Bigger Mushroom

Here's the bigger mushroom that I talked about yesterday. He has cuter 4-hole buttons and a nose too. He feels nice and solid, and I know that someone will be happy to get him. Now to make some fungus brothers.

Popping Up All Over

I'm in the Handmade Mushroom Swap! My very first craft swap, I'm very excited. I'm making little anthropomorphized needle felted mushrooms with brad eyes and button spots. The first set is turning out to be too small, so I'm going to be putting this one in my Etsy store and making a set of bigger musrooms for the swap. Super cute!

Although I've been needle-felting for about six years, this may be the first time that I've set out to make nearly-identical items, production line style. It's a little hard, because I'm so impatient to see them become themselves and it seems like better process to complete each step for each one before moving on to the next. All the stems, then all the caps, etc.

I hope whoever gets these will be as excited about them as I am. Some of the pictures on the Flickr group are just amazing. People are so creative and wonderful. I think my very favorites are the mushroom babies shown here. It's almost impossible to pick a favorite, though, since they are all so cool. This one is absolutely adorable, too. And by sheer coincidence, Alison is in the swap too! She's doing stitched morels - yummy! We're going to do our own personal little swap, so I'm making an extra one for her. (bounces!) I'm getting my own morel!

Happy things in my sketchbook

Since Precious (how lucky am I to have a professor named Precious?) caught a glimpse of me doodling in class this morning, I figured I'd go ahead and share that page of my sketchbook with y'all. I think it's obvious that all the crafty blogs and ridiculously cute Japanese things I've been looking at lately are having an impact. My favorite is the either the pencil or the happy kleenex box.

Precious said I should turn it into stationery, which makes me all silly happy to contemplate.