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!

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

I'M NOT DEAD! And I've made new things!

Oh my...it has been a long time...haha.

I'm really sorry I started failing at this blog. My whole Etsy shop went into a lull for a while, really, so the blog went down with it. I've been getting better with my shop though, and I'm FINALLY going to do the same here!

So! Where to start? Uh, I've started making stuffed things, that's pretty exciting. So far, it's mostly monsters, but I've also made a whale and a bunny. I've done two custom stuffed things for friends as well - both came out pretty well and they've gotten lots of compliments, which is awesome. The first was a doll version of my friend Chris for his girlfriend...yeah...haha... He's got a handmade brown corduroy shirt with a pin that says "I Am Loved" in French attached to it and pants made from an old pair of jeans!

The Chris doll, shortly after I finished him...

 

And attending his first party with his namesake =)

The other was a character from an old computer game called Day of the Tentacle for Tien. She found a picture of a stuffed version the purple tentacle someone had made online, and after seeing the Chris doll, asked if I might be able to make her one that fit her specifications a little better.

Here he is! (click the picture to see him better)

Tien and the tentacle, being evil together.

Both were 100% hand sewn...which was horribly difficult...haha, but it makes me that much more proud of them. I actually hand sew pretty much everything I do because the only sewing machine I've got came from a bargain store and cost less than $10. It is as horrible as it sounds, but better than nothing. One day!

To see more of the stuffed things I've made, you can go to the Punk Rock Plush section in my shop and/or check out the photo albums on my Facebook fan page!

Alright, well! I have a few things in mind for future blog entries, so hopefully I'll stay on track here. One last thing though - I want to say thanks to 5erg! I won her giveaway and now I pick out $20 worth of stuff from her shop =D Still haven't decided on what I want, but it definitely made my day.

Talk to you later!