A Busy Week Ahead

March 2nd, 2010

I have never felt so overwhelmed. This week feels like the busiest week ever! At least the worst is past me. I hate when the 1st of the month falls on a Monday; it’s like two worlds are colliding! lol Mondays are always busy with shipping out orders and catching up on emails from over the weekend; but when it falls on the 1st, I also have to prepare for my Crafty Ave newsletter by adding all the new patterns, writing up the news, updating the website, and sending out artist payments. Needless to say I was up until 1am last night working. The rest of the week will be just as busy, but at least Monday is done and over with. Not only am I starting to feel the pressures of my deadline for the Earth Day fair, but I’ve been invited to do another show in April at the Beardsley Zoo. I have two wholesale orders to finish up this week… which means gluing, pouring, drilling, and more gluing of about 400 bottle caps, and sewing up an Americana quilt and wrapping some rag balls. Let’s see.. what else…. I have my art league meeting tonight, and I have my girls crafting meeting on Friday. I just might bring my crafting supplies to art league tonight to work on the craft fair goodies.

I’m starting to see a trend here… I come on over to write a blog post, I pour out all my bad news and complaints, then I say “OH, and here’s the good news”. lol Okay, so let’s get to the good news. As I’ve said, I was invited to do another craft show at the Beardsley Zoo! I didn’t mean for that to slip out during my cranky tantrum. It IS good news. I am so excited! I haven’t officially agreed to it yet though. I’m not sure if I’ll even have enough products to do two shows in only about six weeks from now. It’s a two day show, but I can do only one of the days if I wanted; which is great. Before even getting this invite, I was already feeling overwhelmed with the crafting I have to catch up on, that I invited two of my friends to help me out. Marla will be joining me with her fun soda can jewelry, and Jen will be joining me with her beautiful hemp wrapped jars. The three of us have decided to get together every Friday to craft together for the show. I’ll try to remember to take some photos this Friday!

For the show, I have finished up a couple more zipper pouches made from wrappers. Although, I’m still having a perfectionist problem. I made one perfect pouch, and thought I had it down pat. Then I made another one, and it came out a bit skewed. Darn! I’m not sure what the difference was, or what went wrong. I’ll keep trying! Everyone is telling me they look just fine. Perhaps it’s just the perfectionist in me. I also started making some charm bracelets with charms made from plastic bottles. They look so great! I’m keeping the first one for myself! :0)  OH and I found a way to put a bit of color on my jelly fish!! Yay! (Still never finished that cereal box container! lol)

I’ll have some photos for you soon! But, here’s a sneak peek of the plastic charm bracelets I’m working on.

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Sneak Peek!

January 25th, 2010

I’ve been busy trying out new techniques and different projects for the upcoming Earthstock fair in Plainville, CT. I’m getting excited, I had to share a sneak peek with you! Sorry for the horrible photos. (Hey, do you want the sneak peak now, or when its sunny enough to get good photos? lol)

This was my first project… a bead bowl. I had a huge bag of those plastic pony beads that have been sitting in the basement for years; so I made something new with them! I love how it came out. It definately looks better in person. (Man, do I need photo lessons or what?!) I want to try making some smaller ones too for candle holders or something. I’ll be taking some photos when I make my next one so I can show you how they’re made. :)

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My next project was some zipper pouches made from food wrappers. I was really frustrated with sewing these up at first… but a friend on the PrimMart forum suggested I try putting powder on the plastic so it glides better in the machine; and it solved my problems!! Thank you! The strawberry one in the back is an unfinished one that I’m working on now. Isn’t it CUTE! he he

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One project that has been sitting on my table unfinished for a few days is this woven cereal box container. I had no idea it would take so long to make! lol I may not do any more of these… well we’ll see how I feel when its finished! ;0) 

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This last one I’ve been really excited about. I have recently fell in LOVE with jelly fish; and I went crazy when I saw a few photos of some jelly fish made from plastic bottles. I had to give it a try! My first one (in the back) didn’t come out too well, but I tried again, and I think my second one came out pretty good. I just wish I could find light pink and blue bottles! lol  I’ll have to do some searching and experimenting on doing a bit of color on them. The clear looks neat too though.

