Etsy Poster

This is similar (all but one item which apparently became inactive and no longer appears) to the Etsy poster I submitted for the poster contest. I had fun choosing items with black and white primarily and arranging them for the poster.

Busy weekend

I've had such a busy creative weekend that when I posted earlier I forgot to mention several things. I've been searching for a simple but effective way to track my expenses and income related to my Etsy shop. Another Etsyian, lavajewelry.etsy.com had created an Excel spreadsheet that she has posted on her blog: http://cheldodge.net/blog/

I found I wanted a few more pieces of information, such as Date listed, dated sold, materials cost. I also wanted to see the profit per item when the item sold, so I set this column up to calculate only when the "date sold" was filled in. If anyone would like a copy of this updated version, feel free to contact me. And thanks, lavajewelry for sharing your spreadsheet.

Also, I created two "Poster Sketches" on Etsy. One is a poster of my own items. The other was an entry for the Etsy Treasury poster challenge which I hope to post later. Below is a description of the challenge:

We're having a challenge to turn some of the best Treasury lists at Etsy into limited edition prints.Here's an example: http://flickr.com/photos/generated/838351743/Up to twenty lists will be selected over a two week period in July. Special software will take a Treasury list, combine it with the original full resolution sources and generate a high resolution arrangement suitable for digital printing. Printing will be done in-house using archival processes and the highest standards of craftsmanship. This is a one time only, limited run event. About 100 prints of each list will be made.One entry per person please.Two week competition begins July 17, 2007 and ends August 1, 2007.

Etsy in the News, Denim Diaper Bag

I found this link to this news story in one of the Etsy forums today. It does a great job of explaining a little of the history of Etsy and how it works/what it is:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/image/20070729_One_big__booming_online_crafts_fair.html

This weekend, I had the challenge of coming up with a baby gift for my friend's grand-daughter for a shower next week. A week or so ago I was talking with a young Mom and she commented that I should get into making diaper bags since there are few good looking ones. As I was browsing at the local thrift store yesterday, I had the thought that I could make a cute bag from denim. I found two pairs of pastel colored jeans (green and yellow) and a pair of pink denim shorts and began cutting, assembling and sewing with fabric from a regular blue pair of jeans I had already. I wanted to create lots of pockets and a wide side gusset to make the bag deep. I added elastic at the tops and bottoms of some of pockets to make them "baby bottle friendly". There was enough cute Daisy Kingdom fabric in my stash to make the lining. I hope my friend's daughter in law is as thrilled with this bag as I am!

Completed first Lucy Bag

While I was on vacation, I completed my first Lucy bag. Two Old Bags makes the Lucy bag pattern. It's available from Knitwits http://www.knitwitts.com/item/The_Lucy_Bag/1991/p2c80 or you can do a Google search to find it elsewhere. This is a very cool pattern that has one long and one short handle ; the long one is looped through the short one to close the bag. I saw one of these bags made up in my local knitting shop and fell in love with it. For my first bag, I used Cascade 220 wool and made the "tall" version of the bag and knitted the bottom and stripes with a contrasting color. I have to say when I completed the bag, it just looked huge. However, once felted twice in the washing machine, it is a very handsome but reasonably large bag. I am already working on my second and third Lucy bags in different sizes and colors. These bags are knitted with Patton's wool.

Cozies for garage door openers

Well, this may seem a bit strange, but I whipped up "cozies" for our garage door openers. Years ago, the hardware that attached mine to the sun visor got lost or broken and I didn't feel like it looked too nice even though it still worked to open the door. So, since I'm on a felting jag and thinking about making felted just about anythings these days, I came upon the idea of making a cozy that would make it look more attractive. The heart marks the spot where you press the button. Jerry got one too, be he wanted his to be plain, no heart.

Recipe for a Garage Door Opener Cozy:

1 recycled sweater, felted nicely, cut from the sleeve a portion about 6 inches from the cuff up.
Turn inside out and stitch across bottom.
Attach strip of Velcro to top inside of back
If desired, stitch a design on the front to mark the spot you need to press to open the garage door.
Voila! You have a garage door opener that is a fashion statement (mine matches the interior of my car)

Exciting news

Lots of exciting news here. Today, I found out I was featured in my first (at least I think it is my first ) Treasury on Etsy. I joined EtsyFAST, i.e. Etsy Fiber Arts Street Team. This is a group for Etsy sellers who are wanting to get the word out about Etsy and Fiber Arts. Every fiber artist is welcome here from knitting to weaving. It seems like a very talented group of folks and here is a link to their Yahoo page if you want to check it out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EtsyFAST/

And here's a link to the Treasury though as I understand it, each one is only available for a couple of days so I believe it will be available until Friday night. http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=2657

I also recently completed what is my favorite felted bag. I started with a beautiful Woolrich sweater that I rescued from the Goodwill. This bag pattern had to be a bit different than my previous ones because it was a turtleneck sweater. I used the grey trim around the neck and waist to create a design that I needle felted onto the front pocket of the bag and then completed it with blanket stitch in grey to match.

