My new favorite listing on etsy

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19852075

(fwiw, I bought a DIY I Spy bag kit from aebaby, and it was wonderfully done, and just right for my pre-reading daughter. I highly recommend her stuff .... although I'd prefer a lower price on this one!)

Wifebeater bag

Lazy Husband left a pile of t-shirts sitting in our bedroom, waiting for the next run to Goodwill. I snagged one and turned it into a reusable shopping bag, ala the much superior ones that fellow Clevey zJayne makes.

In order to make the bags, you first have to cut off the sleeves and the neckline of the shirt, then fold in the sides of the shoulders to reinforce the handles. When you do that, you basically turn a poor, unsuspecting t-shirt into a wifebeater, which got me giggling. And when you make the bottom of the bag and gusset it, you end up with this sort of wifebeater-torso bag, which is going to make me snort every time I use it.

Note to self - when making subsequent bags, a unisex XL makes a bag that's really too huge to be practical. I could stuff most of a week's worth of groceries in there, if i didn't mind them squishing each other into a pulp before I got them to the car. Or maybe I'll just go buy one from zJayne ...

Shameless cross-promotion

One of my friends has an etsy shop that hasn't had its first sale yet, despite her attractive products and reasonable prices. Check her out, and if you buy something, tell her LazyMama sent you!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5846926

Pimpin' my homies

http://www.clevelandhandmade.com/?page_id=70

The Cleveland Handmade etsy team has an orange-and-black challenge going, with voting continuing until Sunday, October 26, so stop by the site and pick your favorite. Sign up for the mailing list at the same time, and you're entered to win a gift certificate good at any of the participating shops. Just in time for holiday shopping!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, I do have an entry - the Halloween Hexagons quilt. I can't decide whether I like this view better, or the view they used for the ballot - I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?

What I would buy for my husband ...

... if only I had sold a few more things on etsy this year. It would look awesome on the wall in his office.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=fp_feat_10&listing_id=15233947

Go check it out, and be amazed.

Show a Clevey some love

The Cleveland Handmade etsy team is doing a series of interviews with featured artists in the NE Ohio area. The first one is SaraKate, who makes really cool purses. You can check out the interview here, and her etsy shop here.

Way to go, SaraKate! You've got much more interesting answers to the questions than I'll come up with ;)

When I hit the lottery

I am going to buy one of these. Maybe two. Or six. And then have them design all of the rest of the furniture in my house. Because this?

There are no words to describe the immensity of its awesomeness.

aren't these cute?

They're from the same person who's custom-making table cards for my sister-in-law's wedding.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10742826

I might have to invest in these - surely I've got somebody I need to thank this much, right? (ahem, Kylie-Ann)

snort - giggle

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11164500

I swear, sometimes it's like my sense of humor got stuck in junior high.

More gifts for the kiddo

LazyToddler's third birthday is looming on the horizon, which means I've been sneaking off to Toys R Us instead of crafting, and I've been spending waaaaay too much time browsing on etsy. I have to admit, etsy is a little short on non-clothing gifts for the toddler set - lots for babies, lots for older kids, not so much for those who are short on attention span and long on destruction. So with that in mind, I've been trying to find things I think she'll enjoy, at least until she breaks them into (hopefully) non-lethal pieces within 20 minutes of opening them.

Not really. I have found a few things that I think are age-appropriate and fun. In the order in which the packages made it to our door:

Pixie Dust star-shaped goat's milk soaps from abreathofFrenchair. These arrived super-fast, in great condition and in the cutest packaging I've seen yet. Yes, there really is that much pink packing paper in that adorable black-and-white box! I think LazyToddler is really going to enjoy using these in the bath, and the small size means that we won't be stuck using one yucky bar of soap for weeks and weeks. And she's going to smell yummy, just in time for the stinky sticky summer season. Bonus!

Handpainted ceramic pendant from LisaEverettDesigns. They're available in all of the colors shown above - I ordered the white one, figuring that it's likely to match more outfits that way. Of course, we're dealing with a three-year-old's sense of style, so that was probably unnecessary :) I'm going to pick up some ribbon to use to make the "chain" for it, which I'm hoping will prove more durable (or at least more easily replaced) than the regular link chain on some of her dearly departed jewelry. If this one works out well, I may pick up some of the artist's other paper-covered pendants for the kiddo or myself - but these looked more durable for now.