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Other than working on projects for the fair, I’ve also been thinking about my blog and TwiddleLee website. I would like to have them both up and designed before the show. The way my blog looks now is just from a free template that I’ve found and edited. I still need to update it with my own graphics. So, you may (hopefully) see some changes to the way my blog looks soon. (Yeah, I know I’ve said that before! hush now!) I do have a sketchy idea now of what I want it to look like. (I was totally confused about it before.) I think its going to be very clean and simple; mostly white. I know I want to stick with my cloud/thought bubble  idea I’ve been using on my plush tags. Some swirlies would be nice… okay, I’m just rambling now. (and realizing that I’m using way too many parentheses! lol)

~Twiddle Lee

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Happy Belated Christmas & New Year!

January 14th, 2010

Well.. I’m finally settled into the new year after all the rush of the holidays (well, as much as I’ll ever be I guess!). I’m still a bit dazed and confused as to what my goals are this year and how to accomplish those I do have. As I’ve said time and time again, I would love – or rather I need more time to create. I feel as if I have so many hours in a day – and yet they’re all wasted away and I don’t know where they’ve gone. I suppose I just need to be patient… remember to enjoy the time with my little ones, and organize what little time I do have for myself. My time schedule is only going to get worse I know… as I hope to get pregnant again this summer. So, I have a lot of planning and organizing ahead of me this year. I suppose time for myself can wait another five years when all our kids are in school! lol

As for those new year goals… for one, I definitely need to start blogging more. Another goal is to get Twiddle Lee finally off the ground. I need to finish up the website, and start listing my goodies. I think the design of the site is what was holding me back from getting it finished. I never really had a clear idea as to what I wanted it to look like. So, for now I think I’ll just start with a basic clean design, get it up, then work from there.

My biggest focus this year is to find my path in what I want to create. I know I want to make something that mixes crafting with fine art – perhaps a type of mixed media art. I’ve been collecting and reading Sommerset and other mixed media magazines for inspiration. But no bright ideas just yet! I need to just get in there and start experimenting.

But first… I have a show to prepare for. I actually have two shows planned for this year – one of which is an art show in October; but I’ll talk more about that another time. My first show is ‘Earthstock‘ an Earth Day fair on April 25th in Plainville, CT. I plan to make a variety of recycled crafts for this show including bottlecap jewelry from used caps, my JuNk Pins, and new goodies such as wrapper zipper pouches, bead bowls, plastic bottle jewelry, and some others. April will be coming up quick, and I’ve barely started! I’ll be working on some zipper pouches later today. I’m very excited about those; and have been collecting ‘trash’ for quite a while… its starting to build up around me! lol I need to get a move on with these recycled crafts. Not only to prepare for the show – but also to prove to my husband that I am not a hoarder, I do plan on making something with that! He rolls his eyes every time I yell “NO! Don’t throw that away!” lol  I’ll share with you some photos of my recycled goodies once I get a few to photograph – and perhaps a tutorial too.

..back to Christmas – I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! This year I decided to make a lot of my gifts. So, between making my gifts, shopping for the kids, baking, trimming the tree and all that other fun stuff; I was quite the busy bee since last time I wrote! Its a great time of year, but I’m glad its finally past us. I’m ready to start fresh again!

Here’s a photo of my family of Munchie Monsters. I made one for each of my  nephews for their Christmas gift.

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I created a new design for two of my nieces – a Sleepy Bunny made from fleece and scraps of fun cotton prints. They each came with a mini quilt and their favorite stuffed carrot for bed time. I thought they came out so cute! I will definitely be making a couple more of these – as I know my girls want one too! Plus I think these Bunnies will also become my first Twiddle Lee pattern!