The turquoise blue felted bag I posted earlier sold so I've made three sales so far. That may not seem like much, but I've never tried to sell my hand-crafted items before, so it is a big deal to me. I also found several new thrift store sweater candidates for bags in the future. I'm loving making something new from these recycled beauties.

I'm making good progress on my "Lucy" bag, though I hope to finish it on my upcoming vacation and will post the finished photos on my return. I'm traveling to California, then Canada over the next 12 days, so I am covering a lot of geography but also hope to have the opportunity for lots of knitting and some yarn shopping as well.

Needle Felted Nano case

Today, I created my first felted case for a Nano. I decided to put a clip/hook on it so it can be attached to a purse, backpack, etc. It was my first venture into needle felting also. I used some tapestry yarn I had and my new tools--Clover Felting mat and Clover Felting Needle Tool It was very easy to do, you just have to be very careful to keep your fingers away from the extremely sharp needles in the tool.

Yesterday, I had a great find at Goodwill, a collection of different yarns in pinks and fuchsias. I knitted up small swatches which I am felting in order to find out how much they will felt before deciding what I am going to create with them.

Today, I read about dropping backgrounds out of photos using Photo shop. Hope to experiment with that later and improve my photos. My Flickr account has most of my project photos now as well as pictures of some of my favorite places. There is a link on the right and I put a widget at the bottom of my blog that displays some of my Flickr photos.

Recycle, Reuse

I love to recycle and reuse. In fact, I am a thrift store junkie. My favorite thrift store of all time is the "White Elephant" in Green, Valley, Arizona. People line up around the store before they open each morning and the inventory of the White Elephant is nothing short of amazing. I've bought some wonderful wool yarns, knitting needles and an assortment of other things there on my winter visits to Arizona.






However, here I am in sunny (hot, it was 100 degrees here today) Idaho and I have to make do with the garden variety of thrift stores we have locally. Sometimes, I make a great find, like the wool sweaters I bought recently in Boise and which I have been making into cute felted bags. I finished the first one, a burgundy stripe that felted up beautifully. Today, I perfected my technique and pattern and made a lovely turquoise bag. People probably think I'm crazy because it's 100 degrees out and I'm shopping for wool sweaters.


Today, at our local DI (Deseret Industries) thrift store, I had an incredible find...a brand new, with tags, cashmere red cardigan from Lands' End for $4! It's too nice to felt, I'll probably wear it this winter.


I've had a busy couple of days, listing several new items on Etsy and creating a Flickr account full of photos as well as creating the two bags. I'm adding a hyperlink for my Flickr account to this page.

Home Made Originals

I wanted to explain the name of my blog/Etsy shop, Home Made Originals. In a way it is self-explanatory, but there is some history behind it that I believe is interesting.

When I was growing up (first in Canada and later in central California) my Mother was the "queen" of all things homemade...she made her own bread from scratch, made most of our clothes, knitted, needle pointed, made rugs, etc. We had homemade cookies rather than store-bought and home made pies, no cake mixes or other mixes of any kind. Of course, she didn't work outside the home like I do and she had much more time available to make these things.

I remember a phase I went through where I really wanted the "store bought" stuff, e.g. "Wonder" Bread (is that an oxymoron?) instead of the good homemade stuff which smelled wonderful when it came out of the oven. Anyway, I now know how special that was/is . It has become almost a novelty in this day and age to see things made from "scratch". So that is why I chose the name I did. The name reminds me of my Mom and all the wonderful things she made for me over the years she was alive.

Happy Fourth of July!

Cat in sink

Introducing, Snickers, my cat, in one of her favorite locations on a hot day or night. Often this is where I find her in the morning. Snickers is actually much more like a dog, than the typical house cat. She has a great deal of personality and is very attached to her "humans". If she is left alone for several days (with food and water of course, or infrequent visitors to check on her) she "talks" for days after our return as if to make it very clear that she doesn't want us to go away again.

No new projects or completed items to post today, I'm resting after completion of the denim quilt.

Denim Quilt Finished!

I am very happy to report that the denim quilt has been completed. I'll post a few photos to show today's progress which involved fastening the batting and backing to the quilt and finishing it. I tied it in Paton's Classic Wool, denim marl, which complimented the denim very well.