Lu and Ed's Mon-Stors

I know that I haven't posted anything in here for a long, LOOONG time, (though I'm hoping to change that in the coming days/ weeks!) but I really felt that I needed to post this, because I really, REALLY want this adorable piece!  :D

I have a friend from FB who is very talented.  She makes these wonderful storage containers, called Mon-Stors, that look like little monsters!  They hang on the wall, and they "eat" whatever you put in them, only to have them give the items up at a later date.  They are wonderfully imaginative, and she makes each one herself.  So in an attempt to help her get her store more attention, as well as to raise breast cancer awareness (since the one being given away is a Breast-cancer awareness Mon-Stor), I am posting about them here, (here is the link to her blog about the contest, and here is a link to her store) because I really think she does a great job.  And now I am off to take care of a few necessary things that I have to handle before my husband gets home.  But THAT is another story, and NOT for this particular blog!  :)

So... (long entry, lots to catch up on!)

Haven't been posting in a while, but never fear, I am still crafting away.  :)  Lately, I have been making many, many things, clothes for my girl, soft and plushy things for the Wee Ones to play with, things of that nature.  I'll admit, I got my initial "kick" from the felt strawberries I made a while back, and that just got me jonesin' to make more felt food.  And so I did.  BOY, did I ever!  So far, I have 4 green beans, 1 small pumpkin, three cookies, one slice of chocolate cake (with cannoli cream filling, according to Wee Miss V, lol), and now I have another piece of cake almost finished (vanilla with raspberry filling, so claims Miss V) but ran into a bit of a snag before I could finish it.  I am also working diligently on two pita pockets (they're finished) cheese, lettuce, tomato slices, carrot chips and slices of ham to stuff in them!  I have many pieces cut out, but that snag last night (my polyfil was locked in my stepson's bedroom, lol) kept me from completing many of them.  But I'm still working, never fear!  These have been SOOO much fun to work on, you've no idea!  I'm still trying to figure out how I should do the veining on the lettuce, or if I should even bother, and the ham as well...  Trying to figure out how to make it look less like a pink oval and more like a slice of deli meat is NOT easy, believe me!  But I'll figure it out.  In the end I always do.  :)  But now, enough chatter!  What we need now is PICTURES!!!  lol

Green beans.  Yummy!  :)

Wee pumpkin and green beans.

Pumpkin and green beans with a Pepsi Throwback bottle for size.

Wee little pumpkin.  :)

Chocolate cake!  Om, nom, nom!!!  :D

Bit of a wider shot

Two of the three felt sugar cookies.  One is "iced" in pink, the other in fudge, both have bead "sprinkles.

There is more in the works for felt foods, as I mentioned, but for now, these are all the pictures I have.  But there's more, so I'll now work on some of the machine sewing I've been doing lately.

You see, we're rather short on money these days, so I decided that, in the interest of saving as opposed to spending, I would make Wee Miss V some of her uniform bottoms.  Nowhere in the handbook does it say clothing can't be handmade, and since she loves wearing handmade things, and is even PROUD of it, I'm happy to say, I thought it would be a good use of my time.  So in total, I made her 1 pair of tan shorts, two tan skirts with pockets (one is a circle skirt, one is a straight skirt), one navy blue skirt with no pockets, and a navy blue skort, also without pockets.  And here they are!  :)  (BTW, I found the basic pattern for the straight skirts on What Would a Nerd Wear, the pattern itself being here.)  BTW, all of the tan stuff is totally "upcycled" from a tan bed sheet we owned that somehow got HUGE holes in it.  And there's even enough left to make her a reversible hat similar to mine!  Woops, you haven't seen that one yet!  lol

Navy skirt with no pockets and light blue lining.

Navy blue skort

Shorts view of skort

Tan shorts with floral fabric pockets.  :)

Tan straight skirt.  One of my favourite patterns, cuz even WITH pockets it was simple!

Hands in her pockets.

Tan circle skirt.  She requested that it be long like that.

 So pretty much that's it for the school clothes I've made.  Gotta say, not only am I happy that she enjoys them, I feel such pride when she chooses to wear one of these pieces instead of one of the store-bought ones, even though most of those we get at local thrift stores! 

