I’ve been…

Very pregnant.

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And sewing.
A lot.

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The Arlington County Fair is only 8 days away!

My self-imposed production schedule is kinda ridiculously ambitious. But I figure this fair will be my last hurrah for a good long while.
I have lots o’ stuff cut out already and it’s just a matter of me sitting at that sewing machine and going to town.
Last night I was up until 1230.
Tonight?
Who knows!

Once everything is complete, then it’s on to pricing, picture-taking, and packing.
Erm, fun stuff?

Number 2!

Not poopies yo.

Second time making the etsy frontpage!
Yay!

This momentous occasion happened a few days ago.

The fame is fleeting though folks.
So Mike grabbed me quite an awesome screenshot.

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More new stuff!

Oh yes, I’m not joking!
There is even more good stuff in the shoppe.
Check out the brand spanking new items section!

Sneak:

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Pencilcases, pouches, wristlets, and totes!

(And don’t forget the jewelry!)

My new space.

Since finding out we’re having another babe, we needed to get ourselves a bigger place.
2 kids in a one bedroom?
Erm, no.

We have been on the wait list for a 2 bedroom in our building for so long, it seemed like it would never happen.
But then, it did!
So moved in just before May 1st.
And prepared for a rather large and um, slightly uncomfortable rent increase.
Ugh.
But no matter, we are getting our money’s worth and we’re not totally on top of each other.

And lookie!
I have my own space now!
No more dining room table for me.
Which I’m sure Mike and Matty very much appreciate.
Now, while I don’t have my own room, I have my own corner and it’s lovely indeed.

Here it is after a day of production.

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And here it is looking a wee bit neater:

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AND I get my own walk in craft closet!
I’m such a lucky girl.

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Now yeah, that picture is kinda boring, and not all fancy and color coordinated like other pro’s closets. But whatevs, I ain’t no Martha and it’s fine that everything is in shoe boxes and mis-matched baskets instead of darling canvas boxes in all the latest springtime colors. It is neat though. And I hope to keep it that way?
Check my Skechers box yo.

Okay and because I had some empty wall space in there and we have a million trillion pieces of Matty’s artwork, I got to spruce up the expanse of white. I love his stuff! Especially the scary green monster there in the left corner. So awesome!

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A lone craft and other much more productive people.

So here is the thing.
It’s been a billion years since I updated this thing, I know it!
But there is babe #2 a-brewin’.
And there was the move to a more spacious castle to be doin’.
So I’ve been absent from here and other places.
But the move is almost done and well, the babe still has a long way to go before we meet her (?).
In the meantime, there has been lots of “morning” sickness, lots of sleeping, lots of complaining, and lots of nothing else.
Yeah, I can be a whiny kind of gal.
Sue me.

The good news is, I kinda feel sporadically better and in our new place, I have my own work area. Yay! No more bogarting the dining room table for all my sewing needs.
I’m so thrilled to set up my new work space. And while I won’t have my own whole room for my business, I will have a large corner in our rather cavernous living room. Exciting!
I’m looking forward to filling my space with cool new artwork that I picked up from Etsy. I have a handful of pieces that I’ve had my eye on for awhile that will look awesome. As soon as my space is beautified, I will post pics.

Speaking of Etsy.
Recently I got a few trinkets that I haven’t had a chance to post.

These are the goods:

First we have a simple and pretty set of rings forged by the very talented Brooke Medlin. Her shop is gemmafactrix and it is quite cool. I love her use of medals and beads. Everything is somehow simple and intricate at the same time. I wear these rings stacked together, but they look delicate and sweet by themselves too.

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And this pair of earrings, also made by Brooke, have quickly become my everyday earrings. They are just so friendly.

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Next, this beauty was made by Katie at kjsallander. It’s a forget-me-not flower and I fell in love with it immediately. It looks adorable stacked on top of my wedding band, despite the fact that my band is platinum and this ring was created in sterling silver. Who says you can’t mix metals?

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And finally, here is a ring (yes, another one!) that was purchased for me, but not by me. See here is the thing, being preggers, well there is the bloating factor, especially in the later months. Add on the fact that I’ll be hitting the big-time in the sweltering humidity of August and September, I knew my current wedding band would not survive. So I told this to Mike and he agreed to get me a temporary replacement while I waddled and wallowed around in all my knocked up glory. Ahem.

Here is what we picked out. Again, from Etsy, because everything there is awesome you see. Now this one is from Chuck Domitrovich and his shop is Down to the Wire Designs. And I swear everything there is so lovely. So keeping with my loves of silver and flowers, Mike bought me this gorgeous band.

