Poodle Party!

Hi Y'all, happy Friday!

Today I thought I'd share another little stitchy with you, this one a pet portrait (my first!) for a friend & co-workers birthday. The likeliness of her two boys, Griffin & Riley. These two playful poodles are the light of their mama's life so I thought it would be fun to make her a little hoop in their likeness, and what's more fun than poodles in party hats?! Nothin'!

I used some of my wool stash to make their little hats and the polka dots on them and trimmed two small craft pompoms down to about half their original size to top the hats. I also stuffed some wool roving under the party hats before I stitched them down so they'd be a little bit puffy since the rest of the portrait would have a good bit of texture.

I used turkey work stitching for the tops of their big poofy heads. This was the first time I've ever used this stitch on a project and oh my gosh, I love it. It's a little fiddly but really fun!

As you can see the turkey work does stand up nicely off of the fabric.

I used big French knots for that curly texture on the boys' soft, floppy ears to great effect, what's more, I think that the perle cotton that I stitched them with enhanced the texture even further.

This is Griffin.

And this is Riley, such cute brudders!

I enjoyed making this piece, I think it's really unlike anything else I've ever done before which is cool, and dang it, it's cute!

Now I want to stitch ALL THE DOGS. ALL OF THEM.

Kitties too. I love animals! Animals are awesome.

So what'cha up to this weekend, folks? You DO know that Outlander is premiering on Starz tomorrow night, riiight? Grrrl, you better recognize! Jamie Fraser, the King of Men, right there on your TV screen, eeep! My dear friend, the person who I blame thank for my Outlander obsession is hosting an Outlander Sleepover. Her hubby has even promised to wear a kilt and be our waiter for the evening, yeee! So cool! If I haven't died of happiness I'll report back soon.

Watch this show you guys, watch it!

oxo,

Lisa

No Time Like The Present

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled Halloween post for something a bit different. 

I had a birthday recently, well... not that recently (mid August). 39. 

39? Is that possible? Who sped up the clock?

Anyway this week was a banner week for receiving birthday goodies in the mail from a couple of my crafty pals, and as you probably know, when you have friends who are also crafters and who make all their pressies, time doesn't always go as according to plan. And I am perfectly ok with that! Time, as you know is wibble wobbly, timey wimey... stuff. *wink*  

Allons-y!

The fabulous Mistress T made me this stellar, foxy ribbon. That means I win at being a fox! 

Woooo!

Look at that cute little foxy face! 

Also fabulous & feisty, my pal Pam stitched me this adorable birthday cake! Pam's stitches are legend, they're tiny and they are perfect. Perfectly awesome!

I think she must have harnessed her super telepathic powers because this looks almost exactly like the actual cake my husband had made for me for a little surprise party he threw for me. 

It's an embroidery cake! The yellow ring is the hoop and the white frosting (omg, the frosting! SO good. Light as a feather whipped cream, my favorite!) is the fabric hanging down with stitching on the top, adorbs!

 My dear, dear friend Melissa harnessed a different power, the power of my dreams! She stitched me the sweetest little camp trailer, with a purple bunting! 

I have ambitions to buy one of these in the coming year, a real one! I even started a Pinterest board with a few little things. I've wanted one for as long as I can remember. I love, love, love tent camping, and I think I always will - but uh... it's a lot of work. There's something about just hooking up and hitting the road that really appeals to me. When the time comes, you know I'll share that adventure with you.

Melissa also stitched me this sweet Leo, isn't she cute?!

Love her ever so!

Speaking of Leo's, I picked myself up a little Leo lady this year, too.

Yes, I am a grown up. What. 

Lalaloopsy is too cute to resist, look at her crown purse, and her little mousy friend, eep! I have a few of them, more on that in an upcoming Halloween post!

I am blessed with awesome buddies.

Thank you girls! All of these goodies have happy new homes, hanging in my craft room, I love them almost as much as I love you guys!

Halloween posts to resume shortly!!

oxo,

Lisa

Tiny Cakes

Helleeeeeeeew!

So, a couple of days ago I mentioned that over the weekend my friend came over to belatedly celebrate her birthday. I made her a little something, and now that it's safely in her hands, I thought I'd share with you all.

Tiny cakes are my favorite, I've made a few of these now, the first one last summer for my own birthday. They're actually bottlecap pincushions, but I like to make them into cakes.

 I think this one is by far the cutest, fanciest one I've made. I just love it to pieces.

Like with just about everything I make, it all starts with indecision... I posted this photo on Instagram while trying to decide what colors I should go with.

Dez isn't an overly girly-girl, so I didn't want to make her an all pink cake. Instead I went with a soft, buttery yellow with pink & blue decorative "frosting" stitches.

Here's the little cake (with my original in the background) about 1/2 way finished. There's a lesson to be learned here, people, one which I have yet to completely absorb, and that is to do all the decorative stitches while the side piece is flat, BEFORE you sew it into a circle. I'm going to remember that one of these days.

Here's the finished little cake, couldn't ya just eat it up in one bite? This one might take two bites, it's quite a bit bigger than the others I've made. Instead of a soda bottle cap I used a Gatorade cap, it's about twice as big as a regular bottle cap.

I was fresh-out of little gift bags, so I used a piece of craft paper and made a small square open-topped box. Double bonus, you can drop in a battery operated tea light and it becomes a paper luminary. 

I hope Dez likes her little cake, it's the first thing I've ever made for her and it always makes me nervous giving someone something for the first time. Even when this person has been my friend since we were five years old.

Happy birthday, girl! I love ya.

oxo,

Lisa

Manly Stitching

Hello All!

I hope you've enjoyed a long, long holiday weekend as nice as the one I've had, which in all honesty has been spent completely at home. I haven't left the house since Thursday, and I'm as happy as a clam about it. I love going out on the weekends and having fun little adventures, but I love staying at home burrowing in just as much. We've watched the first two seasons of The Walking Dead, I've stitched a TON, we've made great meals, and quality time with my critters. Last night one of my best friends came over and we belatedly celebrated her birthday with some delicious Skip & Go Naked's. I slept in late today, and now, I'm making what promises to be some killer bbq sauce, from scratch, and chatting with you fine folks while Ferris Beuller's Day Off plays in the background. Yes, a very good weekend, indeed.

Speaking of birthday's, my hunny had his a couple of weeks ago, and I made him a little something that I thought I'd share, continuing two recent themes at once, the red, white & blue, and hexies!

I made Sean an oversized hexie mugrug with ice hockey motifs, his favorite!

I had everything I needed to make this in my stash and I whipped it out in just a couple late night sessions after he'd gone to bed. It was pretty straightforward to make, seven hexies arranged just so, stitched on to a piece of red craft felt and trimmed, then the red felt was stitched down on top of a piece of dark brown, wool blend felt and trimmed again. All top stitching and all by hand ♥ Cold beer in the hot summer creates a lot of condensation, but I'm fairly certain no drips will get through all of these layers to the wood of our tables, yay!

I don't know about you, but I always find it a really big challenge to make things for my guy. I mean, I make lots of things for lots of people, but I rarely make anything for him and after conferring with a couple of my girlfriends, we decided that the simple answer as to why is this: making boy things is hard.

Cute? Pretty colors? Easy. Masculine, clever, relevant? Harder.

Anyway, I think I succeeded with this little make, he's used it everyday since he opened it. 

She shoots, she scores!!

So what did you guys do this weekend, anything exciting?

oxo,

Lisa

P.A.M. = Pretty Awesome Mama

My friend Pam recently celebrated her birthday, I was a couple of days late, but I made and sent her a little goodie to keep the party going and this tiny bunting fairly screams birthday ♥

Let me tell you a bit about my pal, Pam.

 "P" for pretty, inside and out. She's a lovely soul, and she doesn't give up no matter what kind of crappy day she's having or what kind of challenge she's up against, she powers through with a little sass and a whole lot of class.

 "A" for awesome, because she seriously is. Take a look at all the neato stuff she makes, here, here & here! This lady is uber talented.

"M" for mama, because she's the one of the bestest dog mom's I know, and I'm sure her three crazy little dogs Lola, Jujube and Pete would agree, they have the most caring, nurturing, loving mom on the planet. 

Yep, she's a keeper! I'm so glad to count this fabulous lady as a friend. Now, if only I could get that Star Trek "beam me up, Scotty" thing to work so we could see each other on a regular basis, California and Oregon are close, but not close enough.

Happy Birthday, Pam!

oxo,

Lisa

It's My Birthday!

So I'm having myself a little party in the fairy garden to celebrate! 

Care to join me for some cake and a spot of tea?

Small charms from my local bead store are perfect for this party. Naturally, I had these in my stash, they came home with me years ago!

I whipped up this little cake for myself last night, cutest darn cake I've ever made! Such a simple and quick project too, a bottle-cap pincushion in the shape of a cake. There's so many possibilities for these types tiny pin cushions, the last one I made looked like sushi! 

This wee birdbath is the latest addition to the garden, it holds just a few drops of water, I love it.

I made the little bunting out of some felt scraps from another project (yet to be revealed), easy peasy.

Here's the cake in my grubby little mitt so you can get a better idea of the size.

A vintage hankie makes a great picnic blanket if you're 3 inches tall.

The fairy garden has filled in SO much since I first planted it a few months ago! You can't even see the rock path that was once so prominent. I have to trim it back pretty regularly and rescue the little furniture before it's completely grown over, it grows so fast! 

I have another reason to celebrate too, my fairy garden was chosen as one of the winners of The Magic Onion's 2012 Fairy Garden Contest, yayyyyyyy! There were 153 entries, can you imagine having to choose? I'm so honored to be one of the winners! I've won an adorable, hand-stitched fairy from Alkelda Dolls, and I couldn't be more pleased, I've admired her dolls on Flickr for some time. 

I think the garden at night is still my favorite, it's its own little world in there. I want to shrink myself down like Alice and stay the night in my cozy fairy house. 

Tonight my husband and my mom are taking me out to dinner at my favorite Italian place where they have the most amazing, fresh tomato salad during the summer months. The tomatoes are grown right there in their own kitchen garden, it is wonderful, I can't wait!

Have a great day, dearies!

oxo,

Lisa

Hello Rainbow!

Hi Guys,

Hooboy, where does the time go? Sorry I've been a little MIA lately, I've been slowly working my way through some crafty stuff, but I don't have anything I can share just yet, gotta love the super secret stuff. I wish I could say I've been more productive. Seems lately the more I have to do, the less I'm able to actually do it. I'm in the home stretch on three different projects for three special ladies so I should have something to share soon, promise.

In the meantime, I do have something that I think was so special. I know it's going back a little ways but this deserves its moment in the sun. Many months ago (I think) I may have mentioned to Jill that I'd always wanted a rainbow cake. Just in passing. That lady has the ears of a fox! The weekend after my birthday we'd made plans to go out to San Francisco to the Crown & Crumpet, which we did, it was perfect and lovely of course. But when she showed up at my house the morning we left for the city, she was carrying this...

BEHOLD!!

 Awww yeeeah!

Before we left, I had to have a piece. We took it out on the patio, it was a nice morning.

Dig those lovely colors!

This made me so happy, I can't believe she did this just for me for me!

What a pal!!

Thank you Jill, you are wonderful! Isn't she wonderful?? Yes, she is.

oxo,

Lisa



One More Birthday Post

And I promise you won't hear another word about it for another 350ish more days. Cool? Cool!

This post goes out to my darling husband, Sean. Because he's awesome. And because he listens, even when I think he's not listening. I tend to blabber (you may not have noticed, I tend to keep things short around here-snarf, bwahahaha.... yeah, so anyway...), so it's pretty incredible that he actually hears most, if not all of what I say. A few days before my birthday, we were sitting on the couch and had a conversation that went something like this...

Me: Seaaaaan? (in my sweetest voice)

Him: What. (in his I'm-watching-MMA-woman-leave-me-alone voice)

Me: Ok, so I know I got a Vespa, which I totally love, love, love and that it's my birthday, anniversary, Christmas, Easter, Boxing Day presents for the next several years, and I'm totally grateful for that...

Him: And? (looking back at the TV)

Me: But there's a couple of things I'd like for my birthday anyways...

Him: ...says nothing, but turns his head and gives me "the look"...

Me: No really, honesty, just two. See there's this teapot, and this book... (commence blabbering about said teapot & book) ...and you don't have to do a thing, I'll pick them up myself...

Him: ...still says nothing, turns back to the TV...

Me: So is that ok?

Him: Sure. (he's so excitable)

Me: (clapping & bouncing) Thanks babe!

So the teapot, I wasted no time & grabbed it quick. I was shocked they still had it. It's cute, I dig it. The book on the other hand, I didn't get yet...I've meant to, but and I'm lazy and don't like shopping. Plus, it's brand new, I figure it'll be in stock next time I force myself to go shopping...so it's still sitting on a shelf in the book store.

Or so I thought...

Then one evening, I got home late and this package had arrived in the mail...

What the?

**Gasp!**

He was listening!

 By Alicia Paulson

Not just listening, he did homework!

He went to her website and discovered that if you order it from her studio, she'll personally inscribe it for you! I think this might be for a limited time, so if you want this, you'd better hurry. 

Eeeeep!

And she sent a couple of extra post card goodies too!

Oh my gosh! This is so special to me for so many reasons. I love Alicia's work. Sewing, knitting, quilting, embroidery, stories, photograhy, writing style. She does it all, and I love every bit of it. She writes in such a calm, tranquil way. I know her life is probably just as hectic as anyone's, but but it never seems that way to me when I read her blog posts, and now her book. I love that.

I aspire to be more calm and not such a giddy dork all the time. I'm working on it.

There are so many great projects in this book, I want to have a go at all of them, but I think I'll start with this one. I've wanted to try my hand at blackwork, and this seems like the perfect starter project.

Did you know that Alicia herself writes both the stories and the patterns for her books. She also does all the photography using her friends and family as models and makes all the items in the book herself. This really is HER book, like a craft diary/journal. It's amazing. I'm so glad she shares it with us.

Sean is better than I deserve.

He also got me a few other goodies, little things he knows will make me smile.

And this.

I love that man.

Thank you Sean!

oxo,

Wifey

And thank YOU all for so many birthday wishes here in the comments section and by email! I love hearing from you, your words always make me smile really big! You peeps are the best.

oxo,

Lisa

p.s. This is totally unrelated... but I'm sharing it anyway. Last Sunday I got to meet a friend at her charming little nest and had a delightful afternoon of tea, wonferful food, loads of yapping and then some time on her comfy sofa, stitching away the afternoon.

Thank you friend, everything was beautiful. You're aweome too.