But wait!  You guessed it, there's MORE!  :D  I also made Wee Miss V a pretty little something for a birthday present.  Her name is Gretl, and she's a cute little fox softie, and I found the pattern and a wonderful tutorial for her on the Ruffles and Stuff blog, right here.

Better lighting on the kitchen counter.  lol

Gretl the fox.  :)

All finished!  (The Wii remote is for size comparison.  She wasn't suppose to be so small!  lol

Gretl's "scar" (above and to the left of the eye, near her ear) to match Wee Miss V's scar.

Ah, V was so happy to get her on her birthday!  And she LOVED that I thought to add a little "scar" to Gretl's forehead, just like Wee Miss V has.  (Miss V is a bit accident prone and ran into a wall.  Long story.  lol)  Gretl goes everywhere with Wee Miss V now, and she absolutely adores her.  She doesn't even mind that Mommy messed up when printing the pattern (which I did to SPECTACULAR effect, I might add!) and that her little toy ended up being about half the size it was originally intended to be.  Ah well, live and learn, right?  :D

Let me see, I know there was more...  Oh right, the HAT!!!  HOW could I forget the hat!  I found a pattern on the Martha Stewart site for a reversible sun hat (find the instructions on the Martha Stewart site here), and decided that I was going to make it, no matter WHAT!  And here it is!

Reversible hat with optional pin, and before I "stiffened" the brim a bit by sewing rounds on it.

Opposite side of the reversible hat, with pin.

So I really like this hat, though I've absolutely NOTHING that goes with it!  Figures, right?  lol  So maybe I'll make myself a pair of floral print shorts, though Wee Miss V would love it if I made a skirt, and just go with that and a nice ivory tank.  Hmm...  The idea does have merit, and will stop her bugging me to wear dresses...  lol  I actually LIKE that you can see the tan thread on the burgundy side now that I've sewn the rounds on the brim.  I think it gives it a nice feel, and besides, there's nothing wrong with handmade stuff!  The pin is just rolled-and-twisted roses hot-glued to a felt piece with leaves added, then stuck on a pin back.  Actually, I need to reattach that, the pin back keeps falling off...

Well, I think that's it for now.  Time to go finish stuffing and sewing everything that I'm currently working on.  Bye!  :)

Well...

It seems as though I slacked off the last 5 days of last month, but in truth I merely forgot to post stuff, in the throes of my creativity.  In all honestly, though I know I made many, MANY more things, I can not , for the life of me, remember what most of them are anymore, though I do have pictures!  Just gotta get them all saved to the computer so that I can upload them here as well.  All for how, more at another time!  :)

Wow, what FUN!

So it seems that I'm updating again today, since I finished one project that I had started several days ago, and then I made a simple one with the Wee Ones this afternoon that will provide hours, if not DAYS of fun!  So let's begin with the first project!

First attempt at an appliqued pin cushion.  Definitely need to work on placement.  :)

Side view.  I kinda like it!  :)

So this thing was fairly easy to make, even though it seemed to take me forever to make it.  Also, I definitely placed the leaves too close to the center, they should have been further down to accommodate the flower better.  Ah well, live and learn.  Maybe with the next one I'll get more ambitious and add some additional embroidery to the edge as well.  All-in-all, I think it turned out rather well.  Might need to stuff it more next time, this one seems a bit floppy, but like I said, live and learn!  :)

Then there's the project I made today for the kids!  Ooh, this one was SOOO much fun!  I got the idea for them from this great blog, and they kids had SOOO much fun with them!  Here are some pictures to give you an idea of just HOW much fun they had.  :)

Oh, can't you just see the JOY on their faces with these things?  They are quite possibly the best and simplest contraption for fun that I have ever had the privilege of making for my kids!  There's just nothing else I can think of that they have enjoyed more over the last few weeks than this.  It was GREAT!

So that's it for today.  I doubt I'll start another project tonight, but if I do, rest assured it will be on here tomorrow.  :D

Wow, I'm a slacker! lol

So it seems that I have forgotten to post much of what I have been doing over the past few days.  I've been working on things, for sure, but I haven't been posting.  Also, I don't remember when I made certain things, so posting them in order may end up being...  Problematic.  lol  So instead, what I will do is post pictures of this things I have made in what I think is the closest to the order in which they were made.  Sound good to you?  Doesn't matter, cuz it sounds good to me!  lol  So let me see if I can get them all in and even in the right order...

