It’s Been A Minute
Wow! It’s been about 4 months since my last post here. Time has been flying by, which is wild when you think about how slowly it seemed to creep by as a kid.
I spent some time going through my shop and I changed a few prices, marked a couple things as free, and lumped a few other things together. I also added some brand new items- vinyl decals!
I’ve finally started playing with my Silhouette cutter and while it can make so kinds of neat things, it’s also challenging to learn all the ins and outs. One of the things I made is a couple of these little boxes.
They aren’t fancy but I think they’ll be cute to put small items in when I sell them. I’ve got some other plans for future items too!
See you next time!
13 days and counting!
What’s that? Oh yes! Thirteen days until I’ll be live at the Antelope Valley Indian Museum with my awesome stuff!
I’ve been trying to work on some other inventory over the last few weeks and things are slowly getting added. I’m also adding to shop inventory while I’m at it.
I managed to get all my beading patterns up, all my crochet patterns (some of both of those are free, BTW!), and I just did a much needed cull of my commercial sewing patterns and listed I think 36 of them, most of them brand new, up for sale. I’m hoping to get some cross stitch patterns up soon too but that might take a while.
I really hope I can meet some of you at the AVIM on the 30th and you can see my creations in person. I’ll have items ranging from $1 up to about $45, for kids and adults both.
I’m Still Around
I’m still around, I promise! I haven’t been doing much crafting though because quite simply, my craft room here since isn’t quite right. I can’t pinpoint what doesn’t feel right about it, just that I don’t find it super conductive to actually working. I did finish off a skein of yarn the other day in a project I previously thought was completed, and I did cast on a new knitting project the night before last with some of my more precious yarn. I also finally sorted out a ton of beads and selected more to be culled from my collection, which were donated yesterday to thrift along with a few stacks of other items. I have more I would like to let go, I just have to decide what. Some of it is yarns I likely won’t use- those will probably get returned to Micheal’s for store credit when I go into town again.
I’ve also been adding some books to my shop. I don’t have room for physical copies and I would rather read digital ones, so I’m slowly putting my remaining books up for sale. Right now that’s trade paperbacks of comics. The comics don’t have a shipping fee- the price includes media mail shipping to CONUS. Actually all of my books I have listed have no shipping fees and prices are low to help them move quickly. If they don’t sell in a reasonable amount of time, they’ll be donated to thrift.
I’m hoping to get some new handmade items up in the shop soon. I’ve made a few items but haven’t gotten around to listing them yet so that’s next on my list. I can think of at least 2 new necklaces that need to go up that are a lot of fun!
PS – There’s an extra coupon you can use at checkout- just enter LSG into the coupon code box!
A Clock Fit for a Crafter
I’ve been wanting a clock in my craft room, but I wanted something a little different, and something that would actually coordinate with my space. I decided to make my own clock, but I had no idea what to make it with. A trip to Michael’s had me walking out with this stuff.
Clock hardware, plus larger hands, a package of numbers, 4 4″x4″ canvases. 
I painted the canvases, including one larger 5″x5″ one I already had a bright cheery turquoise color. 
The numbers 3, 6, 9, and 12 were applied to the 4 smaller canvases with E6000. 
I had to use the Dremel to gouge out some of the wood to make my clock case fit into the larger canvas. Its not pretty but it worked perfectly. 
The finished clock, mounted on my wall. The 3 is a little crooked though. I’ll have to rehang it. This ended up being a super fast project, taking about an hour, and most of that time was spent waiting for the paint to dry. And if I ever repainted my craft room, I could easily repaint the canvases to match.
A Stand for my Ukulele!
So back about 6 months ago, I was super excited to purchase and hopefully learn to play the ukulele. I bought one,
loved it, but wasn’t so great about practicing. Then a few weeks back, I joined Ukulele Underground and I found this.Plans to build your own ukulele stand, this one already sized perfectly for a tenor uke, which is what I have.
All I needed was a piece of wood for the base, a 1″ thick wooden dowel at least 22″ long, some felt, some screws, and some metal hooks sold at Walmart to act as the brackets.
I was super tight on money but really wanted to do this, so I improvised a bit. The wooden plaque I bought from Michael’s, with a 50% off coupon for $1.90. The felt I already had on hand, thanks to getting sent the wrong item when I ordered fabric ages ago. Wood stain and E6000 I had on hand. The dowel was the most expensive piece at about $4.50 for a 48″ length, and the screws were about a dollar for a package of 8. The hooks/brackets I made myself out of polymer clay, then cast them in resin which I dyed a deep red color with some mica powder.
These are my polymer clay originals, slightly burnt from a slightly too warm oven. I drilled holes in them to test the placement, but not because I actually expected to use these pieces. Baked clay is pretty tough, but not that tough. 
This is the first piece being cast in Amazing CLear Cast resin, after the original was molded in Remelt, another Amazing product. 
The felt pieces I cut to act as a soft surface for my uke to sit on. I cut 8 of the smaller bits and one larger piece to build up and really cradle my uke’s bottom. 
This is the completed stand. Besides using more felt, I also drilled a hole into my base and glued the dowel into place instead of screwing it from the bottom. I’m not great at screwing things in straight, so this seemed like a better plan for me. 
The finished stand, with my ukulele in it. Not counting the cost of materials I already had on hand, I spent about $8 building this.
A Surprise for a Friend
Some odd weeks ago, I was texting my good friend Nikki who now lives in Washington and I showed her a blanket pattern I was considering making. She commented that she loved it and the next thing I knew, I was crocheting it for her without telling her. It was a baby blanket pattern that I worked to a larger size, and it was so easy to make once I found a video explaining the instructions a bit better.
I didn’t get any good photos of it really as I worked on it, but I do have this close up of it that shows the colors really well. I worked it up in Red Heart Super Saver yarns in Black, and Blacklight, and I used one entire Jumbo skein of black plus 3 regular sized skeins of Blacklight. The colors in Blacklight are truly neon and super bright.
Nikki shared this photo she took of the blanket after she received it (which is another story!) and posted it to Facebook where it got lots of compliments, which made me super happy! One of the points was a little odd center due to me not properly counting my stitches at the beginning but otherwise it turned out really well.
I’m planning on making another star blanket, but with more points next time, and in different colors. I’m thinking Pink Camo, Light Raspberry, and Aran. I was dying to share this one with you guys for weeks but had to wait until after Nikki had received it.
I was super worried she would never get it though. I dropped it in the mail one night and only after it went into the chute did I learn her phone had auto-corrected her mailing address into a street that does not even exist so I had no idea where her package would end up or if it would find its way back home. Luckily her mail carrier is stellar and figured out the correct address and delivered it to her!
Things I’ve Been Doing
I’ll let the pictures do the talking this time!
A photo posted by Debra Leigh Wilson (@kittyloafdesigns) on
A photo posted by Debra Leigh Wilson (@kittyloafdesigns) on
A photo posted by Debra Leigh Wilson (@kittyloafdesigns) on
Art Resurrected’s Fantastic Tree or Gift Tags Tutorial
What do we have here? Some fantastic (and so easy to make!) Christmas tree or even gift tags you can make this season. Tracy from Art Resurrected shares this great tutorial on the Amazing Mold Putty blog on how to make these great tags.
The idea behind them is so simple, and I’m sure anyone could make these, even without a lot of the tools she uses in her tutorial. All you really need is polymer clay, some ribbon, paint, and a few basic tools for working with the clay. Check out the full tutorial here!
