December Craft Day and Holiday Fun!

So - Today was another awesome craft day! Today's projects for me was wrapping up the idea I had with Kasha of creating some Leather ornaments.

Here is the initial cut out

And today, with color and finish!


I really enjoyed this project and posted it up to Etsy :) Maybe I will get a few actual sales. And if not, I will have a few beautiful new ornaments for my collection! These are a fairly simple design, cut out my base pattern, tool the letters that we need and then (let dry) and color as wanted.



What do you think?

Getting things done - Strangely enough

So, after my last rant about how I haven't been getting anything done I went out and got productive. I finished the tooling, dying, grommet's, and finishing on Shanti's Wild Rose/Thistle Bracers - I did the tooled, bevelling, and am ready to dye Walin's Panther Bracers as soon as he and I have a chat about colors. Finished putting together the greaves for Ray, just need to go buy straps to attach them. Sadly, my computer doesn't take thumbdrives so I don't have any pics to share with you all. Love you anyways and will try to get some more up soon.

Had an awesome time last night with Becky, Randy and Lance setting up a bunch of projects they would like me to do for them. I think one of my goals today will be to actually get all of their required measurements and get the art/sketches done. I need to check size and do a true job on the knotwork (which means that the over-under's will all go correctly, with no fudging it).

One of the neat things I am looking at how to figure out how to do is place copper wire within the tooling. I am not sure yet how to make it stay :( So, I will be poking around online and possibly fooling around with some of the wire today to see how I can make it stay within the tooling lines without having to run it through the back (inside) of the piece which I think would irritate skin.

Other than that I still haven't made any sales on Etsy (which makes me sad) but it means I need to get more stuff up or change my prices. I have already changed them a few times, but am nervous about letting them get any lower. Meh. Hopefully Ray and I will be able to work on some knives this weekend and get them up there and ready to go! Wish us luck :)

Try, Try, Try Again

I am, perhaps, a little bit obsessive. And Neurotic. And occasionally, just a teeny tiny bit of a perfectionist. My evil voice in my head came out this weekend.

I made a list of possible projects on Friday night. If I don't keep having things to do, I will end up going back to watching movies, and I would prefer to craft :) This list is fairly extensive, and some of the projects require things I do not currently own and may not be able to afford for some while.

Now, as a side-note, Ray and I have decided that we make enough things and enjoy making things enough that we should open an Etsy Shop to sell some of the incidental things that are neat, but not what we wanted/intended/will use - Plus, like everyone we could use some extra money for crafting supplies. So, part of my list is projects intended for said shop :) Already finished adjusting one thing to work for sale on Etsy as Pirate/Steampunk knife & sheath set and will be posting up the Tree-of-life Waist Cinch as well.

Back to Topic - After making the list Ray and I went over it and decided that this weekend, I should finish designing and making Shanti and Walin's bracer's that I have been wanting to do. This is a for-me craft and a tiny way to show some of my beloved ones how I feel about them (in general - that would be love them beyond words).

I had gotten Walin's approval for the panther design for his, but hadn't laid it out on the bracers so when I had it soaked and ready to tool, I decided to wing it. This was a bad idea - the point where I would later pinpoint it all went wrong. I knew in my head that I wanted to do Walin's bracers with the panther near the bottom, on top of a celtic knotwork of green below a moon cycle. If it were smaller, or the panther were more delicate it might look chick-ish, but with Walin I really think he can pull it off. But...Since I was winging it (stupid-head me) I just looked and guessed and put it near the top. *sigh*

I tooled both bracers and looked at them with my mental image in my head screaming fire alarms of NO NO BAD WRONG and finally after all the tooling was complete suddenly realized, this wouldn't work with anything I was picturing. So, I wandered off during the girls craft day on Sunday with my sketchbook and drew what I was thinking. After asking Walin to ignore what he knew I had already done, what he thought about the new design.

Of course, well, it's awesome - and .... Well, redo time! So, I will be re-cutting the leather, retooling, and then dying new bracers. The tooled panther I simply mirrored another panther on on Monday and dyed black and silver, I think it will end up on Etsy as well by default. I do hope I can manage to learn from this lesson.

But here is the Mirror-tooled Panther in black with silver panther's. There will be silver grommets and then I will reshape and get some better pictures for sale. I just wish I didn't feel quite so stupid.

Fail me