Fairy Doors

I've finally stepped away from my yarn and crochet hooks for a little while. I'm not done with them by any means, but I've been wanting for so very long to pull out my polymer clay to start creating in a different medium. I cleaned off my work table a few weeks ago, and have been happily sculpting little doors and portals since then.

Here are three completely finished ones I've listed on Etsy:

Blueberry Charms Fairy Door

 https://www.etsy.com/listing/244518986/blueberry-charms-fairy-door-pixie-portal?ref=shop_home_active_1

Purple Dreams Fairy Door

 https://www.etsy.com/listing/244411629/purple-dreams-fairy-door-pixie-portal?ref=listing-shop-header-2

Woodland Hideaway

https://www.etsy.com/listing/244516904/woodland-hideaway-fairy-door-pixie?ref=listing-shop-header-1

And here are three more that need to be cured, glazed, stained and glittered.

I'll add more details after they're completely finished. I'm curing them today.

More market craft projects, part 2

Projects for Craft Shows and Markets, Part 1

I need to get photos of some of my work all in one place (besides Facebook), so I'm going to be putting them here in a series of posts.

Felted Wool Bowls/Baskets

Crab Amigurumi

Cheese that goes crunch! Really!

Over the years I've had a lot of success losing weight with a low-carb lifestyle. I've done it on my own, I've done it at a weight-loss clinic, I've done it on this last fad diet I was on (which I'll be starting up again on Monday). I always gain weight back, but I never go through a maintenance phase - I just head right back into "normal" eating. I hope this time will be different, and I'm going to work toward that, but I still have a long way to go before I get to that point. Mostly I just want to get back to a more normal weight and am working toward that goal.

What I miss most about eating low-carb is the lack of crunch. I can live without potato chips. I can live without popcorn (but not without complaining). I can live without corn chips, although I crave them and it is a struggle. In the past, whenever the urge for crunch becomes too much to bear, I always fall back on pork rinds. I know that grosses out a lot of people, but I like them and it satisfies my need to hear my food as I'm eating it.

So this week I was craving crunch. Muchly craving crunch. I've looked in three stores for pork rinds, but can't find them anywhere. Maybe they're more a southern thing? Although I've lived in Maryland most of my life, and I remember my father eating them when I was a child. But right now? Not a rind to be found. So what's a crunch-crazed girl to do?

Enter crunchy cheese.

Crunchy cheese - food you can hear!

These puffy, crunchy morsels started out as a lowly piece of yellow American cheese. The kind you can buy in large presliced bricks at any discount box store. Not the sort wrapped in plastic - they taste like plastic and I don't know if they'd work here.  The sort of cheese always on sale at a local grocery store.

 I simply cut each slice into 9 little squares. I arranged them in a circle on a small piece of parchment paper, leaving a little room in case they decided to spread. Then microwaved them for about 38 seconds. They puff a little, spread a little, and dry out a lot, toasting a bit from the center out. After they cool (which takes about 20 seconds), peel them off the parchment and put them on a towel lined plate for further cooling. And taste testing.

And whenever I crave crunch? I eat a handful of these. I'm staying low carb, and even if I eat 18 of them (which is a lot for one sitting - usually 9-10 do the trick for me), I've only eaten the equivalent of two pieces of cheese, and maybe 2-3 carb.

I love them.

O Spaghetti Squash, I Used To Hate You So ...

I've never been a fan of spaghetti squash. You know how sometimes when you eat a certain food it coats your teeth and makes them feel furry? Yes, that.

But my daughter and I have lost quite a bit of weight these past few weeks (see this post about the chicken insanity inspiration: http://www.pinkchihuahuacrafts.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-little-chicken-insanity.html) and I'm looking for low carb meals to enjoy while we're on the weight-stabilizing phase of our eating plan. We love pasta, but neither of us enjoy how we feel after we eat it - me especially. Wheat is an inflammatory food, and my knees always hurt muchly the day after a pasta dinner.

So I've convinced myself that I'm going to learn to like spaghetti squash. I'm going to look past the furry teeth and try to move beyond the slippery noodles that don't hold the sauce and learn to love this low calorie, low carb vehicle for pasta sauce.

This is the dish I made earlier this week. (Link to recipe here - this is not my original recipe or my excellent food photography: http://blog.tastefulpantry.com/2014/01/21/spaghetti-squash-lasagna-bowls-gf/)






And you know what? My teeth didn't feel furry, the sauce clung nicely to the squash strands, and I almost felt like I was eating pasta! My middle grandson (who is 5) loved it. We didn't tell him he was eating squash until he was finished, but he guessed. I'm pretty sure he'll eat it again. Maybe it wasn't cooked enough when I've had it in the past? Maybe I just wasn't old enough? (Although if  5-year old can eat it and like it, seems like being in my 50s would be plenty old enough.) The 3-year old didn't like it, but oddly enough, he ate the squash, not the chicken and sauce. And the 14-year old would eat the guinea pig, the Chihuahua Brothers and the cat if I cooked them and served them with ketchup, so I wasn't surprised he ate this.

Whatever the reason I like spaghetti squash now, I'm glad. Because tonight, we're having this:






Except I'm subbing Italian turkey sausage for the chickpeas. (recipe here because this is also NOT my recipe or food photography: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2011/01/spaghetti-squash-roasted-brussels-sprouts-chickpeas.html)

A Reason to Make Cupcakes!

Easter is coming soon. We don't do anything big - the kids get baskets and they'll probably go to their other grandmother's house for dinner with their parents. Or not - I don't know what the plans are at this point. Their preschool parties are this week: Mace's was Wednesday and Gavin's is tomorrow afternoon.

So this happened Tuesday evening for Mace's party:

And this happened tonight for Gavin's party:

Mace's comment: I ate some of my cupcake, Grammy, but I didn't like the crunchy stuff on the top (which was just yellow cake-decorating sugar). Gavin didn't seem fond of them either - he inhales sugar, but didn't want to try these.

The Peeps are hollowed out slightly, and the chicks are sitting on a chocolate egg and some spring-colored sprinkles, which will be a fun surprise when the kids eat them. The frosting is a slightly sweet cream cheese frosting, whipped until fluffy, and the lick of it I had was heavenly. I'm really hoping Gavin likes them ...

I love making cupcakes!

A Little Chicken Insanity

So my daughter and I have been on this diet lately. It's a fad diet, so I won't go into the details, but I will say we've both lost a good amount of weight in a short time. And I'm all about the instant gratification of seeing scale numbers go down on a regular basis. The food choices are very limited, though, and we've been eating chicken quite often. A LOT of chicken. And since vegetable choices are also limited, I've been searching and searching for ways to prepare said chicken, so you might say I've had chicken on the brain these past five weeks.

And when I have one thing on my mind for a long amount of time, something like this invariably happens:

Front view

Side View

It's been rather gray and dreary here, too, as late March is apt to be, and I've been longing for the colors of summer. Thankfully the chicken we've been eating doesn't come in these colors, although I do wonder if it would taste more like cake if it did ...

Pattern available here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/226418189/funky-chicken-trio-crochet-amigurumi?ref=sr_gallery_1&ga_search_query=funky+chicken+trio&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery

or here:
http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/crocheting/home-decor/funky-chicken-trio/136010

The End (hahahaha!)

Project vs. Process

I'm all about the process. I love to crochet, I love to knit. But I don't care whether or not I ever finish what I'm working on. I have many single socks that may or may not ever have a mate. It took me a very long time to understand why I'm that way, and part of the answer came after we participated in the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator years ago at the company where I worked at the time. I'm all INFP, baby - no answers in any other category except those, so I'm pretty extreme in my personality.

As an INFP, I'm extremely introverted. That doesn't mean shy, although I am a little on the shy side. It just means I'm exhausted after a morning of talking to people at market on Saturday. I enjoy talking to them, I just need a few hours to regroup and get my energy back afterwards. I'm also a "big-picture" person. I can see the end result, just not the steps to get there. Or I can see the steps, but I don't care about taking them. I want to get from Point A to Point B without having to go to points A.1, A.2, A.3, etc. I'm a feeler - I care about what other people are feeling. I want to know that people like what I'm making. I spent a good deal of time with my market customers asking how something makes them feel, and I'm very interested in their answers. And I'm never, ever on time, and if I am by some chance on time, I had to work very hard to get there, often managing to convince myself that I had to be where I was going a half hour early so that I managed to arrive somewhat on time. Time doesn't matter much to me, except that it passes much too quickly most of the time.

So all that leads back [somehow] to my original point of being a process crocheter/knitter rather than a project crocheter/knitter, which I really think ties into my personality. I love the feel of the yarn running through my fingers. I love counting my stitches. I love looking at the pattern the self-striping yarns make as I work with them. I love imagining how the finished project will look (because odds are not in the project's favor that it will ever actually be finished). I love making all the little pieces for the amigurumi I create. I don't like the stuffing part. I sometimes don't much like the sewing part, so sometimes the stuffed pieces sit for a while until I have so many finished that I have to put them together in self defense. I do love making their little faces, where the slightest variation of a stitch can change their whole expression. After they're [finally] finished, I like to imagine how my customers will feel about them. Will they smile when they see them? Will they give them as a gift, making someone else smile in the process?

Now these bowls? I love the whole stinking process, which means I actually get finished projects!

 
I love the crocheting. I love watching the colors shift or blend, and I love thinking about how they'll look when finished as I'm working on them. I love the felting process - I stand by the washer the entire time, taking them out every few minutes to see how much they've felted and how much they've changed. I love taking them out and rinsing them in cold water and feeling the fabric draw together and seeing how the colors emerge or recede and this happens. I love shaping them into the perfect bowl - big or little, deep or shallow depending on how the yarn felts. I love watching them dry in the sun and transform into fuzzy little vessels. I love the tedious process of trimming off the fuzz to see the beauty of the felted fabric beneath. I love everything, start to finish, about the felted bowls I make - maybe because each step of making them is so different than the step before that it seems like a totally separate project? Whatever the reason(s), I'm just glad they're something I can finish!

 Felted Bowls drying in the sun and awaiting defuzzing ...

My Woefully Neglected Blog

Yes, it's been almost three months. In my defense ... well, I have no defense. How hard is it to add a few paragraphs about what I've been up to? Unless, I haven't been up to much, and that seems to be the case here.

I had a craft show a few weeks ago. It was so-so. I did make back my table fee plus a little bit, so that was ok. But then I passed Taco Bell on the way home and I was starving, so I spent money I shouldn't have on dinner that ended up making me just a little bit sick.

I have a craft show coming up next Saturday, 4/12. Hopefully there won't be a Taco Bell between there and home after it's over. Or hopefully I'll have a little will power to resist the siren song of nachos belle grande ...

Here's something I designed for this show, which is the weekend before Easter:

I was internet surfing a little while ago, and I found something really, really similar, proving once again that there are no original ideas left in the world! Or very few.

I'll also be working on zombie bunnies (zombie pigs, zombie hearts and zombie kitty puffs, too) as something a little different for older kids' Easter gifts. I have plenty of soaps left from the last craft show, so no need to make new ones for this show, even though I have a ton of ideas for them.


Market season is coming up quickly. I'm not prepared, but I'm working on it. I'm thinking instead of driving an hour and a half each and every Saturday, I'll just do market on the first and third Saturdays of each month. And we'll see how that goes. It's too expensive with gas and tolls to go every weekend, especially when historically there are some weekends when I don't make enough to cover those expenses.

So that's what happening in my little corner of the world!

Where did the last week go?

Time just flew past last week and here it is Monday already!

I drove back to PA yesterday to pack up some of my stuff. I think I ended up getting about half of it moved, with the other half to come this Sunday. My brother is a genius at packing my car and managed to get just about everything I wanted to bring tucked into all the nooks and crannies. My daughter thinks I have a ton of crap and is looking forward to organizing all my various crafting supplies. She's only seen half of it ... LOL! I still don't have my work table, chair or task light here, so not much crafting will go on this week. But look out next week!

Still not panicking about the numbers - it's just January and I should be able to get started next week.

Finished Crafts 1/12/14
Amigurumi: 0
Soap: 0
Soap dishes: 0
Greeting cards: 0
Jewelry: 0
Miscellaneous: 0

Ch-Ch-Changes ...

Early in October, my daughter needed surgery on her foot to repair a broken heel and a torn tendon. I spent two months helping take care of her--cooking, doing laundry, driving the boys to school and to their daycare provider. She's fine now and back to work, but has now lost her sitter. I made the decision a week or so ago to move in with her and my grandsons to help take care of them. And her. I'm still her mom, and kids still need their moms, no matter how old they may be.

Fortunately, I'm not working a "real" job now, so I have the flexibility to do this for her. I still plan to go to market in Pennsylvania twice a month and to exhibit at local craft shows on the other Saturdays. I might even find a local market down here that needs handmade artisan soaps!

It's a little bit scary, this taking on the mom role again. I have to remember that my daughter is the mom in charge of the household, and defer to her rules so that the boys aren't confused with two sets of instructions to follow. She's stricter than I was in some areas and more relaxed than I was in others, but I think our parenting styles mesh nicely. She's a single parent, and I'm so proud of the strong, confident woman she has become. She's a good mother and tries to provide her sons with a great life while working a full-time job. My oldest grandson has Downs Syndrome, and she advocates for his education and keeps him involved in activities that stimulate his mind and body.

I have a large room in her basement with two big windows that let in both the morning and afternoon sunshine. The Chihuahua Brothers will have a little more room to roam, and I have a door with back yard access so that I can let them out without having to leash them. I have a feeling they'll be spending most of their time snoozing in whatever sunbeams they can find, though!

This is a positive change. I'll have to work a little smarter to squeeze in as much crafting as I need to get done in less time, but I don't usually work very smart, so anything I can do smarter is going to be an improvement.

Not much done on the crafting front. Nothing at all done, actually, but year is new and I don't feel behind since I still need to move all my supplies here from Pennsylvania. Still big plans in my head and I still plan to report here weekly about what I've finished for shows, market and the big show in November.

Finished Crafts 1/5/14
Amigurumi: 0
Soap: 0
Soap dishes: 0
Greeting cards: 0
Jewelry: 0
Miscellaneous: 0

Time flies ...

Where have the days, weeks and months gone? Christmas will be here in four days. Four. Days. Am I ready? No, but then I never am.

I've been working on a few large special orders - soap, washcloths, shower sugar cubes, amigurumi with a sea-life theme. My youngest grandson has recently discovered pretend cooking and is getting a kitchen for Christmas, so I've been trying to squeeze in some amigurumi food for him, too, but right now all I have finished is one lonely crocheted donut. It's a very cute donut, but it does not a Christmas present make ...

My crafting muse has been yearning to head in a different direction these past few weeks, so I'm going to be dipping into my polymer clay supplies as soon as December is over and the new year begins. For months (years?) I've been wanting to make polymer clay soap dishes to sell at market with my handmade soaps. I have so many whimsical inspiration photos saved, and I've made them so many times in my head that I'm now ready to let my hands take over some of the work. Should be a piece of proverbial cake, right? Anyone else do that? Practice making something in your head until you feel like you can do it right with your hands?

I've also found these great tutorials for rustic polymer clay beads that are stained/distressed/finished with acrylic paints and shoe polish. I really, really want to expand my market presence this year beyond soap, cards and amigurumi, and I'm thinking I'll set up a second table. One will be for all things soap - soaps, shower sugar cubes, washcloths, spa slippers, bath salts, soap dishes. The second table will be for everything else - greeting cards (I sell a LOT of cards at market), amigurumi, and jewelry. No one else at market has these items. I have quite a few customers who do their gift shopping with me, so I'm thinking these are good things to have for gifts. And the larger variety I offer, the better chance of selling more each week.

I participate in a five-week long craft show every year. Last year I sold over $1,000 at this show. This year I sold $200. Totally my fault since I didn't have the inventory that I did last year. I'm a world-class procrastinator (is anyone really surprised by that admission?) and planned to work on inventory during October, like I did last year. The difference this year was that my daughter fell and broke her foot, so I spent October and November with her, helping her recuperate and helping out with my three grandsons. I was totally happy to do it, and totally unprepared for the amount of crafting that I did not get done while I was there. This year I plan to be much more organized - and a certain amount of crafting that I do each day/week/month will be placed in a box specifically for this show. The only thing I won't be able to do is work on soap throughout the year - I like my soaps to be fresh for each show, and I will save them to work on in October.

Now, how to stay accountable to myself? I think I'm going to use my blog to help with that. Even if no one reads it, it's still a journal to myself, and I'll have a visible reminder of what I've accomplished. And more importantly, what I have NOT accomplished.

Now I just need to buckle down and get inventory made! I'll start right after the holidays ...

Tangles ahead ...

After spending today drying in the sun, I've got some serious detangling and reskeining ahead of me tomorrow! With the exception of the green tonal and the teal/copper, all of these sock-weight skeins will become part of my Fruit Stripes line on Etsy - a collection of fruity candy colors that form random 2- and 3-row stripes when knit into a standard 64-stitch sock. The teal/copper will stripe; my sister-in-law just suggested some darker colors for fall/winter sock knitting.

 Side A: Teal/Copper, Blueberry/Lemon, Blueberry/Grape, Raspberry/Blueberry, Jungle Green, Peach-Mango/Grape, Lemon/Lime, Lemon/Orange, Orange/Raspberry.

Side B: Orange/Raspberry (hard to see difference between orange and pink in this photo), Lemon/Orange, Lemon/Lime, Peach-Mango/Grape, Jungle Green, Raspberry/Blueberry, Blueberry/Grape, Blueberry/Lemon, Teal/Copper.

Out of the 9 skeins I dyed yesterday, this Peach-Mango/Grape is my favorite, and it might even be my all-time favorite! I love the tonal shading in both the purple and orange sections. Sometimes when dyeing with food coloring and vinegar, purple can bleed blue and pink. There's a little bit of that going here, but not so much that it is distracting. I also blended pink and orange in the dye bath to get a streaked peachy shade that I love. Wouldn't this colorway be fun for Halloween socks?

Finished skeins will be listed on Etsy tomorrow! Woohoo!

Diego's Big Prize Fail

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I've always believed in reincarnation. I think that souls being reborn is the ultimate form of recycling, and when we finally get it right and learn everything our souls need us to learn, we move on to a higher plane and become guides for other souls learning their way through their lives in this world.

Which brings me to Diego. I've said from the moment I brought him home that Diego is on his first run as a dog. He's really smart and curious, but bless his heart, he's also incredibly naive at the same time (if a dog can be called naive - it's not really the word I'm looking for here, but my inner thesaurus fails me at this moment). While many dogs predictably behave in a certain way, Diego always looks at me with a perplexed expression on his face when a new situation arises, like he isn't sure how he should act when presented with a certain set of circumstances.

For example: A few years ago I was papercrafting some small favor-type items to put in my Christmas gifts to coworkers. I dropped a wrapped peppermint Hershey's Kiss on the floor and he picked it up. Because peppermint Kisses contain no chocolate, I let him have it to see what he'd do with it. Miss Chelsea would have picked it up, had the foil wrapper off and would have swallowed it whole in a matter of seconds. Diego instead just lay on the floor with the wrapped Kiss between his paws, looking up at me with an expression that said "What do I do with it now, Mom?" And when I inadvertently left an open bag of peanut M&Ms on the bed earlier this year, he just curled up beside them and went to sleep. He didn't even try to figure out how to get them out of the bag. And no, he isn't that well-behaved.

As anyone who knows me can also tell you, I'm a bit of a klutz. (Ok, a big klutz whose mother always sarcastically said she should have named me Grace.) I dropped half a cinnamon-raisin bagel on the floor this morning, cream cheese side down (of course). Diego immediately snatched it up and carried it off under the bed, and I immediately thought, "I wish I'd worked harder on teaching him the drop-it command." and then "Oh no, that's a RAISIN bagel - how many raisins can a 7-pound dog eat before they cause anemia?" and then "OMG, half a bagel of any sort in his really small stomach is going to make him really, really sick."

So I grabbed my flashlight and looked under the bed. There's my boy with his prize between his paws, cream-cheese side still down, looking at me with the expression that said "Now what do I do?" I picked up the bagel and let him lick the cream cheese off the floor. He deserved it after not eating all those raisins.

Saturday Market Musings

I was pretty sure Labor Day weekend at the market would be pretty quiet, thinking people were enjoying a long weekend away from home. Instead, market was crowded and people seemed very in the mood for amigurumi cuteness. I sold a few bars of soap and a few cards, but amigurumi made up the bulk of my sales this week, with baby owls and chubby kitties in the lead. I had one of my best weeks this year - go figure!

Apologies for the bad photos - I took these at home with regular lighting and I don't have any photo editing software, so the colors are a little off and they're a bit fuzzy. But still cute!

How sweet are those faces! These guys sold quickly, and I plan to have another half dozen or so at next week's market.

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day!

After #1

Here's some of what I did with soap bases I received earlier this week:

They almost look good enough to eat! Soaps are 3" in diameter, about 1" thick and weigh between 4.5 and 5.5 ounces each. And they smell amazing - a rosemary/peppermint blend fragrance oil. Nice for an early-morning shower! They are covered in a layer of poppy seeds and sea salt to resemble a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper, and this layer is sealed in with clear honey soap for gentle exfoliation.

More photos to come - I've been busy soaping and will have lots to take to market this week.

Before ...

... 30 pounds of glycerin soap.

After photos later this week.

Saturday Market Report

Today was a gorgeous day at market. The high temps and humidity blew through the past day or so, and today was sunny and much cooler, with a breeze that bordered on downright wind at times. I was glad I had my canopy bungie-corded to the car!

Here's a photo of my stand. I need to seriously rearrange next week to fit soap on this table! I didn't have as many felted bowls last summer, so I think I'll try to display them differently. Another table is maybe an option for later.

And here's my market neighbor - Eileen of Gigi's Sweets

And here's the guy who kept me company for most of the morning

That's about life-size. He was the largest fly I've ever seen, if that's what he was. He flew like a wasp, and he has wings with a pattern like a moth, or even a cicada. He wasn't aggressive, and he just sort of hung on the back of the tablecloth for most of the morning. He very calmly let me photograph him, and then flew away about an hour later.

I would have taken more pictures, but this is an Amish market, and they don't like their photos taken. About half the vendors there are "english," but all of the vegetable vendors are old-school Amish farmers. On a day when all the vendors are at market, there are about 15 businesses, ranging from me with crafts and soap, Eileen with her unique baked goods (think lavender/lemon scones and French bread - not something you see from our traditional Amish bakers), two barbeque vendors, the Amish flower vendor with gorgeous vegetable and flower plants and cut bouquets, Jeff with his brown eggs, Linda with floral arrangements and door wreaths, to soft pretzels and hotdogs on pretzel rolls, Amish baked goods, and several Amish vegetable vendors.

We're a pretty friendly group - if someone needs help setting up a canopy, someone else is always there to lend a hand. We all try to patronize each other, and we all care about the success of the market. We have more and more customers attending each week, and it's funny to hear a long-time resident of the area say that they never knew the market was there, which happens just about every weekend. There are signs all over town, but being an Amish market, there might not be any other publicity. We each have loyal customers that try to buy something from us on a regular basis.

Next week I'll have soap again, and I hope to see my sales increase. But even if they don't, I still enjoy being at market and miss setting up every week when it closes the end of October.

This little piggy is going to market ...

And so are these two little piggies ...

 And so are these three little piggies ...

And my fingers are crossed that none of them come home with me (as much as I love them)!

The End.