A basket of cute.

I took my new babes out of the window this morning and tried to place them somewhere they'd be comfortable. I'm not too crazy about the basket they're in, but for now, it'll do until I get something more suitable. Yay!

I'm baaaaaaack! :D

FINALLY, I got ahold of a new sewing machine (and I mean NEW - it was still in the foam stuff in the box). I was checking Craigslist last night for nearby tag sales this weekend and someone had listed a sewing machine in East Hartford. I woke up at 6am to get ready and drive out there for that baby and it was only $20! Sooooo goooood! I'm still getting used to it, but hey, it's doing what I need it to do (with or without me cussing at it for eating my thread all the time). And the picture above is a sneak peak of what I've completed tonight since being home from tag saling. I also finished up the stockings I had just barely started when my old machine bit the dust. So cute!

This is from a Tennessee Ridge Primitives pattern. The tags spell out "Old Witch". I know the stuffing is pretty pathetic right now because I don't have any Sweet Annie, but I will fill these puppies up some day, haha.

I also just won an auction for all of Tennesee Ridge Primitives' fall and Halloween patterns yesterday, so I'll have all sorts of goodies to keep me busy when I'm not in class. :D

I feel so much better now that I have the ability to craft again. Minutes turn into hours when I start making something, and I absolutely love being able to just improvise when I can't think of what to put where. Like the pumpkin's nose tonight. I knew I wanted a nose for him, I just had no idea what. Then I went to put the rusty bells on him and the kitty and it dawned on me, BELL NOSE! I love it, haha.

Anyways, it's been an 18 hour day of awesome, and I'm about to crash face first on my keyboard. I'm glad I could spend my last day off before classes the way I did. Thanks for stopping in and happy sewing. :]

So much to do...

Hello all, and I apologize for not really having much to show lately. I still haven't found a new sewing machine and I've been getting mentally prepared for school (I start my last semester on Tuesday, ugh) while trying to find a new car... I also decided to take on the project of redoing my room, haha. I have this massive blank space over my computer desk just BEGGING me to make something to put there. I need to make another doll to put in a basket on my other wall, too. So much to do!

I'm really worried about the start of school. I usually stress myself out way more than I should, and on top of school being school, I'm terrified of bringing my piece of junk car on the highway... It started making really loud, deep humming noises and blowing raspberries at me last time I had to go for a bit of a drive. My college is a half hour drive on mostly highway... I toggle between cussing at the car and pleading apologetically with it to get me to and from my destination safely any time I drive it, haha. :(

I decided to put the table I borrowed from Ma in a corner of my room instead of the dining area. I can actually see it now, and the smell of cinnamon sticks is amazing in here, haha.

This is all I have redone so far. I finally painted that shelf black and put it up. A picture of my old childhood best friend (a kitty named Sheebah) and my first little critter (an amazingly loving and smart rat named October) are up there with a candle for each of them and one of my favorite Halloween decorations. (I refuse to believe that the shelf is crooked. That thing was being SUCH a pain in the butt to get up there.)

Anywho, that's all I have to share for now. I hope to be back in the swing of things sometime soon and have some actual creations to show. Thanks for stopping by and have a good one.

Apartment pictures!

I love sharing pictures, if that hasn't been obvious yet, haha. Anyways, I thought I'd post some pictures of my apartment as it is right now. It's always work in progress, considering I love decorating and changing my environment periodically.

First, the living room. Excuse the exercise bike. There really is nowhere else to put that thing, haha.

The potato box thingy won't be staying there, I just don't have a spot in mind to put it yet. Gina brought up a good point, so I may put it in the kitchen for plastic bags or recyclables. Both of which are usually just stuffed into my dining room closet out of sight, lol. And that magazing is my Country Sampler, which has soooo many photos for me to drool over.

Next, I'll show the dining area. I don't often have visitors here and it's one of the few spaces I have to keep my crafting stuff, so it's more like a work area/eat-something-once-in-a-while area. Ignore the broken sewing machine. :(

This is where I keep all my fabric, sewing stuff, and extras. That apple barrel thingy is full of hay, exelsior, and spanish moss (which I bought right before my sewing machine bit the dust, so I have yet to use). Sorry for the mess on the floor. That's where the fan sits when it's not in a window, and I couldn't fit the rest of the Poly-fil in that little stand.

Now the bathroom. I warn you in advance, the color orange kind of threw up all over the place in there, so it's reeeally bright, but I needed a change from the mismatched blue, pink, and green back in my springtime phase... :/ It's also pretty hard to get a picture of the whole thing, considering that I can't stand back far enough to capture much. I had to get in the tub for the picture on the right, haha.

