Pincushions! & another badge

In the spirit of Actually Finishing Things, I have been cracking on with sewing together a big pile of pincushions I prepared a couple of weeks ago. All the pieces are there and the tops have been appliqued ready to go, but have I sewn them together? Have I heck. This sort of laziness and disorganisation is a thing of the past now though (haha like this will last) and all the earlier prep means I've suddenly finished what feels like a million yummy pincushions (actually only 6 but still: yay!) ...They are all so chunky and satisfying to squeeze (filling something with polyester wadding should really not be such a pleasurable experience; I do worry about myself sometimes). Lots more colours to come & all kinds of designs for them are simmering away in my brain. I plan to let them cook for a while & see what comes out at the end of a bit of proper thinking - plenty of stuff to be making in the meantime, including lots of these:(I tend to think of this as the "I Heart Green Tea" badge!) These are great fun to make and I'm very much enjoying being able to make simple little felt badges (why do Americans call them buttons? When they call buttons buttons, too? Madness!) and am scheming an assortment of slogans and colours. The letters are great for making use of offcuts, too. This one goes so well with my tea-party theme ("I Heart Cake" is, naturally, already a work-in-progress) but it has been suggested that I go over to the dark side and make an "I Heart Coffee" to match. I rather tend to think that coffee is the devil (my tea-loyalty goes a little far sometimes, you see) so I shall have to think about that one! :)

P.S. the awesome Box vs Indie is now closed, which is a shame cos I will miss reading it (always super interesting, and I was so very chuffed to see my own little blog listed under "Inspiring Reads") but gosh Maile's new project looks so great. Tis called Breath by Breath: on learning to be happy and will no doubt be providing me with my first-cup-of-tea reading on many mornings to come!

Finally finishing lots of stuff...

I do keep starting things or planning to make them and then getting distracted by other equally exciting projects (or the more mundane things like needing to cook dinner) and end up with dozens of works-in-progress and a distinct lack of the satisfaction that comes from actually finishing things.

This week the boyfriend and I are going to be spring cleaning a lot and I am trying to be just as efficient with my sewing. Obviously I have still got about half a dozen things that I am "finishing" at the moment, but this is more focused than I have been for a while!

On Friday I finished (and indeed made from scratch) the army bear I custom-designed for my friend Emma. She seems pretty pleased with him & is currently trying to decide what to call him. This is how he turned out:I am quite proud of this little guy (my first attempt at something like this), especially as he looks how I wanted him to look instead of just turning out okay in the end like a lot of projects can do. Here he is next to the quick sketch I did to show Emma what I had in mind:

I have also finally been making use of some of the felt biscuits I started sewing a couple of weeks ago, using some of them to make cards like this one:
Oh, and I've also made some cute little heart pins - I am dead chuffed with how that little felt heart detail turned out but irritated because the sunlight was too harsh when I took photos of them & the pastel colours have photographed rather poorly & need retaking...
I have lots of cute little pins like this planned & in-progress, they are so much fun to make & it is proving a nice challenge to simplify the shapes I want to use into something small enough to fit on these little 1.5 inch pins.

I am now famous

Well, not quite. I have been featured on someone's blog, though. Hurrah! The blog in question belongs to the lovely Angela of Ambient Design & you can read my interview here (if you want to!). It's a bit weird seeing pictures of my stuff on someone else's blog, but weird in a good way :)

Over on Etsy, the Ninja Challenge entrants have all been voted for & the grand winner is Kezzaroo who made just the sweetest pink plush naptime Ninja (complete with cute little onesie). 2nd & 3rd place has yet to be announced but I will link to them when they are. There were all sorts of different items made for the theme, including a greetings cards & a purse & some earrings. I voted for Alicub's hilarious and sweet Wizard of Oz ninjas watercolour - the lion in particular made me smile so much!

The next challenge theme? Moviestars! It's cool to have a broad theme like that after the quite specific one from this fortnight. I already can't wait to see what everyone makes (deadline is 2pm Sunday 15th April) and shall have to give lots of thought to my item & how to interpret the theme.

Oh, and the UK Etsy Sellers grand Spring Sale began yesterday. Running until 8th April '07, there are just sooo many bargains to be had as over fifty sellers have joined together to offer a great range of deals. The list of sellers can be found on the UK Etsy Sellers blog. All this week anyone who spends over $5 in my store (excluding shipping) will receive a free small spring flower pin, spreading springtime happiness all over the world (hopefully...).

Ninja Attack!

For this fortnight's UK Etsy Sellers design challenge the theme is Ninjas!
The entry deadline is 2pm today so lots of great Ninjas are being posted to the flickr group, and will hopefully be voted for in the Etsy forums later on. It is great seeing everyone's Ninjas, each one is so different & they are all just hilarious.
These are my Ninjas - they have cunningly disguised themselves as brooches but we are not fooled! There are Ninja Babies (ninjas-in-training), Ninja Kitties (cute but deadly!) and Ninja Bunnies (ready to kill you and steal your Easter chocolate) :
Inspired by the idea of Ninja accessories - items for the stylish Ninja about town! - I also made this rather goth Ninja Corsage (black felt layered on top of more black felt, with a black button centre). Perfect for Ninja Grad Balls or Proms :)