Too Many Hobbies!

I got a new sewing machine! I guess it's an old sewing machine, but it's new to me! It's much newer than the black one that a showed a few blogs ago, and it works so much better! It's great, and I love it!

The first thing that I did was look up a summer dress pattern. It was pretty ambitious to think that my first ever sewing project could be a dress, so I decided to sew a headband first. After successfully making the headband, I went ahead with the dress. It came out really well! There are a few mistakes, but I think that I'm the only one that would notice them. I can't wait to take some pictures in it and show you guys! The headband is the same fabric as the dress, so they look cute together.

Jimmy thinks I have too many hobbies. I think he's right. I have too much on my mind.

The PB&J necklaces are doing pretty well in my Etsy store. I sold two pairs the first week that they were in my shop, and I have another person interested in them right now. I make them as people order them, but I think it would be smarter for me to have at least one pair ready to go instead of receiving an order and then rushing to get it in the mail the next day.

I also have another cute polymer clay project to work on...you'll see it soon!

I need to take pictures of my tutu. It came out really well! I will put it up on Etsy eventually and see how it does. Maybe someone will want me to make one for them, maybe not. It only costs 20 cents to put up a listing, so I might as well go for it!

I sold my first cupcake hat on Etsy yesterday! I can't wait to put up pictures of the finished project! I am halfway done crocheting it, and it's turning out really well! This morning, someone had e-mailed me to make a cupcake hat for her little girl. The cupcake hat did not get much attention for 2 whole months, then all the sudden, 2 people are interested! Yay!

Jimmy and I went to a cupcake tasting recently, and I feel like an idiot because I should have worn my cupcake hat and one of my cupcake necklaces. There were over 200 cupcake lovers in the building, and some of them might have been interested! Luckily, there is a cupcake tasting once per month, so I'll be better prepared next time! I'll be sure to bring some business cards too! I still need to blog about the cupcake tasting...we took video of the event, and I need to edit it, and put it up on YouTube.

Lastly, I feel the urge to sew another dress. Looking for a good pattern, but whenever I open up my computer to look for a pattern I feel bad that I am neglecting other projects. I definitely have way too many hobbies right now, but I love them all! Let's just hope I can get a lot of this stuff done soon!

Ugh...

Last week I spilled superglue all over one of my fingers. I thought that If I ran to the sink to rinse it off, it would just come off without a problem. WRONG! It got all weird and thick, and would not come off!!! My whole index finger was covered in flaky crud, and it was even under my fingernail. It is FINALLY all gone, and now I can work with clay again! I was in the middle of a really cute clay project when I had the spill, and now I can finally finish it! I didn't want little tiny flakes of glue to end up all over the clay.

And just in case any of you make the same mistake, I got most of it off with a nail file, and the stubborn stuff just had to shed off slowly.

New Stuff!

Made some new stuff! Check it out! It's available on my Etsy page! 

Fortune Cookie

PB&J

"Me and Jenny goes together like peas and carrots." -Forrest Gump

Family Pea Pods! My new favorite!!!!! I wear one with 5 peas: Me, Jimmy, Zorro, Bailey, and Pepper. Five little peas in a pod! :)

Super cute button accessories!

I forgot to say...

THANK YOU to Jimmy for putting up with me and all my crafting exploits.

Weekly trips to craft stores, finding craft store coupons, keeping up with said coupons, driving me across town to pick up free stuff, my seemingly endless need for supplies (clay, yarn, tulle)....

And he does it all with a smile on his face (usually).

Thank you, honey!

Craft Room Makeover!

So I've been addicted to Freecycle lately. Freecycle is a website where you can post stuff that you want to get rid of, and then someone can contact you and come get it...for FREE. I found a sewing machine and an awesome desk on freecycle; feels so good to get stuff for free. Both items were from nice families here in Madison.

Warning:Use Freecycle with extreme caution! Bring someone with you (preferably a guy) just in case things get weird. Jimmy made sure that I didn't end up chopped up in someone's basement. :)

Anyway, the addition of the sewing machine and the desk gave me an excuse to give my crafty room a little makeover. I will probably be making some decorations in the future, but for now, plain yellow walls are enough!

Here are the photos:

Before: One desk, one hobby. The addition of new hobbies requires more surface area to work on!

After: Two desks, too many hobbies!

I built this light box a few weeks ago. It only cost a few bucks to make! Just had to cut out three sides of a box with a razor blade, cover the holes with tissue paper, and hang white posterboard in the box. It makes my pictures look really nice! I plan to replace all my current Etsy photos with light box photos soon; but we all know how lazy I am....

My new desk and sewing machine!

The little crochet corner of my desk.

My new (very old) sewing machine. This thing is ancient, but it still runs beautifully! I still can't believe I got it free! :)

So the previous blog entry showed Pepper in a fabulous tutu. Well, I made a matching one for me. It's super duper fluffy! I plan to put tutus on my Etsy page soon!

And of course my good ol' desk from the high school days! Perfect size for my clay stuff!

