My new life as a stay at home mom / crafter

When Miles is napping things look like this 

But when he's awake they look like this 

Obviously things are much more exciting with Miles to play with. 

All Done

I finished some pouches today for a wholesale order.   

Their zippers are so fun and colorful.

Let me make it easy for you

Every one always complains about how hard I am to shop for. I admit it's true I am difficult to buy for. So with my birthday coming up in just over a month I thought I would put together a treasury to help everyone out.

Come by and check out all the goodies here.

I swear I am working.

Sometimes when I don't have a constant supply of finished product I feel unproductive. I know every day I am working. Maybe I am not completing projects but I swear I am working everyday.
So, in defense of my productivity here is a sampling of what I have been working on the past few days.

See I am getting stuff done.

Don't forget I am having an Etsy-versary Sale in my Etsy shop. Everything is marked down 15% off.

Etsy-versary Sale

This weekend marks my 5 year Etsy-versary. Wow, 5 years is a long time. To celebrate I am having a sale in my Etsy shop. All items are 15% now through November 12th. Come shop and celebrate with me.

A late Halloween post

I purchased a costume specifically because I didn't want to make one. I didn't have time and didn't really want deal with it.
I decided I wanted to be She RA because She RA was my awesome hero when I was like 4. So I found this costume online and bought it.

Shortly after the costume arrived I realized it was designed for a mutant woman with tiny perky breasts situated somewhere on her neck. 

So, it turns out I had to do some costume making anyway. I ended up having to cut out the entire top of my costume and remake it. While I was at it I decided to make proper straps, some awesome boob wings like She RA has and some awesome gold arm cuffs. 

It actually came out really well. It had been a wile since I had drafted a pattern and amazingly I still knew what I was doing. 

I apparently don't have any good full length pictures of me in my costume but here is one of me and Eleanor

She was dressed as a bee.

And here is one of me punching my husband Skelator in the face. 

Thank you Streetcolor

A couple weeks ago I posted about knit graffiti and how excited I was to see it locally. This weekend we discovered that Streetcolor did a memorial piece on the stop sign at the intersection where our son Zachary lost his life in a pedestrian accident in February of 2009.

I just wanted to say a very special thank you to Streetcolor. It means so much that you took the time to make something so beautiful in our son's memory. I know he would have loved it too.

Happy thoughts and good vibes

For the rest of the day I will fill myself with happy thoughts.

These inspiring goodies are brought to you by dazeychic. Check them out for some adorable prints and happy thoughts.

A productive weekend

My weekends are usually spent running around, doing chores, chasing a crazy two year old and very little sewing time is ever allowed. This weekend was different though. I think it is because I was in a bad mood all of Saturday and Sunday and no one wanted to be around me that I was able to lock my self in my sewing room for hours at a time.
I was very productive.

So, I was able to get some new things listed in my shop yesterday and there is more coming today. 

Eleanor Bee

I found Miss Eleanor's bee costume from last Halloween. She still hates it but darn she is cute in it.

Front Page Fun

Last week I was on the front page of Etsy not one but two times.
My wallet was featured on Thursday

and on Friday the treasury I curated was featured

I was pretty excited.



Knit Graffiti

I don't make it to Berkeley much now that we are living in Oakland but we wanted to visit the play ground at Zach's old school and let let Miles run free for a bit. Before I could do that though I needed to refuel with some coffee. So, we stopped at Milano on Bancroft to get me a super yummy mocha bianca. When we got out of the car I was so excited to see some super awesome knit graffiti. This was my first real life encounter so I felt the need to take pictures.

Aren't they cute? I love the ruffles and dingle berries.

New hair clips

I have a bunch of new hair clips sitting around waiting to be listed in the shop

Maybe that will be my goal for the day.

A new belt for my new dress

I am a sucker and a half for DIY blog posts. I love when other crafters share sewing ideas with their readers. When I saw this Bow Belt Tutorial by Tilly and the Buttons I knew I would have to try it out one day.

Well the need for a belt finally came along a couple of weeks ago. While visiting my sister we made a quick stop at a thrift store and I found the sweetest vintage plaid dress. It fits me perfectly but it was missing a belt.

So I put this tutorial to good use and made myself a pretty new belt.

I made my belt a little wider than suggested and I love the way it turned out. It was a super easy quick sew. I am sure I will be making more of these in the future.

Nothing really.

