have the bravery to stick your hand in it.
Which I did.

Now…

Well now I’m bleeding.
Apparently at some point I threw in a bunch of small round mirrors. They broke.
I also apparently at some point, of base stupidity, threw in a handful of thumbtacks.
Add to that the various bits of wire and metal findings that are lost in there, and my hands now look like they were attacked by a rabid badger.

But I did find the shiny silver filigree bead that I had braved the box in search of!

Here, I’ll show you what I needed it for:

Its hard to tell, but its a big ol ostrich feather fan. It has much in the way of fluffiness, but it requires some sparkle to be complete.
Now, if I can just find what I did with those black sequins……

To the Queen of Frogs

I signed up for the “Secret Santa Can Suck It” gift swap over at the Art of Darkness blog. While I really want to tell you what I got… giving is more important then receiving.. so.. My task was to find a gift for The Frog Queen, who I have been following for some time now.

I decided to go all out this year, so here is my gift (s) to you:

FIRST!
an army of minions for you to use in all your spooky needs.
as you can see, they are already super excited to help!

SECOND!
Your very own spider killing machine

She is hard core man. Harrrrd core! From the littlest wolf spider, to giant tarantulas, she will stomp them (or shoo them outside if you prefer) with all the righteous indignation of… well as much as anyone could while wearing that… She comes highly recommended though. I swear.

THIRD!
actually, its not for you.
Sorry. I mean, you can play with em if you want, but…

Plus! They are packaged in a big cardboard box with tons of paper inside. Which, if your spook kitties are anything like mine, they will have more fun with then the mice themselves… err. yeah.

 

So… what did I get?

Just my very own Repo Man. Squeee!
You can check it out here: Hellesbelles

My camera blows…

But I did manage to get a few photos of my current works in progress. I’ll start with my Asylum Girls.

Like little Kelly.

She started behaving badly at her birthday party. She still wears the tatters remains of her party dress under her straight jacket.

Her favorite things are teddy bear heads, cake, and her fuzzy slippers. She is quite self conscious about her bluish skin, and while she must never be allowed to roam free, she craves love and snuggles. She will be up for adoption this week.

 

And for all my little spooklings, a preview:

Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the creeps more then a smiling child…. Amanda is no exception.  I seem to have misplaced a very important piece… so once I find what the hell I did with that severed head she will be ready to go up for adoption as well.

And yes, all the clothing is completely hand made. Yes.. I am mad. Mad, mad, mad. Do you really want to know how long it takes to hand sew a party dress for a doll with NO pattern? Didn’t think so… Don’t ask how long it took me to make that mini-straightjacket…

There goes the neighborhood

Used to be a quiet little place. All us song birds had a grand old time in our condos. Then, who moves into the neighborhood but three mangy imps!

They aren’t here for one day, and suddenly. squawk-BAM! The house has turned all kinds of shades of grey, there are weird white rings around everything, the pretty moss is half dead, and every inch is over run with cobwebs! Squawk!!

And around the back, squawk, I almost cant bring myself to say it.  “Jimy Ets Bugurs”

And what are all these bloody paw prints? Squawk- What?!?!?!

 

So all bird jokes aside, this was a hell of a lot of fun! I knew I wanted to repaint the super cute “Love Shack” but had no idea how until I slapped a coat of paint on the top of the chimney. See that weird heart? Yeah, its actually what the rings looked like. Inspiration galore!
I have the three little imps, made out of paper clay, drying right now. I’m still debating if they are going to have glow in the dark mouths and eyes, but they are definitely sufficiently dorky and weird.
Also, unfortunately you cant read the “Jimy ets bugurs” along the bottom of the back side, but it also says “Do not” and “do to” and “do not!” and “do toooooo!” and finally “SHUT IT!”

Next project?

It has something to do with a London bus toy… that’s all I’m sayin.

also…

Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to write tatting patterns without noting where a join would be? Its one thing to not say when to reverse, its a complete other when they ignore both. Who the hell would do that?
Who, I say, who?!?!

Yeah, picture me sitting here with a paragraph of a design (that I wanted to use as a basis for an idea) in one hand, and a useless pile of knots in the other.

