They're heading your way Donna ! :)

These fun 5x7 felt pictures were made for my birthfather's wonderful wife Donna to give to her family members.
I had made a felt brooch for Etsy called 'Happy House on Candy Hill' with a very similar theme. It was probably the most liked item I've ever made ! My birthmom purchased it from me and ever since I've been thinking up ways to make other Happy House themed items ( there's a Happy House necklace on Etsy right now but called 'Purple House' instead ).

So there you go Donna, they were mailed out Friday afternoon regular mail and should hopefully arrive around the same time as Jean & Angela's parcel. ♥

New bRooChes for EtSy !

Woohoo ! Here are my newest fabric & felt brooch creations for Etsy: Bubble Tea, Cotton Candy Oddity, Ice, My Heart's a Flower and Blossom Blob ~~~

-My Heart's a Flower ( upper right ) was made using a slice of beautiful Japanese fabric my birthsister Angela gave to me, with addition of 3d bloom & a bubble encased single flower cut from same fabric.
-Bubble Tea ( bottom left ) consists of felt, acrylic paint & a gloss covered mix of beads
-Ice ( middle ) was made after observing the dreamlike interior of icecubes. Bits of rhinestone necklace, a chunk of local beach glass, vintage plastic beads, czech beads, sequins, glitter and real pink quartz spears.
-Cotton Candy Oddity ( bottom right ) has czech beads, pink fluff thread and a recycled piece of blue anodized aluminum
-Blossom Blob (upper left ) was made with some gorgeous cherry blossom fabric & embellished with felt blossoms, fuzzy balls & a plastic pink flower.

All with blanket stitching, all handsewn, lots of love and, as always, that wonky touch of whimsy :)

I'll be making a lot more, but I'm also thinking about trying my hand at painting ! Nothing huge, maybe 5x7 size. Images of things with flowers, maybe some collaging....let's wait and see what the gods of whimsiness place in my heart ♥

Show & Tell: Another brooch on the way, & one already done...

Took this past weekend off and the family and I played lazy. Oh it was so nice to just sit around being all blobby, playing computer games, drinking tea & eating popcorn. Sometimes it's nice to not feel the need to do something !
A part of me is kinda hoping that when our son and I visit my birth father and his family ( in Ottawa early August )...we'll be able to play lazy & just hang out there too :)

Now for today's show & tell. I've always liked paintings of houses, especially ones that are 'happy', full of sunshine, open spaces, etc...So I decided to make my own 'painting' of a happy house --a handsewn felt brooch I'm calling
'The Happy House on Candy Hill'

Why 'Candy Hill' ? Isn't it obvious ? This is no ordinary house ! The owners of this house are distant relatives of Willy Wonka. They too adore candy and have found a way to grow it on their property. Even the tree sprouts colorful sweets 7 months of the year.
Oh, wait, of course it's not obvious to you just yet, the brooch isn't even finished ha ! Give me a few more hours.......

Planning it out...

Lots of handsewing...
It's coming together nicely...

And here is the brooch I finished a couple of days ago. I've named it

'The Colors of My Heart'.

Each color represents the 4 main emotions we feel: black for anger/dark moments, blues for gentle sadness to depression, pinks for all types of love and yellows for joy :) The large golden beads are for those unforgettable joyful moments. I've added smaller beads including an edging of bugles.

Like the rest of my brooches, this one is also on the large side because they are meant to be seen.

In my Etsy shop :)

I'll be back tomorrow to show off the Happy House brooch :)

Mary's Felties, Charms and the answer to "what was that felt thing" ?

Hi all ! Been a few days since popping over here :) So I've got a long one for you today and it's filled with fun treasures woohoo !

I would like to introduce you to a wonderful new Etsy creator and seller, her name is Mary and her shop is:

♥~~HappyFelties.etsy.com~~♥

Mary makes wonderfully whimsical and detailed wee felty characters, using a wide variety of colorful felt and definately a happy imagination.

I found her while I was trying to get an idea of prices for felt brooches. Her bright colors immediately caught my attention and I couldn't resist buying one of her creations. The wee blue cat was listed as 'Its good to be blue happy feltie cat brooch'. I'm still wearing as I type and won't be taking it off anytime soon.

Please go on, go on and check out her delightful wares. You won't be disappointed, a wonderful shop and wonderful seller and wonderful packaging too !

Mary, in the memorable words of Ahny "I'll be back" :) ♥

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So, what are these charms ?

Well you may remember when Amber Dawn had her International Charm Swap ? ( April 28 ).

Today I received these lovelies and am so delighted with them ! The first lot are from Lorraine who lives in Liverpool England ! I love the eclecticness of these pieces and plan to wear them as a trio with added beads, will show a pic. later on. The atc ( artist trading card ) was such a beautiful addition, it will be sitting along with my other atcs in my art room :)

Please, pop on over to her wonderful blog and Etsy shop ( see pic. below ), she makes huggable shoulder bags and enchanting art bags --even ones for ATCs ! Thank-you Lorraine !♥

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Who's next ? Well it's a very sweet birdy charm from Pat Winter ! Isn't it precious ? This is one of her charms she was offering for the Charm Day, thank-you Pat :) I love the wee ribbon work, little blue 'egg', little bird, everything !

I plan to add this charm along with some of my other bird inspired charms, probably make a necklace or brooch for me to show off.

Pat creates wonders with fabric and thread, you'll be amazed at her ribbonwork. Please check out her Etsy shop ( and her Fairy brooches ) won't you: Patwintergatherings.etsy.com

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So here is the unknown creature from my prev. post. Say hello to Charlie the crow :) At first he was a raven, but the more I sewed, the more he began looking like the crow from an aceo I made several years ago. So now he's a crow.

