Coming soon to a mailbox near you

Finished mushroom dudes! I took the picture with them inside a pyrex bowl, which lit the shot pretty nicely. The white fuzz on the red isn't nearly so pronounced in person, though. I'm so excited to be done. They were awfully fun to make. The stems are a little bendy, although they bend right back into place and tend to stay there. I'm thinking about putting them in yogurt cups to ship.

The next series of mushroom people will be made with vintage buttons. I was puttering around at Stars and found a few bags of vintage buttons on sale. Just imagine, a couple of months ago, the only buttons I had in the house were ones that had fallen off clothing and were waiting to be sewed back on. Now I have a collection of buttons waiting to be made into cute things.

Keeping Busy

School has been a bit demanding this week, but I've still made the time to get some hands-on craft time. I'm loving buttons and embroidery! Two mushrooms for the swap, another button heart ornament, and pincushion number five, this one with a sweet little appliqued acorn, and teensy embroidered oak leaves. I'm going to finish the rest of the mushroom guys this weekend, and hopefully make another pincushion or two. I'm still waiting (patiently, I assure you) to hear back about next month's Crafty Wonderland, and in the meantime, it certainly doesn't hurt to make more things with an eye towards putting them on the table. Maybe I'll make extra mushrooms, or other anthropomorphized vegetables.

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!