allsorts

Here's Betsy McCall

A quick post and quick walk down memory lane. Betsy McCall paper dolls...

I found these on Flickr here, here and here. I especially love the two little rag dolls in the last one. Wouldn't they be fun to make? I love their little jumpers in red and teal.

Cheers,

Jenny

Marie Claire and her big Idées

Whatever kind of day it is before Marie Claire Idées appears in my mailbox, it instantly becomes a good day. The cover tells the color story found inside the latest issue... springy pinks, blues and greens.

I don't have any pink walls in the house, but holy cow this is pretty. I LOVE the plates on the wall... those are FABRIC! Could it be any better? Hopefully Google translate will come to my rescue yet again so I can find out how to construct these beauties.

Then there is this blue room. This has revived a yen to try my hand at mosaic... and maybe repaint a room or two.

Another pink room, I love that teacuppy candelabra!

I am normally not a huge fan of green but look at that bag! Crochet is not my forté but if I knew this was possible I might make more of an effort. The kitty is pretty cute, too. I'm seeing lots of this shade of green lately, looks like an English green to me. I had a couch in London that was a William Morris sort of pattern in that shade so maybe that's why.

Sigh... so many ideés... so little time!

Cheers,

Jenny

From over the pond

Look who just arrived from vintage magpie, it is Miss Kitty! You may ask why a bunny has the name Kitty. Well, I don't know, but somehow it suits her. She arrived in sweet pink tissue tied with bits of vintage lace.

Accompanied by a charming little heart and a sentimental message.

I believe I will!

Thanks Nicky!

Cheers,

Jenny

Swinging bunny

Amy's new mailorder project is four adorable papercut patterns. I love that it's downloadable, which works well for my gottadoitnow mentality. There's also a really yummy sounding recipe for some peanut butter and chocolate bar thingies that I swear must be illegal in several states. In my usual manner I missed the early boat(s), so this is the first mailorder I've participated in. That girl is a creative genius, the ideas just keep on coming.

I did a papercut project a few eons ago with fabric inserted behind the cut paper so I tried a photoshop version of the bunny image to see what it would look like. I love it! If I have some time I'd like to make one with real materials... what a concept, eh?

Anyhoo... thanks Amy!

Cheers,

Jenny

Alicia's Lucias

Finally took some photos of the Santa Lucia dolls I made with the sweet little kit from Alicia at Posie Gets Cozy. Actually they never made it to the Santa Lucia stage, I stopped just short of adding the candles and such. But they are making me so happy. The kit didn't call for collars, but I wasn't able to make the tops of the dresses tidy enough so I improvised with circles of fabric. Happily,that allowed me to avoid gluing the heads on as the circles made for a tight enough fit to do without! Plus it added a further splash of color, which as you can gather, I like to do.

There were five dolls, one to be St. Lucia, with the others as her attendants. Since I never got around to giving them candles, I gave them each a tiny bouquet to hold.

For awhile they hung out in this shabby candelabra but eventually ended up under the "swatch and spool" tree, posing prettily.

More pics of the girls can be seen over on flickr, as well as a pool of others' doll pics. Kudos to Alicia for creating the most fun project ever! I might have to order some doll pins and supplies for crafting some of my own peg dolls.

My last post of 2007... see you next year! Cheers!

Jenny

New toys

Just fooling around with the new camera today, along with a spiffy new photo box thingie. So I thought I'd bore you with close-ups of Christmas ornaments... (I feel like one of those people who force you to look at their vacation pictures! Ha!)

Above is the topper I made for the white feather tree (which I'll try to remember to snap, too) Its made from three pipe cleaner candy canes with a yoyo covering the center. I made so many candy canes for the white feather tree, I had enough left over to hang a bunch on the tree in the den as well as one for each place setting and I even give away quite a few!

I also made dangly yoyo ornaments...

And Swedish hearts from red and white paper (actually that was a couple of years ago)...

I didn't make this one, its a new but vintage-looking chenille star with cool beads...

These mittens are definitely vintage, right down to the play money inside! I love the embellishment with sequins, pearls and fancy buttons.

