Birthday Unicorn

As expected I got no tatting done whatsoever. We spent the entire day going and being somewhere else. Since I can't show you any tatting, I'll show you the one gift I made for my daughter's birthday. She love unicorns, both my girls do, but they don't love them because they're girly and cute, they love them because who doesn't love an animal that can impale you on a shiny horn and then run off into the sunset farting rainbows. Yep, not kidding.

To that end I made her a unicorn headband that she proceeded to take out of the box and put on her head. It stayed there all day until we got home for the last time and we were all ready for bed. It went over rather well everywhere we went too. All over the zoo, we heard children and adults whisper about the unicorn. It really paid off at dinner when both a custom and the restaurant manager came over to talk about it. You see, our server forgot to put in our order, so our dinner was late, but thanks to said manager, free. I'm not sure we would have been offered that so freely, especially when we didn't even complain, without the unicorn magic.

When I decided she needed this gift, I trolled etsy for it, since I assumed someone had already got this market covered. They had. Looking through both low end and extremely high end pieces, I realized that I actually had the skill sets needed to make it. Air dry clay on a support structure, hot glued to a head band, wrapped in ribbon and finished with glitter modge podge. Easy and perfect for my little evil, birthday, unicorn girl.

Not certain I'll get to any tatting today either. We've got a movie to see and a party to get ready for on Saturday, but I do have a couple of pieces I need to get remade. I'll certainly try to get some work done. I do have bills to pay.

Making

It was a Halloween sort of weekend. With the holiday on a Thursday, we used this past weekend to do those things which must wait until closer to the holiday, like pumpkin carving. I didn't do one this year, since I had already done the artificial ones and the pumpkin the youngest got on our outing to the pumpkin patch last week had already gone south. I gave her mine and helped her a bit. The one in the center there is a fake one...I just thought we need something else out there. I'll put the ones I carved out later, so you'll see them when the whole display is complete.

I did do some tatting on and off as I had a custom mask order over the weekend. Honestly, I'm still a little worried that the customer is expecting it in time for Halloween. As soon as I got the order I sent a message making sure they were aware that the mask needed to be made, wouldn't arrive in time for Halloween and I gave them an approximate ship date. So either they got the message and everything is fine or they didn't and I'll get an annoyed response in a few days. Or worse yet, I'll ship it and they'll cancel the order and I'll have to deal with all that drama. I am definitely hoping for outcome number one here.

The rest of the weekend that wasn't usual errands was used making sugar skulls. Well, made is probably not the right word, decorated would be more appropriate. I made one late year, but left it black and white. This year I made two and experimented with a little color. Of course these really have little to do with the Halloween decorations. It's just that this time of the year is the only time to buy the paper mache bases. These will be on display year round.

Then I had found some foam skull shapes on sale and girls and I decided to decorate them as sugar skulls as well. Currently they are in my front window for the holiday, but I have a feeling they might relocate somewhere in the house for another everyday decoration. We actually made and added a whole bunch more after I took this picture. Also taking pictures of windows is incredibly pointless, but I suppose you get the idea. We spent the weekend making things, now it's back to finishing up mask orders and schooling and errands and I miss the weekend already.

So Sore

I had quite hoped to get distracted by adventuring over the weekend. Instead I let myself fall into one of those rare and frightening 'cleaning' moods. They rarely strike, but when they do, I just keep finding things around the house that need doing. It all started because I had been avoiding some yard work due to heat. Once I tackled that on a very cool Saturday morning, I had to keep going. There was vacuuming, generally tidying and on Sunday I tackled the bathrooms including the floors, which I never do and even attempted some wall cleaning. Flat paint was made by the devil, by the way. I am crazy sore this morning, but I still want to clean more things. The urge will pass soon, I hope.

I did get a couple of orders over the weekend, so there was tatting, just not an awful lot of it. Instead I found other creative things to do when I had a spare moment. I was actually a little afraid to sit down for fear the soreness would settle in my muscles and I wouldn't get back up.

I made necklaces with the beads the kids got at the Ren Faire last weekend. We made the Lowe's project that we skipped  when we went to said Ren Faire. Then there was a trip to the, already on sale, Halloween section at Michael's where I picked up some paper mache skulls that I painted white. They'll eventually become sugar skulls, I imagine. I know there was more and don't get me started on the list of emails I need to return today. Here's to a nice low key Monday so I can ease back into normality.

Here We Go Again

I hope that I haven't bored you to death with all this mask nonsense, because I'm afraid that I have more. First, my mask got it's first virtual shout out over on the Access Fashion blog. It's just a little blurb and a picture, but it's always nice to get a little unsolicited praise. I managed to get about halfway through the embellished version of the mask before I stopped to work on my newest idea.

This one was actually inspired by the avatar of a fellow steam teamers avatar, well that and Mardi Gras in general. I still don't know if it's going to work after shaping and I think that I'm going to have to do some sort of border to make it looka little less like a granny square quilt on your face, but I shall work through my doubt. Doing this mask has actually gotten me thinking about trying to make a mask counter part to a few more of my chokers. The picture here is actually my Art Deco Duo necklace laid with some new pieces to see if this idea will fly. Imagine the neckalce worn with mask though. I think it would be pretty stunning. So after this one, I imagine I'll make a least a couple more before I get utterly sick of this mask making.

When I first started tatting bookmarks and doilies, I never imagined that just a few years later I would not only be making such elaborate things, but doing so much of my own designing. I never thought I would be able to translate shapes into stiches, rings and chains. It just seemed like such a mathematical operation. I mean look at my first sale on etsy, which was one of my very first bracelets. It's just a string of simple flowers from a pattern I found somewhere online. I assumed that this was the most I could expect out of my newly discovered craft. Now I know that there are no limits to what can be created with tatted lace and I'm certain that I will come up with many more off the wall ideas in the years to come.

I'm babbling on about this stuff in hopes that it can be inspiring to new tatters or anyone who thinks that they've taken thier art of craft as far as they can. There is always another hill you can climb if only you simply try. I am by no means suggesting that everyone can succeed at anything if they try hard enough, talent is not universal and hard work does not always make up for raw talent. I am suggesting that you don't know, if you don't try as I certainly didn't know what I was capable of before I picked up my needle and thread and simply tried. I used this slow sales time to stretch my limits and I think I will be better off for it in the long run. So that's the end of my inspirational speech. I'll be back tomorrow with more mask news!