Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale!

I should be waiting until tomorrow to do this, but WHATEVER - I'm having a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale in my shop! Starting now, just use the coupon code "BLACKFRI2010" and you'll get 35% off of your order. I'll be discounting some other things here and there, so keep an eye out and you might catch an excellent deal. I don't have sales too often, so take advantage of this!


Other than that...hmm...haha. My birthday was on the 20th - I'm 22 now, what the hell! My gift was taking a random trip to Chicago to meet up with my dad while he was on a work trip and getting to see The Dresden Dolls play a show there - it was unbelievably awesome and I almost cried a billion times because I was so overwhelmed at being there at all. The actual day-of was spent with Joshua - it was a kind of strange, rainy, day, but we ended up at the thrift store, having dinner at Black Angus with our friend Andrew, and going to see Harry Potter. Not a bad day.

Today is the first Thanksgiving where I've really been on my own - my dad had to make a last minute trip up to Northern California, so it's just Joshua and I. We're cooking since we already had everything ready to go, and so far it's going alright. It's just odd not to be going somewhere or around more people. I wish we could have gotten some friends to come over and enjoy this with us, but of course they're busy with their own families today. Oh well. Once the turkey's done, I can start doing some baking, which is always fun. I hope your Thanksgiving is going well if you celebrate it as well - otherwise, happy Thursday =)

Anyway, I of course got the idea to make monster ornaments kind of late...I'll probably still try some, but it would have been better to have already gotten some listed. Alas...been a little bit slow on making new things, but I did come up with a poor, sad, zombified creature (already claimed, but still visible in the shop) - meet Molly!

In more Etsy related news, I'm now a proud member of a few different teams! Check them out - a few are trying to organize their own Black Friday/Cyber Monday specials, so check out the members and the awesome things they make as well:

Etsy Ugly Cute
CCCOEteam
Etsy Teens and Young Adults
EtsyU
Smoke Free Sellers
Facebook Fans of Etsy Team

A Halloween Review...

Hello everyone!

So, I spent most of October agonizing over not knowing what to be, then at the very last minute deciding to make a Charizard costume. Basically, the last week of the month was full of sewing, sewing, and more sewing. I didn't even stop to shower I was so determined to finish...haha. Still didn't, but I got a decent amount done and it came out far better that I had dared to hope.

The hood! It's a little bit tight, but it came out much nicer than expected

The shirts are from the thrift store and the pants used to be Joshua's...haha

Side view...

Wings!

I still need to finish up some things - I want to cover the elastic straps for the wings and then properly attach them, maybe work on making the center piece a bit sturdier, make gloves/legwarmers, finish the tail and find a better way to attach it than safety pinning it to the bottom of my shirt (haha), possibly come up with a better overall outfit...I'm telling myself that this is really just an early start to a Comic-Con outfit for next year.

It's all made out of different colors of fleece, some pipe cleaners in the wings, and lots of polyfil. I did much more handsewing than I originally anticipated and that's probably what slowed me down, but oh well. I don't feel like I have the same amount of control with my machine just yet, but I'm sure that will come with more experience. I didn't have a pattern for any of this - just kind of winged it. I referenced the pattern I used to make this dog a little to help with getting some of the three-dimensional aspects right and traced the basic shape of my monster hood, but otherwise, I just drew out pattern pieces on junk mail based on pictures I found of Charizard and traced them onto fabric.

Examples of my pattern pieces...JUNK MAIL IS GOOD FOR SOMETHING AFTER ALL!

My signature inside of the hood...you can also see the ridges I sewed into the top of the mouth.

Besides that, there's not a lot going on in my part of the world...I did make a new bat named Tim that one of my friends has claimed (you can still see him up on Etsy, though):

Tim the blue and green bat! With eyes from 6060.etsy.com

I figured since it was Halloween, I was due to make another bat...haha. Still haven't made a regular old black one though...that might be next on the agenda.

It's also worth noting that I've started using my Artfire account again, meaning there is some jewelry up in my shop there! I thought I'd give some things a second chance on there and expand my web presence. Go check it out here: http://www.artfire.com/users/EmoSeal

Oh! And before I forget, enter The Dainty Squid's latest giveaway!

In the meantime, let me know how your Halloween was! I'll be updating again when I get something new made =)

Help SimplyHibiscus! New plush! I get mail! Etc!

I've got lots to talk to you about!

