Sunday, August 31, 2008

Adventures in Gumball Charms

I've seen a lot of American jewellery websites and craft books which talk about making jewellery with gumball charms, but until recently, I haven't been able to find these charms anywhere.

But since then I have found esty, which, as well as selling handmade items also sells vintage items including vintage gumball charms.

So I recently bought a few of these charms and they all seemed to scream out "make me into earrings"!!

So here's some of the earrings I have made - all have now been given away to friends.





Thursday, August 28, 2008

Crafty Foxes Craft Swap

So my friend Kat and I are the "founding" members of our craft group "Crafty Foxes" and a few months ago we decided that we wanted to try something new and have a Crafty Foxes Craft Swap (as you all know - I've done craft swaps before - but things usually end up being send to the other side of the country/world rather than ending up in the hands of someone I actually know!).

This Saturday the Foxes that took part in the swap met at Goblin Cafe for brunch and also swapping.

I made a swap package for Hiliare who told me, amongst other things she liked the colour Green, being a 50's housewife and was a "secret goth" here's some of the stuff I made for her -






In case you're wondering - the green skulls are made from white chocolate and green chocolate dye in a skull chocolate mould that my friend Alaina gave me for my birthday.

In return for all my crafting efforts - I did receive a "stash" in return from Iris and he's a snapshot from the cafe of all the goodies I received.
My favourites have to be the beautifully drawn envelopes and the very cool embroidered "virus" magnets.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Presents for Baby Ruby

When we were staying with our friend's Jo & Andre at Christmas time, Jo was pregnant with her baby Ruby.

I remeber Jo heading to the shops and lamenting that all the baby clothes were, well boring and kind of plain with cheesy things written on the like "I'm a Princess" - it was then she asked if I could help her out with something a little more edgy for her baby.

Well fast forward many months and little baby Ruby has entered the world and in need of something funky to wear, which is where "Aunty Trees" comes into the picture.

Unfortunatly my sewing skills are still in their "developmental" stage so I knew if I sewed the baby clothes from scratch poor Ruby could well be waiting till her first birthday before she recieved anything. So I decided to embellish some store bought clothes instead.

This is what I came up with for Ruby - firstly a stretch and grow embriodered with a skull - I like the contrast between the girly-ness of the fabric and the skull.

Secondly - a tiny wee beanie with a little felt skull on it.
Finally, a tiny wee hoodie with "Dictator" embriodered on the back - because let's face it - small children (especially babies) are the ones that rule any household.

Weekend Walk

So shock horror, last weekend it actually WASN'T raining! So Rich and I decided to do a walk. We weren't awake early enough to do a full day walk but we ended up completing about a 4 or 5 hour walk up through the Kaori Cemetary, through to the summit of Johnstone Hill and we ended up making our way down through Otari Wilton Bush.

It was such a perfect day for walking, and we are damn sure we saw a Kea in Otari-Wilton bush. I don't think they are suppose to round these parts but it was pretty exciting to see one.













Saturday, August 16, 2008

A new craft task

I recieved an e-mail from my friend Ange in Brisbane yesterday, she is coming home to New Zealand in August for her wedding.

I have been wondering for a while, what shall I make for her and her fiance Paul as a wedding gift.

Well Ange solved that problem for me - as she has asked me to make the bows to decorate the ends of the pews at the church.

I'm quite excited about this - it's my second making bows for the ends of pews adventure (I also helped to make the bows for the end of the pews at Katrina and Chris' wedding).

So now I have search spotlight (and try and focus on just the bows and not everything else I could ALSO buy at spotlight) for the right ribbon and make some mock up bows.

Craft Swap Goodness

So I recently took part in another swap on Craftster entitled "My Country Doesn't have that Swap" - now the swap was kinda different to the standard craft swap as part of the swap was to send things to your partner that they wouldn't be able to buy at themselves as well as the usual crafty goodness.

My partner is still in the midst of making the crafty component of my package - she did - however send out an amazing arrange of stuff that wasn't handmade and here it is!

Firstly here's a very cute rockabilly shirt, belt and bag -awesome!
Some cute crafty stuff - I especially like the rainbow sharpie's - I always thought you could only get black. What a sheltered life I lead.
Some cool jewellery and some little purses - all very sweet cool.

My user name of Craftster is "Monkey_girl" so I have a whole lot of monkey's now - including a monkey hat.

These are a but hard to see but it's a whole bunch of hair clips with skulls on them:)

Finally the lollies - you always have to send lollies right? But I was luckily enough to get some tea as well.

Most crazy thing about this is, despite receiving a huge haul of amazing stuff, my swap partner is still knitting me something. So I have some crafty goodness heading my way as well!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

I told you it's cold!!


So yes - when it comes to winter I am the ultimate wuss. I know the climate in Wellington isn't too bad but that doesn't stop me from complaining about it for half the year.

But the other night we had a hail storm which was actually pretty darn cool - and the hail was friggin huge! So huge we felt that we must take a photo to share with the whole world!!
So here's Rich holding the biggest hailstone I have ever seen (possibly also the most "mutant" hailstone I've ever seen).

Monday, August 11, 2008

The shop's all set up - come on in!

So I finally followed through and set up my esty shop today and I am very excited about it.

Although my shop isn't as flash as a lot of people's and I only have a small amount of items for sale (a grand total of 5 at the moment - I've seen people with 200 plus on there!) I am glad I have finally taken the time to set it up. I am also excited some of my items already have views - perhaps I will manage to sell some things on there after all.

If you're interested in looking at my online shop the address is:

http://craftytrees.etsy.com

I now must make more things to sell on my online store so it doesn't look quite so sad.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

...and so it has begun!

So for a long while now I've admired all sorts of handmade goods on www.esty.com - for those of you who don't know, "esty" is a place where all sorts of crafty people sell all kinds of crafty/handmade stuff.

I had never really bought anything off there, as I thought, well it does sound cheap but it's in American Dollars and by the time you add in postage it's bound to be expensive.

But this time round I found something I simply couldn't resist - it's the pendant below! A Zombie girl eating brains - how could I possibly resist? Plus when all the currency conversion was done, it only came out to a respectable $15 NZ (including postage).

So I am thinking that in the future when I feel like a "treat" or want something new for some sort of event or whatever, I'm going to hit the "esty" stores rather than the real world. Especially seen as they have people on there who are willing to make dresses (which are made to measure for $50 US).

But I have decided, since I have now officially entered the buying ranks of Esty I should try being a seller also. My account has all been set up, I've taken photo's of five trial items and will set up my "store" sometime in the next few days. Although it may be a struggle as there is SO much AWESOME stuff on there. But who knows what may happen? Fingers crossed!

Ode to the Film Festival

So the film festival is now well and truely over - which is a little sad as it's one of my favourite times of the year. I love going to a HUGE amount of strange and quirky films as you never know if you'll have another chance to see them on the big screen (or in fact if you'll even find them on DVD if you're local video shop is a bit average).

So after the film festival Rich & I were left with a huge number of ticket stubs - which we could have just thrown away. But I decided to keep the ticket stubs as I knew they had a future as a piece of art in our flat.

So I used my new "vintage" sewing machine given to me by my mum to sew these babies together to make a piece of art to adorn the door of our "TV" room (which to be honest should be called the DVD room - we really don't watch much TV).

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Yet another Swap "box"

So I have done a few of these "craft swaps" now - basically you get a swap partner and tell them the kinda stuff you're interested in and they tell you the same and you craft each other a whole bunch of crafty stuff.

Well I have now got another box of crafty treats ready to head out - this particular swaps theme was "They Don't have that in my country swap" so in addition to my usual crafty goodness I have added a chocolate fish, some K Bars and all host of other kiwi goodies.

Very exicited to see what turns up in my mail box from the USA in the next few weeks:)


Record Bowls

So here's a craft I've wanted to try forever but just never "got around too" record bowls! I have to admit now I've made a few of these they are actually crazy simple to make. All you need is an oven, a bowl and an old record.

My favourite from this batch is the old "Mi-Sex" record that I turned into a bowl - mostly because of the really cool cheesy 80's alien design that is in the middle of the bowl. It just makes me giggle.