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Now wasn’t all of that jewelry delicious?


Okay, okay, here you go, I did actually make something over the last few months. I did a small school craft fair last weekend and in between customers and browsers, I kept my mind and my fingers occupied by hand stitching up some very adorable little red birdies. Ah-ha!

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I actually like just holding them in my hand. But I believe I will be using some E6000 super glue to put magnetics on them and using them as promos from time to time. A little something special for those larger orders.


And last but certainly not least, in the absence of my own crafting, I’ve decided to share my awesome little Matty’s artwork. Since he clearly is being more creative than me lately.

This one is a favorite. I am just tickled by the use of coffee filter for a flower top. It’s beyond awesome.

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So there you go. I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.
Not yet anyways.

I would like to thank the academy…

Hey, hey!

I made the front page on etsy.com!
First time ever!
I was so excited that I immediately ran into the bedroom, snapped on the light, and shook
Mike awake so I could tell him.

So of course now, the front page is ever changing and you can be there one day and gone the next. With that, I just had to grab a screenshot:

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I keep going back to etsy just to look at my pencilcase and name.

I’m a star baby!

Right?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

There’s a name change to be happening!

Okay, WHY THE NAME CHANGE?

Well, I got tired of folks thinking that craftysassi was craftyASSI. I’m serious people, that is what I would get time and time again. Even if I changed my font!

So after much consideration, I decided to make my mascot, my little red birdie, who has been my peep from day one, front and center. His name in lights!

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Oh and my other new friend there? Her name is Frances. You can call her Franny if you’d like. She is wearing ‘little red birdie’ original accessories, of course.

I created my new look with the simplest pleasure of paper and glue.
I cut out my design totally freehand. Free-scissor?
I loved the way everything came out.
We then scanned it in and Mike did his work with all the code and stuff. Really, he’s a genius. It’s exactly how my brain pictured the final site.
So cool.

You can see our awesome handywork at the new site, it’s all live and functional already. Woo!

See some of the papery love:

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I had new business cards printed up by the very awesome and fast and reasonable overnightprints.com.
I love how they look like little pieces of art, not a stuffy old business card.

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Next was some new maker labels for my stuff. I went back to namemaker.com. I love the way the red looks against the light blue. These labels are great, very easy to use and inexpensive in price. My only complaint with namemaker.com is that they take quite a long time. I’m impatient, I want things NOW people! But you know, anyway, I got ‘em and I love ‘em.

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Finally, I needed some new promo magnets. For reasons I don’t feel like getting into here, I chose not to patronize kateblack anymore. (I don’t even feel like linking her shop, to be honest.) So I spent some time on etsy looking for a new source. And I came across the very sweet AmyLynn and her shop kittycrossbones.
She did an excellent job on my new magnets! They look so cute, starring the very fashionable Frances and everyone’s pal, LRB. See?

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So with all that, I’ll now be working on restyling this blog to match the little red birdie shop. I’m going to go the paper and glue route again, just because it was so much fun and I was so pleased with the results.

So stay tuned!

I love keyrings.

Lovey keyrings to be for sure.

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I made these keyrings for Matty’s teacher and aides. A little wuv for Christmas. They do such a fine job of teaching Matty and keeping him safe and sound, I just had to show my appreciation. I baked ‘em cookies too!

materials used:

remnant leather
sueded leather
heavy duty topstitching thread
nickel keyrings

The papery.

I love paper.
The feel of it.
The look of it.
The versatility.
The selection, my golly, the selection!

So I allow myself any excuse to work with some paper and glue.

I made our Christmas cards this year and I’m pretty darned pleased with how they came out. Mike admired the simplicity and elegance of my designs. Isn’t he the sweetest?

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Of course, for as nice as they are, they’ll more than likely be a wee late, ’cause well, there sitting on the desk right now waiting to be stamped and mailed!

materials used:

vellum cardstock
linen cardstock
paper glue
archival ink
stamps

LDB

When I was a youngster, every year we broke out the same big ol’ box of Christmas decorations. There were many glass balls, lots of little plastic Santas and snowman and yards of glittery silver garland. (Never tinsel, garland.)
We hardly ever added anything to our holiday stash and anything subtracted was due to breakage.
The other day I was at the Salvation Army browsing and but who should I see laying in the glass case amongst other fine ornaments?

Why, it was Little Drummer Boy and he looked exactly as I remembered him.
We had these very same ornaments growing up, in red and green.
I knew I had to rescue the little guy from the musty stench of the Salvy.
So I paid the 4 bucks for him and took him on home.

He’s here now and just look at his awesome cherub face.

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