Chicken Girl for President

I made these badges and wore them at the Highlight Illustrators Party a few weeks ago. The theme was "silly." I have no idea how this came to mind. It was fun making them though.

Crafting and Craft Show

With a light dusting of snow this morning in my new town, a 2ft Christmas tree lit, I did a little crafting- making gift tags. I bought one of these craft punch- yikes...so much fun...a little addicting! And I'm a sucker for red ribbons with little stitchings on them. The penguin and the bear might look familiar, I just took it from some pre-existing art. Pretty easy.

And...I'm doing a local craft show this Saturday, 12/12! Its The Craft Circus Holiday Show. 119 E Liberty, Ann Arbor, from 4-9 pm. Hope to meet some local artists and new people there. I'll be bringing my monster cards and some books. Wish me luck!

Lunch?

Another attempt at going through my fabric stash: fabric collage on watercolor paper greeting card.

Oh how funny with all the comments on the coupon! Everyone is taking up on the free chicken leg offer, I better stock up :-) I think I will do a real promo with it. It will be fun to see who actually redeems the coupon.

Makin' Envelopes

Some experimenting with the reprints I talked about in an earlier post. It was perfect to fold them into envelopes. A little glue on the side and a white label on the front.
Stuffed with my postcards, it was more sturdy.
I sent one to Tom (who sparked this idea) and he gave me some feedback on how the envelope held up through the postal system. A little bit worn on the corners but otherwise it was OK. A fun little experiment indeed!

Ikea bag

A quickie update here with more sewing- bag with zipper made with IKEA fabric. Pattern from Sew Everything Workshop. (a great book with a variety of patterns, I've also made the yoga/ lounge pants from it.)

More update soon...its been hard to keep up with various emails/trades/swaps... please forgive me, I haven't forgotten about you! I've been busy with various things.

I went the Parsons Illustration Alumni reunion at the Society of Illustrators last week. So happy to see old classmates and familar faces....my class was always a small, tight knit and friendly group. I also had to go meet with a client and my accountant... maybe dealing with my taxes had completely wiped me out.

Wall pocket

I finally got some time to do some sewing again. Here's a little wall pocket I made for my bulletin board. The little tab on the lower right was meant to hold a pen, but it was too small. It was nice to finally make up my own pattern though (and know how to execute it!)

Thanks for all the wonderful ideas as to what I should do with the reprints. I need to get creative, especially since I have about 200 of them! Tom Barrett had a great idea with turning them into envelopes, I just did a little test run and it looks like might work out! More soon. Thanks, Tom!

Happy New Year! (+Xmas swap craftiness)

Happy 2008! Wishing everyone a wonderfully creative new year.

Might seem a bit late here but I wanted to show some of the goodies I made for a secret santa swap over at Monday Artday ATC (and I hope all my recipients got their packages?!):

I love cello sleeves. Its so much fun making your own little packaging.

And fruity notebooks made from an Illustration friday entry.

Next up, some new year's resolutions, so many things I would like to accomplish this year!

Have a good holiday, folks

I participated in a secret santa Christmas swap, I can't wait to show some of the stuff I made here but I don't want to spoil it for the recipients. So I will wait till after Christmas. But above is a sneak peek of some Christmas tree plushies work-in-progress.

Anyways, its time for me to take a break from the blog and enjoy the holiday goodness, but also really to catch up on some work. Have a good holiday, everyone! Chickeny wishes to all.

crafty distractions

I finally got a chance to touch my sewing machine again! Inspired by Shim and Sons' pencil cups, I decided to sew up fabric sleeves to go over empty coffee cans. My first attempt- circle appliques over dotted fabric over a round can- hmm, not sure if its a bit over board. But these were very easy to make and very fast, just the little fix I needed.

Pouch

On the crafty front, I finally tackled the zipper using this tutorial to make a pouch. I did not use a zipper foot because my hello kitty sewing machine doesn't have one. But it turned out alright!

Mini pouch

Thanks to everyone's comments about my ATCs, I decided to put up the kitty and the crocodile for trade. I wanted to put up the pig card too but it accidently took a dip into my cup of coffee and it got ruined.

I did some sewing this week (way over due), this little pouch was made from a (slightly modified) pattern from The Crafters Companion. The cute twill tape is from The Small Object, which I bought a few months back at the Renegade Craft fair. This pouch was meant to hold lip gloss and such but since I have way too much stuff, it doesn't really hold enough. I need to make another version with twice the size!

A Wee Bunny

A blue wee bunny for a friend's baby boy! This is my first stuffie and it was harder than I thought it would be- the bottom is circular and that was the hardest to sew on. Free pattern from Wee Wonderfuls- but most of you probably know that already!

Houses

I made a house tissue cover! The awesome pattern is by My Paper Crane from book The Crafters Companion. I basicly picked up this book mainly because of this pattern. So cute. The chimney was a little tough to put on though.

