a wardrobe change for the owls...

Aside from making up a few for my last craft show, I really haven't been sewing many owls lately.  And the owls I had been sewing were really out of the same 4 or 5 fabrics.  I decided to give the owls a little shopping spree for new summer clothes.  

I'm big into bright colors and bold patterns when it comes to making soft toys.  So I knew I wanted the owls to pop a little more than they have in the past.  The results:

Exactly what I was going for.  Eye catching, fun, and attractive.  The back of all the owls feature a wonderfully soft and cozy brown fleece.  I love these owls so much and am thinking of keeping a few for myself.....seriously, pick one up and feel the soft fleece on the back and you're see why.  

I love this fabric so much!  Kinsey got it for me for Christmas this past year and I have been saving it.  For what, I'm not sure.  But I figured that I shouldn't let it just sit around forever.  It's by Julia Rothman and is 100%  organic cotton.

Another fabric favorite!  Not sure of the specifics of this fabric, but I purchased it at Jo-Ann.  The yellow flowers on the gray background are so beautiful!

Look for these owl guys (and owl girls!) in the shop over the next few days.  Some are there now!

really? that easy?

Switching from living in an apartment to a house comes with a lot of changes.  When we bought our house (way) back in 2009, we knew we needed to get a mower.  

We don't have a huge yard, although compared to the usual yard size where we live, it is a good sized smaller yard.  Obviously, we wanted some sort of push mower...we'd look ridiculous on a riding mower and have no idea how we'd get it in and store it in our yard.  Plus, on backyard is on a slope. 

We also didn't want to worry about getting gas or plugging in a cord.  So we opted for a reel mower. 

We bought a used one from my mom's one co-worker.  It was cheap and we thought this was the answering to our mowing needs.  

It did work...however you had to go over the same section 3 or 4 or 5 times.  And it didn't really cut the grass completely.  It mostly flatten the grass down.  We naively thought that's how it was with reel mowers.  Oh and the plastic adjuster had broken off so the wheels we uneven and wouldn't stay straight.   We knew the blades should be sharpen, but we just didn't get around to doing it.  

Fast forward 2.5 years later:  We have learned the error of our old thinking.  

Driving in the car one afternoon, we passed a guy rapidly mowing his grass using a reel mower.   Grass was flying and he didn't seem to be exerting much effort.  What kind of fantastic mower did he have?

We were near a home improvement store and decided to go in and check out the reel mowers.  We looked at the small selection they had and picked out a 16 inch model for $99.  

We took it home and assembled it.  We were still unsure about how, if any, better it would cut the grass.  We took a quick push and......grass went flying!  

The picture above still amazes me to think that it's that easy.  It's super sharp and so easy to maneuver through the yard and up our hill.  We're in love!

Could we have just sharpen our old mower and saved a little money?  Yes, probably.  But the knob that adjusted the wheels had snapped off and it was a little rusty.  

Could we have just bought a brand new one in the beginning and experienced how easy the reel mower could be from the very start?  Yes, definitely.  Lesson learned!

we love free things!

Last Saturday, we went to Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philadelphia.  There was so much great things for sale!  I set a strict limit and only ended up buying a fabric headband. One of the great things about this show is that they give out free goodie bags that contain samples, coupons, and all kinds of fun stuff to the first 150 people on each day.   We obviously always make it a point to be one of those lucky people.  

Kinsey looked in his bag and discovered this:

Yeah!  From what I heard only 10 out of the 300 goodie bags contained these gift certificates.  I'm already eyeing up some of the awesome things I could...I mean, Kinsey, could get with this!

And here's my headband I purchased:



I actually was kind of surprised I decided to buy this because I'm not really a headband person...except when I'm working outside and want my hair out of my face.  But even then I just use a thin plain black elastic one.  This one features all kinds of nice vintage printed fabric.

that's a lot of boys....and elephants

I spent the better part of last week working on filling some orders for a few new stores.  I sold almost all of the boys, elephants, and rockets at my last craft show, so I needed to make more.  A lot more.
These pictures are just a small fraction of what all I made (and don't even show many elephants or the new rocket ships!), but it gets the idea across.
Luckily, I made some extras for my shop which I started to list new things in yesterday and today.  