And these are my favorites! Tiny vintage stockings, probably also meant for crisp dollar bills.

Okay, the photo viewing is over for today. Hopefully you won't avoid me now so you won't be subjected to looking at more!

Cheerio,

Jenny

Ears to your elf!

Another elf clog pic, these are by my pal Vicki of Turkey Feathers. Her stitching skills always blow me away!

As promised, I created an Elf Clog group on flickr, so you can share photos of your creations, too. I'll add a button to my sidebar linking to it as soon as there are some images in the gallery. The hilarious thing about this is that in truth, I haven't actually made any of these little shoes, I just designed the pattern and tested it by making paper models. But based on Vicki's and others' creations, it looks like it works okay. They seem to lend themselves to creative embellishment. Hopefully things will ease up here soon and I can try my hand at making some.

Here's the pattern again. Click image for larger version.

By the way, these are not "sized" for people to wear (being for elves, you know) so if you want to use them for people feet, you'll have to make your best guess as to how to adjust the pattern. Also, no seam allowance is included.

So lets see what you come up with! Or, if you've already made some, add them to the group!

Cheers,

Jenny

Gathering

This morning I started pulling out a variety of materials...

Once Halloween is over, almost immediately my mind is churning with ideas for Christmas. Too many ideas actually! Way too many to do, but just enough to get me excited about the next few weeks.

I missed posting on the first day of the month, but for the rest of November, I'm going to try to do a post a day, in keeping with the spirit of this. Maybe I can make up for the embarrassingly long lapses between posts that have been the hallmark of this blog for months. Perhaps if anyone has any questions or if there is anything you're curious about, I can provide some info. Or at least I'll try!

Cheers,

Jenny

Pumpkins and punkpins

A nice softie pumpkin... I think maybe it needs eyes.

Here we go... wait...

Aaaaagh!!!

I punk pinned my pumpkin!!! With shrinky dink eyeballs on tiny black insect pins.

My family thinks I am a little weird... I wonder why.

Cheers,

Jenny

Yo-yo!

Enough whining! My apologies for my recent harsh tone, onward to cheerier thoughts. Like... yo-yo's. My neighbor and I had a garage sale last weekend, and I found this yo-yo quilt in one of her boxes literally in the dark and bought it from her without even seeing the colors. Imagine my excitement when I brought it into the light! The colors are fantastic! There are quite a few places where the yo-yo's need reconnecting, but as far as I can tell, all yo-yo's are present and accounted for. Happy me!

I was doing a bit of yo-yo-ing of my own even before I found the quilt. Inside these colorful containers are the makings of some yo-yo-ish decorations for my white feather tree. More pics to follow when I have it a bit more presentable.

And in the silver lining department, Ro and I just ordered a new refrigerator to replace our old monster that decided to quit in the middle of the garage sale craziness. This blue retro fridge from Big Chill is the one I really wanted, but it was just too big. Oh well, I still love the one we got. And just for the heck of it, we also ordered a new dishwasher! Is it weird for a grown woman to get so excited about appliances?

Cheers,

Jenny

The way things are

That kind of sums it up lately. I bought a bunch of these chargers at Ikea at Christmas, and thought up lots of ideas to use them in projects. But... who has time? This is the best I can do, a quick ribbon weave around the edge, then basically dumped the buttons, letters and dominos on there. Thank you, gravity. Oh well, I suppose it's better than nothing...

Hey, I thought summers were supposed to be lazy. When did they change the rules?

Cheers,

Jenny

New idees from Mlle. Claire

I'm listening to a mix I made of music from Amalie, Chocolat, and the new Edith Piaf film (which hopefully I'll get to see very soon) along with various accordion pieces, chansons and such. It's the perfect soundtrack for flipping through my new copy of Marie Claire Idees. I have so many UFO's around here, I should not consider starting anything new, but I can't help but get my own "idees" looking at pics like these...

