Joining the Challenge

cuff in progress
Originally uploaded by magscrafts

I have been reading Tara's posts lately, reading about her "use what you have" challenge. I admit that I have had little twinges of guilt, because first, I have been crafting, but stuff totally unrelated to business, and two, I have been spending way too much on supplies. I think my knitting and other leisurely crafts has been a help to my sanity, but it is time to buckle down and get back to business related work!

Anyway, I am taking on Tara's challenge, and I am adding for myself that not only will I use what I have on hand, but I will work on finishing some stuff that I had already started. I also want to make a little headway every day. So today I walked up to my sewing table, and dug around a little bit looking at what was in the heap, and found some pieced patchwork made by Karen of Chickadee Friends Studio. I had intended to make a quilted, beaded cuff, but had fizzled when Christmas approached. This morning I quilted the piece of fabric, fused it to a lovely green batik fabric backing, and finished off the edge. I hunted the button box for a great vintage button, made the buttonhole to fit. Now I need to sew on the buttons and add the beads, but all of the machine sewing is done!

Thanks for the inspiration, Tara!

Woven Wonders

woven fabric 1
Originally uploaded by magscrafts

A few weeks ago, Karen (my partner in Chickadee Friends) and I went to an astounding exhibit of woven glass art pieces. Examples of the woven glass can be seen here. The artists are named Markow and Norris. Anyway, this exhibit was so wonderful, neither of us can get it out of our head.

Fast forward to Christmas, and I get an electric rotary cutting machine, which cuts strips galore with no muscle power needed from me. So tonight I cut a ton of strips from fabric in an assortment of rainbow colors, and wove them together to make a new fabric. Before I did my weaving, I pinned some parchment onto a board, and then layered some Mistyfuse fusible web, then pinned my white strips vertically. I wove my colored strips in, pinned the ends, and then ironed the whole thing to my Mistyfuse. I plan to cut this up and use it on some pieces I am doing for an art swap.

I want to play with different textures with this method too.

New Ventures

Making Jewelry Displays
Originally uploaded by magscrafts

So this week I made some unique jewelry displays (as pictured here!). They were easy to make, using bristol board, wallpaper from a sample book and some little brads meant for scrapbooking. I think they turned out great! I also made some necklace stands- a small size meant to show off pendants.

The reason I made these displays is because this month I am starting to rent a space to sell from in a real life shop- The Shops at Fabian House. I was in there yesterday, getting trained on using the register and setting up my area. One thing is clear- I need more stuff in there! I am free to use things from other areas of the shop to arrange my items on. My area at the moment has a large but low coffee table in it, so we looked around for items that would help me get some height. We brought in a wrought iron shelf, a wooden box and a little mini stool. I think the displays I made look good in there, too. I can't wait until next week when I take in the sea glass jewelry I got from Tara!

I also worked with Tara on a logo for a new venture- my friend Karen and I are partnering up to do some fiber art projects. I put together the logo with some other info and ordered hang tags and business cards for Chickadee Friends Studio. I also got a web address, now I just need to finish the webpage for it.

The next few days I need to be totally dedicated to making bookmarks, as I have a couple of orders now that add up to 84 bookmarks I need to get done! So far I have been getting ribbons ready.