Stripy

Made these stripy bracelets today. I love combining glow-in-the-dark beads with color beads. I designed these patterns which call for odd numbers of rows; it's trickier than even numbers of rows and requires extra patience and time (bracelets like these two will take you about 2 to 2.5 hours). I followed this great tutorial by Carol Dean which explains how to do odd count peyote stitch really well. Check it out if you want to learn how to do it.

Patterned Bracelets

My beading live action continues! I tackled patterns last night. It was not too difficult but was a little confusing in the beginning. It definitely takes focus to do this (no TV watching at the same time), and it helps to sketch out your complete design on grid paper and laid it out in front of you, then mark off each row as you weave. Also, having a long needle helps big time. Just be careful; this thing is addictive! : )

Beaded Bracelets

Yay! I did it! I figured out how to weave these bracelets by following the instruction on this site. It's not too hard, just takes time and patience. I made 3 in one night while watching TV. I was wearing one of them while visiting my orthodontics this morning, and the nice nurse asked me, "Oh, did one of your kids make that bracelet for you? It's so cute." I couldn't speak as my mouth was filled with green gooey molding compound (it got all over my face, too, a really attractive picture, I am sure), so I shook my head and then pointed to myself; afterward I told her, "Yeah, I am 5 years old!", and she started laughing.

Next time I am going to try to incorporate patterns into them! : )

Having fun with Perler beads

Ever since I saw this last week, I have been itching to play with Perler beads (You can call me a 5-year-old, that's ok!). I love sitting down and playing with them while listening to music; it's very relaxing, and addictive, too! Not to mention it's so much fun to mix and match the colors. I got a big tub of glow-in-the-dark ones and just about every single color that are available in my local store. I'd love to try the mini beads but we don't have those available in the States. Here are some photos of what I've made so far. I think I am going to try to challenge the bracelet next, if I can figure out how. : )

Doodle Wares Photo Album on My Flickr

I finally uploaded all my Doodle Wares' photos to my Flickr. If you are so inclined, you can click here to see them all. :)

Stuffed Doodle Brooches In The Shop

I made 12 more stuffed doodle brooches over last week. They are all hand drawn and hand stitched. It's a lot of fun for me to make them, as each one of them has its own personality, from my brain directly to the fabric, and I don't quite know how it would turn out until it's done. Here are some of them. To see all, visit my etsy. :)

I like making these!

I am thinking about adding doodle brooches into my Etsy. I have lots of fun making them. Each one has an original hand-drawn doodle (with fabric markers), and I like how the edge frays a little bit and the shape is organic. It's like a little piece of wearable art. What do you think? Do you like it? Any suggestion? (They are about 2.25" to 2.5" tall.)

Doodle Brooch

I got some fabric pens after work, so I made this owly doodle brooch.

Lars and Inca

I know I've blogged about these two in my old Jellyfish blog, but I have never uploaded this photo to my Flickr page. So since I just uploaded the photo, might as well share it with you again (plus some of you guys might have not met them before). Meet Lars and Inca; they are elephants and Lars is also a luchador... :)

I made them years ago. I have to say I am really not a toy maker... I love to design them, but I hate cutting fabircs, or should I say I have no patience for the process. I guess once I get into the "zone" I would be fine, but getting into the zone takes a lot of energy. I just want to jump to the end product right away. I always envy people who really enjoy making plush toys and sewing.

Flower Brooches

I've been on vacation for 11 days since the weekend before Christmas and it feels like eternity. Finally I have to go back to work tomorrow... I didn't really do anything constructive during my break except eating, sleeping (a lot) and watching TV. Why? Because it's too darn cold!!! We have had snow every other day, and even though it's not snowing right at this moment, it's freezing! I think it is like below zero outside right now due to the wind chill. Bbbbbrrrrr!!!! But I did make some crochet flowers (that's as far as I can do when it comes to crochet... crochet is just so confusing to me) and turned them into brooches. I felted some of them and I like the different layers of textures on them. It's so addictive; I can just sit in front of my TV and do that all day. I am sure I will be adding more into the batch! You can click here to see each flower individually.

