craftiness update

I've decided I like blogging better with pictures... our camera will be replaced shortly, but till then I'm stuck with the scanner. The pics below are some of the latest craft projects, most of which started over Christmas vacation back in Illinois. It's sort of a tradition to work on some kind of project on Christmas Day, after the presents but before dinner. Our schedule was a bit different this year, but I did manage to fit in a couple Christmas projects. Mom has a wonderful collection of fabric, buttons, and some scrapbooking papers. so on Christmas Eve, I stayed busy choosing fabrics, buttons, and papers to make a few things that are now for sale in my Etsy shop.

A set of blank notecards using some really fun polka-dot paper and some of Mom's vintage plastic buttons, accented with yellow embroidery floss.

Mom does a lot of different kinds of crafts- cross-stitch and projects using wool felt are just two of them. I raided her stash of wool felt to make this flower pin; my buttonhole stitching will never be as even as hers, but I think it's cute. Accented with another vintage plastic button, of course! Unfortunately, the scanner does NOT do it justice; since it's layered, the scanner cast some weird shadows.

Heart Valentine Cookie Felt Pin: This one I made after we got home, out of regular felt. (I have since gone to JoAnn, etc. and got started on my own stash of wool felt, most was on sale for 40% off, and some was even clearanced!) This heart pin was going to have vintage buttons on, but the colors looked so much like a cookie with pink frosting that I had to go with it- I used some beads as "sprinkles" and the whole thing is button-hole stitched. Again, the scanner doesn't do anything good for it at all- the beads are really bright, but the scanner just washed them out in the shadows.

Pink Butterfly Felt Pin: This one I made a while ago, and recently found in my own stash of supplies. The little white flowers are lazy daisy stitch (and they're daisies- LOL!), and the stems are stem stitch (!). The butterfly was also made with lazy daisy stitches, out of some chiffon ribbon to give the wings dimension. This was listed in my shop, and already sold! Well, traded- I sent this, and a fellow seller sent me some origami business-card holders. Now I can carry my business cards in style! (Not that I'll hand many of them out- I'm still so shy about that sort of self-promotion...)