Another Handmade Holiday!

I just wanted to quickly note that another holiday season is upon us, and I am running a sale in my Etsy shop! When you make a purchase, enter the coupon code HOLIDAY25 to receive 25% off your total purchase before shipping! I also just relisted some great holiday themed accessories, and a few new items as well. A little picture preview:

Dia de los Muertos Painted Masks

Well, so much for doing a post a week. Good news is, I now have a full-time job and it's going pretty well! Bad news, well, time is hard to come by, as it usually is. But, I want to take a moment to share a project with you that was great fun for me and turned out so well, I can't wait to do more.

A couple blog posts ago, I mentioned painting a Day of the Dead style mask and having so much fun, I was going to do more. Well, I did, and they were so much fun that when offered, I jumped on a commission to make them part of a set of five. Here are the pictures of the finished set!

 (My Etsy shop)

This was an amazing set to work on, and I definitely want to create more. Next time, though, I plan on making my paper mache masks from scratch, creating unique face shapes and textures. I want lots more designs as well! I did experiment with a henna-style design, which was time consuming but very beautiful.

 (Available here.)

I really want to devote more and more of my crafting time to masks. I enjoy the accessories and the like, but masks are where I really find my creative juices flow best. I'm finishing another custom project as we speak, this one a simple collection of knit goods, and when that is done... oh so many more masks.

Painted Paper Mache Masks - Submit your ideas!

A few months ago, I had a blast painting a paper mache mask in the style of Day of the Dead sugar skulls. It was tricky work to get everything even and come out exactly as I envisioned it, but I love the result. It sold within days of being listed, and I knew I should definitely make more. I got caught up in other projects though, so I put off painting more.

Well, now is the time! I plan on painting at least two more in Day of the Dead style, in different colors and designs of course. I may paint a few others with something a little different, but I'm not sure what. What springs to mind first is leaves and flowers, because of course I love them and I can't seem to stop putting them on masks, whether in synthetic, preserved natural, or painted form!

So what I'm asking from YOU is to submit your ideas! Especially if you'd like to order one for yourself. Remember, there's only 76 more days til Halloween! The paper mache masks are pre-made, but I can alter the eye shape, edge shape, and ribbon color, and I prefer to line the back in a soft-to-the-touch felt. If you'd like, I can even add a lace trim to the edges, or add a cluster of hanging ribbons/rhinestones/beaded chain on one side. The possibilities are endless! I only have five pre-made masks but I have so many fun ideas for them that I may have to get more!

If you'd like to make a custom order, visit my Etsy store and send me a message! On the left side of the screen, under my Shop Owner picture, there are two buttons you can click to send me a message; doesn't matter which. Or, if you just have an idea you'd like to share, leave a comment here on the blog or on my Facebook page, or you can even send me a tweet.

When I get more painted, I will definitely be sharing them here. Look for more updates soon! :)

Tiny Top Hats

Since there was such a large gap in between posts, I'd like to try to catch you up on my activities over the past few months. The Mothman LARP masks featured in my last post have definitely taken up a good chunk of my time, but of course there are always other projects to keep my hands and mind busy.

Today I'm featuring my tiny top hats. I love tiny top hats - they are so very Victorian, and the possibilities for adornment are endless. Here are a few I've put together, some recent and some not so much.

Ivory Rose and Tulle - a simple yet elegant clip on hat with a beautiful fabric rose, a twist of tulle, and ivory peacock herl feathers.

White Lace and Feather - a beautiful applique wrapped around the clip on hat, featuring a fluffy white feather.

Dogwood Flower and Ivy - the clip on  hat is a subtle dark green, featuring a dogwood flower, ivy leaves, and a few natural and dyed bright green peacock herl feathers.

White Lace and Black Rose - the clip on hat features a band of white lace and a matching white lace bow, and a black glittery rose with black leaves. (This item is sold.)

Deer Antler and Ivy - the plastic clip-on hat features ceramic deer horns broken off an ornament, with ivy leaves at the base of the horns. This is my favorite, and I will be sad to see it go!

I hope you enjoyed a peek at one of my favorite things to make. I hope to be making more extravagant tiny top hats in time for Halloween, to suit your costuming needs! As always, check out my Etsy store for more interesting pieces, and message me if you'd like custom work!

New Year, New Projects, New Sales

Once again I waited way too long in between blogs. But that's ok, because I have so much to share with you, it will make up for the past month of silence!

It looks like I have yet to show you the LARP pictures I promised, so here they are:

Aren't these photos amazing? I love the high quality, and I think the guys look pretty badass! All I can say is that it must have been tons of fun, and I hope to one day participate in something like this for myself!

