Crafting in Secret

Crafting in secret is exciting, fun, and mildly aggravating. I'm the type of person who likes to show things off when I complete them, especially if they turn out well. However, if you are making things that will later become gifts, you can't exactly do that! I've been making gifts and decorations for my best friend Amanda's baby shower, and now that the shower is over, I can finally share what I've been working on! If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you may have seen a few of the cryptic pics I posted as a tease. (I had to post something!)

Well, here's what some of those things became:

I found all of the ideas on Pinterest (of course!). Stroller butterflies Click here for the tutorial. 

plush blocks Click here for the tutorial.  A decorated bag for books Click here. a sign for the dog, and a shadow box. 

My favorite thing I made was this adorable plush bunny! It was my first time making a plushie from an actual pattern. It came from the book Storybook Toys by Jill Hamor. Which is an awesome book btw.

So cute!! And here's the one 'making of' pic I couldn't post to social media. 

Let's face it, those are clearly bunny ears!

My mom & I were also in charge of the decorations. 

The streamer 'rain wall' idea I stole from my fabulous friend Kayla Schuler who did a rainbow version at another friends shower. The block centerpieces were my own doing - I folded them using WeRMemory Keeper's Gift Box Punch Board and then cut the letters/borders on my Cricut. The name banner was also cut on the Cricut. The other ideas came from Pinterest. The chandelier is made of a metal ring, clear thread, ribbon, and lots and LOTS of punched butterflies. The alphabet book was a joint effort - mom & I created the blank pages and then the guests at the shower picked a letter to draw a picture for. We will eventually bind them all into a book. It all came together in the end and looked great! It was a labor of love for my best friend Amanda. I can't wait to meet baby Ellie!

The Wingfeather Saga Trunk

Board to explain what my trunk was,
since most people wouldn't be familiar
with the theme.

Warning: long post!

Also: Click on the pictures to make them bigger!

I haven't posted anything for a while because I've been feverishly working on my trunk decorations and costume for my church's annual Trunk or Treat. As usual, my OCD-crafty-self got somewhat carried away, but the results were, as my friend Jess would say, EPIC. Not to mention a fitting fan art tribute to one of my favorite book series: The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. (Peterson is also my favorite musician, but I'll save that story for another post). For several years now I have wanted to do a trunk inspired by the Wingfeather Saga, but I could never figure out how to do it. Turns out I was over thinking it, making it too complicated. So I simplified, and finally came up with something wonderful and doable.

The pic to the left is actual what started the whole idea spinning in my head (aside from loving the books). I always find the fact that Leeli's grandfather Podo carves her a crutch that says "LIZARDKICKER" in book 1 highly amusing. Basically, I wanted to find an excuse to dress up as Leeli so I could walk around with a crutch that said "Lizardkicker." Hence, the need to design a trunk around it! (Trunk or treat is kind of the only legitimate excuse I have left for dressing up in costume.) Though it was one of the last pieces I finished, you can see in the pic that I indeed created the infamous crutch. I used my Cricut to cut the letters out of vinyl, then stuck them on an old crutch we had stowed away in the garage. 

The rest of the idea came from rereading the books and taking copious notes about character and scene details, writing favorite quotes down, and then sketching out my idea in the notebook I use to design all of my trunks. 

Below are my original idea sketches for both the trunk and my Leeli costume: 

There were 3 main components to my trunk: the book poster, the sea dragons, and my costume. I started by using my notes to sketch out some of my favorite scenes, as well as some I thought might be intriguing to someone who had never read the books. I ended up with 11 sketches, plus a couple I had drawn a few months back. I drew in pencil, inked with my trusty sharpie pen, scanned into the computer & cleaned up, and then colored them using my favorite pastel settings in Painter. 

Here are just a few of my favorite sketches (click to make larger):

Left: The Sea Dragons and Nugget the Brave

Right: Janner and Tink opening the door in Anklejelly Manor

 Left: Leeli touching a seadragon

Right: Beneath the Moonbright Heavens (the saddest and most beautiful scene out of the 1st 3 books - I bawl like a baby every time.)

I had my mom print out the sketches, then I glued them onto a giant book poster I made out of matte board and posterboard. Then I added several of my favorite quotes from the books. 

Next came the sea dragons, which I made out of pool noodles, egg cartons, paint, construction paper, and lots of glue (hot glue melts pool noodles by the way!). Then I used my glimmer mist from my scrapbooking supplies to jazz them up. I used bricks and bailing wire to create rigs so that I could pose them in the 'sea' (the inside of my trunk draped in blue sheets). 

Two of the finished dragons:

For my costume, I got my wonderful amazing mom to help me (she is a much better seamstress than I am). She hemmed the sleeves of an old chemise for me, and made a mediaeval Russian style tunic with no pattern and next to no instructions (so I could wear it again the next time BK invites me to a SCA event.) Mom is also a potter, so I showed her the picture of Leeli's whistleharp from the back of one of the books - and she made that out of clay for me too. Like I said, she's amazing. I still have to tinker with it to see if I can get the whistle part to actually play, but it looks almost identical to the picture in the book!

I added a few little flairs of my own - I made a pin of the Annieran seal. I was originally going to use it to pin my cloak, but alas, I ran out of time and the cloak had to go. So I pinned it to my belt instead. I also borrowed a stuffed dog (for Nugget) from some friends and placed it on a stool with the actual books. It's all about the details. 

 

In the end it all came together and looked absolutley fabulous. It took a ton of work and more than a few late nights, but as usual it was just another typical project for me. Once I get going on an idea I don't stop. These books are wonderful, and I hope you'll look into reading them. You can find out more info and get the books at http://wingfeathersaga.com. Nothing more to say than to show off the finished trunk, so here it is:

One Happy Dork

I have loved the character Totoro (from the movie "My Neighbor Totoro") since I was a small child. It's one of those things I obsess over: I have Totoro slippers, Totoro seatbelt covers in my car, and various custom Totoro stuff my mom has made over the years. Now I have one more thing to add to my collection! It all started with the fact that hat-scarves are super in right now. I saw a really cool florescent pink & black zebra stripe, extra furry one, at JCPennys a couple of months ago, but I didn't have the money to buy it. By the time I did, they had sold out of them. It dawned on me as I was looking at some other ones that if I could find a pattern for them I could just make one - and how much cooler would Totoro be than the one I saw (don't get me wrong, I LOVE hot pink, but I love Totoro more!). Sure enough, Simplicity had a pattern for this style of hat. Well, yesterday I finally got to put it together - with mom's help - she's the master seamstress after all. We modified the pattern to give it an extra lining in the hand pockets, eyes, nose, different ears, and little toes. It came out super cute! Of course, I couldn't resist taking the iconic shot with the umbrella - my favorite scene from the movie:

So where's the Catbus?

And here's a close up to see the toes better: