Justin was out of town on a field trip for the last three days, so I was all on my own for a few nights! Or rather, I should say it was just the three of us.



Poor Indy. That bunny has been tormenting him.

While I usually launch into super-productive mode on the nights Justin is away, I was a bit preoccupied with MySims to get much done. (Luckily I've almost 'beat' the game by getting everything possible, there will not be much reason to play after that) But I did make a point to tackle one "been meaning to" task each night.

The first night I decided to cover the armrests on my work chair.


The armrests have been held together with duct tape for years. The tape shifts over time, gets sticky, and is super annoying until I apply another layer. I just recently realized that fabric might solve this problem, and after 2 1/2 hours of handstitching (yikes) I am so happy to have this done! I think they turned out pretty cute as well.

The next night's project was not so time consuming. I finally pulled the decorations off of our large book shelf and took the time to arrange everything. The shelves house quite a few of my pieces from ceramics class and are actually pretty light on books.



Let's see, what all did I make on those shelves? On the top shelf are some candles stacked up, and a plate in the back right. Down from that we have the tortoise & hare incense burner, then the terra cotta sculpture below that (next to Justin's Teacher of the Year eagle trophy). And on the bottom shelf is a somewhat ugly bottle (the top & bottom look great apart from one another, but I don't think they quite work together).

I have been so busy with ambigrams orders lately, I haven't had time to take any custom sewing orders since before Christmas.... And I am loving it!

I have always thought I would do well working on the computer all day, and that seems to be true. Sure, by the end of the work day I am ready to quit, but I am comfortable clicking away for hours. When I sew, I can only work for about an hour before I am so sick of it I have to take a break. That is not a good sign my friends!

I've been feeling pressured to get something up on Phunky Monkey, even if it is just a few pre-made items this month, so that I don't loose my customers from inactivity. But I don't know when I would have the time to sew anything, but more importantly, I do not have one iota of interest in sewing anything, any time soon.

I have always believed that if you do not enjoy your job, you should try to get a new one. The recent changes have got me thinking, 'what if I did shut Phunky Monkey down for good?'

This probably does not come as a suprise to my long-time readers. You may remember this post from nearly a year ago, when I said ideally I would like to work on the ambigrams full time (working on other projects during down-times). Now I have enough orders for this to be a possibility.

I find it funny to go back and read that entry, how I said that I enjoyed working on the smaller custom orders (wallets, hip pouches, etc.), and was considering not taking orders for dresses or skirts because of the length of time they took to make. And what happened? People started ordering super-complex pieces, things that took 2 to 3 times as long to make. No wonder I feel so burned out.

The only downside to closing Phunky Monkey would be the feeling that I am letting down a lot of people. I have had a lot of interest, a lot of requests (though mostly for the complex work, which I do not think I can handle anymore). But I know that there are so many people out there who *do* want to custom order something, taking one last batch of orders would not help, people would still beg for me to take just one more order.

The whole thing seems like such a big decision to make, but I feel like the signs are pretty clear. Though I am not looking forward to actually putting up a note on the site or sending out an email to my mailing list. How fitting would it be for me to end PM in February, the same month I started it, 5 years ago? I will definitely have to re-think how I want to set up my work room now.

This skirt has been a long time coming!



On the front we have the mother with her three children. The two daughters sleep at her feet as her sun nurses under the full moon.



I love the deep purples, blues & teals along with touches of black.
The children's handprints are also found on the back of the skirt ~



A view of the underskirt ~ black with a strip of each of the children's colors and a triple moon applique on the back.



You can temporarily see the rest of the photos here.

I got the last of the Christmas orders in the mail today and am putting the finishing touches on the last custom sewing order. Less than half an hour of work and then I'll be taking pictures of it tomorrow!

I finished up this lovely skirt,
all in mixed patchwork in shades of blue, brown & green ~


Also, I didn't take pictures, but I re-made this bear as well ~


Meanwhile I have already begun work on the load of ambigram orders that need to be finished by Christmas. I am happy to see that everything is still right on track. I've been putting in a lot of evening & weekend hours to keep up, hopefully things will be a little calmer this week and I can take a bit of break after Christmas.

One custom order down, three to go...

