DIY Hello Kitty

I've signed up for a bead sprite swap over on Swap-Bot - you have to make two bead sprites, any character you choose, and send one to each of your partners. I haven't made mine to send off yet, but I made one before I even signed up, just to be sure I could do it. Otherwise of course I wouldn't have joined the swap. :-)

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me that I chose Hello Kitty as my ... model. (You should see my new mp3 player that I got in Spain. James, you're going to absolutely hate it. >:-) Isn't she adorable?? I made her with mini Hama beads. They are soo tiny to work with but the result is soo cute. :-)

More arts & crafts

Some more pictures of my artful creations. :-) All of this is for Swap-bot. Sheesh, I need to make some stuff for my friends. Anyone need a new bookmark? :-) For some reason, most of my friends are born in autumn and early winter, I think. Well, Calyx's birthday is in mid-February, but I found something really nice for her at Friends. :-)

Anyway. Some inchies. This was open theme, but I tried to make some that fit the recipients likes and interests, as she'd described them in her profile. The flower is an outline sticker that I filled up with glitter using a glue pen. Panduro has a set of glitter in their new winter/spring catalog - 15 different colors - I just had to get it, and I'm wracking my brain trying to think of new things to do with it all. :-)

A bookmark ... made for someone who likes butterflies. :-) Made with monochrome cardstock, patterned deco paper and some laser cut paper butterflies. I love those laser cutouts. I hope the bookmark won't get damaged too easily if/when the recipient uses it, which of course I hope she will.

I've started making postcards using my own photos ... in a more direct way than I've been doing so far. I just get some good quality prints from my local photography store, write whatever I want to say on the back, and then when I'm done, laminate them. Yes, I have a laminator. Don't you??

More inchies. Free theme again, tried to fit recipient's interests again ... she says she likes turtles a lot, so that's why Raphael's in there. :-) These are actually fridge magnets, although that doesn't really show.

I joined this one swap last month which I wanted to try as kind of a challenge to myself ... all the participants were supposed to make a butterfly out of metal wire and glass beads. I had never tried anything like that and didn't know how to do it, but hey, Google is my friend, right? This is what I came up with ... it hasn't arrived yet, so I don't know if the recipient likes it or not, but fingers crossed. I used her favorite colors, at least. The pen is just for scale.

Arts & crafts

Remember my post last month about new year's resolutions? I said that I was going to do more crafts this year, and that I had already done pretty well with it ... infinitely better than last year, alas ... and in the comments I said that I would be posting some photos of the things I've made, 'soon'. Well, it's been less than a month, I'm sure under many circumstances that can be called soon.

OK, so, some photos ... with explanatory texts. :-) All of this stuff was made to be sent off in swaps I've been doing over at Swap-bot ... it's a site that's just dangerously addictive ;-) if you like to do crafty things and get mail. :-)

A mixed media portrait kind of thing of another swapper's pet cat.

A bookmark and a coaster, intended to kind of sort of match.

Some earrings.

Something fun I've discovered over at Swap-bot is an ... art form, or whatever ... that is perfect for me. I'm pretty impatient and only semi-talented, so inchies are the perfect art form for me. They can be any media, any material - the only rule is that they have to be four inch square. I've had fun making these recently. :-)

These were the first ones I ever made, I was pretty happy with them. The recipient seemed to like them a lot, that was a relief. :-) The theme was 'Under the Sea'.

Free theme, ie no theme ... just decorate them any way you care to. I'm really happy with the BookCrossing one, that was pretty clever. If I do say so myself. :-)

Theme 'Butterflies' ...

Some ideas just don't work in the inchie format, there just isn't room ... so it's a good thing you can also make twinchies, which are the same thing except two inch squares. :-) I've only made one set of these so far - free theme again, but I tried to make some that I thought the recipient would like. They haven't arrived yet, though, so I can't say. :-)

I got a present ...

... and it wasn't even my birthday! :-D

When I got home from work yesterday there was a package in my mailbox. (Actually a really perfect time to get something nice in the mail from a friend, since it was my first day back at work after my long-awaited vacation. ;-) Here's the back story: my mother has a good friend who has a brother who works at the local dump. (This is a true story.) He's continually frustrated about all the great stuff that people throw out. (Norwegians are way too rich, it's disgusting.) Lots of new or almost new things. The people who work there are kind of rescue workers too, they save a lot of useful things from oblivion. :-) They have a store there where they sell stuff that's been salvaged from the trash and fixed up. But apparently there's more than they can sell. My mother's friend's brother finds all kinds of stuff that he can just take with him. A while back he found a sackful of brand new yarn. Probably something from a store that had gone out of business. Lots of really great knitting yarn, high quality, mohair and things like that. He took it home and gave it to his sister. She's not much of a knitter, so she gave most of it to my mother ...

... who already has way too much yarn :-D so she tried to give it away too. She gave some to my grandmother, to give to the arts & crafts ladies at her community center. But then grandma had her stroke before she got around to it. Whew! So when we were up there last week my mother got the bag of yarn she'd left at my grandma's house and gave it to my cousin Mette - she's a knitter and her two eldest daughters love to knit, so my mother thought they could use it.

I was really tempted to write 'my secret cousin' just now, but let's not go there. >:-)

This was on ... Friday, August 15th, I think it must have been. And they've wasted no time using the yarn. Here's what's so nice: there was one type of yarn in the bag, very different from the rest of it, that I really liked. I was tempted to ask my mother to knit me something with it (I'm not a knitter myself) but I sort of never got around to it. And then it was all given away and I thought, Oh well. The ship has sailed. But then on Monday my cousin texted me to say she'd knitted me a shawl with some of the yarn my mother gave her ... and the very next day it arrived and she's used the yarn that I liked so much! And I never even mentioned to her that I liked it. :-)

Happy happy, joy joy!! These pictures that I took aren't very good, but better than nothing.

Mette: thank you!!! :-) It was a lovely surprise (even though you'd already told me ;-) and very much appreciated. :-)