The King and Queen of Hearts

I've been wanting to do my own version of the King and Queen of Hearts for a long time, and since our theme for February over on "Big C, little a" is Valentine's, this seemed to be the perfect time. I've done illustrations of various versions of the King and Queen over the years (how can you not be inspired by Disney's version in "Alice in Wonderland"?) but this is my first attempt at plush royalty. All the details took me a little longer than I wanted, and being sick pushed them back a week from getting finished. I'm thinking of using them as my submission to Stuffed! magazine, so we'll see. They're made from red velvet, fleece, felt, ribbon and printed cottons. I wanted to incorporate some subtle heart shapes as well, so I embroidered the curls in the Queen's hair into hearts, and the king's mustache flows into a warped heart shape. For more WIP pics, head on over to my flickr.

Fabric collage

I've been stuck with a horrible cold this week, unable to really have enough energy to sit at the machine and sew, which really sucked. There's only so much reading you can do, and even movies get old after a few days, so I decided to haul out my bag of fabric scraps and at least do something creative. I was watching the "Sex and the City" movie as I played around with the scraps, and found myself creating this shopping fashionista collage. It was a fun way to pass the time, and I'm thinking I'll do more collages in the future.


Oh yeah, and this is what Valentine's Day looked like around our house:




It was a good thing I had the chance to make these before I got sick. This was the first time I broke out the letter shapes, and I really like the way the letters turned out-the possibilities with words are endless- you could do words for any and all emotions. I wonder if anyone's ever baked "You Piss Me Off" cookies before? :) Oohhh, just think of the colors of icing you'd use for that! :D

Jack Frost's new home

In November, Jack Frost was bought by a 3rd grade teacher in Michigan. Judi told me that she was going to use Jack Frost in January as a class project, since January is such a dull month for both teachers and students. (I remember going back to school in January and just thinking it was torture after all the fun of Christmas!)
In Jack Frost's story I wrote how he loves to paint frost on everything, and is inspired by his favorite artist Jackson Pollock. Judi and the school's art teacher got together and they came up with a dual project for the kids: each child would write their own version of Jack Frost's story and then in art class they would learn about Jackson Pollock and his drip paintings, then make their own Pollock inspired painting. Judi sent me an email saying the class had made a book for me and she was mailing it off. I was so delighted and inspired when I opened up the envelope and this great handmade book came out! It is full of Jack Frost stories from each kid, along with a letter to me, and pictures of them and their Pollocks. A really fun idea and it made my day to read each story and learn how much the kids responded to Pollock and his paintings. Most of the kids put down Pollock as their favorite artist and a lot now want to paint like him someday, it was amazing to be a small part of the kids discovering and loving art! I posted a couple of the student's paintings, there were too many to post them all, but they are all amazing- such freedom to have fun and just BE- something that most adult artists struggle with their whole lives to recapture- myself included! :D
According to the kids' stories Jack lives: in the cold part of Canada, in an igloo in Mississippi, inside a red oak tree, inside an icicle, at the kid's house, in an igloo in the backyard, the North Pole, Antartica, and in an icy mailbox.
He works anywhere from: all night, from 7pm to 6am, from 1:30 am to 1 pm, from 3am tp 5am, and my favorite: from 5am until 6:02am. I love those extra 2 minutes. :)
In the summer, Jack spends his time: on the planet Neptune (ice bowling with 6 pins), in the Arctic, in Antarctica, in the kid's freezer eating ice cream (mint of course) all day while he hibernates, at the North pole with Santa, at the beach where he swims all day with the sharks, in Florida making flowers freeze, and in Alaska where he changes his name to Jack Sunshine and gives people sunburns instead of frostbite.

Thanks to Judi and her third graders for making my week~ I'm keeping their book in my studio as a reminder to just let go and create! I'm off to go and sit down and write responses to 30 letters... so have a great rest of the week everyone.

In the mood...

A few of my sketchbook doodles for Valentine's Day ideas. I wanted to get a few things done to sell in my shop this year, but it didn't seem to happen. Next year for sure!

Karolin

I finished Karolin up last night and she's off in the mail as we speak! Hopefully Eva's little sister gets a kick out of it. She's about 11 inches wide by 12 inches tall. Eva told me the characteristics of Karolin that stood out the most were her blue eyes, big smile, the gap between her top 2 teeth, wearing headbands and having her hair in braids, and that her favorite color is light blue. Oh- and that she's definitely a girly girl who loves to wear skirts and dresses. It'll be fun to hear what Karolin has to say about getting plushed. :D

Karolin WIP pics

A quick progress report on Karolin's plushcature. She's pretty close to being finished, I'll have her totally finished and ready to mail off by tuesday. Just gotta add the finishing touches and get her stuffed!
Hope everyone had a great weekend, and hooray for the stay of execution on the CPSIA!! PHEW!! :D

New project

So I haven't been slacking, just trying to get back into a rhythm of working after having all that lovely time off. I've been busily sketching up ideas for new plush, and I have a few really fun ones that I'm starting work on. One of them is this project: Eva of "Effunia" asked me to do a "plushcature" of her little sister Karolin, as a gift for her 10th birthday in a couple of weeks. (obviously I must get this to her before the CPSIA goes into effect on the 10th, wouldn't want to be the first one nabbed for violating this totally cracked law...)
Eva's little sister has a ton of personality, she is a fun person to make into plush! I will be posting more pics as I get further along.
Since I made the plush of Ben and myself for our niece's Christmas gift, I've gotten some interest in people asking if they or their family (or pets) can get plushed. I'm definitely up for that, and it is quite a lot of fun! If any of you are interested, feel free to let me know. You can leave me a comment on my blog, or convo me through etsy. I will be putting it up as a feature on my etsy store by the end of the weekend.

Holiday additions to my Plush collection

I got a cool new dog plush from Ben for part of my Christmas gift. He bought it at an antique store in Michigan. His Aunt's friend told him that it was the mascot for Michigan State College- before they became just Michigan State. They think that he's pretty old, but don't have an exact date. He's made of felt, and had hand painted eyebrows. I LOVE the expression on his face.

The next two are my purchases from Schmancy. We managed to visit the shop over the holidays, and Kristen has some great plush in there- it was all I could do to restrain myself and come away with just these guys. It was a tough decision to narrow it down. Head on over to her online shop to snap up some new plush for your collection and support both Kristen's shop and your fellow plush artists! Down with the CPSIA, and Hooray for plush!!

The fist one is "Schnee Meister" by SOWA. I have a soft spot for "abominable snowman/yeti" designs, and this guy is great!! His face, hands and feet are SO soft. I love the 3D aspects of his face, and his teeth are actually that soft craft foam. Terrific idea.
The next one is "Fat Coco" by We Dream of Meat (great name!) They had 3 different ones to choose from, but Coco had to come home with me. She's made of felt, and her expression just screams "feed me!," but in a cute way of course. The plush addiction- I mean collecting- continues... :D!
Have a great week everyone!