First things first: pleaseeee help me assist a fellow plush maker on Etsy! SimplyHibiscus a.k.a. Little Felt Hearts a.k.a. Thea makes super cute little creatures that I've loved for a while now, but due to some personal issues (see her blog HERE to learn more), she has lost ALL of her supplies and ALL of her already-made plushies, and she hasn't been able to make anything new for four months.

Now, I've definitely had times where I haven't made much, but I can't imagine being absolutely unable to be creative and make things. Please, if you have any extra fabric, supplies, or have a few dollars you could send her way, do it! She hasn't set up any kind of PayPal or anything as of writing this, but if you can help in any way, leave a comment on her blog, her Facebook fan page, send her a convo on Etsy - anything to let her know that you're willing to help. I'm going to get together a care package of my own shortly here, so if you prefer to donate anonymously, you can also send something to her through me (email me at TheEmoSeal[at]gmail.com and we can set something up!). I know I don't have the biggest influence, but if you could spread the word and help Thea start making cute things again, it would be very much appreciated.

As for me, I've finally been productive lately - I made two new monsters in a row =) The first is Thelma the Giant Skullbelly, who was made from black and white fleece and a skull and crossbones design from a shirt that never fit well (I don't think I even wore it more than twice). I got the idea when I came across the shirt while going through some old stuff...I didn't think about how big it was going to end up being because of the size of the design, but it turned out pretty good in the end.

Thelma the Giant Skullbelly!

The day after I got Thelma listed, I started messing around with some of the scraps leftover from making her, and ended up deciding I wanted to make a mummy monster. The bandages are all made from scraps of white fleece that I layered on and I used some SUPER soft green fleece that I'm excited to use more of for other projects for the horns. I just listed her last night and she's already made it into a Halloween treasury, which was really exciting to see. Here is Matilda the Mummified monster!

Matilda the Mummified Monster!

Hmm...well, besides that, I've gotten some cool mail recently from two different Etsians. Both of these arrived on the same day (I think right around the day I did the last post?) and I wanted to just do a little bit of a write-up about them both. The first is a DVD from RedPanda (a.k.a. Jessica) - she posted on Facebook that she had just finished watching two documentaries and she wanted to pass them along to other people to see as well, so I claimed one and she sent it to me for free, which was AWESOME of her. I haven't sat down to watch it yet, but I'm excited to check out each of the mini-stories.

I am dumb and hold things upside down...

The second thing I received was some dry shampoo from DoctorSweetTooth, which is something I've been wanting to try out for a while now...I've seen it suggested for people who dye their hair and want to delay washing their hair to keep it from fading as quickly. So far, I've only tried it really quickly on my way out of the house, so I'm not totally sure if it's as effective as I had hoped, but I'm going to properly give it a shot once my hair seems to need it next.

Jasmine Vanilla scented, wooo

Alright, well, that's about it for now....talk to you again soon!

Some heavy happenings and bits of inspiration

Oh, hello there...

So much and yet so little going on...haha. I recently made an *official* email for my whole creative mess - I can now be reached at TheEmoSeal(at)gmail.com, woo. Previously, everything was connected to a personal email address, which was fine, but I thought having something more specialized (and actually using the name I go by) would be a good thing. Switched the blog over to that address as well, which changes nothing for you, dear readers, and is really just a fun fact. Have had to work on transferring the blogs I wanted to stay subscribed to over to the new account - that's been kind of fun as I've been finding new interesting people and getting back into reading all of your cool blogs. So yes, small bit of progress I suppose.

Making things is still not an activity done frequently enough around here because I suck or something, I don't know. I really used this summer as a full-blown laziness fest, but I guess I needed/deserved it/probably not/something or other...I did actually make one particularly cool thing in the spirit of Comic-Con (where I wore my awesome monster hood all weekend):

Click HERE to see the Etsy listing: it's a rainbow horn headband!

I made this because my monster hood can get pretty warm, and since Comic-Con happens right in the middle of summer, it's usually not ideal weather for furry hats. Something lightweight seemed like a good plan...except I didn't end up finishing it until after the convention...haha. I really like it a lot, though, and I think it's one of the few things I've made without running into any major issues and that I actually had come out exactly as I pictured it. I decided to list it since I really want to start getting new things up in the shop and I'm planning to make more. And now, it's time for a collage of Comic-Con pictures that I spent too long putting together!:

Comic-Con 2010! Click to make it bigger!