Here is a 2D version:

I originally wanted to make a bunch of these fabric collages and sell them. But now I am not so sure. I am, however, taking steps to open an etsy shop. I have some fun stuff in the works! More soon.

tea

After I did these greeting cards out of fabric, I got a bit obsessed over doing more fabric collages. Here's a little bit more experimentation. This little tea guy is about 4 x 4 inches. (nothing too big so I don't feel like I am wasting fabric.)

Here is the sketch I did, its cool to see how it got translated.
And its so easy in Illustrator to break up the shapes, print it out and voila- you have a pattern!

Greeting cards

I'm taking a greeting cards class at the School of Visual Arts this summer. When I tell people this, I get alot of "Why do YOU need to take a greeting cards class?" Partly for motivation and inspiration, meeting new people, and simply for me to get out of my studio once in a while. The first assignment was to "create two 5 x7 cards using an icon, exploring different mediums." Ok, I have to admit, I was not thrilled about this assignment. After all, I know how I like to create my illustrations (the computer) and thats that, right? But after a little thought and seeing it as a challenge, it made perfect sense that I started using my left over scraps of fabric to create something.

These cards were made using leftovers- watercolor paper (when I use to paint!), fabric scraps, felt. sobo glue and the sewing machine. They were like mini quilts except I feel they were less constricting....I didn't have a need to sew everything, some pieces were glued when I felt necessary. Anyways, I enjoyed making these very much, so you'll be seeing more of these soon!

I make bag, bag makes me happy

My new favorite bag! More projects from Amy Butler's In stitches....I was finally confident to tackle this bag and it wasn't that hard. Plus, this fabric is the most expensive fabric I've worked with yet...can't mess it up! Although I haven't bought the very expensive yet very cute Japanese fabric I've been oogling over just yet. This fabric is from The City Quilters, very easy for me to get to. Or maybe too easy....I've already got the farbic hording syndrome....

Random creative distractions

Sometimes its just nice getting off the computer and do some creative things with my hands. Maybe thats why I've been so drawn to crafting and sewing in the past few months. I made this fabric basket (from Amy Butler's In Stitches, excellent book!!):

I'm also a secret anime/manga fan, I don't talk about it too much here but I can see it influencing my work more and more. This past saturday was free comic day so it was off to the comic shop. Besides the free comics, Mathboy and I wanted to pick up a plastic model to build, just for the fun of it:

Ok, we thought we would get a small one just to get our feet wet. This little guy is only about 2.5 inches tall and was super easy to put together. Thought it might be harder since the instructions were in Japanese. The gun actually shoots! How cute!

I think after taking these little creative breaks, I can go back to my illustration with a fresh eye and perspective. So I guess I am off to draw some robots...!

Haunted

I made this checkbook cover with the left over strips/scraps from the bag that I made. Originally I wanted to embroider some sort of chicken or bird on it, but I found out I have yet to master the art of embroidery, and that with hand crafts, there is no such thing as command Z. (ughh!) The seam ripper is not that much fun. I thought-what character can I do instead that was a easy and simple shape? A ghost!

So my ghost obsession continued, and more ghost drawings were done in my sketchbook (yes, I've jumped on the molskines bandwagon, the paper is delicious!):

What to do with these ghosts? Maybe design some cute stationary? Or a little story? We'll see.

Bag Lady

I am so happy about my new bag! It was made by yours truly, taking a class at Make Workshop. The pattern is an original from Nikki Smith, an editor at Cutting Edge Magazine-who taught the class. I picked up alot of new tips, and even sewed on machines that went a gzillion times faster than my hello kitty machine. The interior is lined and closed with a magnetic snap:


Maybe I will use it to tote a chicken around? (The chicken model's name is Katsu, He is actually a pillow from Anthropologie):
That's all the crafty news in Chicken land. Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

Spring

Working at home sometimes got its disadvantages- like not getting out of the house enough. I went to visit my parents in Philadelphia so I can get a break from my own place. I love my laptop and can just work about anywhere. Now I am back and feeling refreshed, here are some finished crafts I've been meaning to take pictures of.

Above is my recently finished needlebook- who knew a girl needed a needlebook? Honestly, I didn't know of such things until I've seen a few people made them and indeed, it was handy t0 have. So I decided to make it out of felt, something I haven't worked with since childhood.

This is my initial sketch (done in Illustrator, of course!) Originally I wanted to use scraps of fabric with the felt, but it didnt turn out the way I wanted. Its fun to see my idea and the final result.

I've wanted to post this for quite a while now. Its my first quilt-and first project made with my hello kitty machine. Its a lap quilt-around 23"x23". Now I have a whole new appreciation for quilters!

Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments on my website. I am so happy to get so much positive feedback. Happy Spring to all!