It would be impossible to list all the treasuries I've been in since the last Treasury Love blog post, so I'll just include the ones I've been in so far this year.
Victorian Romance
Hazy Shade of Winter
Lord of the Forest

The latest project I've just finished is a set of hair clips for a friend of a friend's wedding. She wanted gerber daisies, and each of her bridesmaids is wearing a different color dress, so each hair clip needed to be different to match the dresses. For the bride's hair clip, she wanted white daisies with pink middles. This was absolutely impossible to find, so what I did was take apart white and pink daisies and put them together to look exactly how she wanted them. She also wanted them to have a few sparkly rhinestones, and to include a bit of her sister's veil. (Her sister tragically passed away far too young.) So here are the pictures of what I came up with. She cried a little bit upon seeing them.

I was so honored to be a part of her wedding day by making these for her. I love to make brides happy, because I know from experience that in the stress of organizing your own wedding, having something turn out just the way you wanted it to is incredibly important. I'm glad I was able to do that for her.

I also have another wedding for a coworker coming up in late summer, for which I'm creating some lily hair clips. I will share those with you when I complete them!

Speaking of big projects, I have the biggest project I've ever had coming up. I've been requested by a customer who is in charge of costuming at a dance theatre in Italy to make 30 custom clips for a performance. The dance is about the seasons, and I will be creating 12 autumn leaf clips for the adult women, and 18 summer berry headbands for the little girls. I am thrilled to pieces to be a part of this project, and I will definitely be sharing pictures of the finished project with you! I'm crossing my fingers I get some pictures of the actual dance troupe as well, and that they will be great photography like of my LARP group.

SALE ALERT:

The last thing I want to share with you today is a major sale I'm having in my Etsy shop right now. I'd like to clear some room in my inventory for some new projects, and make my load a little lighter to take to the upcoming craft fairs this season. Therefore, I've marked down some of my leaf clips and a lot of my feather clips, in some cases more than half off. This is a great deal and I will only be doing it for a little while, so get them before they're gone! Also, I will be giving free shipping on any purchase of $25 or more. The shipping will be refunded to your PayPal account. This goes for any of my pieces, sale and non-sale. I hope this helps you get the pieces you've been thinking about! :)

Listening to: Nebelhexe

Camping Trip, Giveaway Winner, and More News

Wow, the last couple weeks have been crazy. The two craft fairs I was in went very well, so thank you to everyone who stopped by! I loved doing the feather hair extensions. They're not exactly a very "creative" endeavor, but I enjoyed the look on girls' faces when they looked in the mirror after the extensions were in. That's why I enjoyed working in a salon; sometimes just the simple act of helping someone feel pretty can really light up your day. I'd love to work in a salon again. I'm not a cosmetologist, I just did the receptionist work, but it was a great experience.

I also took some time to go camping the week after I wrote the last blog. We went to Kettle Moraine State Park, only half an hour from us. It was so gorgeous out there. Our campsite was nice, with plenty of trees between us and the other campers, which is the way I like it. The only downside was because it was at the edge of the campground, it was close to the highway, so we were stuck with highway sounds all night. Oh well. During the day we did some hiking. Our favorite trails were the Nordic Trail loops. There were several different loops of varying difficulties and lengths. We chose a moderate one; it took us about an hour to do the 3 mile loop. It had some very gorgeous scenery and we stopped for a few photos. Our dog enjoyed it too!

I took these pics with my Retrocam app:

Last week, I did a very fun giveaway contest with Rachael of Talk 2 the Trees. She makes wonderful art herself, and hosts giveaways every Monday. The contests last for a week. You can enter right up until the following Monday morning. I decided to do a giveaway of this cute little item here:

It was a great experience, and brought many new friends and fans my way. Hello to all my new followers and thank you! And congratulations to Lillian Link, who was the winner of this giveaway! Check out Rachael's latest blog to enter in her next giveaway, and if you're an artist, I would definitely recommend contacting her about hosting a giveaway in the future! :)

I have a few more Halloween projects I'm sharing with you (pics below). I've kept very busy in between working on a few custom mask orders. If you want any custom orders for Halloween, please contact me soon; it looks like I'll be so busy I may not get my own costume done. Lol. For those of you who missed out on the giveaway, I have a few more skull clips available, as well as a couple new masks, new jewelry, and some knit items. I am still working on listing them all, so if they're not available at my Etsy shop yet, they will be shortly!

Listening to: Regina Spektor