Plush Artist, Illustrator, Designer, Artist, Crafty Chick

Pink kitty is finished. She measures 13″tall, head is 9 1/2″wide.

I’m getting ready to drop this off for Art Unleashed 2011. This is the art auction that benefits the Kansas City Humane Society. The event is being held Friday August 26, 7-10pm, @ Hale Arena.

Lots of great art to bid on for a good cause.

Doodle of kitty plush for the KC Humane Society’s Art Unleashed art auction.

After finishing up my other monster guy I decided he’d make a great tissue box cozy. I just turned the tissue box on the side so you can pull the tissues out of its mouth. I think it needs colored tissues though. Both of these measure 7″Wx7″Hx7″D. Made of fleece, felt, and faux fur.

So it’s as hot as hell here in the midwest and I’m tired of being hot. Instead of working on projects I should be working on I decided put together this doll house that’s been sitting around in our garage for a year. So for the last few weeks, off and on, I’ve been putting this house together and decorating it. Can you tell I’m looking forward to cooler weather.

This is Santa’s house. I decided that we didn’t need another “doll” house in our house. My daughter has my old doll house as well as the Calico Critters house. That’s when I decided to turn this doll house kit into Santa’s house and we’ll just bring it out at Christmas and set it up. Of course all my daughter wants to do is play with it now and keeps asking me if I’m done yet. It’s hard to explain to a three year old that it’s really only to play with at Christmas. So for now it’s in my studio on the floor and she comes down to play with it.

I have not found a decent looking or decent priced Santa and Mrs.Claus dolls. I’m thinking that, around the holidays, I’d like to get the figures from the Rankin & Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. They’ll look pretty good in the house. I just hope they are available this year.

I made a color comp of the house before I started.  You can see it changed a bit.

This was my inspiration for the house. I used it as wallpaper in the house too. This was left over Michael Miller fabric from a skirt I made my daughter last year.

I wish I had this kitchen!

Santa’s workshop. Still need to add a tree, chalkboard, wrapped presents and other toys.

Santa’s room.

Santa’s office/sitting room. I need to find a wingback chair for Santa to sit in.

I can see how people can really get into making doll houses and miniatures. It was fun decorating the house. I’ve actually thought it would be fun to buy a Victorian doll house kit and decorate it as a haunted house. I might just have to do that.

The head measures 7″ square. he stands 18″ tall.

Two more are in the works

I FINALLY started working on my mosters. I need to get movin’. This is the time of year I start thinking about the end of year shows, Art Unleashed, Halloween and before I know it it will be Christmas. From July till the first part of January things get pretty busy.

So I decided not to stuff these plush. I really wanted them to be square and have straight edges. Stuffing them would not have worked. So I made some boxes out of foam core and wrapped them.

Above pic of box cut out of foam core but not assembled.

All folded up. I didn’t even bother glueing it together. I just taped it shut. Not gonna see the tape so it doesn’t matter what it looks like.

Outside skin.

Here’s a glimpse of what his face will  look like in the end. Everything is just pinned in place.

So far he is super light weight. This will make for cheap mailing, which is GREAT! My stuff tends to be heavy which makes shipping expensive. So once I spend money on shipping and split the sales with the gallery I typically make very little or just break even. So I think I’m onto something with the foam core structure!!

I finished sewing on the trim to the pirate hat last night. The official name for these hats is a Tricorn hat. I did a little research about hat making and found it very interesting. I kind of came up with my own pattern because there really isn’t a pattern available for this hat. A true Tricorn hat is made by stretching wet wool over a hat block. My version is just a floppy hat pattern. The crown consists of six pieces and then the brim is sewn on seperately, folded up and stitched in place.

I used acrylic felt because that’s what I had laying around and it is only for my three year old. If I made another one I’d use wool felt. All the ribbon and trim is sewn on by hand. I had to hand pleat the red ribbon because my sewing machine decided to crap out on me the night I was using my pleating foot. I only got about 6″ of ribbon pleated.

If you are ever looking for feathers like this at your local hobby/fabric store, they are with the flowers.

Hat in action. Let’s hope she continues to like pirates next Halloween! I can see an awesome red velvet coat to go with this hat.

So I still haven’t started working on my monster guys. Ugh! I’m in a bit of creative funk and procrastinating. I decided to reorganize and clean my studio from top to bottom. Sometimes this helps me get re-energized. I decided I disliked my work my table and wanted something new. Unfortunately I don’t have a ton of money and everything I like is way out of my price range. The above pick is Pottery Barn’s craft table that I’ve loved for quite some time. My husband and I decided how hard could this really be to make. So we found some building plans on line and decided to tackle it.

Here it is and I LOVE it! It really was not hard at all. It took two weekends to complete. I finished it up last weekend.  It would have gotten done sooner but we really could only work on it when my 3 year old was asleep.

The Closet Maid canvas baskets fit perfectly in the cubbies.

Table top measures 38″ x 56″. Lots of cutting space. The table is 38″ tall. Perfect for standing at, which is mostly how I work.

Here’s a few pics of the table in progress.

So my first project on my new table was swing a pirate hat for my daughter. As soon as I finished sewing the hat my machine decided to act up and now needs to be serviced. UGH! The bobbin casing has a crack and chunk of plastic missing out of it. I’ll be heading to MoSew next weekend to have it cleaned and fixed. Guess I’ll try and get my old Singer out and use it for a while.

I’ll post some pics of the pirate hat when I finish it. I’ve got lots of ruffles and ribbons to hand sew on first.

I watched the royal wedding today to see not only the wedding dress but to see all the crazy hats. Here are some hat patterns from Vogue that would be fun to make.

Vogue pattern 8052

Vogue pattern 7464