First, an in progress shot! I had the sketch of the pegasus done & was getting ready to start piecing in the fabric pieces for the applique. (I think I love the drawing more than the finished applique, but I'm probably biased towards a white pegasus)



This is a large bag with a phoenix applique on one side & a pegasus on the other. Warm hues and cool hues against a black wide wale corduroy.





I forgot to take a shot of the bag against me before it was mailed,
so to give you an idea of scale, the bag is about 10x14 inches.

As promised, here is what my aunt suprised me with on Thanksgiving ~



A dress form!
Someone she knew was giving this away & she grabbed it for me ;)

And it's in my size! I would have been happy even if it wasn't, they are always good for displaying creations. It's in really good condition too ~ I have the post and some weird hem length contraption, though it is missing the base & one of the knobs. I'll have to see what I can order or make for those.

I am at a bit of a loss on how to adjust the knobs though, is there some trick? I'm guessing there is a latch I need to hit before the knobs will turn (or else they are really, really stuck!). I'm so pleased, I think every sewer wants one of these, but they can be so pricey.

The dress form was also accompanied by a box of sewing supplies, all sorts of random things ~



There are many packages of each item. We've got all kinds of fabric markers (disappering ink and chalk powder), "Made with love by your favorite aunt" fabric labels, a whole ton of thimbles, and an assortment of tiny platinum & gold quilting needles.

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to use most of the supplies, which are geared more for quilting. I will probably keep a few of the tapestry length needles, gift some of the items to mom (who was probably jealous), and list anything left on Etsy.

The bad luck continued last night as I went to buy a temperature control for my soldering iron. They had none at Hobby Lobby, even though I swear I've seen them there before, so it looks like I will have to order one online.

I picked up some canvas stretchers while I was there to build a few screens for screenprinting. I pulled out the organza fabric, scissors, staple gun & duct tape and went to work. And three staples in, I ran out. I assumed the gun had come with an extra pack of staples, but found nothing when I checked my tool box.

Justin asked me what the crafting planet is, and if it is in retrograde.
Today I am hoping to break the curse!


Today I also bring you new pictures of the giftbags, which I took with the lightbox. The results turned out pretty well, even though the reflective surfaces of the background papers were a little bit of a challenge.

All of the backgrounds are wrapping paper I bought on sale last year at Hobby Lobby. The set is just beautiful ~ a red spiral print, red with silver dots, and silver stripes. The red bag was a bit lost against the red paper, so I changed it to a green on the computer.







I was quite pleased that I only had to take one set of pictures for both the CD & DVD sized bag. Most of the shots feature the top of the bag, and I simply re-sized the full view pictures. You can see the pics of the bags open, and with the tags tied on, at my Etsy shop.

I also made some matching gift tags to include with the bags ~

Well, after getting motivated to be productive last weekend,
I've been too busy to take pictures of what I worked on!

These fabric gift bags came together really quickly. I used the new red & green Chirstmas fabrics I picked up & made 2 DVD & 2 CD bags of each color ~



Now I am trying to figure out a nice background to photograph these against for Etsy. I would like to have some wrapped presents to display them against, but nothing I've bought is a good size. It would feel pretty wasteful to wrap empty boxes, especially when I am making these bags to help reduce wrapping paper waste!

I hate how I can whip up small projects quickly, but getting them ready to sell takes *forever*. At least I can re-use the bag pictures to sell more than one (unlike the glass pendants)


I also edited my Christmas ambigram to get it ready for screenprinting. Not completely sure what I want to do with the design, or if I will have my set of screens ready in time to use it. If nothing else, it will be one less thing to work on next year. (Along the same lines, I just finished cleaning up the "Happy Halloween" design, which thoroughly confused Justin, but need to make a lot of screens at once with the emulsion)


And, I am happy to say that I have bought all of Justins birthday & Christmas gifts already, and he has bought most of mine. We are having to wait on lists to start shopping for relatives, but finances are looking so much better this year. Normally we can barely afford the gifts, but this year I think we will actually have extra to put towards the house fund.

Just finished up this custom order skirt ~ it has a large landscape applique on the front with a river that flows out of the applique & all the way around the bottom of the skirt.





More pictures can be seen temporarily here.


As nice as the finished products are, these giant intricate appliqued items are driving me crazy! They take forever, I usually give too low of a price estimate & have to cut the price way down, and then I am still nervous about charging that much for anything.

Also, no one is ordering anything else. Last time I had three people asking about bags, dresses with less complex appliques, etc., but they dissapeared and I was paid for the two intricate items. I would really prefer a mix of the large items with smaller/quick items, like wallets or hip pouches. For my next batch of custom orders I am going to either take no large orders like this, or only one, which will also help me get more items out for Christmas gifts.


Last night Justin and I went out to campaign for Ron Paul for president, which meant holding signs out in the cold for 2 hours. And it was very cold! They were holding local elections so the Ron Paul group scattered around with signs and information cards to get the name out. Check him out!

Justin and I picked a little section of the sidewalk and were joined by a group of energetic teenagers who wanted to hold my sign and wave with us (only one actually seemed interested in the candidate). Luckily they didn't get too crazy, we were worried for a while there. They hung out with us for over an hour, which gives you an idea of how boring teenage life in our little city must be!

With every one prepping for Halloween, putting up decorations & planning recipes, I've been getting in the holiday spirit! But, we don't really do anything for Halloween. None of our friends dress up, so there are no parties. The downtown stores hand out candy, so there are not many trick-or-treaters. And we have no children to decorate the house & bodies for.

I do have one honored Halloween tradition ~ Candy corn!

After I ate through the first bag of the regulars, I tried out this "Caramel Candy Corn". Interesting, but not so tasty.



Everywhere we went, I had my eye out for Candy Corn Taffy (I had sampled some from a candy dish). After much searching I found it at Kmart, so go grab yourself a bag! (It tastes pretty much like sugar/marshmallows, but it's great when you don't like half of the flavors from a regular mixed bag)




But...
all of the holiday talk has brought about early Christmas spirit!

Two years ago I made a few fabric drawstring gift bags, and even created my first tutorial. They take about 30 minutes each, so I only had the chance to make a few. And last year I had no time at all, so this year I am starting early.



These four bags are all for CD's ~ two drawstring bags in the back, and a newer envelope style in the font. (I plan on making up a new set of tutorials for both styles, with better measurements than last time) I've made another CD and a DVD bag since the photo.

Even though it takes a little more time, I started top-stitching a few parts of the bag so I can work while we watch TV. And this is the reason they are actually getting done this year! I'm going to keep making as many as I can, and put some up on Etsy.

I picked out the next set of fabrics ~

The other night we whipped up this delicious Chicken Taco Soup from one of Rachael Ray's recipes. She created the recipe for children's lunches, so the soup was not very flavorful, but we took care of that with some taco seasoning. We also used a regular salsa, since we couldnt' find any of the verde.

If you decide to give this one a try, don't be afraid to go with a spicy salsa, it's so spread out, you won't taste the heat unless you add in tabasco. There are quite a few changes we will make next time, so I'll post the revised recipe once it is perfected.

And this is what it takes for me to cook or cut onions anymore. No, it's not mood lighting.



Tonight Greek Chicken with Pasta was for dinner.
You can find this one in My Recipe Book on the sidebar.

I'm pretty peeved that I forgot to hit the macro (close-up) setting on my camera, and was doomed to a pixel-y picture. And I was looking forward to getting a good picture for my recipe cards. We were out of the angel hair pasta we would normally use, so I guess it was not meant to be.




Justin and I started talking about letterboxing again, and about planting our own boxes at Berry. And that got me thinking about book-making. I gave it a second try & created this little spotted book, which turned out nicely, but I will need to try yet another glue next time. Last time I tried a cover with a spine, which did not work out well, and covered up all of the pretty stitching. The open cover is definitely for me.



And here's a little project that got lost along the way. The girl that ordered the brown pre-made patchwork skirt wanted to get an applique added to the front. I had been thinking an applique would look great there, but never decided on one. She chose an Athenian owl, which I think turned out lovely, and great with the shades of brown.

Just finished up this beautiful patchwork dress/top, a tribute to the customer's two wolf breed dogs. The dogs are out in the wild, enjoying the great outdoors. To tie in with Native American lore, the pathcwork is done in Seminole style strips, all in shades of blue, purple, green, & brown.

And they are taking over my workroom!


