Blogging from the Craft Show

I'm at a craft show today, hoping to thin out my stock of cat beds and other creations! Thought I would use the time to share something I was working on last week. A while back I picked up this antique lamp base at a yard sale to refinish for my mom. She has a spinning wheel and spins her own fiber into yarn, plus she has a dedicated craft room that it will look great in. 

It needs to be rewired, and I still need to work on that. It also didn't have a lampshade, so I picked up an inexpensive one with an interesting shaped frame and discarded the old stained fabric. 

I started collecting vintage lace and handkerchiefs at estate sales to make into a shade. I traced the lampshade frame onto a piece of fabric to use as a pattern, and then arranged the lace and hankies overlapping each other. 

I hand stitched all of the edges of lace together to make one solid piece of layered fabric to cover the frame. Then I used hot glue to secure to the frame. I think it looks great! I might add a bit of ribbon on the top and bottom edges to make it look more finished. I can't wait to see how it looks with the light shining through the lace. I'll make sure to post a picture when it's all rewired. It's going to be a Christmas gift, so shhhhh! Mom doesn't know I blog. 

One other thing I'll show today is the cheesecloth ghost I finally made. I've been wanting to try this for years! I can't say it came out quite as good as Martha Stewart's, or looks quite as recognizable as a ghost, but I still like it. 

The process is to saturate cheesecloth in liquid starch and lay over a form that will create the ghost's body. My form was made of a tall mug with a ball of tin foil perched on top, and thin dowels sticking out the side for arms. I couldn't find liquid starch anywhere, so I made my own with just cornstarch and boiling water. It worked great. I wasn't sure if I should ring out the cheesecloth or leave it totally saturated. I left it saturated, so it took about 24 hours to fully dry. 

Long Time No Blog

I miss blogging! I've been MIA because I really haven't been working on any grand projects, but now I'm thinking - it's my blog, so if I want to write about something less grand I'm going to! I think I have a couple readers, so I hope that doesn't disappoint you. 

Here's what's been going on. I've booked myself silly with craft shows this fall, and I've been making some stock for them. I am not focusing solely on cat beds and toys because I like to make other stuff too. I have a bunch of crocheted baby hats I made last year and a little sweater set I made this year. The sweater was actually intended as a gift but it was too big so I made another! So just in case it looks familiar to anyone, that's why. Here are some photos of my work: 

I also made some little critters that I just sold to a friend via facebook! I am so excited! 

And then there was my favorite little guy, who is not for sale! 

Although I could make more if someone wanted one. 

I will also be bringing these little mason jar sewing kits to the craft shows. I've sold a few so far. I think they are the perfect little gift for a kid to give their mom for the holidays, so I'm keeping them affordable at $5. 

I have one other project I want to finish before the next craft show, which is turning some of those mini shutters I got a while back into holiday decorations. I have all the materials, but I need the time and space to paint the shutters. Hopefully that will be this weekend and I can post pictures. 

Something else I was busy with last month was a volunteer project for a group called Click for Babies. It's an organization that promotes awareness about Shaken Baby Syndrome, and they were collecting purple infant hats all through September. I roped in about 6 other people to contribute, and in all we created nearly 30 hats. Here's a photo of most of them. 

Please disregard my messy desk. 

I guess it turns out I had more project related things to write about than I thought. Here's a pic of Lily "helping" with a crochet pattern, to end this post with a smile.