Art Update - Fantasy-inspired ear cuffs

Before I ramble about art, I wanted to post a quick reminder about the free shipping sale over in my Etsy shop. Free shipping on US orders over $10 with code SPRING13, and free shipping on international orders over $15 with code WORLDSPRING13.

Speaking of spring, can I say how incredibly happy I am that the weather has warmed up? I've been going geocaching at least once a week (I found the best swag this week: snakes in the peanut brittle! What can I say, I'm easily amused) and going for walks, just enjoying the green growing things. And painting henna! In the warm weather I always paint vines on myself:

One of these days I'll get around to painting other designs, but spring/summer is the time of year where my inner wood elf comes out. ;)

Okay, onto some art! I've been doing some crochet recently but since I'm not quite done the plushie I've been working on, I'll share those pictures later. I've been getting ready for upcoming craft shows and the first jewelry I decided to make were earrings. Tons and tons of earrings. This pile is maybe a third of what I've made this month:

I'll share pictures of a few of the ear cuffs I've put online so far; I'm something like 500 photos in, so I haven't been able to edit them all yet (and none of these are in that above photo, either- go figure!). All of these are in my Etsy shop.

And I'm just now realizing that these are all leaves, dragons, and arrows, even the ones that are recolors of previous earrings (the dice ones). I guess my inner wood elf has been influencing me! She's sneaky like that. XD

I also got to thinking this month that it would be neat to list some simple pierced ear cuffs in my shop, so I started with some that I had already put together as ear cuffs. Here are examples of those:

I think I might do my more intricate/beaded ones for piercings, too, but that'll come later. Since the next craft show is next week, I need to get to making things for that: chainmaille, hemp jewelry, and keychains. :)

Time for a "Yay, it's spring!" free shipping deal!

This week has been amazingly wonderful warm weather here in PA and that has put me in a happy, bouncy, cheerful mood! I decided to share that cheer by doing a little something special in my Etsy shop this month:

For the month of April I'm offering free shipping in my Etsy shop to the US on all orders over $10. Just enter the code SPRING13 when checking out. Hooray!

If you're not in the US, I can sneak a discount in there for you, too. ;) Unfortunately the post office decided to raise international shipping prices like crazy earlier this year, but don't despair! Use the code WORLDSPRING13 to get free shipping to anywhere in the world on orders over $15.

Now I'm off to do all the fun warm weather crafting that I've been itching to do all winter: painting henna, spinning yarn, and making hemp jewelry. *does the happy spring dance being careful not to smear her drying henna*

Art Update - My crochet hooks are giving me fairies and elves again!

I've been working on quite a few plushies this year. Since fairies and elves like to hang out and cause mischief, those are the two I'll share today. ;)

First up is the fairy doll that I made for a special custom order. Oh my gosh, this was so much fun to make! Here's the finished result:

She's about 6" tall and almost entirely crocheted. There's a lot of painted embellishments and a chain circlet, too! The eyes are plastic ones that I painted green.

Here's what she looked like to start. Rather bland, I know!

But the blandness didn't last long! Soon she found some blue pieces of jewelry- and to her surprise, vines began to grow when she put those on:

After deciding that she wanted her ears even more adorned, she tried on a dress and modeled a new pair of wings:

Then she realized something else was missing... her hair, of course! To have hair, though, she needed to give up her wings for a bit, but she wasn't worried. Soon she would fly!

Her patience paid off- while her hair was growing, her dress and wings grew an ivy leaf and flowers. Now she's a pretty fairy, ready to make her way in the world. (She's flying all the way to Germany, in fact!)

While I had the yarn out for the fairy's hair, I realized that was exactly the color of the tunic that my half-elf wears in the story that I'm writing. This could only mean one thing: playing dress up with dolls! (My inner six year old squealed in delight!) Once the fairy flew off on her adventures eastwards, I grabbed Raff off my desk, snatched up that wine-colored yarn and my crochet hooks, and crochetcrochetcrochet I went. I had my fingers crossed the whole time (okay, maybe not the whole time since you can't really crochet with fingers crossed!) that I'd be able to make his tunic look the way it does in my head. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! The sleeves are supposed to be loose, with the white bindings around them to keep them out of the way; this looks pretty close to how I imagine the arm bindings and the sash that serves as a belt.

Here's my elf, ready to go undercover in his new costume:

For a bit of geeky ramblings, there's a reason this character is no longer dressed in his uniform as a priest of the god of Mischief/Messages. In this story he was captured (all his possessions- minus his loyal pet mouse- taken who knows where) and held prisoner until he was finally rescued by a healer of the god of Love/Truth. In an effort to not be tracked down by the baddie, Raff pretends to be a human healer but has to mooch his new friend's clothes (who was much taller than this half-elf, hence why the tunic and pants on the doll are so long).

I could ramble on and on about plot ideas, but don't worry, I won't get into that here. (Generally I keep that over on my writing blog.) I am hoping that since Raff's now sitting on my desk looking relevant, I'll actually be able to finish the first draft of this story that I started months ago. However, what's actually happening is that I'm wanting to make all the other characters in doll form. That plan backfired!