"Pink PJs" ribbon wand from (who else?) ribbonwand. I think this is soooo cute, with the stripes and the pinkness and all. I'm hoping that the "Brass swivel hardware to ensure ease of movement" will prevent some of the tangling problems we had with a stationary-mount silk streamer we got for Christmas last year. Plus, the stick is shorter, so it's less whackable than her current rain-stained, knotted, pathetic-looking one. I wasn't sure this would make it here in time for LazyToddler's birthday, since it was coming from Canada, and Canada Post is notoriously laconic when it comes to getting stuff to the lower 48. But it showed up today, a little more than a week after the order was placed, so, Go, Canada Post!

That's it, at least so far. I may keep trolling for a while to see if any t-shirts strike me as must-haves, even though LazyHusband will kill me if I bring one more item of clothing into her room. It's okay if she never wears anything more than twice, right? Back me up here, peeps!

Showing some love

Found at Huntington Beach this afternoon

With love and admiration to my fellow Cleveys who are obsessed with beach glass and stones:

Lake Erie Beach Glass
zJayne
Kimberly Monaco Designs
stonz

... and possibly some others, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Results

You're just dying to see what that teeny little skein of yarn looked like when I used it, aren't you? Well, wait no longer - here's the results:

That's the whole skein, minus about 2 feet I had leftover at the end. I love the pattern, which is described as "mutating variegate," which I'm guessing means that the pattern of variegation changes throughout the skein. It's cool, because you only get a stitch or two before the yarn changes color, and the next color isn't always the same. I'll definitely have to keep this in mind after I finish the current pair of socks ... because a girl can only have so many stripes in her sock drawer, after all.

Still no variegated yarn on Meg's etsy shop, but maybe if enough of us ask for it, some will magically appear :)

Whew! Made it just in time

Off the needles at 11:30pm on Friday:

Basic toe-up socks for LazyHusband, made from custom-dyed self-striping yarn (in Virginia Tech colors) from WhimsyPinsy. I loved how this yarn knit up, and she got the guage on the stripes exactly how I had requested. Thanks a ton - the socks look great!

And in the mailbox at 3pm Saturday:

Colorway Octarine from Twisted Fiber Art. I really like that Meg offers her colorways in different blends of yarn, so even if she's sold out in one type you can pick up the same color in a different fiber blend. The particular yarn that I bought is 30% bamboo, so it will be interesting to see how differently it knits from the 100% superwash I'm used to using. Hopefully it doesn't bag out like the 100% bamboo I knit into this sweater, which becomes 3 sizes larger after wearing it for an hour or so.

Oh, and Meg sent along a little bonus sample of another colorway, Karma, in her 100% superwash merino yarn:
Is that not the cutest skein you've ever seen in your entire life? Don't you just want to put it in your pocket and pet it? I'm going to have to find something really cool to do with a tiny amount of yarn, because it's a really nifty colorway, and I don't see any more of it for sale on her etsy store, so I guess I'm stuck with just this much.

A little etsy love

I was just poking around the list of items I've marked as "favorites" on etsy, and I found this:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8805717

Oh, how I love it. Anyone want to make a donation to the "Lazy Mama needs some new art for her studio walls" fund?

Or, if you're feeling a little more generous, how about this:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8802838

Stylin'

Outfit by Beneath the Rowan Tree; styling by LazyToddler.

Gotta love the free publicity

http://jjmfinance.blogspot.com/2008/01/lazymamadesigns.html

Thanks, Jason, for the write-up! Fellow etsyians, go check out his products ... they look really cool, if you're in this as a business and not a hobby. If I get one, I'll let you know how it works for me!

Product review - more handmade kid toys!

One of the things I like about etsy is that sometimes I am able to find less-expensive versions of toys I see in catalogs. That was the case with the silkies I bought from Beneath the Rowan Tree. I had seen similar scarves in several of the higher-end, granola-friendly toy catalogs, but I finally decided to get them after finding them (slightly) cheaper and handmade.

Basically, it's a set of six different colors of silk scarves, each about a yard square. It doesn't sound like much, but put those in the hands of a two-year-old ("I'm two-and-a-half, not TWO!!!!!") who has recently discovered her imagination, and you'd be surprised to see what happens.

I've been waiting to post this until I could get the video uploaded, because it really helps you understand what a great toy these are. This was what she came up with in the first 20 minutes we played with them:


Since then they've been wrapping paper, and a giant pool to jump into, and giant fish in the giant pool, and a wig, and flags, and ... And this is all since Saturday night. Score!