So very much fun...got more free stuff than usual, met James Urbaniak and Chris Parnell and we got to talk to Edgar Wright a little (haha, he remembered Joshua and I from two years ago), enjoyed so many Scott Pilgrim things (like TWO FREE ADVANCED SCREENINGS!, free shirts that got handed out and that we got to screen print ourselves, free garlic bread, flipbooks, etc etc)...I don't know, it's too much awesome to condense into a small space, so just enjoy the sampling of my pictures =)

Oh, and my hair changed again, if you noticed...I ended up dyeing it back to my natural dark brown not long after graduation, then getting it cut even shorter sometime last month, and then bleaching and dyeing it blue and green! Here's a few pictures of the process (and proof that I always take the same damn picture...haha):

Brown with the red I dyed over showing through, natural dark brown, bleached, and then BLUE!

It's a bit hard to see the green part...it's sort of an underlayer at the front, here's a better picture:

Yayyy, too many pictures of me!

In other personal news, I got my wisdom teeth out about a month ago (it suckedddd) and I've started trying to do some serious cleaning and organizing of everything I own (it also suckssss). Oh, and my college sent me a letter informing me that I am still three credits (a.k.a. one class) short from graduating...I'm pretty pissed about that because before my last semester, I went in to talk to someone from the English department to see if I was really going to be able to graduate on time. She looked at my records and told me all I needed was five more classes (which is a normal full schedule for a semester for me)...when I looked back over everything I realized she missed a class, which is why I ended up taking summer school. How she missed TWO classes I needed is beyond me, and it really just frustrates me. I actually went to someone for help and still ended up screwed...sigh. Anyways, I read that after Joshua got some bad news of his own - a man that was a big father-figure to him just died. Basically, the mood was already heavy around here and it just seems like more things keep getting added to the pile. I know we'll be alright, but things could definitely be better at the moment.

Alright, I hate to end this on a negative note, so have a drawing I did recently! We've been going nuts over Threadless.com (Joshua and I have bought more shirts combined within the past couple of weeks than I care to admit to, haha) and I'm all inspired to try to design a shirt for the site and this is the first thing I drew while on that kick...it's just a picture of someone I follow on Twitter:

Talk to you again soon!

THE SEMESTER IS OVER!

Oh man, my stressful, final full semester of college as an undergraduate is DONE! I still have to take one class during the summer to officially graduate, but still, YAY! I'm not sure finals week has ever stressed me out so much...haha. Hopefully this means that I will AT LAST be back on track with my shop and with this blog. I haven't made anything at all for quite a long time with the exception of a mouse that I got to sew for a final project...yes, my teacher was awesome =) Here it is!:

This is Anja, one of the characters in the graphic novel Maus by Artie Spiegelman. I HIGHLY recommend it if you haven't read it. Anyway, I altered a pattern I found to make her look more like the art in the book and just kind of winged it with the clothes. On the last day of class when we were asked to share what we did for our final, there was this ridiculous audible gasp from the class when I pulled her out of my backpack so I guess I did alright...haha.

Here are a couple of graduation pictures as well...my ceremony was on May 21 and my dad, sister, niece, Joshua, and my best friend Michele were all there:

Ultimate graduation picture with my best friend

Tried to get a nice picture with Joshua but he just kept making weird faces =)

 Making my niece cry...AS A FAMILY! Haha.

 And uh, yeah, I got a haircut...haha. I have decided that I'm done with long hair...it just doesn't suit me as well as short hair does. I'll probably post better pictures of it the next time I update (which will hopefully be soon!).

Alright, that's about it for now. Like I said, I hope to get back on track and start making things again very soon, so I'll let you know what I come up with...

<3!

Oh dear - have a collage!

COLLAGE OF STUFFED THINGS!, originally uploaded by days were never dull.

Once again I have waited too long in between blog posts and now I hardly know where to begin...so I will share this collage I made recently of some things I've sewn and never really said much about ^^ If you go to the actual Flickr page, you can hover over each stuffed creation and learn a little more about it. Most of them are in my Etsy shop so you can definitely check there for more pictures and details and such as well.

I promise, I will make a good entry soon! School is beating my brain up and...well...Joshua lives with me again =D He's been here since April 5 and he's all settled into the room down the hall from mine (it is a fantastic room). We've been seeing a lot of friends and hanging out with each other and such, so on top of not getting much done lately anyways, I've been pretty distracted by that...haha.

Hope you are all doing well and I will talk more to you later!