Mini Red Sweater Ornament

I know, I know... you've seen a lot of snow and ice in my recent blogs, but that's all we have right now. We just had another snow storm yesterday (thank God most of the ice from the previous storm had melted already), and I stayed in all day and finished half of the rib scarf. On top of that I tried to make a mini sweater ornament... it is not perfect but it's my first sweater attempt (even though it's tiny). I may try to make more of it later, but right now I need to head over to the yarn shop before they close to get more grey yarn for the rest of the rib scarf!

Look what I've finished!

The honeycomb scarf is done over the past weekend since I stayed in and didn't go anywhere. It's super warm and I've been wearing it everyday.

What's cooking right now...

...is a new scarf that I started this evening. It's getting real chilly over here and I just can't deny the urge that I want to knit again. It's such a natural thing to do in the winter, to curl up on the couch, watch TV and knit! Since this is a pretty straight forward scarf so I didn't really follow any pattern except the honeycomb part, but even that is still pretty repetitive. I thought posting it in its beginning stage would motivate me to carry on and finish it. I will post it again when I am done! : )

Little Wire+Button Tree

My dear friend and I were lucky enough to find two more of these small wire trees (the same style that appeared in my earlier post) in the local antique shop for just $11 each. I made these little wooden buttons for him to decorate his tree. I had to do it in a real hurry yesterday afternoon since my band had a gig last night and my friend needed to catch an early flight this morning. But I got it done and thought they turned out alright, until I put them on the tree and then realized that all I could see was the backside since they are not rounded as traditional ornaments!!! Ahhhhh... so I added punched-outs from my old book and that helped. I hope his co-workers would be jealous of his new tree! Heehee... I know it might be too girly for a man, but come on, it's hand-made. It's the thought that counts! : )

Necklaces

I made these necklaces cause I wanted to experiment adding little buttons as danglers and see how they look like. I love colorful matte plastic buttons... they are like tiny candy drops. I am gonna give these to my girlfriends/bandmates as little random gifts! I hope they like them...

Flower Bookmarks

Here is a batch of flower bookmarks I made over the weekend. The possibilities of mix-and-match of different patterns, shapes and colors are endless and they are just so much fun to make!

Birdie Necklace + Brooch

I couldn't help but make more of these really fun wooden accessories.
This batch of goodies includes a necklace and a brooch. The brooch has the same scalloped copper foil tape that I use for soldering, and I applied black patina to it so it looks old. I use the black patina on all the metal parts of my design cause I like the worn-out feel that it gives. I am gonna try to make some bookmarks later as well, but I need to run to the craft store because I ran out of the wooden nickles... It's so addictive!

Yumminess report for you who live in America:
If you have a Border's near where you live, you have to try the "Coco Trio" from its coffee shop. Oh my, it's super delicious! It's like drink clouds that are made of chocolate!!! Mmmmm... Also, IHOP's stuffed french toast with blueberry sauce is so sweet and good, I am off to have one right now! Lucky me!

IF: Zoo #1-Brooches

I started doing some doodles for this week's IF. And one thing led to another, I began to make tie tack brooches instead of doing the illustration... I first did little drawings of animals in stripy shirts on punched-out circles using the paper from an old book, but then I just couldn't help but make them into little wooden+felt brooches! (By the way, besides polka dots and scalloped edge, I also LOVE stripes, too.) I think they turned out quite fun. I am still planning to do another illustration for this week when I have time, but I want to share this one with you first!!

Polka Dot Hat Baby

Here are the brooch and pendent I made using the collage of my recent IF entry. I took a really quick photo this morning... It's not the best shot because I was freezing outside and the camera battery was dying. But you get the idea. By the way, I finally got a flickr account and I am posting from there, so it might look a little different (I noticed the image is bigger)...

PS: Do you see the thick layer of leaves on the ground? I don't even want to think about picking them up later... I get so much leaves every year from my 7 huge old trees and my neighbors' trees; it's insane.

More soldering experiment

Today I took a much needed day off from work so I made two more brooches and a pendent. This time I used handmade images instead of computer print-outs. Do you think they work better with the rustic black metal?