This is another gift I could have made ... after all, they're just squares of fabric with rolled hems. Hear that? Rolled hems. As in, "those curse-inducing banes of my existance any time I deal with sheer fabric" rolled hems. Thank you, but I'll pay someone else to roll them for me, and dye them, too, while they're at it :)

Just a quick promo for a fellow etsyian

I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but we're renovating our kitchen starting on Monday. "Gutting" is the word that comes to mind, as does "demolishing" and "fixing the stupid things the original builders got wrong."

This means that over the past two weeks I've had to devote valuable craft time to packing up stuff in the kitchen ... and living room and dining room, since we have to move everything in there to paint and install hardwood floors. This happened, of course, AFTER we had gotten rid of all the moving boxes from this spring. Oops.

But a fellow Clevey just finished a move and was looking to get rid of a whole bunch of boxes ... so VirtualLori hooked me up with something like 30 copy paper boxes, plus a whole mess of food cartons and boxes. The first minivan load took care of loading out all the books and dining room stuff; the second load is currently being used to build forts in the living room while I finish cooking a few last things this weekend. Then, it's off to the basement with just about everything from the kitchen, and I get to learn various take-out numbers by heart over the next six to eight weeks.

Where am I going with this? In addition to her freelance day job, oversight of the ClevelandHandmade web site and blog, and willingness to share her cardboard, VirtualLori has REALLY cool jewelry for sale on her etsy site.

As a "thank you" for the boxes, I'd love to send some business her way - or at least some extra hearts for her shop. Show her some love, will ya? And if you buy anything, tell her the Cardboard Queen sent you :)

More handmade toddler gift suggestions

Next up on the fake-food roundup - crocheted "two-bite" cupcakes from pukashell creative designs.

I don't even know where to start with these. They're so tiny! They're so cute! They come packaged in a miniature muffin pan that is both tiny and cute!

I really waffled about buying these for Liza, since tiny amigurumi cupcakes aren't exactly labor-intensive. However, I decided that by the time I went out and bought the right colors of yarn (which I don't have) and the muffin tin (which I don't have) and the buttons (oh, the buttons! So cute! So not in my stash!) and finally sat down to make the things, not only would it be as expensive as buying them online, but I'd never get around to it and would end up with a bunch of yarn and buttons that never got used.

So, support a fellow etsy artist, keep my stash smaller, save time - what's not to love?

The only downside for you guys is that the artist doesn't have any currently in stock in her store, although there are some really cute larger cupcake playsets available, and the polymer clay jewelry that looks like dessert is pretty cute for older kids.

What's on my Christmas shopping list

First in a series of posts in which I chronicle the stuff I've managed to find for Liza (2 1/2) as part of our "Buy Handmade" holiday.

Disclaimer: I wanted to get her a shopping cart for Christmas, and handmade isn't really an option there. Wood would break a toe when she dropped it on her foot, and there aren't too many handcrafted plastic artisans around. So we bought one from Lead R Us, after ascertaining that the used ones on eBay cost more with shipping than new ones do, and the really used ones on craigslist were junky. I defend my decision to buy Cheapo Plastic Crap because I fully intend to run this thing into the ground, then pass it on via a consignment store or craigslist, so at least I'm going to reduce, reuse, or recycle it. Plus, it's coming from Santa, not me.

***

First featured item: Handmade felt fruits and veggies from handmade on etsy.com.

All of the stuff that Santa is bringing goes along with the grocery cart - I'm trying to replace her "Crappy Plastic Food" with "Fewer, Nicer Food That Doesn't Hurt As Much When You Step On It." When I saw the felt cat-toys that fellow Cleveland artist handmade makes, I immediately asked if she could do me a custom listing without the catnip. She was happy to comply.

The basket of fruits and veggies she made for us is so cute - even better in person than her beautiful photographs make it look. The corn cracks me up, with the husks and all. And the little picnic basket is soooo darling - I'm hoping Liza feels the same when she opens it. If not, I guess I've got a new decoration for my studio (or my kitchen, assuming we ever get around to starting the remodel).

Anyhow, stop by her shop and check out her stuff - and tell her I sent you! She won't give you a discount or anything, but at least I'll feel like I'm making a contribution to the Cleveland artistic economy :)