(Don't even think of going up there)





Actually the brothers arrived on Thursday night, and have spent most of their time sleeping under our bed. They come out to demand some petting time, explore every nook & cranny of the house, and occasionally launch into crazy cat mode. We have them for three weeks while his parents are in Michigan, and then we'll be driving them back in time for his dad's birthday. (As soon as we get home we pick up GH3 ~ October is looking good!)


Saturday we visited the Berry campus for 'Mountain Day', which is a yearly Founder's Day kind of celebration. We've gone every year since graduation and each year we see fewer people that we know (or know well enough to strike up a conversation with). But it's an excuse to get together with our friends, ending up at our house afterwards for board & video games.

And I was there, showing off the new do. I finally have pictures for you ~




Now back to Mountain Day...



Tons of people come each year, this is only a small section of the field. Moutain Day is full of odd traditions. The girls (students) wear pink shirts, with the seniors in blue. The boys wear blue shirts, with the seniors in white. You can see them starting to line up in the distance in this picture ~



Now, I always thought it was stupid that once a girl got up to Senior status, she finally got to wear the color of a lowerclassman boy. My group of female friends proudly wore white shirts our Senior year. I was happy to see the latest Mt. Day flyer, which featured two boys and two girls ~ and one of the girls was wearing white!

So ~ what happens at Mountain Day?
The girls form one line, & boys another, with Seniors in front. They march down the mountain, pair up & hold hands. When they get to the bottom, they drop pennies into a basket, the same number as their age. (This started years & years ago when the students were trying to raise money for the school) Then the pairs head to the left or right (alternating) and head back up to the top of the hill... where it starts all over again! They march up & down the hill, grabbing the hand of another group each time, until there are 16 people across. The lines start moving so fast as they swing around the cuves, you usually end up having to run full speed.


My freshman year I put on my pink tie-dyed shirt and even a pink pair of pants. I didn't realize how long it would take to drive up to the moutain campus with all of the traffic, and so I was running late. By the time I got there, the march had already started, and I could see my friends marching down the hill & laughing. I was quite sad to have missed out, and this was made even worse by the fact that my pants had no pockets, so I was left there holding my handfull of carefully counted pennies. While the march was going on I walked around, discreetly dropping one penny at a time on the ground. (The following years I realized the march is pretty casual, and I could have easily jumped in late, but I didn't know that as a freshman) Justin is always amused by that image, so pitiful & funny at the same time.


Now I must get back to sewing ~ here is the sketch of the new applique. I just finished pieces all of the fabric, now the stitching begins. Details to come...

I put the leftover patchwork from my custom orders to good use & created two super patchy skirts! These are the first premade items I've made for the site since I switched over to custom orders, and it was nice to have some flexibility in the measurements.





I found some more leftover patchwork in shades of green & brown, and of blue & brown, and was able to mix it in with with the blue, brown & green tiny random patchwork for the second skirt. I was worried some of the diamonds & diagonal patchwork might be dwarfed by the amount of tiny patchwork I had (which runs horizontal & vertical), so I angled about half of the tiny patchwork. I love how everything is so jumbled, but unified by the color scheme.

Finished up this skirt yesterday & it is off to its new home ~





I love the purple & brown combination (with a touch of black). I had a few scraps in that color combination that have been sitting around for far too long & was so happy to use them in this project.

I am way too picky about editing my photos, especially getting the colors as accurate as possible. And so I spend way too long editing them and wear myself out! Does anyone else have this problem? But if I am going to be choosy about what colors I use when I make something, I want the pictures to represent those color choices. I so admire girls like My Paper Crane, who are able to get a new blog post together every day. (Being too wordy isn't helping me out either!)

I am working on a whole set of 'original art' pendants, decorated with tiny motifs (spirals, dots, vines, etc). I drew these with a silver paint pen on black cardstock, which looks great with the silver border, but even the fine point is too thick (and the fumes are horrible). I have two more to photo, but I don't think I'll be using the silver again.

First off, the applique sketch for the Forest of Trees skirt, which will wrap all the way around the bottom of the skirt. This will feature many kinds of trees, all in shades of green & brown, topped by the brown tiny patchwork that I recently posted ~









And the glass pendants I made this weekend ~







A few tiny art prints ~
I don't think the butterfly collage works well on such a tiny scale. The most interesting part was all of the tiny patterns in the paper & fabrics that is lost. Worth a try!



