Wee Wonderfuls

Holiday Rewind

So the place is getting decked, slowly but surely. The tree is up, the kitchen tree is up (yes, I am now that person) and I just have the buffet scenes to set up. I'll take pictures but it's going to be the same story as last year. I've been striving for this my whole life, a set of Christmas decorations that you use every year and that go in the same spot every year. Little traditions. So I'm not messing with them. I am working on a few new holiday craft projects to add to the mix but they're far from done so I thought I'd show one of my favorites from last year.

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did you know you can unroll cotton balls
originally posted 12/7/06

these awesome old pipe cleaners I found at the resale shop + theresa's post on cody foster and wondering how spun cotton ornaments are made + my current obsession with crazy vintage handmade ornaments = an oscar-free afternoon turning into a whirlwind of crazy ornament making activity! I unrolled cotton balls and used the strips of cotton to wrap up spools, wooden wheels, plastic eggs, anything I could find really and then glue gunned on little heads and buttons and birds, etc. so much fun! I could do this and only this for weeks and weeks but I have to force myself to put away the glue gun and get back to my christmas to-do's.

sheep spool

deer magnet (the little deer is glued to his side)

jingle face

santa button hat

glitter button face

cross bird lady with snowball head

red bird girl

button full of snowballs

sledding

thank you!

Hey holiday crafters! Thank you so much for the put-together book orders over the past 2 days!! I can't wait to see all the amazing robots you guys come up with and craft vicariously through you. Tim and I are always so excited about our little self-publishing projects and we're so grateful and thrilled (and relieved!) when people are excited about them too.

Speaking of Tim, I always assume it goes without saying, but maybe it doesn't, he is, of course, the one who did the Spaceboy & Robot's booklet cover design. I love it so much! We were under such a tight deadline this time, trying to get it out by Christmas. I assigned him covers and started working on patterns and instructions and I swear he did this thing in one night. He's a star.

Here's the new thank you card that's going out with orders. Miss Hobbibot is very excited about her new role as ambassador of gratitude.

In shipping news, the first batch of orders went out this morning and the rest should be out by this afternoon. And now for a public service announcement: I ran into a problem with the orders that I wanted to let you all know about because I know a lot of you are selling things online and using paypal. I always track my orders from the email notifications that paypal sends me. Starting Monday, emails from paypal have been going missing. This has never happened with me and paypal before and I've been using it for forever. I called them and they said that "email notifications are not guaranteed". ok, swell. I'm guessing it's the holiday surge. I had to go through every transaction in paypal for the last week or so and double check to make sure I'd caught it. That's how I noticed it just started on Monday. There were quite a few that hadn't made it into my inbox and it appears to be getting worse as the days go on. So, if you're using paypal and relying on the emails, guess that's not the best way to go. And please do not worry, you don't need to email me to check that I got your order, I've been through it a 100 times and I've got everyone.

Paypal will not ruin our plans for robot domination!

Spaceboy & Robot

Why do robots have to be so hard? All cold and metal and beepy. And ever tried to cuddle up to a plastic Buzz Lightyear for a napper? We think space toys should be squishy and lovable and wrapped up under the tree this year. Put-together Book #2 Spaceboy and Robot is in the shop now for the low low, stocking stuffing price of only $10!

12 page booklet includes full size pattern pieces, complete instructions and 6 additional control panel embellishment options (embroidered for babies and bedazzled for older kids).

there'll be much mistletoeing

Ok then. That cooking/football/shopping gateway holiday is over and it's time to move on to the hardcore holiday stuff!

Christmas trains

Holiday freebies (coming soon)

And we heard some good news from the printer, the Robot & Spaceboy Put-together books will be here Monday! Cyber Monday even.

ta da!

We finally got our pie on last night. May I present sour cream apple pie. Thanks Melanie (and Alicia) for the tip.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! May the Trivial Pursuit gods smile upon you.

missing gene

I have been wiggling my nose at this since Peapod dropped it off this morning and still nothing. No magical pie appearance. Guess I'll have to get the books out.