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For my youngest niece, I created a set of felt foods to go with her shopping cart she has at home. I purchased a pattern from julyhobby, but I only ended up using it for the yellow pepper and the carrot. The pattern was great, and easy to follow; but most of the items were created with hand stitched seams on the outside, which I am no good at! I prefer to use the machine any day! So, I created my own patterns for the rest of the items, with a little help from THIS tutorial. The patterns in that tutorial also did a lot of the hand stitching on the outside; so I had to create my own bread pattern too. But, I loved their idea for the lettuce! 

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The larger item is an eggplant if you couldn’t tell! Its actually more purple in person… my camera isn’t so great at capturing accurate colors sometimes. The apple was made using my primitive apple pattern (#51) that can be found on my Rags-n-Tags site HERE.

I really wanted to blog about these goodies after I had made them and photographed them! But, I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of these gifts for my family before Christmas! he he

OH, and I also did a watercolor painting of a winter scene and a cardinal for my parents. I was really happy with the way it turned out. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to photograph it before giving it away! I’ll have to steal it back for a couple days for a photo session. ;)

That’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll be back soon with some photos of some fun recycled crafting!

~Twiddle

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My first show as Twiddle-Lee!

November 24th, 2009

I have successfully finished my first show as Twiddle-Lee this past Saturday! It was so much fun; I can’t wait to do more shows!  I’m already scouting out shows for next year. ;0) So anyway, I decided to make my first show a small easy one for practice – I picked out a nice church fair in Berlin.  I was lucky to get the best table spot in the whole show – right near the kitchen and lounge area in the largest room. I did pretty good for such a small show. Everyone was attracted to my cupcakes; they all had to come over and see if they were real! lol My daughter joined me too.. she made some button jewelry, a few paintings, and ornaments. It was great to spend some time with her and do a team effort; we had a blast! Here’s some pics from the show:

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Miss Penelope with her goodies! I love her button bracelets, I made her make one for me too! he he Visit her site at: www.SweetPeaArt.com

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My new “Munchies”! Each  pillow monster has a pocket mouth to hide toys, treasures, or to hold their babies!

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Bottle Cap Necklaces & Magnets… yeah, I know… these are all over the place now; but remember I was one of the first who started them back in 2001! lol   Penelope made the cool Americana pins and the starfish painting. :)

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I’ve been really excited about these new goodies… JuNk PiNs!! Each pin is made from candy wrappers, junk mail, magazines, and other junk! 

See the little snowman head peaking out in the corner? I only had eight of those… and sold out in the first hour of the show! It’s always the things you have the least of that sells the quickest! lol

All my new goodies will be available through my new website www.TwiddleLee.com shortly, so be sure to sign up for the mailing list on my site.   I’ll be working hard within the next few weeks taking pics, writing descriptions, listing them on Etsy, and hopefully working on the final layout of the website. In between Christmas shopping & crafting of course! ;0) he he

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Holy Cupcakes Batman!

October 26th, 2009

I have been over run by cupcakes for the last week! I decided to try my hand at fake cupcakes for my upcoming craft show; and unfortunately my packing desk was the best place to set up my cupcake station. Let me tell you… trying to pack up orders on the floor is no fun!! I had probably about a hundred cupcakes taking over my craft room all week. I couldn’t do anything else until I finally got them finished, photographed, and packed away yesturday.

 Pink Cupcakes

I decided to try the expansion foam method – thinking it was the quickest and easiest way to go. Boy was I wrong… that stuff is temperamental! lol  Out of the 100 or so cupcakes I tried to make, I was able to keep 55 large cupcakes and a couple handfuls of minis. Even still, the ones I kept are a bit lop-sided and wobbly on their “feet”. Although, being imperfect just makes them look more real! My poor two year old daughter was crying to eat them! lol 

I have a large array of German glass glitter and glass bead samples from my glitter manufacturer that I work with; so I decided to try some of those for the cupcake toppings. They came out super cute!! I especially like the large red silver balls on the blue cupcakes!

