I made this Halloween tree for my partner, Dragonfly4, for the "13 Days of Halloween" Swap!  I bought this cheap wooden tree in the kids Halloween craft section at JoAnn Fabrics.  It was one of those that had a cheesy face sortof "drawn" on it and kids could just color it with markers or paint it.  It came with a bag of wooden halloween ornaments that were equally as cheesy.  I think the whole thing was about $4.99 or something.

Anyhow, I already had black acrylic paint and spray adhesive and I bought black glitter dust.  I bought a  quick-dry glossy spray-paint/varnish to seal the whole thing when I was done. I used 2 coats of Gesso on the whole thing, then painted two coats of black acrylic paint, then spray adhesive, then lots of glitter....repeat on the other side.....then I coated the whole thing with a ton of clear glossy spray paint.

Now the ornaments were actually these little metal "things" I found in the scrapbooking embellishment section at Michael's.  I think they were either $4.99 or $6.99 or something for 16 of them.  Some of them had a single hole at the top and others had one at the top and one at the bottom.  I thought these would make perfect ornaments and I could add beads with my jewelry-making supplies.  I made the hooks (to hang the ornaments on the tree) out of jewelry wire and I added charms and beads to all the ornaments.  There are thirteen ornaments in all.  Enjoy!!



Here is the link to the swap gallery: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=323053.0

This is my first ever poppet and I am so happy with how she turned out!  She is even more amazing then I imagined she would be!  The biggest thing with this, for me, was to have an extreme attention to detail on her styling....I think that is what makes her so special.  I know there are a million posts about poppets all the time but I really wanted some feedback so here she is in all her glory!



I made her necklace from a button and her corset is made from a halloween vinyl tablecloth:

Sorry for the "up-the-skirt" shot but I wanted to show off her cute panties!  And check out her cool socks and boots!

Here she is with her hat on:

And lastly, her awesome hair.  I totally lucked out on the hair....I found this hand-woven dreadlock-like yarn at my mom's from her amazing yarn collection.


I'd love to know what you all think so feedback is appreciated but certainly not demanded!! 

My friend recently got married and I was put in charge of the bingo cards for her shower. I saw so many cute designs online but the free choices I found were just gross.  They were so cheesy. So I got inspired from the fancy ones that were way over priced and made my own version in Photoshop.  Feel free to use this design as you wish but keep it free for all (in other words don't sell it as your own design!)

Nothing new here as far as the concept is concerned.  Here are some bingo cards for a bridal shower.  The guests simply write in the gifts they think the bride-to-be will receive and then as she opens her gifts they cross off their matches!

These are meant to be printed on just a regular 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Oh and also, since I think craftster shrinks the images a bit (??) you can possibly get a larger version on my blog here: http://snazzlecraft.blogspot.com/2009/05/bridal-bingo.html

Well I decided to post this here because its not a toy and didn't seem to fit in the other categories very well.

I just completed a "Fun with Felt" swap and as part of that swap I made some felt sushi!  I LOVE the way it turned out and would really appreciate some feedback!

Little side note -- I made the box as well for the sushi and covered it with this cool black crushed velvet-like paper on the outside and a dark green handmade paper on the inside!


All four sushi rolls: 2x California Roll, 1x Fat roll, and 1x Salmon roe


Ikura -- Salmon Roe


California Roll


Futomaki -- Fat Roll
This one has avacado, egg, and carrot in it.


Tamago -- Egg


Maguro -- Tuna


Toro -- Fatty Tuna


Ebi -- Shrimp


Ginger and Wasabi


A Fortune Cookie...


...with removeable fortune.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I also made a few other fun things for the felt swap.  First a pair of newborn baby booties.  I altered the pattern from Heather Bailey's website.  Here is the link:  http://www.heatherbaileydesign.com/Booties.html



And lastly, I made a cat teaser toy using a dowel, some ribbon, a fuschia jingle bell, lots of glue and some beautiful wool felt.  I used a template from MarthaStewart.com for the leaves that can be found here:
http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.019e967a237b3c7ba70ec2109373a0a0/?vgnextoid=960f540d7050f110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=bbb7a99556c5f110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&rsc=pets-taxonomy-list-filter_pets_pet-projects&lnc=bbb7a99556c5f110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD

Oh and I fixed the stupid wrinkle at the tip of the green leaf after the picture was taken:



Anyway that's about it!

I wasn't sure where to post this.  I guess here since this is primarily an embroidered project.

Basically I wanted to decorate a plain ugly cd case and turn it into something fab.  I am totally digging this mustache craze that is happening lately with crafters and thought I would jump on the bandwagon. 



Here's what I did:  I removed the logo patch and zipper pull (another logo there too!), replaced the zipper pull with cute ribbon.  Then I used an iron-on jean patch and cut-out a mustache.  It didn't stick so well to the cd case fabric which is practically like parachute fabric, so I did some embroidery stitches (if they have a fancy name then sorry...I am new to embroidery!) to tack it down and make sure it won't come flying off.  Then I embroidered the words "Rock the 'Stache" on the front.  I was careful to hide the starting and ending stitches under the seam binding so it wouldn't show and there is no stiches showing on the back of the front cover either. 