With this last pendant, I tried laying on extra solder to get the nice thick border that I want. I feel like it is even smoother than before, but it is harder to keep the back smooth (and not leave a 'seam')...



I think my iron may not be hot enough to melt all the way through the thick solder at once? I bought a low heat iron on the recommendations of my stained glass book, which is 25 watt, but I noticed my favorite solder-er uses an 80 watt. For now, I'll make do, but I think I will pick up a hotter iron later on. They are pretty cheap anyways!

A few things I've finished up recently...

"Michael" & "Coral Lee" Ambigram
A tough set of names to pair, though I do love the name "Coral"! I think this design would have worked better in a different font, but she wanted something like "Tiffany" & "Justin".




And the brown patchwork for the new skirt set I am working on
(I think the colors are a little nicer in person) ~


This skirt will have an applique around the bottom with all kinds of trees. And as usual, I am procrastinating on drawing out such a large applique! I think I am going to stick all of these complex skirt sets (like the Sugar Glider & Wolves in the Wild skirts) on a separate page of my galleries, so that I can make a note about the higher price range. I'm just not sure what to call them ("Specialty Skirts"? "Premium"? Nothing seems to fit)


These last few months I've been feeling so out-of-sorts. It's been a struggle to remember things, to get motivated, to do or finish anything. Oddly enough, I feel like a big part of it is because I don't have a little craft project to work on in the evenings. Something to get excited about, to keep me entertained, and to show off once I've completed it.

I was starting to get excited about the soldering ~ not so much because of the pendants/necklaces I wanted to make, but because I came up with the idea of working with pop tabs! There were grand plans of wall hangings, full of geometric designs and spirals of wire. Sculptures, boxes, oh the possibilites... But after a failed attempt, and a little research, I realized that there is no way to solder the tabs. (That also killed my hope that I would have many opportunities to use my new supplies ~ in case one project didn't work out or sell well, that I would not have wasted my money on craft supplies yet again)

The glass slides did finally arrive in the mail yesterday, but I was not even interested in opening them up. I am not giving up, but was not in the mood to deal with it yesterday. I am not even giving up on the pop tabs, I would really love to do more work with recycled materials. But nothing seems to 'click'.

Just finished this morning... I love the font. I've been having too much fun with decorative touches lately! The random letters are the first initial of the customer's mother and two sisters.

"Love" & "GCV" Ambigram


I have had many, many inquiries about ambigrams lately, but hardly anyone is following through with sending the payment (about 1 out of 6!). It's getting pretty ridiculous. I was particularly upset after one (non)customer had me try out three different combinations before we found a set that would pair together. (And I usually spend a lot more time sketching those that don't work out, because I'm trying out *every* possible combination) The last combination would have made a really lovely ambigram, in the exact font she wanted, but after all of those emails, she disappeared.

I know that probably should not irk me, but there are so many great designs that get set aside like that. And I felt like I had already put a lot of energy into that particular ambigram. I have no real reason to put more work into cleaning up the abandoned designs, unless I happen to know two people with the same names. And I can't really post the sketches for others to see, since the inquirer might snatch up the design for free. For now I just have a growing stack of the little misfits.


And finally, a custom wallet I whipped up today ~

(Inside view)

It is finally finished!
This applique ended up taking so much longer than I had expected,
but I think it turned out very lovely. Now you can finally see it in full-color ;)







You can see the rest of the pictures temporarily here.


Yesterday we joined the masses & went to see the new Harry Potter movie, which is always fun. This is actually the first one I've seen in the theater! We hardly ever go to the movies (unless we have a gift certificate that needs to be used up), partially because of the horrendous amount of ads they show at the beginning! Last time I timed 20 minutes of commercials and 10 minutes of movie previews.

So this time we made sure to come 15 minutes late and walked in right as the movie was starting! We even got our favorite seats. I was definitely squealing each time the kitty-plate room came up on the screen! The only thing that lessened the fun a little ~ as soon as the movie was over, two different families began loudly complaining about the film. "They didn't explain anything!" I can only assume it was because of some information left out from the book, but I was quite startled by the reaction (and also wanted to sit around & ease-drop).

As we left the theater, we noticed a store called "Sri Bazaar", and Justin saw the words "grocery store". I am so hoping this means we actually have an international food store in town! We didn't think it was open yet, or else we would have investigated more.