Strawberry Kids

Quite a while ago, I posted a photo of Strawberry Boy under the title Naked Strawberry, because he had no clothes.

Now he has clothes, and his friend Strawberry Girl is out and about as well. Maybe there will be more Strawberry Kids, but only time will tell. These two are now residing in the Toys and Doodads section of my shop.

I attempted to make a stop motion with these two, and I think it would have been pretty cute, but unfortunately it came out all pixelated and funky. The weird thing is - one single frame was clear, and I have no idea why. Nevertheless, I put in on YouTube. I think I'm just going to have to do the digital movie thing as a trial and error work in progress. Once I figure out what I'm doing maybe I'll do remakes or an epic or something.

flip books & clean fingernails

I attempted to make another movie with my camera but I ended up having to reshoot a few times due to lighting, technical bloopers and my previously dirty fingernails.  It's certainly a step up from my last (needle felting) episode, but there's much improvement to be had.  I need a voice disguiser thingy so I can do dialogue in upcoming movies.  Or not.  The whole audio portion of anything is a challenge to be sure.

So, now I have 6 flip books in my shop, to sell individually and also in sets, and I'd like to make more and more.

I'm wondering who invented needle felting

So,
I'm wondering who invented needle felting. Because it's a very strange craft. It's tiring, not to mention semi dangerous and the product is often rotund. For those uninitiated in the process, you basically take some loose (wool) fiber and stick it a million times with a long sharp needle that has holes in it. The fibers jam together and you can make a shape after stabbing it many more millions of times. I made some sort of felted plant-life out of the green wool roving m. gave me. (Thanks, m.) It's another piece to stick some how onto that violin.

Today I tried two new things: besides the felting, I tried the much heralded flip animation function on my digital camera. I made a little movie. There's no sound though. This is a test run for what might be an on going series starring none other than this little fellow below. In this movie "pilfered needle felting," our hero has come across this small felted item (mentioned above) and has decided to take it home. Excuse the low production quality. I plan to kick it up a notch next time.






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Shopping Online: A Love/Hate Relationship

So, today I was out all day, then at work all night, then I got home and my NEW second try version of ordering a digital camera online had been delivered.

It's a long annoying story: basically the first one was not as advertised and then I had to mail it back and then had even worse trouble shopping locally, then finally found what I wanted in refurbished (read: discounted) on ebay, and then kept losing the auctions, and then finally one ended on one of my night's off. So then FINALLY it was on its way. So... great, I thought.

But they left out the lens cap. So, once again, something to worry about. I already emailed them asking to send it, and I just hope they do. I'm getting tired of the whole thing. But I've gone too far to give up now. Plus, if I had had a decent camera, I could have taken a good picture of the little chirpy baby bird I found on the ground today (I didn't touch it and it was gone by the time I got home from work).

In another online/shopping event, I checked on my on-the-verge-of-expiration etsy treasury (see previous post), and a bunch of people commented that it had been on the front page. And that's exciting, but hey! I didn't get to see it. That's what I get for staying offline so long.

And the reason I was offline so long was because I was trying to be constructive. I spent the past couple hours organizing my fabric supplies (too much) so pretty much all of it (but one box) is in one location, and in proximity to the sewing machine. I organized the fabric sort of by themes such as "shiny," "fluffy," "theme/patterned" and so on. Some of the fabric I know I'll never use (maybe due to sheer lack of time before I die), so I hope someday to get some people to make a giant pile of fabric for a mountainous swap.