Finished felt strawberries!  :)

That's right, I finished my strawberries!  :)  I finally had the time to make the effort to get the green felt to add the tops to my berries, YAY!  Oh yeah, and I made a smaller one, just cuz I d to try out the french knot version for the seeds.  I don't like it.  lol  And then I made...

THIS!  Yes, it's another soda tab bracelet, but this one is different!  This one is a single layer of tabs, connected with ivory satin ribbon and white and turquoise gingham ribbon criss-crossed over it to hold THAT in place.  I'm toying with the idea of removing the ivory ribbon, but for right now, it's just a thought.  :)  Other than that, I also got on a brief sewing kick and made these as well.

They're not tiny, but as you can tell from the ribbon, they're not all that big, either.  They were made mostly as a decoration for the Wee One's room, but the ribbons came off somehow (personally I think the kids tore them off, but that's another story entirely, lol) but they're now pretty much toys for the kids.  lol  No worries though, I can always make more.  :)

Then I got on a BIIIG sewing/ crafting kick and started making THESE!!!

Middlin' Mervin and Tiny Tee Toadstool

Middlin' Mervin and Tiny Tee Toadstool again!

Top view of Middlin' Mervin and Tiny Tee.

Middlin' Mervin all by his lonesome.

Middlin' Mervin from the top.

Tiny Tee Toadstool!  :)

Toadstool family!

Family with measuring stick.

Look how tall Big Bubba Toadstool is!  :)

Middlin' Mervin's not too short either.  :)

Tiny Tee is really, REALLY tiny!

Big Bubba all by his lonesome.

Big Bubba's pretty spots.

A collection of toadstool spots!

Big Bubba again.

And Big Bubba again!  :)

 Yep, I had FUN making toadstools!  And they were SOOO easy!  Though I will admit, I only made one day.  guess I didn't want to tire myself out on them, huh?  lol  I had so much fun with them, and then I found a companion, of sorts, to go with them!  This is my first ever attempt at...

GNOMES!!!

Gnorman Gnome

Gnorman and Big Bubba Toadstool.

Gnorman got a face finally!

Yep, that's right, I made GNOMIES!!!  I actually have two made (almost have another one finished, just need to decide if s/he's a he or a she and paint on a face, lol) and I plan to make several more in a whole slew of neat colours!  Which leads me to my birds!  (BTW, I found the tutorials for the toadstools on this wonderful blog called Twig and Toadstool the tutorial is here and for the gnomes tutorial is from Wee Folk Art, the tutorial located here.)  These are both simply great sites, they have SOOO many neat ideas that I don't know WHEN there will be time to try them all!

Since I have been on a felt kick lately (I'm even sitting here contemplating between more crafting and going to bed early!  lol)  then it seems rather appropriate my next project was these wonderful birds.  The thing is, I couldn't find a tutorial for them, so they're still very much a work-in-progress.  I've not perfected the pattern as yet, but I thought it would be a good thing to post the pictures of my first two attempts at making the lovely birds that I found on the blog we bloom here with the actual birds in question here.

First attempt.  Something about the head just sets wrong for me.

I seem to like her head better from this angle.  lol

Second attempt.  Definitely do NOT like the schnoz on this one, either!

Nope, not even from this angle!  :D

So that was it until today.  Today, of course, we had family project time and since my oldest (CDC) isn't here right now, (He went to stay with Lizard for a few weeks, so we have some peace and quiet around here for a while!) so the Wee Ones and I decided to have a project day today!  So they cleaned their rooms while I got things ready, and we sat down to make these little beauties!  :)

Mama's mask.

Wee E's mask.

Wee Miss V's mask.

As you can see, the mask's eye holes aren't really cut well, they're too wide-spaced even for my own head, but they were fun to play with and make.  Each of the feather bits I made for the kids, since it took a good deal of time and patience to get them and make them not look like crap.  What's even funnier is that I've seen similar things in the store for like $10 or more a piece, YIKES!  And these cost me next to nothing!  Scraps of felt, feathers and glue, that's it!  Wee Miss V actually tried to claim my green one, but I had to put my foot down somewhere!  lol

Okay, so that's it!  That's what I've been working on over the past week or more with this 30-days of crafting that I decided to do.  And I have more ideas in mind as well, so don't think I'll get bored or forget!  :)

M