A rather innovative (and lovely) way to display fresh blooms:

A charming summery bag:

Sweet flower and ribbon brooches and boutonnieres:

And clever display ideas in snappy colors that get my heart racing:

This is hands down my favorite magazine for generating new ideas and inspiration! I'll let you know whether or not I am able to resist... in any case, I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Cheers,

Jenny

ps - Speaking of Claire... anyone else miss Loobylu? I dearly hope Claire rejoins the blogstream again, I would love to hear about what's been happening in her charming and creative world.

World's longest scrunchie

First, I must issue heartfelt thanks to you all, for the positive, encouraging comments about my book project. You've made me feel SO much more confident about this undertaking. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Now.... what could this be?

Well, it looks like fabric flowers made using Blair's tutorial, connected by what appears to be the world's longest scrunchie.

And yes, each flower has a tiny light bulb poking out from the center.

And leaves are added here and there, twisted on with pipe cleaner stems.

Let's plug it in and see how it looks!

By now, you've probably gathered that my latest borderline insane idea was to make a flowery garland from a string of party lights. The string came from World Market, and originally the lights had paper lanterns on them. I popped those off and fitted the flowers onto the rubber grommets that held the lanterns, and added a pinked circle to hold the fabric away from the bulbs. (I sewed the flower petals further out from the middle so I could cut an opening in the center) Then in my usual fashion, I decided perhaps it needed some leaves, then had the brilliant (not really) idea that I could cover the wire with a sort of scrunchie effect. Well, try turning a one inch-wide, sixteen foot long tube of fabric and then tell me how great an idea that was. But it turned out pretty darn cute when it was all said and done.

It is now entwined in the lattice over my studio work table. Its really quite festive! If you'd like to see more fabric flowers, check out the Flickr group!

Well... onward to the next zany adventure!

Cheers,

Jenny

Granny get your 'ghan!

Yes, I was bitten by the same bug as many other bloggers out there!  I blame Cath Kidston and that adorable crochet afghan she dangled before us last year.  Dredging up my rusty crochet skills - I actually made a granny square afghan in high school - I struggled a bit at first, but now there is a growing pile of squares in the basket I keep near my TV-watching chair.  I found the most wonderful yarn that crochets like buttah - it's Cascade Peruvian wool, and comes in tons of colors and is amazingly affordable!  I don't have much of a yarn stash to speak of.  The colors I chose are not as sophisticated as this, or this, but the finished throw will look smashing in my family room I daresay.  And it will conveniently camouflage my gently aging couch, a definite plus.  I'm feeling more like a follower these days, happily allowing myself to get caught up in the excitement of granny-alongs and such.

I took this photo out in the courtyard, trying to capture a patch of sunshine.  The weekend was glorious, and we took a drive to White Rock Lake where we strolled the shore, looked at the birds and enjoyed the lovely Springy weather along with most of the city.  Note the leaves on the stone wall... Ro spent Sunday afternoon raking up the first wave of leaves that fell from the live oak trees.  By this morning the courtyard is again covered.  Oh well, they are huge, noble trees and despite dropping things almost year round, I love them.

Another pic from the courtyard, one of the little birdhouses on the old fence...

Sorry I've been so lazy about posting.  About the time I get ready to make a post, the phone rings, or my camera battery quits, or I can't find my camera at all!  Next up is another project that so many are working on... a doll quilt!

Cheers,

Jenny

I heart Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!  The day is almost done here, I had a little trouble finding enough light to snap a pic of this wreath I barely finished in time. You might recognize it as a wreath Ikea carried for Christmas. I bought one for half off after the holidays, and spent some time brainstorming what to do with it. Finally decided to make a version of this wreath using fabric strips. Pretty simple really, just cut the fabric with a rotary cutter and start tying!

Note - to minimize any sort of fire hazard, treat the fabric first with a homemade spray consisting of 5 parts boric acid (some drugstores carry this), 6 parts Borax and 100-150 parts warm water. Spray liberally and let dry.

I'm quite happy with how this turned out, it looks cute either lit or not. I used good old red gingham and added a yellow homespun here and there to brighten up the palette. It is now hanging happily over the mantle in my bedroom.

Hope your Valentine's Day is a happy one!

Cheers,

Jenny

ps to Ro..... SMOOCHIES!!!