Hee-hee, isn't he a sweety ? Crows and ravens are my absolute fav. birds ( next favs. are swallows and owls ). I find crows and ravens such intelligent creatures and rather whimsical too. One time, while driving somewhere, I noticed on the side of the road a pair of crows. One had it's head lowered while the other was very gently preening it, almost as if it was kissing the top of it's head. When the preening crow would look away, the other crow would wiggle over and gently nudge him for more 'kissing'. My heart melted, the sweetest thing I ever did see. Apparantly crows and ravens mate for life, another reason why I love them so much.

So when it comes time to call my husband and I a pair of 'old crows', well I certainly won't be insulted lol :)

Wee Charlie here took a lot longer to make than I thought ! Part lots of handsewing and part procrastination :P

The sequins came from my birthgrandmothers stash and outline his wing. I dabbed on some shimmery purple and black paint along his back, you know how crows and ravens have those blue-black feathers. His feet were fun to make, out of copper wire and then wrapped with DMC floss. I was going to paint his toenails black but decided the copper gave them a bit of punch. His funny smile was lined with beads for additional glimmer. Oh how I love this fella ! I finished him off by sewing on a simple safety pin. He is puffy and is meant to 'stand out' from wherever you pin him, not flat at all !

Oh, the glittery black fabric came from my garbage bag of fabric scraps. This particular piece belonged to my dear friend Kris.

Funny how you think you don't want certain things ( like fabric scraps ) and then a couple of years later you're so glad you kept them !

I look forward to making more crows for you :) Why not pop over and check him out in my shop:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25142810

Now it's time for me to get cracking on Christians printed tshirt. We're going to Video Games Live on Thurs. and he wants a Resident Evil shirt. I'll post pics. of it later :)

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Upcoming Felt Thing :)

Can you guess what this is ? Hint: it flies :) I had this piece of glittery black fabric and am simply handsewing it by sight only --meaning, no drawn picture to follow. So hopefully it will turn out the way I see it in my head.

And here are the last of the Spring blossoms. They came with the house when we bought it last Sept. Not my personal choice of color but they still look rather pretty and I love the smell of tulips. The wee 'tree-bush' is a great spot for hummingbirds, they rest there and then fly over to our feeder on our deck.

Now on to the Summer stuff, woohoo ! Oh what should I plant there ?

Finally Listed These 2 New Brooches :)

These felt brooches have been a hoot to make ! The first one is called Popeye the Pink Bunny, a whimsical and shabby wee pink felt bunny dude. His eyes and nose are vintage, glitter on his mouth and he sports a tiny red heart brad ( which can easily be removed if you want ). I named him Popeye because of the way I attached his eyes. Instead of poking the floss through to the back of the brooch, I decided to attach them in a shabby fashion, wrapping the thread around the base a couple of times so the eyes would stand (pop) out.

The 2nd. brooch, called Bliss, is a crazy mix of colors and beads and all started when I noticed the Bliss sticker in a package of K&Company stickers I'd purchased from Michaels.
To attach the sticker to the felt, I just stuck it on and then hand sewed the edging with beads and sequins. A vintage earring ( bottom right ) was glued to the corner and attached with more handsewn beads, including a vintage shimmery pink swarovski rivoli. There are other vintage attachments, edging was painted with Lumiere and the entire piece was handsewn onto the vintage cardboard backing from a frame ( you can even hang it up by the metal triangel. Just have to gently pry it away from backing ). Oh yes, there's a bit of polyfill stuffing to give it more depth and pull away from the sharp frame corners.

I really enjoyed creating these brooches but I think I'll stick to making the shabby whimsical animal ones for now. The Bliss brooch and Magnificent Marilyn brooch are enough for now. I tend to go overboard at times instead of sticking with my first idea. Here it was to create small brooches and I end up with Bliss and Marilyn. That doesn't mean I won't make these kinds ever again, I just want to stick to things that are whimsical and small.

My next felt brooch...not yet sure, but it will be silly :)

Forgot to point out, the Bliss sticker was varnished twice and then covered with Triple Thick gloss gel to make the sticker 'bendy'. Of course, the brooch is not meant for wet weather because everything else is not sealed ( it could have been done but would have made the piece look plastic ).

Bliss on Felt....

What I've been working on today. At first it was going to be put into a double frame, the other frame would house a stitched happy-looking person. But as I kept on stitching I thought it would look much nicer as a brooch, why not wear your bliss for all to see...? :)

The 'Bliss' embellishment is actually a sticker which I then sewed onto some plain white felt. On the bottom right corner is a vintage earring.

I'm now just waiting for the paint to dry before I finish it off with a few more bobbles and then attach it to a padded vintage photo insert-stand-turned brooch.

Felt !!

Well here you go ! I have a new love ( again ), it's felt ! I stumbled across some felt brooches awhile back on Etsy and just loved the way the creators used vibrant colors, the way their items almost screamed FUN ! So slowly I thought that maybe I'd eventually like to try it out.

Here is my very first felt item, in Marilyn :) Now I've never been a big fan of Miss M.M. but her image is so popular, and you can have fun with it too.

The image is a print which I decoupaged onto cardboard and then hand sewed onto the lovely pink felt. Of course Miss M. had to have her dose of stars and shimmery beads, plus a necklace with her very own chandelier crystal :) I used DMC black thread and stretchy metallic silver thread.
She was finished with another backing of pink felt and a simple brooch back ( the kind that you flip to open/close ).

The last thing I need to do is wear her around the house, just to make sure she sits properly without twisting, etc... And then into my Etsy shop she goes !

Oh I forgot to mention her size: she's a whopper at 7.5" long and 5" across ! Not for the shy type.
Took just over 3 hours to make.