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! :)