I will not be showing any of my bedroom. It's a mishmosh of Halloween/gothic stuff, band posters, and a few decorations I don't have a place for yet. Basically, it needs to be completely redone, but I don't know if that's something I'll take on, considering that I move out in five months... I will, however, show you the premade wreath I fell in love with from Michael's a few years ago (can you tell I love that store?) which hangs outside my bedroom door.

Thanks again for stopping in! Seeing all your blogs is so inspiring, really. The only problem is, I followed so many of you at once, that now if I want to go back and find something specific that I saw in someone's post, I have no idea which blog it came from, haha.

Anywho, I think I'm going to go visit my great grandmother for a bit and enjoy the cold air we have today from my swing in her wooded back yard... I love it there. :) Have a nice day, all.

Busy as a bee. A very poor bee.

Recently, I decided to "treat myself" a bit and splurge on some items to decorate the apartment (while searching for a new sewing machine to no avail so far). I'm moving out in January, so it seems silly to spend money to redecorate at this point, but I want it to be a very cozy last several months. Most of what I bought that has been put to use has ended up in the dining room/kitchen area. Anything else is sitting on my living room floor to await its fate...

Forgive the boring, blinding white walls in my pictures. As I said, this is a college student apartment, so nothing too glorious, but these ugly white walls keep me safe, warm, and dry.

I'll start off with the best part of my tag sale-athon Saturday morning - my new shelving unit. <3 It might seem silly, seeing as most of you already have lots of gorgeous shelves to put pretty prim decor on, but I've never had one until now. I always just hung stuff on my walls (I know, so boring!). I'm constantly changing the decorations on/in it, considering I don't have too many options right now.

I like that kettle a lot, for some reason. And that candle (Pilgrim Candle) is the most fragrant candle I have ever owned. It's clearly never been lit, and I can smell it from across my kitchen. It's amazing. Almost everything on these shelves is a recent thrift shop/flea market purchase. New stuff = happy Jess. And broke Jess.

Next is my little tin and sunflower setup. It's simple, but it's something very new to this apartment, and I'm quite pleased with how it looks. I'm not usually too big on sunflowers, but the night I put it up, it brought a smile to my face every time I saw it there. Until I whacked my head on it when I bent down to take the trash out.

Oh, so that banana holder I got? Yeah, it now has a purpose. An adorable, festive purpose.

I kept those corn cobs in the plastic wrapping for so long, but I finally decided to be brave and break them free after a few years. I am glad I did so. It's the little things in life. This is where I ended up putting my new cookie jar, as well. I want some nice fabric to put under it and hopefully some more autumn leaves tucked in the corner behind everything.

I borrowed a small table from my great grandmother's basement and tucked it in the corner for now. I'll hold off on a picture because I'm expecting some putka pods and rosehips with cinnamon sticks from Old Country Barn on ebay, and I'm sure I'll be dying to post new pictures of them. I can't wait!

I found this crafted sack of blueberries, wheat, cinnamon sticks, and some nut I'm unfamiliar with at a thrift shop and fell in love with it. The problem is, everything in my apartment is autumn. All year long. And this piece is very summer. But it's so beautiful and I love it so much, that I had to have it anyways. So I put it up in it's own special spot above my nightstand next to my bed. It makes me happy. Again, it's all about the little things in life.

Next is something I actually gasped aloud at when I saw it sitting on the floor at Salvation Army. I don't even know what it's called, but it's old, it's wood, and I like it. I have no idea what to do with it, but I like it. I want to take off the stenciled stuff with sandpaper, but for now, I present to you... my new box thing!

I also grabbed a neat new stand for a dollar from a tag sale. It's nothing special, but it's cute, and it sure beats what I had before...

Before

After

This one actually has four legs! I had that other piece of junk propped against the wall for a year, and no one ever noticed until I pointed it out. Yeah, I'm glad to see it gone. And this new one has cute moons and stars. <3

I put that other tiny shelf thingy from one of my earlier posts in my bathroom for now. It's boring and undecorated for the most part, but it's got an adorable, recently purchased little critter hanging from it. I absolutely fell in love with this owl when I saw it at Michael's. They had "bears" (which looked like rats to me), a green owl, and others. He's so cuuuute! *squeee*

Lastly, I bought another shelving unit thingy from a sweet elderly lady at the flea market today. I also decided to put a birdie here. Otherwise, he'd just be sitting around on some shelf in my bathroom, waiting to be cute somewhere else. I also bought this little guy at Michael's a few years ago. I got a couple chickens for my great grandmother, too, since she used to have several of them yeeeeears ago. Now that I mention it, I should grab a few for myself. They'd look good here...

