Woo hoo! School's finally out for the semester, and what better way to celebrate than induce myself in a two day sewing project?

Throughout the school year, I pined about not having a large and/or cozy backpack for my laptop, so now that school's out, I took the opportunity to finally sew me a messenger bag, and I am quite pleased that it came out so professional like. 



I wanted the brocade to be red with dragons and phoenixes, but I couldn't find any brocade with that detail.  Oh well. I made a really good pattern with this messenger bag, so I'm planning on making some more, and maybe some other designs too. 

I've been obsessed with making hairsticks for awhile. These are a select few that are my favorite.


(Link in case it's too fuzzy: http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b229/gunslingergirlvy_c_e/crafts%20and%20other%20stuff%20i%20made/pathtonature.jpg )

One of my all time favorite pairs so far.

The rest are links:

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b229/gunslingergirlvy_c_e/crafts%20and%20other%20stuff%20i%20made/fallflowers.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b229/gunslingergirlvy_c_e/crafts%20and%20other%20stuff%20i%20made/hairtassles.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b229/gunslingergirlvy_c_e/crafts%20and%20other%20stuff%20i%20made/peppermintswirls.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b229/gunslingergirlvy_c_e/crafts%20and%20other%20stuff%20i%20made/colorsofthewind.jpg

Hope you like them. 

So, my favorite corduroy messenger purse is pretty much retired now...
He has holes all over.
And I don't have the heart to cut him up and reconstruct him. V.V
So I made a replacement.


Got the fabrics from Walmart, fabric paints from Michaels, and the stencil I made myself.


The Chinese/Japanese character means "dream".


Has nifty pockets on the front, the back, and inside.

I have to be honest when I say that it's not completely finished. I'm planning on putting some floral stenciling around the khaki parts to make it less, blah, but I decided to go on a budget before I could get them.

Oh well. I'll update more pics later.
This'll do for now.

To make a long anecdote short, my mom went to New York City earlier this year, and all I got was a t-shirt.

Srsly. -_-

So I decided that since I had a measly New York City T-shirt (she didn't even get me the famous "I <3 New York" tee) that was two sizes too big as a souvenier, I decided to make it better by
making it into a tank top hoodie. It goes down to my naval, so it's pretty cool.



Sorry that I don't have many pics. 

Er, I don't have a "before" picture. But, since I did reconstruct this, I think you already know that it had previously been ugly. ><



I latern shade I made. It had previously beenn this rather unattractive green floral fabric. It left my room bright and unattractive too.

I really only bought the lamp cuz I never had a latern before.

But yeah. I reconstructed it, this was up in my room, but then my mom bought me a Chinese lantern to replace it, so this went into storage for a good 6 months and I just now decided to bring it out again.

But first, yay! Story time!

A few months ago (December to be precise)....

We celebrated X-Mas two weeks early cuz my sister couldn't be here on the actual X-Mas day (Woot?). Of course she and her hubby got my room... So I took most of my craft stuff out of my room and brought it downstairs. I was just rumaging through my fabric bag, and I came across some sarii-like fabric that I bought on clearance a year ago (I'm a packrat when it comes to art/craft items on sale. >.>). It just spontaneously hit me.
Me: "Hey, why don't I just replace the fabric on my latern with this?"
Me: "Hey, why are you talking to yourself again?"

So I cut the old fabric off and sewed on the new fabric.
And it gives off the most soothing glow.
Not all bright and nasty like the last fabric made the light do. 

and then my mom got me that Chinese latern.
And, I just now decided to hang it up again. This time over my bed.

Why did I name this project "Brahma dreams"?
I dunno. It's sarii style fabric, sariis are from Indian, Brahma's a diety in Hinduism, and I could image how a deity would just snooze (or meditate) on my bed under the sooth latern.
Plus, reality is a dream of Brahma.
Just thought I'd add that.

Sorry for the lengthy story! 

So the best thing about plain blouses on sale is that they're not only not like plain t-shirts (they have fling to them), but you can add stuff to it to add bling. 

*crickets*

So I got these cool Chinese character stencils at Walmart and this black blouse at Meijer. Both on sale, baby! 

Reading down are the characters for peace, eternity, energy, and lastly - stenciled in red- love.

The smaller stencils were the store bought ones. The larger "ai" character was made by me. 

This has to be my favorite handmade messenger purse.

Not only did I use this uber awesome Chinese calligraphy fabric, but it also has a story behind it. I made this purse after a very memorable fieldtrip that my art class took to the DIA in my senior year of high school.
We only spent a half an hour at the museum and the rest of the day at the University arcade, but still.
I made this when I got back from the field trip, and lucky me, I finished it while I was watching the episode premiere of Avatar: The Last Airbender ("The Tales of Ba Sing Se"). 


It's sturdy and simple, and it's roomy enough to hold my lip gloss, mirror, eyeshadow, coin purse, small notebook, mp3 player, cell phone annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnd my Gameboy. 


I plan on making bags and purses similar to this design, so that why I add D-rings to the sides so I can reuse the strap. 

So two weeks ago, I had to study hardcore for my Asian art exam.
I was forbidden to "dawdle".
That meant no crafting.

But I'm a naughty girl.



In order to not take my mind too off from my studying, I decided to put my knowledge from what I learned from my class into the project.



On my DeviantArt account, I call these my "Way of Kami" earrings. Depicted are Torii, a symbol of Shintoism.
Some side notes on the subject:
-Shinto was the state religion of Japan. It's not anymore, but is still widely practiced.
-Shinto means "Way of Kami" or "Way of the Gods". Hence the name.
-Torii are gates outside of Shinto shrines telling visitors that they are about to enter sacred Shinto land.

I scuffled about how I was gonna get the images on the clay tablets and still make them look indentical. Luckily I had just recently purchased some tracing paper, so I drew the torii on the paper nice and hard with a pencil, than scratched the penciling on the clay with my finger nail. The rest of the project is pretty self explanatory. Black sharpie, red paint (I messed up on one tablet so I had to re-paint it lol.), black paint for the back, added some glass beads.

Bam.

I love these things. 

And in case you were wondering, I passed the exam.
Go me! 

Horray! My first post! And it's one of my favorite projects that I've done this year so far.

So bought some brocade and some other nice Asian-style fabric a year ago. I was actually planning on reconstructing a skirt with the brocade and a dress from the red fabric, but I never got around to it. I got bored one day.....
.... So I made this shawl out of the blue.



Its about 6-7 feet long. And it was all hand sewn. O_o

But, I miraculousy completed the entire project in one day.



This shawl was actually inspired by Yukishiro Tomoe's shawl from Rurouni Kenshin.



This is best suited to be a winter/fall shawl. It's kinda snug for summer use.



And that's that.