The stockings were hung on the clothesline with care...

Despite the long list of things still left to do, I was powerless to resist my longtime muse. The dollhouse stared at me until I broke down and spiffed it up for the holidays! It all started with the little white trees, bought at Joanne's, which light up! That led to the idea of a snowy scene, which of course meant white fleece cut in long icycles for the roof and window boxes. The clothesline was employed to hold a couple of teensy stockings, and one of my bottle brush wreaths was perfect on the front door. The garland you will recognize is my little dangles, these made with letters to spell out a holiday greeting.

The dollhouse as it looks in the daytime...

And at night...

I've been setting it on a table by the window at night and it looks so cute from outside! One more close-up, of the little tree in the upstairs window...

Now that I've get that out of my system, I can finally move on to other activities! Just a few things left to do... like everything!

Cheers,

Jenny

This and that and the other

Hallow again! Just a quickie post to let you know that the fourth Night of Halloween is up, as well as the first, second and third!

And I have to say I am thrilled with the response to the Halloween garland! Thank you all muchly for your sweet comments on my last post. Y'all are the coolest! And please share pics, I'd love to see your creations.

Oh, I got the nicest request today from a museum in British Columbia asking permission to use my photo of the Advent Calendar I made last year. They saw it on Flickr, and want to use it in a class teaching children about Christmas countdown traditions as a way to preserve the heritage of their community. Isn't that a cool thing?

I have a few more things I want to do for Halloween before I get swept up in the crazy vortex of Christmas. Did you know there is an entire graveyard's worth of tombstones stacked up in the attic? But I don't think those will come out this year. Once one's kids are grown one doesn't have as much of an excuse to decorate, does one?

Cheerio,

Jenny

Halloween freebie time

Hallow boys and ghouls! Here is one of the freebies I hinted about on Friday. Thought I'd share hi-res files of the disc design I created for my banner. It works quite nicely for Halloween, printed out on index card stock and strung on rick rack. Or you can tie it with yarn or string like I did here. In order for you to decide for yourself what you want it to say, I made one for every letter as well as numbers. It might be fun for other purposes besides Halloween, too.

Here are the files, click on the one you want and it will open in another window (be patient, it will look huge) Then just save it to your desktop, print it, cut it out and string it up! Let me know if it works okay. Have fun!

 

 

I hope you think of lots of fun and creative ways to use these!

Cheers,

Jenny

A little WIP and a couple of corners

What a glorious day! We finally got our first nippy weather! Things are going great around here lately, and I think I've dug myself out from under the mountain of tasks I was buried under. Thanks for being patient while I took a semi-break from blogging. That and the new fall-ish weather has me feeling fired up and full of ideas!

What's been going on around here:

I pretty much finished up the buffalo illustration project and have moved on to the dinosaurs (including baby dinos... so cute!)

This month we were supposed to go see Katy in Providence, she just started at RISD. But work has pushed that trip to the back burner. We'll get there soon, I really want to see Providence (and Katy, too of course) and maybe get to meet Megan in person. Katy got to meet her at the RISD Alumni Sale last weekend!

Somewhere along the line I developed a problem with my right hand that has me wearing a wrist brace most of the time. Gives me a legitimate excuse to slack off on the housework around here. Haha! I take it off to work on the computer, but otherwise it stays on, even at night. I have to be careful not to conk Ro on the head when I roll over or I could do some damage!

I took a series of classes to learn how to use my new Bernina 240, and our group bonded so well we talked the teacher into doing a quilt class for us! The fabric in the above photo is some of the 36 fat quarters I've assembled for it. The design is called Crazy Nine Patch, and the class is next week.

Also in the pic are several other projects in the works, including the poor little felt bunny I showed several weeks ago, who has made no progress whatsoever. And I'm working out a couple of patterns I'll be sharing when I get them right. One for Halloween and one for Christmas!