Anywho, thank you to those who have taken a peek at my blog or been so brave as to step in and say hi. Sometimes I wonder if people in the prim blogosphere will be kind of weirded out because I look a bit different and I'm a young hooligan, but for the most part, I'm not too worried about it. I've already talked to a few super nice people, especially Gina from Cat Nap Inn Primitives. She's good to me. :D

I do have one question to anyone who may be reading at the moment: Where do you get your Sweet Annie? Would I be able to go to a Garden Barn and find some or is it an online-purchase sort of thing? I don't really want to grow my own. Seeing how much some people use in their prims makes me assume it's rather cheap and easy to come by, but I saw one little bunch on ebay for about $15 plus loads for shipping. Yeowch.

RIP Singer 6135.

So I just called a nearby sewing machine repair shop and according to them, I would end up paying around $70 to fix what's wrong with my Singer. I paid $40 for it. I've barely had this thing for a month. I legitimately want to cry.

Ugh.

Just My Luck.

Wow, so I was looking forward to crafting up a storm tonight and my day off tomorrow to use some of the new materials I finally got my hands on and lo and behold, my sewing machine seemingly decides to break. How very frustrating and inconvenient.

Time to dissect the whole thing, clean every inch of it, and attempt to figure out what came from where. How wonderful...

Thrift Shop Treasures!

Just one follower now (*sniff.. sniff*), and he sees me all the time, haha. Oh well. Build it and they will come, I guess. Maybe when I start making some amazing prims, people will want to stop in and say hi, haha.

I've been so jealous/inspired by what I see all you other prim bloggers finding at tag sales and such that I decided to go on a little spree at a cute little thrift shop down the street from me called Amy's Attic. I made the mistake once of passing up a cute set of wooden bowls. I soon learned that "sleeping on it" can result in continuous regret every time I pass by where it used to be on the shelf. Not today! I've been eyeballing some adorable old bucket containers on a fixture full of neat little antiques. I had to actually ask the lady that works there what a "smudge pot" was, and she ended up Googling it right there, haha. Anyways, enough talk. Pictures!

I'm not sure what to do with this little lady, but she was only a dollar and I liked the simplicity of her. I wish she had a companion (I'm a sucker for old Mr. and Mrs. sets).

I found this cute little shelf for $3 at Salvation Army, and I'm hoping to repaint it, age it, etc. Hopefully (if I actually go through with it), I can put it in my living room for a less boring apartment-like look. :/

Kind of a bad picture because of the flash, but this little shelf is so tiny and adorable, I had to have it. The candle holders were a pleasant find as well. :)

I like the wood look, so I picked up these dirt cheap odds and ends. I'm already trying to plot out some grungy ornies or tiny wreath to hang from the banana holder. I love the candle holder, too...

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this tiny covered bowl, but I absolutely love it. That skinny candle was marked "free" on the price tag, haha.

 I rmember talking to the lady who was selling it there, and she kept trying to lower the price last time I was there. "25 cents? How about 10? 10 cents." I simply didn't know what to do with it, but that didn't stop me this time. And how could I beat FREE? Haha...

Here comes the good stuff. A perfect candle holder for rosehips and cinnamon sticks, an old tin container for some nice autumn picks and maybe Sweet Annie (if I can ever find the stuff), and if I'm correct, an old bed warmer. I couldn't believe it. I was debating whether or not to get it because again, I had no idea what I would do with it, but for 50 cents... why not? Haha.

Now for some of my favorite purchases of the day. I fell in love with that old "cookie" container ($12) and I FINALLY got ahold of some wooden bowls. I'm not too crazy about the small ones, but hey, for 25 cents each, who cares? The candles were lovely as well. I need to get some old pots so I can grunge those up a bit.

Needless to say, I am quite happy with my finds for the day. I ordered some rusty tin wire and star garland last night from Winter Garden Primitives, a beautiful little e-shoppe. If you haven't looked around, I recommend you do so when you get the chance. I finally got ahold of some Spanish moss and some beautiful pip berry picks from Michael's last night as well. I love this stuff, I'm so excited, haha. *squeee*

I've started a quick project using a freebie pattern from Tennessee Ridge Primitives, another amazing shoppe. I keep eyeballing her pattern auctions on ebay, but then I tell myself I shouldn't spend the money. I usually don't use patterns anyways, but I feel it would be nice to get into the swing of things before I go all free-for-all about it. I am new to this, after all.

Anyways, time to go to the drive-in with some great friends, have a lot of laughs, and eat some fried dough.

Following Frenzy

I'm finally getting the hang of this Blogger thing, and I've been exposed to a smorgasbord of amazing blogs. So if you see me frequently returning to your page, I'm not being creepy... I'm either drooling over the beautiful primitives I see or am clicking every available link you offer to find more prims to drool over, and so on...

I'm becoming obsessed, haha. I wish I had a beautiful old cottage home instead of this ugly white-walled apartment. Some day... And THAT is something to give me motivation in my final semester of college.

Some photos I took a few years ago.

Blogger noob.

I mainly made this for my art stuff and to be able to type more than is appropriate for a Facebook status (although I know several people who annoyingly post essays on a regular basis). I'll start by posting what I've made thus far. I've only been making prims and sewing in general for maybe a month tops, so it's not amazing yet, but I enjoy what I do (a lot), which is what matters to me right now.

I'll start off with the little guy I made before I had a sewing machine when I was just dying to see what awesome little creation I could use cheesecloth for. This is Spooks.

I added the hat because I didn't like the shape of his head. It was too round and person-like.

Next, upon the purchase of a sewing machine, I made Lily Anne and her little kitty Salem. I was going to leave her without hair, but she looked too weird without it, so I finally caved in and attempted to attach some yarn at the risk of making her look even worse. I believe that it was a fine decision.

After making Salem to sit on Lily Anne's lap, I decided that the kitty was cute, but an entire BASKET of them would be adorable. Lo and behold.. a basket of kitties! *squeeee*

After Lily Anne and my kitty spree, I was feeling kind of lonely at the time, so I decided to make a sweet little couple. This turned into a two day adventure of switching shirt colors and resizing overalls, etc. which finally resulted in Mr. and Mrs. Crowscare. And yes, I left them faceless on purpose. I think they have plenty of personality and warmth just being together. If you separate them, they kind of lose their touch, as weird as that sounds.

Finally, my most recent prim project was the Three Brothers and some candy corn ornies (were not originally meant to be associated, but I felt the candy corn added a lot to the little display I had). It took me forever trying to decide what materials to use for each piece of each face, but in the end, I am pretty happy with the way they came out. Especially the black one. I started off with the classic, very standard prim orange one, but wanted to make each one different. I absolutely love the way they all turned out.

I started dabbling in painting with acrylics, too. I enjoy it a lot as well. There's so many things I'd like to paint now, but I need to fine-tune my detail work first. Shading and texture, in particular. Once I get the hang of it, I can do the more in-depth stuff, but for now, I'm just attempting some plain and simple pictures (Halloween of course). I've snuck in a swing to each one, and I'd like to continue doing this, but I know at some point, it's just not going to fit in. But for now, that little symbol of my childhood peaceful place in the woods at my grandmother's house will make a cameo whenever I can allow. Also, my camera and the lighting used make the pictures look a bit different (crappier and less detailed).

This is my first acrylic painting ever. I love the way the sky came out, but I hate that tree. I only had a few brushes at the time and they were garbage at that. I've since A.) gotten better brushes and B.) learned how to control the amount of paint slopped onto the canvas better.

My second painting I'm not so fond of. I went for a more autumny (yeah, it's a word now) ground scheme, and when I added the blades of grass in fromt of the gravestones, it just made them look like they were on fire. Plus I hate the way the little girl's ghost came out. Yeah, that's supposed to be a ghost. I'd like to learn how to get a more transparent kind of look... In due time. I rushed this in the end and trimmed off a bunch of negative space at the bottom because I already decided I wasn't happy with it (after about 5 hours of work) and just wanted it to be "done". There is soooo much I dislike about this picture, but hey, it was only my second one and you can't win 'em all.

My third and last painting I was a bit happier with, although my brain pretty much froze and prevented me from coming up with anything creative to do with all the negative space around the cat that was just dying to be added to. I was happy that my shading progressed (from non-existant to attempted at least). I am obsessed with detail (I am an Accounting major after all), so seeing myself improve in that department is especially gratifying. :)

Anyways, that's all I've got so far. Hopefully I'll improve lots and maintain the motivation to work on these things. I'll be starting my last semester in two weeks, so after that, who knows? I'll probably be freaking out about deadlines and exams as usual. That could either make me feel the need to be more creative or it could kill my schedule and motivation to do anything but sit and relax once I'm home. We'll see.