Catching up: Custom dog, self-portrait, and a skirt

Oh blog, you are so neglected...To be fair, school has had me in a bit of a bind. It's not as if I don't have some free time, but I'm usually just tired and meh or else distracting myself from such things by talking to Joshua. Haven't been extremely crafty this month, but I do indeed have some things to show you! Things I should have shown you a while ago!

First things first: I believe I told you about the custom dog I was working on...it came out pretty nifty, though I do wish I had made the legs longer =/ Here are some pictures:

Shortly after completion...

Labeled ear!

With collar ^^

WITH THE ORIGINAL WINNY!

Woo, so that was exciting =) Glad that the real Winny seems to like her stuffed version...haha. 

So shortly after that project was done, I got an assignment in a class to make a self-portrait. I immediately decided to make a stuffed version of myself because, uh, that's the kind of thing I like to do. Now, I wasn't going to be in class on the actual day that it was due, so I got it done early...only to find out that it was supposed to be non-representational (or non-literal) because it is an Avant Garde history class and she wanted us to try imitating the people we learned about -_- Ah well, my teacher still really liked it and uh, now I have a tiny stuffed version of myself that I don't know what to do with...haha. I do sort of wish I had known/realized ahead of time though because it would have been fun to make some really weird abstract mess of fabric...maybe some other time!

 TWINS! KIND OF! NOT REALLY!

It was made with brown, blue, and purple fleece, black felt for the vest and wristband, little jewelry jump rings for the piercings, colored tooth pick ends for the gauges (with real tiny o-rings!), and black plastic safety eyes from 6060. Entirely hand-sewn since it was so small...and I decided not to give myself green bangs because 1) I was planning on dyeing them (the very next day in fact) and 2) because I change my hair so often that even the cut would be outdated soon enough and I thought it'd be best to just stick with my natural hair color...haha. And I just want you all to know that I really do have a shirt and pants in almost those exact colors. Cos I'm cool like that.

So on the subject of vanity...this is what I look like now with my new bangs!
 

I also did a bleached under-layer in the back, how exciting. And uh, yeah, as you can see I tried wearing a weird scarf the other day. I never wear scarves like that...usually only for actual neck-warmth, not just like HEY GUYS I'M WEARING THIS SCARF TODAY. I am making a bigger deal of the damn scarf than I should...haha. In any case WHY YES I am wearing the Amanda Palmer shirt I made all by myself in that picture! How neat! I keep meaning to make some AFP-themed pillowcases but I haven't done it yet. Sigh.

Okay, back to the craftiness at hand!

I have been trying to make a skirt based on an Urban Threads tutorial (which you can find HERE), but that came to a standstill after I realized that I made it too wide and also when I realized I for some reason could not make any sense out of how they say to make the waistband...keep meaning to ask someone else to read it and see if I'm just really dumb...haha. In any case, here's a progress picture of it a bit before I got stuck:

It will be pretty awesome...once I figure out how to finish it...

Alright...I've got more things to show you, but I am going to wait on it in the hopes that it will encourage me to blog again soon! PESTER ME IF IT TAKES TOO LONG! And remember, if you have any questions for me, craft-related or otherwise, you can ask them here: http://www.formspring.me/EmoSeal and, if they're relevant, I'll post the answers here as well. Hope you have an awesome day =)

<3

A block of creativity won't stop an update!

Hellooo...not much new to report, but I felt like trying to be at least a little more consistent in updating here. I just started school again last Wednesday (don't ask, we always start on weird days for some reason) and it has been both consuming my time and making me a bit too tired to feel like doing much sewing or other creative stuff once I'm done with it, and it's totally getting on my nerves...haha. I have a pile of fabric bits that are going to make up a stuffed dog and only the ears sewn together! Sigh! I did use my sewing maching for the very first time this weekend though in order to sew those ears and it was SUPER EXCITING! Here is me with my sewing machine...not the greatest picture, but alas:

I HAVE A REAL SEWING MACHINE!

So yes! That is an incredibly good development in my life! I'm going at a snail's pace with it while I sew, but I think once I get used to it, I'll get to sewing faster. Even going slowly, it's far faster than I could ever hand-sew (obviously) which is kind of nice because big projects don't have to take forEVER...though there is something nice to just using your own hands to make something from bits of fabric and thread. I'm sure I'll continue to hand-sew every once in a while, but really, I'm truly happy to have the option to use a good sewing machine to get things done.

The first thing ever sewed with my new machine =) Cleaned up the angles I didn't get so well after.