So lets hear it for inadequate patterns and fuzzy images! I love it when I realize 1/4 of the way through something that the whole thing is completely wrong! yay!

/sarcasm

This is odd…

So I spent some time this morning looking up shuttle tatting, and it turns out maybe I wasn't doing it backwards. Maybe half the population of tatters does it backwards.

So now I am wondering if maybe the whole problem is the way that I am holding my thread, and not what I am doing with my shuttle? I am also wondering if it really matters, once I flip it all over it looks exactly as it should.

interesting……

I’m still going to use needle for the projects I have brewing right now, but my theory is that I’ll do the projects in needle, and then once I’m done with them try them out with shuttle.

The other problem is that I know me. And I know me well enough to know that if I decide that I really enjoy shuttle tatting I am going to want to make my own shuttles. Ok, actually I have already started doing searches to see if I can figure out how to make them with poly clay.
Ok, ok.. I have made a couple of them in the Lady Hoare style, but I want to make some with bobbins.
Do any of you fellow tatters have any suggestions?

projects

Couple things this week. Got in a small order of paper clay that I have been wanting to fool around with for a while now.
Fun stuff! I did a small head, just a quick doodle, and played around with it for a while. I’m not exactly shot through with the stuff, but I love that you can literally sculpt with a damp paint brush. I managed to give the little dude some nice sculptured bones and even sort of wrinkly veins doing that. I don't know that it is something I would want to use a lot, its a bit mushy, but I can definitely see myself using it from time to time.

I also managed to figure out a few beading things. I have one super cool bracelet done, its big and chunky, and I love it lots. I also figured out a cool pattern for a cuff, but ended up frogging it because of one bad bead in the middle. Ok.. more then one, and I would rather redo the whole thing so it is firmly in my mind. So yeah, crafting is good… Crafting from cool stuff I picked up at the thrift shop is even better!! and I cant find any batteries that will hold a charge…. so no photos. Which also means no Etsy.

Hopefully I can remedy that tomorrow.

I also managed to figure out that my shuttle tatting is… well I am dyslexic, so I was actually doing the entire thing upside down, or backwards. Which is fine, I suppose, but I want to do it right. I’m thinking I might go back to needle tatting, partly because I don’t really have to think about what I’m doing as much, and I’m a bit into the “I don't want to think about anything” mode lately.

I did also get my flickr all set with photos of my glass art and some old  projects that I had photos of. You can find them all here.

Huh…

so after about a year of working with needle tatting, and enjoying it but being very frustrated because I can’t tat super large or onto wire the way that I wanted to…. I finally figured out shuttle tatting.

This means I can now use leather cord or tat onto wire to make awesome 3d goodies!

We (my super crafty mother and I) also invested in supplies for cards, that being cards, envelopes, plastic sleeves, and quality printer ink. Next came the tedious task of scanning everything that I thought would make a great card. Old artwork, cool old vintage family photographs, that kind of thing.
I believe that she wants to sell them only locally, and it seems to be taking some convincing to get her to think a little more broad, but hopefully she will go with the idea of putting them on Etsy as well as selling them at North of the Falls, which is a cool little shop here in Bradford.
The thing is, i like the store. I love the fact that i can go in there, check out pottery, jewelry, art, and then walk into the back half to find nifty yarn. I know, most people have a cool little lys that they love, and while I don’t love her selection, or her prices, I do love that she is so very willing to order (and spend half an hour looking for) just about anything I am craving. As far as the front half of the shop, I like that they are willing to give space to just about any local artist.. I don't like that they charge 40% commission on everything. The idea of marking everything up by that much just to get what I need out of the sale bothers me. I cant fathom selling a card for more then $10.00 just so I can get enough to cover the cost and split the dollar or so of profit. I mean, they are cool, wicked cool even… but not that cool. Well… maybe they are, but I figure that if I wouldn’t spend that much on them not many other people would either and the whole point is to sell the item, not have it so over priced that no one will buy it. I don’t really understand how they can get away with charging gallery scale commission in such a small store, but I guess that is their deal.

At any rate, enough bitching. It is good that I am coming up with more things that I can sell, and I should stop bitching.