Yesterday,  Kinsey and I dropped off some of my plushes at a shop in Reading, PA called Hello Bluebird.  I had known about the store for some time, but never was in it before.  I would highly recommend stopping in if you're ever in the area.  They have some really beautiful and fun things for sale.  I think we could have bought half the shop if we were able to afford it!  Also, some of my plushes will be for sale at the Hello Bluebird table at this weekend's Art Star Craft Bazaar.  This is a wonderful show and I hope to someday be a vendor here.  We're planning on stopping by one of the days and are looking forward to all the awesome things we'll see!

rattle, rattle

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I recently have begun sewing soft rattles.  I've often seen rattles in some of my craft books and always thought they seemed simple enough, but never really gave them a try.  Then I found myself with less than a week to go before Spring Bada Bing and felt like I needed a smaller plush item for sale.  Something fairly quick to do (seeing as I like to have at least 10 of all my items at shows), interesting, fun, and inexpensive.  Enter the soft rattle:

I chose to create a pattern that was reminiscent of an animal, without doing the entire body of an animal.  I'm calling the shape a giraffe head, however a horse head fits the bill (or rattle in this case) as well.  The rest of the rattle tapers out slightly, but is really simple.  

These rattles gave me the opportunity to use some of the many fabrics I've been saving for "that special" project.  The "special" project you always plan to use all the fabric that you're afraid to cut and mess up and waste on something common.  For me, I've been hoarding pretty fabrics for "the quilt" I've been planning to make for my bed for 3 years now.  Well, I'm no closer to that quilt than I was when I made that promise.  However, I have increased my "pretty" fabric collection much.  Kinsey got me some really great fabrics this past Christmas and I had yet to use them.  

This rattles gave me the perfect reason to try some of my fabrics out!  They're small enough so they don't take a ton of fabric and the fabric really makes the rattles.  

Most of the fabrics I've been using are 100% organic cotton...another bonus for something that will be chewed and drooled upon.  

I'm really pleased with how they turned out and they sold very well at the show.  I'm already planning more shapes and styles.   They are currently available in the shop.  

south carolina...take two

One of our favorite places we visited while in South Carolina was Brookgreen Gardens.  This is not just a garden, but also a zoo and the site of the Oaks Plantation which was set on rice fields.  The zoo portion had all kinds of animals from bald eagles and otters to alligators and foxes.  

The garden portion has wonderful collections of flowers and huge sculptures all over the grounds.  

Here's Kinsey in the Palmetto Garden.  I'm in love with the brick wall in the background.  It's two bricks wide on each section.  This would be great in our backyard...maybe in the future?

An overview of the Palmetto Garden.  The palms are on all four sides and hundreds of poppies line the pool.  The poppies are such a great burst of color.  I'm so happy they were in full bloom when we visited!

Foxglove up close.  I'm thinking about getting some for next year's garden.  

Me and some new friends. 

Just one of the many smaller sculptures in various beds throughout the gardens.  

In the middle of Live Oak Allee.  These are centuries old Oaks with Spanish Moss hanging off the branches.  Another favorite spot!  Below the trees are beds of hundreds of daffodils.  Unfortunately, they were practically over blooming when we visited.  I can only imagine how great the yellow flowers looked against the green leaves and dark trunks.

Of course, we did visit the beach.  We went to Huntington Beach State Park and the beach within walking distance to my grandparents' house in Murrells Inlet.

Kinsey isn't doing a crazy dance in the picture below (at least not at that moment).  He's bending down to touch the water on our last morning in the Grand Strand.  

This is a huge fish/shark tank in the Charleston Aquarium.  Twice a day or so, someone dives in the tank and feeds the fish.  We weren't here when that happened, but it must be crazy to see. 

The albino gator.

Hello Mr. Turtle...(or Mrs. Turtle).  

The week and a half went way too fast!  We're hoping to go back sometime in the next year.  This was our first visit in 7 years!

back from our spring trip down south!

Last weekend, Kinsey and I were in Richmond doing Spring Bada Bing.  We look forward to this show every year and have been attending it for 6 years and have been a vendor for 5 years.  This year was by far the best for us and I was so happy with how our table turned out.  

This year, my main offerings were soft toys.  I've really been focusing on the area of plush toys quite intensely now for the past 5 months.  

This was my first show with the plush rockets and boys, so I was excited to see how they would be received.  Rockets were by far my most popular item - I almost sold out!  

Another new item I had for the first time were soft rattles, which went over very well as well.  

(Oh and here's how nerdy I can be: I totally got really excited when I saw Sherry and John Petersik from younghouselove.  And even more excited when they stopped and my table and chatted for a few minutes!)

Before we headed to Richmond, we spent a week visiting my grandparents who live just south of Myrtle Beach.  Early April is such a wonderful time to go to the beach.  See all the people out on the beach?  Oh wait, there's hardly anyone.  Warm weather, clear skies, and local strawberries!!

While we were in South Carolina we took a day trip to Charleston.  We were searching for a place to eat lunch when we came across this quiet, old church cemetery right off a busy street.

I'll be sharing some more pictures in the next day of one of my favorite places I've ever visited while down south.