felt keychains

Hello everyone!  Sorry about the little break between posts.  I've been busy making prototypes for a new little project for my re-opened etsy shop Noraneko Alley.  (This is the same shop that I used to run before with a group of friends, but this time both my current shop Ura Michi and Noraneko Alley will be run by myself only)

I started making felt donuts like I used to, which you can see by backtracking this blog.  You can see the work-in-progress ones in the photo with all the brown felt pieces.  The brightly colored ones are key chains for screen-cleaning.  One side is felt, while the other side is a lint-free cleaning cloth.  A hint for the decorative appliques is in the middle!

Hopefully it wont take long for me to finish these up and have them uploaded to the shop.

Owls and... more owls.

So the owl-shaped phone cases I was making out of upholstery fabric samples (from my previous post) are finally done and up on Etsy!  They were very fun to make, but like most upholstery fabric, they were also very difficult to hand-sew.  Then again, there were at least 4 layers of fabric sewn together at once on each of these.


In other news, there seems to be a bad thunderstorm coming soon here.  It seems hard to believe with the extremely hot and sunny sky I can see out my window right now, but I guess all of us in the Midwestern U.S.  area should keep an eye out anyways.  As long as the rain doesn't stick around till the farmers' market I guess I don't mind.  The fridge is running out of vegetables fast thanks to my roommates...

Guess Who?

 Maybe the title should have been Guess 'Hoot' instead.

Starting on new projects based on some old ideas is more refreshing than you would expect.

It's been a while since I went back to making my patchwork owl phone cases, or at least that's what I think.  The last time I made them was all the way back in March. (I should really stop abandoning past designs.)

But giving it some time does have its benefits in the way you have a bit more knowledge and skill by the time you come back to the project, to really achieve your original idea.  Looking at the work for a while also makes your eyes glaze over any imperfections, so it's good to let your eyes refresh and come back to it later.  By the way, this is also a good method for a lot of other work like writing essays.  I promise you will notice typos much quicker if you take a break and come back to it later.

Does anyone else have similar ways of procrastinating working as well? 

felt sweets

I've been having issues with my laptop overheating too easily lately, so I've been doing more crafting than anything else. I've been on a donut craze recently and I've made a bunch of big donuts for purse charms and keychains as well as mini donuts for cellphones. The donuts themselves are brown fleece (personally I think they are stronger this way) with felt frosting and seed bead sprinkles. The mini donuts are the same size as those tiny powdered donuts like Hostess Donettes, and they really remind me of my childhood when I would save my lunch money to buy them in the cafeteria at school.

I think I'll attempt to make life-size macarons next! And maybe cakes too, but not too complicated ones.

felt sweets!

I'll be updating with felt items today! Here's just a few little things I whipped up.
今日はフェルトのクラフトを紹介しま～す！　簡単で短い時間にできるので皆さんも試してみてはどうですか？

A pink donut cellphone strap! It's hard to tell in the photo but the bead sprinkles are red and gold colored.
ドーナツのケータイストラップ！　

A simple strawberry mousse cake magnet. The sheet magnet used on the back is stronger than I expected! I threw it at my refrigerator and it stuck to the door pretty well. It didn't fall off either. I think this magnet brand is a keeper lol.
イチゴのケーキのマグネットです。　表はフェルト、裏はマグネットのシールを貼っただけ。
でもそのわりにはけっこう強いマグネットです。　遠くから冷蔵庫に投げつけてみたらちゃんとくっつきました（笑）Here's a blueberry mousse version of the cake magnet. :)
ケーキマグネットのブルーベリーバージョン。