I have several blog posts planned out in my had but I just can't seem to get myself together enough to actually take the pictures I need to write them. We all know that a blog post without pictures is BORING so I have neglected to post anything new. Sorry.

I have decided to post something old.

Really, all I have is a picture But I promise to post a real post soon. Something about sewing.

A couple weeks ago we went to a good friend's wedding and this is a picture of Miles and me making our get away. Miles was a bit difficult and we ended up missing the entire ceremony due to his need to run around and speak loudly. But he sure looked cute in his skinny dress pants and super scene vest.

I found you

I am really bad about losing things. Or maybe I should say I am really good at losing things? That makes me sound better right? Anyway, a few weeks ago I had a couple wallets that were almost finished and I decided to leave the finishing for the following day. The next day I sat down to sew and there was only on wallet. I finished the one I had and then embarked on a frantic search to find the missing one. I wanted to find it so bad I even cleaned my sewing room (amazing I know) but the wallet was no where to be found. After a couple of days of searching I gave up. I decided the lost wallet had either fallen into the trash never to be seen again or had been taken away by the cat (she likes to steal things from my sewing room).

The other day I was getting an order ready to go.  I opened up the suitcase I keep my finished wallets in and there hiding between it's finished friends was my missing wallet. I was so excited to have finally found it that I immediately sat down and finished it and I love it.

My First Magazine Feature. Woo Hoo!

I was recently contacted by Diablo Magazine to be included in an an artical about handmade gifts by East Bay crafters. Well, the article came out this weekend and I must say it feels super awesome to be in print.

(hey look, that's me)

If you would like to check it out for yourself the article is in the October issue of Diablo magazine and it's here in Diablo's website.

Yay!

Busy, Busy, Busy

This month has been crazy busy. We haven't been home a single weekend yet and we are leaving tomorrow afternoon for yet another weekend trip. Because of this I have done no sewing, very little cleaning and Miss Eleanor is in dire need of my affection.

The sweet little thing napped on my lap for about an hour yesterday while I watched a little TV. She didn't even get feisty when I started messing with her.

Next week I will get back on track. I will do my laundry and even put it away, I will get back to sewing and snuggle with the baby kitty as much as possible.

Train Sewing

I put together this bag of sewing goodies last weekend to work on during our camping trip. I had a grand plans of sewing on the beach while enjoying the sun and the sound of the ocean. I did spend quite a bit of time on the beach enjoying the sun and sound of the ocean but it was far too windy to do any amount of productive sewing. So this poor little bag of supplies spent to weekend in the tent.

I am making up for lost productivity now though and toting this bag around with me on my daily commute. These days instead of playing Tetris and Bubble Bobble on my phone I am stitching away and somehow it is much more relaxing.

New Hair Pins

I have been keeping myself very busy lately. Birthday parties, sewing, being a mommy and a wife. It's all very time consuming but awesome. I try to get in at least an hour of sewing everyday except Sunday which is my house cleaning day (cleaning is not awesome).
Last week I finished up a bunch hair pins that have been making their way into the shop.

New Labels

I keep taking pictures of things that may be interesting to someone other than me with the intention of writing a post about it. Then life happens, I forget about it and it gets lost in a sea of pictures on my computer. Here is one lost item I found and remembered I wanted to share.
A couple of months ago I completely ran out of labels. I was running low on funds and I couldn't afford to spend $60 to have more made so I needed a less expensive alternative. I was inspired by this long ago read post by Blue Eyed Freckle and decided to do a simple design and print them with Spoon Flower.
I have always wanted to print something on spoon flower but always feel overwhelmed when attempting to come up with a design cool enough to print onto fabric. So, I guess printing labels is a good way to dip your toes into this whole fabric printing world.
Here is what I came up with for my first try

They are super simple but I still love them. I just interfaced the back and cut them up. This time around I just got an 8x8 test swatch for $5 and I got 30 labels out of it which is an awesome deal. I am really happy with how they cam out so I am working on a design that is a bit more interesting.

Window Shop Wednesday: Anthropologie

I shouldn't do this but I do it all the time (at least once a week). I am filling up my pretend cart on the Anthropologie website and drooling over beautiful clothing that I most likely will never have the pleasure of owning. But it's fun to pretend and hey my birthday is coming up in like 4 months *wink, wink*.
Here are a few of my favorite items.

Ok, I should probably stop now. Honestly though, I could go on and on and on.

If you are interested in getting me and early birthday gift you know where to go. Contact me for sizes.