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I had so much fun making these, I’ll definately be making more in the future. I have some really cute ideas that I would like to try out; but that would involve buying more supplies. Something I must stop myself from doing for a little while until I clean out this craft room! ;0)

These cupcakes will be up for sale in my new Etsy shop TwiddleLee probably next week. I have another project I’m working on this week to add to the shop too. :) Meanwhile, here’s some cool cupcake photos I found on the web…

340x_cupcake_building_visa-seelink byantonperry etsycrayonfawn 

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Snowball Ornies Tutorial

October 14th, 2009

Finally… I started crafting for my upcoming craft show! I’ve only just started, and I only have five weeks to go… I work better under pressure though. ;0) Anyway, I told myself I will try to use up all the supplies I have on hand instead of going out and buying a bunch of stuff; and I just so happened to have everything I needed to make these cute snowball ornaments!

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They were pretty easy to make, and fun too! I took photos along the way, so I’ve decided to post a free tutorial for you on how to make them. Here’s what you need:

~Styrofoam balls (I like the larger 2.5″ ones best, but I only had two of those on hand, the rest were about 2″)
~Silver wire (sorry, I don’t know what gauge I used – I just used what I had… make sure its thick enough to hold its shape well, but thin enough to curl with your fingers)
~Joint Compound (you could probably use other items such as spackling – but my hubby had a huge bucket of the compound on hand! They both can be found in the painting section in the hardware store. PS the compound dries to a grayish color, so if you don’t want glitter, you may have to paint it white.)
~Mica Flakes (can be found on my website Rags-n-Tags or Crafty Avenue)
~Leaves and Berries (I got my little picks in the holiday floral section at JoAnns)
~Wire cutters, needle nose pliers, and a palette knife

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First, cut a piece of wire about 7″ long; then use your pliers to start a curl at one end. I used my fingers to continue to curl it into a spiral shape. I’m sure there are special tools to do this, but I kind of like the messy bent shape using my fingers gets; makes it look more handmade! he he This spiral will be your “hook” to hang the ornament.

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Next, insert the other end of the wire through your styrofoam ball from top to bottom. Don’t worry if you can’t get it straight through the center. No one will ever know! Bend the bottom of your wire into a little U shape hook, then push it up into the ball. You should now only be able to see the top wire with your swirl hook.

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Next, prepare your berries and leaves by cutting them apart. Leave just a small section of the stem.

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Use your palette knife to apply the compound to the top of your ball. Apply it rather thick so that you can’t see the texture of the styrofoam. Don’t worry about getting it smooth – how often do you see a perfectly smooth snowball? When you have the top covered, push a leaf stem into the top of the ball, then two of the berries. Leave the leaf sticking up for now (unlike the photo) so that you don’t get any compound on it by accident!

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Finish covering the rest of the ball with the compound. (If only I had three hands to take a better pic of me applying the compound! lol)

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While its still wet, sprinkle a generous amount of mica flakes over the entire ball. Be sure to do this over a bowl or a large paper so that you can collect what falls off and reuse it. I didn’t “push” the mica flakes into the compound, I just sprinkled mine on. If you’re picky about stray glitter falling off your ornament, you might want to pat it into the compound a bit. Then, hang your ornies to dry!

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Don’t they look so pretty all lined up in a row!? (and notice all those bags of candy wrappers… hmmm, I wonder what those are for?) Let them dry overnight. Then, you can curl the leaf down to make it look nice. :)

I had more styrofoam balls than I did leaves, so I went ahead and put compound on the rest of them and left them plain without glitter or berries. Perhaps I’ll paint them bright white and put a snowman face on them or something! 

I hope you enjoy making these, I sure did! Happy Crafting!!