By all other criteria I feel I am your typical craft blogger. I obsess about decorating for the holidays. I go overboard on baby gifts. I spend way to much money on japanese fabric (thanks a lot mariko and kelly!). But the cooking gene...didn't get that. Everyone else makes beautiful, delectable-looking dishes and takes wonderful photos of it all and seems to enjoy it so much. To me cooking is like doing laundry. I hate it. Such a task. Washing, peeling, cutting, stirring, washing, ugh. Perhaps this gene will kick in later in life. Cooking is something I'd definitely like to like to do. I love watching Nigella, maybe that's a good sign.

What I'd rather be doing is playing with my new toys from the craft store trying to make funny little ornaments for my tree which is going up this weekend!

p.s. All Stitchettes ordered yesterday have gone out in the mail. Thanks! Other shop updates, Patchwork Cards are sold out and Craft It Up! Stickers are back in stock.

Reissued Summer Stitchettes are in the shop!

The first set of Stitchette embroidery designs are back in the shop today. So if you were looking for Tilly, Ruby, Sam or Anna, they're all there now.

**sorry to the mailing list for the double email! the computer is sore at me today for some reason.**

Sorry it seems like I've got nothing but shop news these days. But really I've been doing very little craft blog worthy stuff lately. I could write about how I spent my Saturday at the DMV renewing the license I let expire and had to take the driving and written tests or I could tell you how the Comcast guy was here all morning because our voice over internet phone has puttered out or how I spent 2 hours the other night filing old bills. Not really exciting stuff. But I am going to go dig out the glue gun and pipe cleaners soon. This has me inspired. Christmas crafts here I come!

a smattering

Hey b-land. How's your day going? I can't believe I'm only 3 hours into mine. I have the only toddler in the world who cares if he has snot running down his face. I dread when he has a cold because he hollers out in agony every five minutes for me to wipe his drippy nose. So a few things real quick before I need to get back to wiping...

Made it to the thrift store for the first time in months yesterday. Slim pickings but did find this amazing fabric.

I finally got myself down to Borders to get all my Christmas magazines and also the Winter issue of Cutting Edge magazine. Hot dog! I'm actually in there!! :) The photos are wonderful, the ornaments look so cute how they set them up, and from what I hear (I can't bring myself to read it yet) the article is really nice too. So exciting! ** update: hey, I just read through the rest of the magazine and definitely pick it up because there are some really cute fabric card projects by Teresa Levy, Jenny Hart and others.  **

And lastly, I've been meaning to share this fun mail for weeks...Child Health Posters in Color. They're an ebay find sent to me by the kind and hilarious Lotta. Thanks so much! Now how do I enlist this little girl to help me with nose wiping.

experiments

I've had the idea for this doll forever and then had her half finished for another forever. Feels so good to have her done finally. Shoeless, but done.

Back when I was tearing strips for this rag knitting project I had the idea that it would make pretty cool doll hair. I really like how it turned out. Kind of primitive raggedy ann-ish but at the same time, still more polished. She needs a little beret I think. She has beret hair.

The book I was showing yesterday is a Japanese book on embroidery that had some smocking projects in it. I thought I'd smock her dress up all fancy. First time out with smocking and I thought it'd all be made clear after looking at a few diagrams with Japanese explanations. So, yeah, not so much. I had to get out my Guide to Needlework and try the simpliest smocking pattern they had and still.. so hard! I think I'm going to have to actually read the directions or something. piffle.

Oh and about the dress fabric. I'm stumped. I think I got it at a quilt shop in Wisconsin this Summer. I emailed them to see if they had any info on it. I only got a 1/4 yard and it didn't catch any of the selvedge info. I'll post here if I figure it out. I'd like to get more of it myself. Why do I get all cheap at the fabric store and only get quarters!

today's project