♥ His Name is Mervin and I LOVE Him ♥

So I took that same wacky monsters pattern and enlarged it. I ended up with Mervin, who thanks to my inexperience and lack of skills has many flaws, but he is gorgeous and snuggly and quite big. (he also makes a very comfy pillow!!





And oh Boy do I love to snuggle him!!

♥ Cute Lil Monsters (Made by ME!) ♥

So this was my big sewing project of last week - and I would have posted it sooner but it was for JJs birthday so I had to keep it on the down low until the weekend. It is an insanely easy pattern (so it was good for my first sewing project) but it was also SUPER cute. So here we go:

The pattern (purchased from spotlight!):



I used this fabulous (and very snuggly) fake fur. I bought half a metre but that was WAY more than I need (it was enough to make two complete fur monsters or four half and halfs like I did):

However while the fur looked great, it was horrible to work with. I got fur everywhere (including all over the floor, the table, up my nose and in my mouth). I sewed around the outside to stop it fraying, but before I finished doing that I had made a very large mess.



I then made the faces out of white felt and sewed them on:



I used black polar fleece for the back (because I actually don't think I could put two layers of the fake fur through the sewing machine!):

Then Stuff it ($5 bag of stuffing from Aarons emporium that has enough for at least 5 bears):



And the snuggly, finished product:



The pattern was about $15 but I don't mind because I plan on making many more of these cute lil monsters (including two for myself that I plan to start on this week).

♥ Roller Derby Shirts ♥

So my friends and I wanted roller derby shirts for last nights bout so my amazing artist friend designed this roller derby skull and I put it onto some tops.

The hardest part was making the stencils - because I only had one day to do three shirts I just made temporary ones with A3 paper, so they looked like this:



then do the white paint first (twice to try and make it stand out):



Then the helmets followed by the star and strap and they turned out something like this:



And my lovely model JJ:

♥ Learning to Sew! Pt1 ♥

I am finally learning to sew (yay I am getting started on my goals) and although I said I was going to start off on Jennis present, I thought it might be better to start off with something simpler. (Look it's me sewing!!)



So I am screenprinting/sewing a tote bag. I am starting with a picture that I just found online by googling 'cute skull' - (it is by ashzstock at http://ashzstock.deviantart.com/ and is free for personal and commercial use so I am not stealing) but I am planning on designing my own (yup you guessed it - cute skull) design to put on tote bags and maybe t-shirts to give as gifts/sell at markets later on down the track.

I didn't use a pattern for the bag, just cut out two squares (40 by 42cms) and a strip 124ish cm by 15cm, out of calico. Sew around the edges to stop the material from fraying.

Then I screenprinted the image on. First I printed the picture onto an A3 piece of paper three times. I cut out the skull on the first print out with a craft knife, placed it under the frame and put the fabric paint with the first colour on. Then I waited for that to dry, and took another copy of the picture and cut out the bow for the second colour. First I put white paint on for the undercoat, then when that dried I used bright pink. It now looks something like this:



Then I cut out the same sized square and strip with a coloured material to use as the lining. I found some bright pink Satin:



Then I just sewed the strip onto the two squares inside out (the corners took some tricky sewing), then I just turned it in the right way. Now it looks more like this:



Tomorrow I am going to sew together the lining, and place either cardboard or thin mdf in the bottom of the bag for it to keep its shape. Finally I need to put some handles on it and it should be done :)

♥ Newbie Sk8er + Beadaholic ♥

♥♥♥ So, I attended my first roller derby practice yesterday with the Bay City Rollers (http://tiny.cc/ze0un) and it was both enjoyable and grueling. As I have never skated before It will still be a LONG time till I am practicing with the derby girls, so I spent the entire practice down one end of the warehouse (along with another newbie) to practice getting my balance while skating, and will probably be there for another few weeks at least. Next week my goal is to be able to learn how to turn on the skates, and to practice stopping properly.

I had two big tumbles in front of everybody (embarrassing, but it happens to everyone) and I lost track of how many times I fell over while practicing by myself, but I had my knee pads on so I was good. Because my skates are so horrible (One of the girls said that it looked like they had a twisted axle or something like that) I have to use one of the spare pairs until I get my own, and getting used to new skates takes a bit. But it was good and everyone there is very friendly and encouraging. Hopefully in a few weeks time I will be able to practice with the girls, and maybe I will be ready for the start of the season this time next year (fingers crossed). Until then, I will struggle along and try not to give up (because catching up with the others might take a while, and I am usually the type of girl who tends to give up easily). But I am enjoying watching the other girls, I just can't wait until I am good enough to play with them. ♥♥♥

Also, just a little side note: I am going into Napier of Wednesday to buy more supplies to make more clips (YAY!) so I shall spend my time between then and Jenni arriving furiously making clips (so how much should I sell them for on trade me? should I sell them as singles or in pairs? HELP please).


And FINALLY While I was visiting my Grandmother on Saturday I found that she was using the most adorable silver charms on some of her bracelets (she makes VERY beautiful jewelery, I will post a blog about some of her stuff one day). They are cute little pistols! Even though she had used all hers up, she told me where I could order some of my own. Now its a kiwi site so postage will be cheap, and it is only $4 for 10 pistols (40cents each, what the hells that's so cheap!). However she is out of stock :( so as soon as they are in stock I am going to buy two sets and turn them into earring (and I know what I want them to look like!) so I am going to post a link to this site for any one who is interested in crafty stuff like me: http://www.beadaholic.co.nz