www.kiwee.com

the new unit.

okay...so now i am rethinking snowmen. or at least why i suddenly love them so much...and then my grandmother reminds me that that old frosty cartoon movie..i knew all the songs and was especially concerned with his two eyes made out of coal...and that i won a contest in kindergarten by drawing a snowman which then appeared on the school play program. i'll have to dig that out and take a look at it- i'm sure my dad has it filed away somewhere.
so these are the new guys. and they have new hats, and new scarves, and new eyes made out of coal...well almost.
i got some of the felt on mad sale and decided to try dyeing it myself- wow- what a thing to love!

bird of a feather on etsy

colorada has some great things for sale in her etsy shop. her colors are bright and beautiful and you can tell she puts much time (and a touch of whimsy into her designs)
i love her bird skirts and you will to! to see more of her work click here.

what else is been keeping me busy!

dear david at kaiju big battle hooked me up with this gig.
i'm up to my elbows in plantain brothers but i think they are turning out oh so cute and i love the way 'limited run' sounds on my cv!

a whole lota mosey

hah! this pile of packages is making me really happy right now!

OOOOOOO! mosey on etsy gift guide!

ornaments oh ornaments

so i have been bust making these lil' birds. it was something i sketched out first(which i rarely do) and was s o happy that they turned out something quite like the drawing!
stuffed with natural wool roving and lavender- so cozy!
available at my etsy shop!

my snowman army

i only wish army were made of snowmen and everybody was just throwing snowballs...the only way to fight(other than pillow)!
last year my dear friend jean and i made an army of these felted snowmen for our kindergarten kids. they loved them and you will to...check them out at my etsy shop. spent a rainy monday making s'more!

work space

this place needs some cleaning up! time to put some elbow grease into it!
thanks to karen who always makes my life look too lovely!

my 2 days early birthday present

so i found my fave person on etsy! grandmas girl has a great new shop...all items listed are cute and oh so affordable. i had her sew me up a custom order and she graciously offered up a bit of vintage red calico fabric that had been in her family for years! also she was so fast in sewing up the new item i could hardly believe it!
i thought it would be many days to a week but woke up this morning to discover my new birthday bonnet!
thank you grandma's girl!

katey's trees

katey at onegoodbumblebee and i have started conspiring...and these are the preliminary results. sewn up in linen with pink linings. katey's trees are oh-so-cute, but my screenprinting made these lil' trees more like birch trees than i would have suspected. well- i'm off to mail them to her and see what she thinks.

etsy contest winner - confections!

so here was the contest:
tell me your fave vintage/thrift store find. simple right. i had a lot of posts, a ton about finding something amazing on ebay and being able to sell it for a ton of money, and one guy who bought a jacket at his local thrift and found 100 bucks in the pocket. but the one that stole my heart from the minute i started reading was this story.

in cheryls own words:

"My 5-year-old niece and I found this forlorn-looking vintage Effanbee doll last month at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. We had been to tea earlier in the day, and Grace had brought her American Girl doll, Elizabeth, along to the festivities. When we entered the thrift shop, she made a beeline to a group of dolls which included this well-loved charmer."
read all about "helene elyse's" new dress made from cherlys own vintage calico stash and all about the tea parties she's been attending here and here.

be sure to check out cheryl of confections amazing fiberarts etsy shop too! thanks to all who posted and thanks to cheryl and her niece for rescuing such a prize!

button bags

when i was a kid i had one of these. it was all my own. it came with 3 different "outside purses". one was pink corduroy, one was tiny green whales and the other was my initials in navy-blue on white. we moved when i was about seven and my purse(s) did not make the cross country trip. i was devastated. ever since then when i was thrifting i would always pick them up. i now have a decent sized collection.
BUT what i really wanna do is make them, so that all the loveliest girls of the world can skip around with one of these on there elbow.
does anyone know the real name of these cuties?

because everybody loves gnomes! young & with it

littledear

project grab bag

and tiny airplanes

whale of a tale

i have always been in love with sea creatures. starfish, stingrays, sea urchins.
but these lil' guys were inspired by a story that one of my kindergarteners told me. it involved her great grandfather being swallowed by a whale. audrey said he was a sailor who got thrown off of his boat, swallowed by a whale and lived inside of the whale for months. think gepettos workshop in pinocchio. and anyway when he was finally rescued all of his hair had turned white. i know this is the kind of story for which phrase "whale of a tale" was made and since she was only five at the time i figured she was really working on her story telling skills. at the end of the year i mentioned the story to her mother who then brought in an article from a 1940's newspaper about this very whaling disaster/triumph.
woa!

etsy owls forever

i LOVE owls. especially brown felt ones! i'm the kinda girl who when thrifting with her dear friend on her birthday (also a huge owl lover), and upon spying a pair of owl salt and pepper shakers had to keep myself from grabbing them and holding them tight to my chest and exclaiming their mine their mine!
so having said all that, elizabeth got the owl shakers, hey- it was HER birthday and i went on a search for the perfect brown owl or owlette.
if you know anything about the crafty site etsy you know it's chalk full of wonderfully handmade do-it-yrself items, so it wasn't slim pickins' but here are my favorites. enjoy!

fig.1 mr.owly owl by marmee craft
fig.2 the owl and the pussycat from the beloved little birds,
fig.1 woodruff brown owl from chet and dot,

for alise.

because i happen to be in the throes of making her wedding dress. raw silk and grosgrain ribbon and lots and lots of tulle. i'm comforted by the fact that i could make her a silk pillow case and she would look splendid in it.

and because i made the quilted scarf and tee for her as a birthday present and she wore them to her first show.

a strong knitter

i help teach kindergarten and so, i get some of my inspiration from my 4-6 years olds. they can knit, sew and some can even play the fiddle. talk about motivation...to keep up at least!

peace meal

this past winter i made a go of quilting. my friend megan and her mom opened a quilt shop here in town and i put up a note: will work 4 fabric and so i did.
my own mother is quite a quilter and in fact she and my sister made the blue calico quilt thats tucked into this pile. i'm a big fan of quilting in the winter, quilting together and just plain getting ready to quilt. it's a great way to use up fabric scraps or make a really fancy gift. to check out some real serious quilting take a peek at gabi d'italia's quilts and totes at spring st. co.
this gal lives in a converted one room school house and her quilts are like waves...of buttercream.