Trove Thursday - Springtime Purples

Since it's finally spring (hooray!), here are some lovely springtime items from the Fantasy Artists of Etsy street team. For more great fantasy art, just search for the team tag of "faeteam" on Etsy. :)

'Springtime Purples' by merigreenleaf

Fairy Circlet with Purple Ro... TheEvergreenNe... $27	Amethyst Spring Fairy Hair C... Thyme2dream $45
Fairy Art 5x7 Print "Hy... ShannonValenti... $8.5	Amethyst with Pearls Spring... TangoCatGems $90
Keeper of Mementos -- Faerie... ErtheFae $50	Dusty Lavender Chiffon Rose ... MermaidenCreat... $28
Faerie Magick Herbal Spell B... MoonlitHerbals $5.75	ooak cloth art doll, Ashlynn... ToadstoolsNTre... $92
Purple Bellflower 5x7 Fairy ... meredithdillma... $10	Sihaya Designs Earring Wardr... SihayaDesigns $42
Magic Crystal Wand Deer Antl... SpinningCastle $92	Valentine Steampunk Purple F... LithiasCreatio... $30
Woodland hair sticks with cr... archeress $35	Fairy Door - Lavender Crysta... SpiritedWoodla... $26.95
Purple Great Fairy Leather M... MythicalDesign... $126	Pot Feet for Planters - Purp... PhenomeGNOME $24.99

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Art Update - I'm related to a cartoon character

And for once I'm not referring to my goofy husband who's part kobold. ;) This past weekend was my dad's birthday and I had spent all month racking my brain to figure out what to make him- I've already done a few dragons and last year my husband and I had put together a geocaching kit for him.

Remembering that geocaching present from last year gave me an idea, though! My dad uses Yosemite Sam as his geocaching username, and rightly so. I mean, just look at that mustache! (It's grey now, but it used to be very red.)

Last year my husband drew Yosemite Sam holding a walking stick and GPS, which my dad uses as his geocaching avatar:

And that drawing was what gave me an idea. I would make a plushie of that avatar! Unfortunately I only had about a week to work with, so I didn't have time to make a pattern from scratch- but Ravelry came to my rescue! Amazingly someone had already come up with a crochet pattern for Yosemite Sam, which would save me a lot of time. It was a really good pattern, too, so I got the plushie done on time- well, sort of. The fabric paint on the doll was still a bit tacky when my dad unwrapped this present and I didn't have a chance to paint anything on the GPS screen like I'd planned, but it was done! :)

Here's Sam, in all his geocaching glory. (The pattern called for pistols but I made the walking stick and GPS instead.)

My dad was beaming from ear to ear when he saw what was in that wrapped box! I love making plushies, so it always makes me happy when people appreciate the work that goes into them. :D

A look into my studio

Today I updated the About page in my Etsy shop with new photos and bios for my helpers and realized that I never shared pictures on my blog of my new studio like I meant to do months ago. Whoops! Last summer my then-fiancé and I moved into our own place. It's a small apartment, but it's really nice and has lots of natural light. My husband is also an amazing, wonderful man because right from the beginning he had no problem with turning our dining room nook (corner of the living room) into my office/studio. For this I am so incredibly thankful! It gives me space to work, space for my desk, bins, and a shelf, and it gets lots of natural light since this side of the apartment faces west (and I usually am working in the afternoon).

Over the past few months I've been gradually working to make that space truly my own- having never really had a studio/office before, this is awesome!

Here's my corner, being all bright and colorful:

A closeup:

Yes, lots of foxes, cats, unicorns, and plushies of my characters (four live on my desk, three in the vase on the shelf). I'm still a kid at heart. ;) Up on that shelf are fake flowers; the blue ones are my wedding bouquet. Getting to see them all the time makes me happy that I didn't go with real flowers. :)

Here's a closeup of my desk:

A fairy wand and rubber duckies. Yup, I'm still a kid! You can tell here that I love animals- I have a collection of little ones living under my monitor along with Aragorn (I keep meaning to turn him into a geocaching travel bug to send him around the country, but haven't gotten around to it yet) and a bunch of dice (minus my crocheted D4, the real ones also came from geocaches, speaking of, as did most of my rubber ducks). Peeking out from behind my wand and paintbrushes is a drawing of cartoon Legolas that my friend drew for me (that always gets a place of honor on my desk!). The plushies on the right are four of my characters (two D&D, one writing, the fairy is of my art muse- and in the background you can see a bunch of the plushies I've made for my husband), the cardinal and mouse are part of a cosplay/costume but live on my desk the rest of the time, and the red and white card is the one with the silly kobold that my husband drew for Valentine's day.

Enough rambling! There's one other part to my studio, which is a shelf that I'm gradually painting vines over. This is just behind my desk chair:

The bottom two shelves are beads, the 2nd from the bottom also has ribbon, a yarn knitter thing, and a small sewing machine, 3rd up is my shipping materials shelf, above that are my jump rings in a large basket, and the basket at the top is extra odds and ends and my folded-up lightbox. Someday I'll be done painting the green vines on this shelf!

This isn't all of my art supplies; I have bins and bins of yarn that take up most of the hall closet. (Who cares if my clothes are jammed and wrinkled in there? Yarn trumps clothes. lol!)

Okay, it's not much to look at, but I love it so I wanted to share. :) I have dreams of one day having my own room where I can paint the walls whatever I want (I'd love to have a mural of a forest), build all sorts of shelving, get the large art supplies I've always wanted (sewing machine, spinning wheel, kiln/pottery wheel...) but considering that prior to last summer I was working out of my small bedroom at my parents' house, I'll gladly take a corner of the apartment! At least it's mine! :D