Oh, the light is so gorgeous today! This is the one time of the year it shines into the dining room, normally its very dark and cozy in there. I've never been able to get decent pics, but I managed to get a couple that I think look okay. This is the huge fireplace:

It's still a bit too dark to see my favorite part, the antique pot that hangs inside. I didn't think I would like having gas logs, but its so nice to fire the thing up any time we eat in there, breakfast is especially nice with a roaring fire on a cold morning. And we have other options for wood fires, so this is perfect.

This is the corner to the left of the fireplace:

And panning further around. The chair was my great grandfather's:

Somehow I have managed to incorporate a fairly wide range of decorating styles into this house. We have rooms that work for different times of the year. The dining room is the most appropriate for Fall, and is perfect for Thanksgiving dinner. One of these days I need to share the mythology of the Homestead with you. Its an interesting story how we came to live here.

But I've done enough babbling for the moment thank you very much. Time to carpe the weekend!

Later gators,

Jenny

Enough with the teeny tiny stuff!

I know, I know, there has been entirely too much obsessing over miniatures here lately. It is time to move on to some other obsession to be named later. But I can't leave this topic without sharing this link and some pics of these amazingly charming mini-creations. I could just pack my little Amy suitcase and move right on in. Lookie! (click to see larger)

And this one:

And some cute stuff:

Jadite... Fire King! Boy has somebody in Japan got my number.

Onward!

Jenny

How do you spell squeeeeeeal?

There I was, having a nice, civilized phone conversation with a friend... we were discussing literature and culture... when the Fedex truck pulls up. Still clinging to some semblance of decorum, I hotfoot it to the door. But when I see it is my box of Little House goodies, it is beyond my control to keep from squealing! Such a dork. But it is very comforting to know I am not alone! For inside that box rested twelve little treasures from kindred spirits.

Here are a few pics of the teensy loot... sweet welcome mat above from Gina, and below, a little lunch from Amy...

with a pie... which of course Myron has claimed for his own...

Wardrobe from Tracey complete with wire hangers...

Doggie with toys from Anna Maria on an amazing braided rug from Ann...

And an adorable library cabinet from Cindy...

See more pics on Flickr!

A round of applause to the bunny family for their cheerful assistance with the photos.

And thank you to all those who participated in this round of Club Little House!!! I'm sitting out next time due to heavy work obligations, and to give others the chance to join in on the fun!

Cheers,

Jenny

WIP Friday - red dots aplenty

A bit of show and tell for WIP Friday. These odd-shaped little buggers are going to be pelmets for the dollhouse windows. They're sort of mini versions of the studio shelves, since I am loving how cute those look against the aqua walls. I devised a template in Photoshop, printed it onto card stock, then used fabric glue to affix the gingham to the back of the template. The printed outline makes them very easy to cut out, and they are nice and stiff, so they should hold their shape when I fold them up.

And I must show you this tiny confection.

Made by Miss Grace, Vicky's talented daughter, and purchased from her Etsy shop. All the cupcakes have been sold, but she still has candies, brownies and even a pineapple upside down cake available!

Have a lovely weekend!

Jenny

A small open house

I am happy to be able to (finally) show the interior of the doll house, with its spiffy new paint job. I tell you, painting a doll house sure goes faster and is much more satisfying than painting a full size house! In the spirit of use what you have, I opted for the same aqua as the studio walls, and the floor is the blue paint from the base of the work table.

I shudder to remember how awful it looked before the redo, pretty sad:

I primed it a long time ago and it had been like this for ages:

But this weekend I got bit by the redecorating bug and whipped it together fairly quickly.

The windows needed some help, so I cut frames from white fun foam (I love that stuff) and hot glued them in place.  Looks much better now.

Next up... window treatments and then in comes the furniture! I hope to have it set up by the time my Club Little House package arrives!

Cheers,

Jenny

Catch you on the flip flop

Well, since Alicia and Vicky both let the cats out of their bags, I can show you what I made for Club Little House. I came very close to making the same thing Vicky made, and even something similar to Alicia's little creation, but went another direction. I went to the beach!

I had this image in my head of twelve cute little beach bags all in different colors and fabrics, and managed to get them to turn out (almost) exactly how I pictured them, despite my uncooperative sewing machine. Thank heavens for fusable web!