I hope you enjoyed all the pictures! After giving a makeover to my crafty room I felt inspired to give a makeover to the blog. It looks nice, don't you think?

Giving tutus a try....

I decided to take on a new hobby: tutu making! Before I tried making a human sized tutu, I decided to make a cat-sized one. Here is the result, in photo AND video form!

Okay, I'm seriously a slacker!

Polymer clay catch-up time!

Petri Dish necklaces!

Orange necklace and orange slice earrings

Chocolates!

BACON!!!!

Crochet Catch-Up!

I learned to crochet! It's super fun, and really relaxing. It's great to have something to do with my hands while watching TV/movies on the couch! Here is a everything that I have made and photographed so far:

Cat Headband!

iPod hoodie

Mary Jane booties

Cabled Beanie

Diamond Ridge beanie

Beanie w/ flower

Slouchy beanie

Butterfly cloche

Human sized bow headband :)

Slouchy beret

Cupcake beanie

Double crochet beanie

Tunisian Beanie

Baby bear set!

4th of July!

Enjoy!

Weather Video

The weather in Wisconsin is crazy. One day it will be perfectly sunny, and the next day we'll have a huge storm. Sometimes huge storms and sunshine happen in the same day, only hours apart! It's insane! Rain so hard it sounds like your roof may cave in, thunder so loud it shakes the house, lightning so bright it hurts your eyes, and we FINALLY heard the sirens outside of their monthly scheduled tests. All the snow in the winter and so many stormy days in the summer make us really thankful when the sun is out! However, sunny days can also be extremely humid (like 80-90%; it literally feels like you are stuck in a hot, steamy bathroom). Humidity is more miserable than storms, in my opinion.

Oh, and the mosquitoes. They are SO BIG out here! You can feel them stab into you, and it HURTS. And they don't really care how much bug repellent you put on... :(

Enough complaints, time for a video!

TUTU!

I made Pepper a tutu! I hope you guys enjoy the video....make sure to turn up the volume!

Love,

Ashley

Cat Sweater

It has been a while since we posted anything. Life has not changed, we are very boring.... I made the cat a sweater. She lets me put it on her, but once it's on she starts to walk funny. Enjoy the video!

As always, turn up the volume! I always try to make it a point to find an appropriate song based on the contents of the video. At first, I was like "Do I have a song about sweaters?" And then I was like "TOTALLY!"

Eh....

This is a darn shame, I haven't even added any of my crochet stuff yet! And I have a lot of it!!!

OK so I suck at blogging! I'm sorry! I will try to get better, I promise! I will try to blog some photos of all my stuff that I have created lately.

This could take a while....

This is Your Brain on Catnip

I am learning how to crochet! I made the cat a little toy and stuffed dried catnip into it, she likes it a lot! I also made the sweater that Zorro is wearing! I hope you enjoy the video!

(I was coming out of a nap at the end, please excuse the puffy face!)

Turn up your volume so that you can hear the beginning! She gets a little fussy and yells at Jimmy.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Another Weekend of Productivity!

Spent another weekend working hard on jewelry stuff! Here is what I made:

Little cheeseburgers!!!!

These cheeseburgers are Pepper approved!

Donut holes to match the regular donuts! A friend requested that I make donut holes so that she can keep the donut for herself, and give the donut hole to her best friend. I thought it was a really great idea!

Cinnamon roll! Yummy! The brown filling that is rolled up between the "dough" has real cinnamon baked into it so that it will smell good! It's not like a super-cinnamony scent... it's subtle, but satisfying!

Orange halves! These require some explanation! While thinking of good Best Friends necklace ideas (peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, peas and carrots....etc) I remembered the phrase "media naranja" from Spanish class in college. Media naranja means half orange if you translate it literally, but when people use the term they are using it to refer to soulmates. Saying media naranja is like saying "my other half" or "my better half". If you think of your love or relationship as the whole orange, you are half and your soulmate is the other half. Cute, huh?

Key Lime Pie

For Sierra's birthday!

Really excited for making my first citrus fruit out of clay. It took forever, but I think the lime slices came out really good!

Delicious key lime pie with whipped cream and a lime twist! I'm not a key lime pie fan, but this looks delicious!!!

Another view of the pie. Getting those tiny little thin lime slices not to rip completely apart was torture, so I'm VERY happy that they turned out well!

Valentine's Cupcakes

Valentine's Day is my excuse to use lots of pink and glitter...

Vanilla cupcake with pink glitter frosting.

Red velvet cupcake with glittery cream cheese icing. Makes me hungry!!!

SUPER NEON GUMMY BEARS!!!

I know that gummy bears only come in traditional red, orange, yellow, green, and clear. To me, that's BORING! So I made some super duper neon bears, and even some glittery bears!

Hot pink, orange, yellow, lime green, turqoise, and purple!

The Barbie Bears: PINK GLITTER!!!!

These Donuts Make You GO NUTS!

Mmmmmm donuts.....

Neon rainbow sprinkles!

Barbie donuts: Pink icing with pink glitter!!!