~Kristal

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Making Candy Apples…

October 7th, 2009

I finally decided to get some crafting done! My candy apples sold quick last year, so I figured I would make some more for those of you who missed out.

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Cutting them out… not so fun. Stitch them up… stuff them…

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They look a little silly, like lemons or something!

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Ah, there we go… starting to see an apple shape!

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Then comes the paint! I always use my “jackson pollock” towel! he he 

I took a break to take care of my little one, cook some dinner, get the kids fed, washed, and in bed… then decided to finish up my apples, when I realized I had forgotten to go hunting for sticks!! By that time it was getting dark. I decided to try and dunk them in the wax without the sticks… how hard can it be, right? WRONG! I ended up burning myself and making a mess of things… but I was determined to get these apples finished. So, you can guess what comes next… yup… searching through the woods in the dark. If you know me, you know I must have been really determined to finish this project to actually go out in the dark, by myself, into the woods… Eeeek!!

So, I grabbed a flashlight… and a saw… yup a saw! I told myself it was to cut the branches (but did I actually use it? no..). Anywho, wondering what my neighbors must think of me yet again – doing my crazy stuff outside again (like last week when I packed up 55 pounds of mica in little baggies with a mask and goggles!) I stomped through the woods freaking out about sounds and spiders hoping to get this done quickly.

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I did manage to get what I needed, but came back tired, freaked out, and up to my ankles in mud (whoops, was that a big swamp I just went through!?) uggghhh…

On to gluing the sticks, melting the wax (again!), dunking, and dipping…

Anyway, I was able to finish them up… as you can see by the stove clock, it was almost 11pm! lol But they’re finished!!!

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If you’d like one of my works of love, I have listed them on Etsy HERE. I love keeping a few in my kitchen, they always make me smile! :0)

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New Americana Goodies!

June 15th, 2009

I’ve been working on Americana goodies for weeks now, and I’ve finally finished! Between keeping my websites updated and taking care of my little one, there isn’t much time left for crafting. But, I’ve finally managed to get some goodies out before the holiday I’m crafting for! lol I’m always a bit behind! I started with an Uncle Sam bust… well, to tell you the truth, I started him two years ago. Ha! I’m only now just getting the time to finishing him up.

Primitive Uncle Sam Bust 

He’s up for sale now on my primitive website: www.rags-n-tags.com. I’ve also released the pattern for him.

My next two projects were a garland and tree topper to decorate my tree. I was in the mood this year to decorate with Americana goodies, and didn’t have anything to decorate my tree with. I made up a flag garland and an Eagle make-do for the top of the tree. I’ll be keeping these! lol But, I am offering them to order on my website. Patterns are also available. :)

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Americana Tree

Eagle make-do

Americana Flag Garland

I also have added a few other goodies to my website such as a shaker box set, an annie bag lady, and some primitive candle lights. Be sure to check out my newsletter here: http://www.rags-n-tags.com/news.html

My next project…. I’ll be making up a new (or at least partial) circle rag quilt that I created over 6 years ago so that I can take pictures for the long awaited pattern!! :0)

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Bottle Cap Day!

March 4th, 2009

I finally got around to making more bottle caps! Wow, it’s been soooo long; I had a lot of catching up to do! I was unable to make any during my pregnancy due to the fumes. Then after having my baby, I was too busy or too tired to conquer the task. It felt great to finally get some done. I hope to get some new sets made soon too!

Bottle Caps by Rags-n-Tags

So, you know what this means! All my bottle caps are in stock and ready to ship!!! YAY! :0)

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My First Twiddle-Lee Project

February 28th, 2009

I took my new chick make-do pattern and decided to make some fun and funky birds with them. How fun! :0)

Twiddle Birds

I didn’t even start building the Twiddle-Lee website yet, I wish I could just say “poof” and have it be finished! lol Maybe I’ll start selling the goodies on etsy for now… we’ll see!

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