Be My Valentine!

In the mood for love? I made two sets of heart ornaments joined by one red ribbon this week, since I realized that the annual love-fest is just a little over two weeks away- can you believe it? All you guys (and girls) out there with sweethearts better not forget the big day! You don't want to be in the dog house, do you? ;)

These are made from fleece with hand embroidered faces, and they also have small felt heart accents.

"Will you be my Valentine?" Red Bear asked White Bear. "Why yes, of course I will!" White Bear exclaimed happily, as Red Bear gave her the Valentine he had hand-made for her.

You can find Red and White Bear happily waiting to be adopted in my etsy shop along with their heart shaped friends, here.

Hooray for vintage shops

One of the things that Ben loves is to check out thrift and antique stores in his never-ending search for more and more crewel embroidery pieces for his office wall. (More about that another time.) We usually end up in at least one or two stores in every city or town that we visit or are driving through. While he's on his crewel quest,  I wander around the shops searching for unusual sewing items or plush.
One of the great towns for antiques is Medford, Oregon. They have quite a few large antique "mall" shops and we usually find great pieces when we are heading through there. To make a long story short (too late! ;D) I found this baby in my wanderings- a vintage sewing case!

It's made completely out of wood, and each side telescopes open to reveal drawers. I couldn't resist having this- the only other old sewing cases I have seen are made from wicker or fabric, and aren't really my thing. I'm a sucker for cool wooden pieces, whether it's furniture, toys, etc.

Here's a photo of what it looked like in the shop with both sides open. I'm looking forward to cleaning it and loading it up with supplies.  :)

A new plush for my collection- woot!

Meet Aaron Luckybones, the newest member of my collection. Made by the super fantastic Ninon, I've been wanting one of her larger pieces for a long time. I found this one when I was lucky enough to have the chance to get to Schmancy Toys right before Christmas.

I love the pom poms on the sides of the head, and the little wee ones on his shoes- and that grin is awesome. His arms are jointed and posable which is terrific. The mixture of materials is really great! Ninon really puts some character into her plush creations, and the names she choses for them are utterly quirky and yet they fit like gloves.

You can see more of the cool world of Ninon if you head on over to her blog, where she writes about everything that is interesting her at the moment, as well as her newest plush creations.

Here are some photos of all the great plush and things I found at Schmancy- if you are in the Seattle area, you should definitely check it out.

I found more plush goodies and other things on my Christmas break, which I will be sharing over the next little while, so stay tuned! :)

A very fun Christmas commission

One of my tasks this December was to create 3 specific types of plush for Christmas gifts. The commission was from one of my best customers, and it was a really nice creative challenge making them for her.

The first one I was asked to make was a Nutcracker, and after doing a bunch of research and drawing up lots of variations on the idea, I settled on this design. Meet Hans the Nutcracker:

Hans patrols the town, making sure that everyone is in the Christmas spirit. In his spare time he cultivates both holly and mistletoe. He's made of flannel, with fleece for his face and hands, and faux fur for his hair and mustache. His teeth and facial features are made from felt.

My next objective was creating Eve, the Christmas Fairy- this one also went through a bunch of sketches before I settled on the final design idea:

I took my inspiration from a Christmas tree- and created my own fabric for her dress from two variations on a green dot cotton fabric, cutting them out and then sewing them together to create a tree-ish design. I added candy cane striped tights, with snowflake shoes, and sparkly felt buckles, and topped it off with a sparkly white felt pointsettia flower in her hair.

Her wings are created from the same candy cane striped cotton, with bright pink flannel centers.

And lastly, and MOST challenging was this guy, Optimus Prime:

In case any of you don't know, Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots. He's made of mostly fleece, with felt accent pieces. I hand sewed on his helmet antennae, exhaust pipes on his shoulders, and the tires and gas tanks on the sides of his legs. I had to somewhat simplify his design to be able to make him in my style, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way that he turned out.

These were a TON of fun to make, and I enjoyed this commission a lot. It was really great to make Optimus, since I was/am a big fan of the Transformers. My sister and I had quite a few of the original toys when we were kids- and I kick myself for getting rid of them when we "grew up."

Anyway, I hope that these were a big hit in the home where they landed for Christmas- I know that they almost weren't allowed to leave my house when my family saw how they turned out. ;D

Well, that's it for 2011- I'll be back in 2012 with new creations. I'm off to spend some time relaxing, re-charging the creative juices, catching up on my reading, and viewing all the content on my DVR that I missed while I was sewing away the past month. :)
Here's to a great year in 2012 to you all!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you and your family have a wonderful holiday season! 

Another of my commissions this month was this guy, Keyrock, the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. Based on a character created by the late, great,  Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live.

He's made from actual wool suiting in a black pin-stripe, with a white cotton shirt and red tie, and his face/hands are fleece. His facial elements are made from felt, as is his huge and cumbersome 80s cell phone. His hair is this crazy black faux-fur, that I knew would be perfect for caveman hair when I saw it in the fabric store.

New plush for the holidays

I didn't have as much time to make all the plush ideas I wanted to make for the holidays this year, but I managed to create a few fun pieces, like these Snowman Head Pillows,

 and these 2 sets of holiday Bears, of which only the set of the Green Bear and mini Red Bear are left in the shop.

 I added the Gingerbread Circus Clown to the shop- he was in the Plush Team's Group show at the HotPop Gallery in Milwaukee earlier this year,

and of course you can find the Mini-Yetis hanging out, enjoying the wintry weather and looking for new homes and new friends to have adventures with,

and there's always the group of Holiday Rabbits that would be happy to be sent off to explore new places this winter, as well.

I'm working madly on new things for a great cause and some items for a great customer at the moment, and when I am done, I'll be sure to post the results of all my sewing frenzy right here, so stay tuned! :D

Langdon Family Plushcatures

Wondering what I have been up to lately? ;D I was commissioned to make these plush for my good friend Abby's birthday last week, and it was a total blast transforming her family into their plush selves. Here are the real Langdons:

And here are their plush counterparts, starting with the birthday girl:

Abby loves purple and turquoise, and wears tunics and leggings most of the time. I chose this starry fabric to represent her sparkling personality as well as her love of all kinds of purple. She wears her Uggs a lot as well, so I made some in a purple corduroy. I hand embroidered the eye details on all of the family, it seemed to fit them better than felt ones.

Next we have her husband, Jason:

He wanted me to make him in a blazer and t-shirt, with the t-shirt having the bunny logo of Abby's plush company as the graphic element, and the t-shirt is made from an up-cycled t-shirt. He wears his Chucks a lot, so I added those as his shoes. His blazer is made out of wool.

Their son, Brody:

I was asked to create a Lego t-shirt for Brody, and to put him in jeans and black shoes. Both Brody and Jason have two functional pockets on the back of their jeans, too.  Teeny tiny pockets, but still pockets. ;D

Last but not least, we have their daughter, Kalli:

Kalli loves the color pink, so I chose a fun graphic pink printed cotton for her t-shirt, a pink and green polka dot for her leggings, and a light pink for her crocs. She likes to wear tutus, so I made my very first one (and did it right the first try- woohoo!) out of a bright sparkly chiffon-type fabric. She also always wears a barrette or pin to hold back her hair, so I created one out of a couple of pink flower shaped buttons and some green felt leaves to bring in the green from her shirt and leggings. She also has sparkly green rick-rack trim around her sleeves. Can't get enough sparkle at her age. ;D

Here they are as a family:

Happy Birthday to you, Abby! It was wonderful to be a part of your birthday celebration this year. :D