What do you think?  I would love some feedback...oh and some links to websites that teach embroidery terms and stitches too (LOL)!

I am not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this but here goes anyway!  I made this T-shirt applique for my son this week.  His name is Landon, hence the "L" and he just so happens to like lions too.  I'm not really gonna go into the instructions too much, it's just your basic applique. Just use some double-sided fusible webbing on all the pieces and layer them up like in the picture and you'll be fine.    If you want to get fancy (like I did) then you can do a reverse applique on just the letter "L".  It gives a nice three-dimensional look. 

Oh and if the picture is too small (craftser shrinks them) then you can get the full sized one on my blog:  http://snazzlecraft.blogspot.com.  The pattern should print on a full size sheet of paper.  Please tell me what you think, I'd love some feedback!

My daughter just had her first birthday and I wanted to make her something special that she would have for many years to come. I decided on a Waldorf-inspired doll after seeing these versions of the dolls: http://www.joyswaldorfdolls.com/waldorf_dolls/custom_waldorf_dolls/heavy_baby.htm

I researched these and found that the dolls have a sack body with arms attached and the outfit is sewn closed and is not removeable. I thought this would be perfect for my one year old. I found a website that teaches how to create these waldorf dolls and though I didn't need help with the bosy or arms (my own design), I had no idea how to do the face/head! So here was the website I used to create the face, I highly recommend it: http://simmy.typepad.com/echoesofadream/2006/10/basic_instructi.html

I ended up using an old pair of pale pink ballet tights for the outside of the face, if you wanted to know.




My favorite part of the whole thing is the outfit. This was a footed pair of Carter's fleece pajama's for my daughter that she had out-grown. I think they were 6-9 months at most. I used the arms to create the hat and the rest of the pj's to make the outfit. I love this idea of reusing an outfit of hers because its now become a keepsake and something I hope she will cherish when she is grown.

An action shot!

So I have been on a mission to organize my craft room lately.  I have had this book shelf in my craft room that was from my previous house (and previous husband LOL!) and it just didn't fit the decor of this house or the whimsy I need in my creative space.

So once this contest popped up I instantly had an amazing idea!  Who really has a gazillion buttons just laying around (except for apparantly witwhitherwilt!)?!?  I am just starting to build my button collection so I didn't want to use them all for this project.  So I found this image of a gazillion buttons all layed out (looks like wallpaper) on http://deviantart.com and new it would be perfect.  I printed out about 30 pages on my printer and decoupaged them onto the inside back of my bookcase. Then to hide my clutter, I made two fabric panels out of muslin (or it could be linen) and hand sewed buttons along the bottom edge (about two inches wide).  I absolutely love the way this turned out!  And the best part is how organized everything is!  Alrighty then, prepare for pic madness!!!!





Baby fat buddha is protecting my clothes pins, using his adorable charm to ward off any potential thieves or laundry-obsessed visitors:




Buttons in baby food jars!


Budda peering out from behind the curtain....he's such a camera hog!


Here is a super closeup of the background!  You can't tell at all where one sheet ends and another begins! 


Well I hope you all like it.  I think that this has been the most fun contest ever.  I love all the entries! You can see the before pic on my blog (http://snazzlecraft.blogspot.com/2009/04/craft-room-bookshelf.html) along with additional pictures of this project.

I participated in the Matchbox swap recently and this is one of the matchboxes I created.  I am super proud of it.  I decorated it in a "Day of the Dead" theme ("Dia de los Muertos" in spanish).  I painted the entire macthbox using acrylic paint and black permanent marker.  I pasted the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe from a picture I printed off the internet. 





The felt pieces inside were all handstitched using embroidery thread.  The first is a black and white sugar skull inspired by something I saw on Etsy.  I used some sead beads to accent the eyes and teeth.  The back has a small brooch pin sewn on.



The magnets are just about the size of a quarter if not smaller.  I glued them to the magnets using E6000.  The sugar skull magnet was inspired by a post I saw here:  http://www.feelingstitchy.com/2008/06/sugar-skull-softies.html



The sacred heart magnet was just a simple design based off memory for me.




Please tell me what you think, I would love to here some feedback on this!!  Oh I almost forgot, this was a super pic-heavy project so I have more pics on my blog if you want to see s few more angles and whatnot:  http://snazzlecraft.blogspot.com

So I made these for the Buy Nothing/Green swap.  The rules were simple:  Craft stuff but don't spend any money and using recycled materials encouraged!  So I just knew I would have to do something with fused plastic bags since they are fast becoming a new fun hobby for me.

I made these coasters from fused plastic bags that I infused (for lack of a better word LOL) with teal and purple thread and silver/metallic strips of contact paper.  Then I overlapped and layered pieces together and stitched over them with a silver metallic thread.  I used teal wool felt and purple synthetic felt for a backing/edging on the coasters.  Each one is uniquely different and yet they feel like a cohesive set.  I love them....they were hard to part with! 

I was thinking about making these and selling them on Etsy (but I would use wool felt for all of it!)....what do you all think?



And some closeups: