Theme Thursday: Welcoming in Spring

with the Helping the Hectic Team!

I recently joined a new Etsy Team for those of us who work and/or go to school in addition to running our Etsy shops. So far, I'm loving it! It's kind of refreshing to be part of a network of individuals who are leading as crazy and hectic of a life as me. Being that we're all in the same, or similar, situations, it's a wonderful place to get support. So I thought I'd show my support to the team by curating a treasury of my teammates from Helping the Hectic:



Such a talented group of artists/crafters! Not to mention the talent of balancing their art/craft with a busy schedule! Way to go, everyone!

Wholesale order: check! New items in my shop: check!

I've been busily working on a wholesale order the past couple weeks, and I'm happy to say that it is now done and on its way to Canada. Hooray! Here's a look at what I sent:

10 pink and lavender polka dot felted Easter egg rings

10 sets of hand sewn pink and yellow felt Easter egg hair elastics

10 sets of hand sewn yellow chick felt hair elastics

I love seeing big batches of items like this. Makes me feel like I really accomplished something! Here's one last pic of the hair elastics all packaged up and ready to go:

Now that the wholesale order is done, I can start adding some of these lovelies to my Etsy shop. Yay! I've already added one set of the chick hair elastics and one set of the egg hair elastics. More to come soon!

New Items for Spring and Easter!

After a weekend of more snow, sleet, and rain, it's nice to finally see the sun again today. I realize that being in Maine, it's not likely to really be Spring for awhile yet...after all, we do still have several feet of snow on the ground! But to see the sun shining and hear the birds chirping really puts me in the mood for all things Spring.

So you may remember from my post last week that I had felted some Easter eggs to be made into rings. Here's a peek at how they turned out:


I've also been working on some new hair elastic designs for Spring and Easter, like this sweet little bunny and chick:



and this fun Easter egg:


Today I've been focusing on working on a wholesale order, but be on the lookout for these new designs in my Etsy shop very soon!

Drawing Stars

One of the greatest things about being a parent is watching you children learn and grow. It can be especially exciting when you help them figure out how to do something on their own, even when it's something as simple as drawing stars. I recently had sort of an 'ah ha!' moment when trying to teach little g how to draw stars. She's gotten quite good at writing some letters, and it occurred to me that an 'A' is very similar to a star. So I suggested she make an 'A' with its arms sticking out, then connect one hand to the opposite foot, and the same with the other hand. Voila! Stars! :D

Freshly Felted!

I've been so busy with other things lately that it seems like I haven't taken any time to focus on creating in ages. This afternoon I worked on some felting. It felt good to get back into it again (no pun intended). I had two pairs of baby shoes to felt for a custom order, so I thought I'd do a batch of flowers too. Here's a peek at a few of them:



Whenever I felt a big batch of flowers like this, I'm always eager to start making them into rings and hair accessories. But first they must dry!

Also in the batch of felting today were a couple of Easter eggs. One of my wholesale customers put in a special request for some felted Easter egg rings, so I've also been playing around with some ideas for those. Here's a sneak peek at my first attempt:


Of course, I'll have to wait for them to dry and see how they look as rings, but I think they came out pretty good for a first attempt. :)

Fun with Pipe Cleaners

Due to the holiday, I spent the day at home with little g today. Whenever I have a day at home with her, I am always amazed at the entertainment value of the simplest things. For instance, pipe cleaners. We had a bunch left over from making her butterfly valentines, so today we used them to make some various things, the favorite of which was definitely caterpillars:


These caterpillars, or "callapitters" as she has been calling them, are so easy to make, and quite cute too. All we did was coil a pipe cleaner (or two for a striped effect) around a pencil, slide it off, and glue on some googly eyes. I knew that big package of assorted googly eyes I've been saving for years would come in handy some day!

Making Valentines

Working at a florist, I knew that as Valentine's Day got closer, I would certainly run out of both time and energy to make Valentines, so I made sure to get a head start this year. And with a week to go until the big day, I'm happy to say that the Valentines for my daughters preschool class have been done for awhile now. It's nice to be ahead of the game for once.

We had a lot of fun making these Valentines together. It was really interesting to watch her drawing the faces on the butterflies. Each one is certainly unique, and I was impressed by the amount of detail she included. While I had been thinking just a face, she decided to draw foreheads, faces, hair, hands, feet, and bellybuttons, among other details, explaining what she was drawing the whole time. For instance, this one she named 'Mr. Orange', and she said she was writing his name:

This one has germs:


Wow, really? Germs? Hmm...maybe that's why this one has its hands in its pockets:


And meanwhile, this one just has a mouthful of blueberries:

It was great to be able to take our time with the Valentines, instead of rushing to finish them on time. Since we had more of a leisurely pace while we were making these, I decided to put together a tutorial for Modern Handmade Child. You can see the full tutorial on the MHC blog today. Enjoy!