Like I said, I haven't gotten much of anything done for the custom project I'm working on, but I did order some eyes from 6060.etsy.com specifically for it and they showed up yesterday - they are PERFECT. I've ordered some black eyes from 6060 before after seeing someone who makes some cool plushes link to their store and I think that since I won't always be able to restock my plastic safety eye supplies at Ax-Man in Minneapolis (have I mentioned that store before? IT IS AMAZING AND MAGICAL! and they sell eyes at fantastic prices) for obvious reasons (I do not regularly reside in the Midwest and Joshua hopefully won't forever either), I will definitely make a habit of buying from them when my supplies run low or I have a specific need for something like this. Again, not the best picture, but here are the eyes I got:

Dear 6060, you are awesome.

Alright...that's really it for now. Hopefully after this weekend I will have made a lot more progress and I'll have more exciting things to show you! Until then...I made a formspring account earlier where you can go to ask me about quite literally anything you like - if you've ever had any questions about me personally or about some of the myriad things I do, this is your chance =) If I get any particularly interesting craft-related questions (or anything I think might be appropriate for this blog), I'll post the questions and answers here for you all to see. You can even ask things anonymously so you don't have to be shy...haha. Anyways, here's my link: http://www.formspring.me/EmoSeal 

Alright! Good night everyone!

I am the worst at keeping up blogs...

Sorry everyone...haha, SIGH. I always think "Hmm, I should update my blog..." and then I forget about it. Because I am a terrible person. Ah well, I'm here now!

I've been spending a month in the Midwest in order to hang out with my dear Joshua. I had my first white Christmas and finally kissed someone at midnight on New Year's Eve! Otherwise, we've done a lot of lounging, eating out (so much breakfast!), staying up horribly late, watching movies (so far we've gone out to see Sherlock Holmes, Avatar, Youth in Revolt, and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, all of which I recommend, plus we've watched a bunch at home), awkwardly hanging around bars (he works at one as a DJ and his roommate works at another - we were not awkward when we went to Donny Dirk's Zombie Den last night though, that place was AWESOME), and the like. Here is a super cheesy picture of us from Christmas day:

The infamous MOOSE HAT!

Haha, so yeah, things have been good. Leaving on Monday though...sigh. I'm going to miss him. School starts on the 20th though, and I'm nearly done! Sort of! This is my last full semester of my four years of college, but I'm going to be one class short to graduate so I'm going to have to do summer school. Which sucks, but alas. I'm just really reallyyyy hoping that the budget cuts don't screw me too badly and leave me without the last class I need. I'll just have to wait and see. Then I have to decide what I want to do about graduate school...I thought I was just going to stay at the school I'm currently at, but then I found out about the California College of the Arts up in Northern California and I'm kind of intrigued...not really sure if I actually want to move - it'll take a bit more research and thought - but it's an idea.

On the subject of making things, I've done a little sewing since I've been here. Joshua's mom said all she wanted for Christmas was for me to make her something, so he commissioned me to make a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater =) I didn't get any super great pictures of it before we gave it to her, but here it is!

Fleece, felt, and a random textured yellow fabric Joshua picked out for the wings =)

 

And: Joshua and the monster checking each other out...haha

She really liked it and I'm actually pretty proud of how it came out. Joshua also has one of the bartenders at the place he works for interested in having me make a stuffed version of her dog (and potentially her other pets depending on how that goes). I think I'm going to have to consult a pattern or tutorial of some sort to get it right, but I'm excited to get started on it. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE BUSINESS, JOSHUA!

Anyways, since I am now just ONE sale away from 30 overall in my shop, I've decided that my 30th customer will receive 30% off of their next order from me! Please spread the word and/or consider buying that special someone a monster that they can cuddle with =)

I also suggest that you enter The Dainty Squid's latest contest for three of her super cute coin pouches! You've got until January 23 to tell her what your favorite animal is here on her blog.

Click here to enter!

Let's see...well, I'm sure I've got tons of other things to update you on - I've been making more monsters and such - but I don't want to overload you. Maybe the next entry will just be a big monster party! And perhaps I'll have even more things to show you once I'm back in San Diego, because I will finally have a legitimate sewing machine! My dad got me one for Christmas because he is amazing. I really love hand-sewing things, but having the ability to do more and do things quicker will be so great. I'll definitely be letting you know how it works =)

Until then, I hope that 2010 is going well for you!

<3