But I couldn't stop there, I wanted there to be something in the bags, so I came up with this:

Teensy flip flops! I should have put a penny next to these so you could get an idea of the scale. Let's just say they are small enough to have been a beast to make. See, twelve pairs is 24 shoes, each of which are made from two layers of foam, so I had to cut out 48 little foot shaped thingies. And here they are, stretching off into the distance:

and with their bags:

The whole crew was wrapped, tagged and Fedexed out, so Amy should get it sometime tomorrow. I am itching to see what everyone else made!

So now it is onward to the next adventure...

Cheers,

Jenny

Itty bitty cuteness

Aren't these the cutest tiny softies? Not sure where the image came from, I came across it recently and didn't note the source. But they made me smile so I thought I would share...

Thank you so much for all the birthday well-wishes! Still amazes me that I can get birthday greetings from all over the world. This was a mostly card and gift-certificate birthday which suits me fine, as I really have too much stuff and am determined to purge. My son, however, with his budget limited by school expenses offered to do the labor involved with a redo of my studio! So the last few days have been nutzo, and the rest of the house is piled with artsy crafsty things and I continue to try and work in the midst of the chaos. See, it seemed like it would also be a good time to repaint, since I am not feelin' the pink any more. After much angst I ended up with the same color that Alicia painted her workroom, a wondrously vivid aqua that looked much more tame on the paint chip. My primary colors already pop against the walls and the whole thing is making me very happy! I plan on creating such cute and fun things in here!

Oh, I would post pics of the work in progress, but my battery charger is broken! Arg! I'll see if I can find some fresh batteries around here somewhere...

Cheers,

Jenny

There goes the neighborhood

You turn your back for one minute and look what happens.  The dollhouse has been taken over by a large family of egg-farming bunnies.  They've made such a mess of the yard, refusing to mow, leaving colorful little "gifts" everywhere.  Frankly, we're hopping mad, and considering making a call to an eggsterminator.

However... they are very hard-working...

Nicely dressed...

And the children are fairly well-behaved...

Well... except for Myron...

Maybe we'll let them stay.  At least until Easter.

Cheers,

Jenny

Pinspinners!

Here is a fun and easy little craft I devised, so I could use up some of the sheets and sheets of scrapbook paper I bought when I was semi-obsessed with that pasttime (passtime? How do you spell that?). I am partially committed to Use What You Have although with my current semi-obsession with the dollhouse redo, there's no way I could keep myself from scrounging up any materials needed for that.  But at least maybe for Easter decorations, I can limit myself to what I have on hand.  How does that sound?  Okay I hear you all muttering out there, so I'll get back to the craft.  They're what you might call pinwheels, but since I rassled with the basic concept and came up with some variations of my own, I am calling them pinspinners.  I am pretty bad at giving tutorials, but I'll do my best to explain how to make them, and patterns can be found at the end of this post, which at this rate will be around next Tuesday.

The one above is the basic four-petal pinspinner, and here is the scallop-edged wingspinner:

Here's what you need to make a pinspinner:

1. Two sheets of patterned paper (at least one needs to fit in your printer)
2. Spray adhesive
3. Detail Scissors
4. A longish pin and a thickish needle
5. A couple of beads
6. A pencil with an eraser (or a pencil-width dowel and one of those erasers you buy to stick on the end of a pencil)
7. A flower shaped punch (optional)

Instructions:

1. Download the pattern, print it onto the patterned side of one of your pieces of paper (choose the lightest one, the lines are very faint and won't show well on a dark color).
2. Don't cut on the lines yet, just trim it down so its easier to manage.
3. Spray back with adhesive and affix to the back of your other sheet of paper.
4. Poke your needle through the dots, (tip - place the paper over a pincushion, this helps keep the paper from bending).
5. Cut out the spinner along the printed lines.
6. Cut out a flower shape, either by drawing your own, or using a punch, and poke a hole in the center with the needle.
7. Now for the fun part.  Take your pin, and slide one of the beads onto it. 
8. Slide the flower shape on next.
9. Then one by one, slide the wings of the spinner onto the pin, then poke the pin through the hole in the center of the spinner