Crafty Carolinagirl

Fun Owl Cosy & Earrings

One of my favorite blogs, LucyKate crafts, has some of the cutest free tutorials. I have yet to try the Toadstool tutorial, but I did try the newest one, owl egg cosy. The tutorials are super easy and the finished crafts turn out super cute.

Over the weekend I finished my latest one:

Pinky the Owl!

This week little Pinky will be flying south, all the way to South Florida. I thought she could be used as a finger puppet instead of an egg cosy.

I was also hard at work making some items for my Material Girl 80s store. Here are a few of the finished products:

In and Out of Love earrings

Janey Glenn earrings

My "In and Out of Love" earrings were inspired by the Bon Jovi song, and my "Janey Glenn" earrings were inspired by the final dance scene in the movie Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

I am going to try and take the next couple of weeks to focus on finishing up the WIPs I have been putting off. I figure if I can get those out of the way, I can start thinking about my Christmas presents. Well you know, it is almost July!

Plus, I have several Pop Culture Icon Dolls that are in the beginning stages (my TV cast as well as a few characters from the movies). I'd love to get some of them put in my store as well. 

I have lots to keep me busy :)

What a crazy weekend!!!

Five things I did during this crazy weekend:

1. Attended my monthly Etsy street team meeting. 
2. Learned how to make my own soy candles, okay so I supervised, but it was still fun.  
3. Made a photo CD with scanned childhood pictures and music for my sister's 30th birthday. Can I just say that if I have to hear "Step by Step" from the New Kids on the Block one more time I am gonna pull my hair out.
4. Constructed a photo light box, though I still can't figure out how to work it.
5. Opened my new Etsy shop.  

So as you can see, I did absolutely NO crafts this weekend. That is pretty rare and I now feel the need to make up for it. So, last night I whipped up a little crocheted bracelet from a pattern I got from Eve on my Crochet Along group. 

Of course this is my first try so I used cheap yarn and cheap beads. But, it was so easy and so much fun that I think I am going to try some more with better yarn and nicer beads. This might turn out to be what everyone is getting for Christmas this year!

I also got my prize package from Yarnigras! I'll post about that and show you what cool things I got this week, once I get some pictures taken.

Beads and Baubles

One of the sections in my Material Girl '80s store is "Beads and Baubles". In it, I will put all of my brooches, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and rings.

Here are two of the items that will be available soon:

I am sorry for the awful pictures. It has been overcast for two days, so I had to use my lamp. The first one is a pink and grey pearl bracelet, and the second one is white pearl earrings. The '80s were full of fake pearl items, so I thought I'd work a lot with pearls. The earrings have a matching bacelet that is coming soon, very Material Girl!

This one is not available. I made it for my sister's birthday.

It is a little ankle bracelet. I hope she likes it.

Everybody's Doing It!

I have seen so many adorable handmade jewelry items on Flickr that I thought I'd try my hand at making some too.

I actually enjoyed it so much that it will be a focal point in my new store. Lots of '80s jewelry! I have so many '80s items I want to do, I just have to get on the ball and start working on them.

Here it is! The very first piece of jewelry I attempted:

My "Material Girl '80s" bracelet, named that because it uses the same colors as my store banner. I really should name it "A Fish Called Wanda" since that is what I was watching when I made it! It is made with '80s looking striped blue and white beads, neon pink square beads, and an elastic band. I am pretty happy with it for being my first try.

I also attempted a few earrings and an ankle bracelet, which was a little bit more difficult. I'll post some of those pictures this week.

New Store Coming Along

I've been keeping myself very busy working on items for my new store. I am hoping that I will be able to open it up the weekend of Memorial Day!

Some of the new items I am working on are stitch markers. I have seen a lot of knitting stitch markers floating around Etsy, but very few for crochet. I guess this is just another example of knitting bias. In any case, I have been feverishly working on some very retro crochet stitch markers. I think I'll keep those under wraps for a little while longer, but to get a feel for my crochet markers here are some I whipped up last night:

They feature five crochet abbreviations: CH (chain), SC (single crochet), DC (double crochet), HDC (half double crochet, which for some reason always reminds me of double secret probation), and TR (treble).

Here is how one fits in a crochet stitch:

Nothing fancy, but they really do the trick!