Cupcakes and other ramblings

At the moment, I am totally enthralled by anything decorated with polka dots or cupcakes. And I can tell that I am not the only one. Any craft that involves either one of those will stop me in my tracks. But to date, I have remarkable few items in my home that are either polka dotted or cupcaked. Part of it is that "I can make that" syndrome. Another problem at the moment is the overwhelming feeling of clutter in our house. The shelves are full of art work and precious items that are not well displayed and thus overlooked. The walls are full of artwork that does not coordinate, and all of the spaces for small items are filled, whereas the big picture wall is half empty (because its easy to buy small affordable items we like, and hard to commit to big items, and because none of our artworks seems to coordinate enough to put on one wall). I have wonderful items tucked in drawers and boxes that really deserve to be out and seen.

So of course, today I have come across several cupcake items that I truly want yet can not easily justify. Unfortunately, there are no gift giving ocassions for me for a while. So for myself, I note the cupcake change purse here and the cupcake pincushions here. And some point soon, if I'm having a bad day and need a small treat, there may be cupcakes coming my way.

The picture is just to prove that I do have some cupcake items. For Michelle's birthday, I made her a cupcake crown to match my ice cream crown. She was quite pleased with it, especially as it is on display right next to mine. She did insist on a standard party hat for blowing out the candles on her cake, though. My husband also wants a crown, of course, so when I feel inspired again there will have to be a pie crown for him.

Next project

So this is my next big project. My Mom called me from a yard sale to check if it was okay if they bought a dollhouse for Michelle, with the understanding that it needs "updating." Permission was granted, and now it has been added to the playroom. Michelle is already playing with using her Little People girls, and some cheap plastic furniture that also came from the yard sale.

But how to redecorate? The exterior is now committed to be red, as Michelle has decided that and believe me, she will remember it. The shutters I think can get a fresh coat of black, but I'm not sure about the awnings - maybe white?

The inside has already started to be renovated, as I removed the ugly orange and gold contact paper used for wallpaper. The ugly green carpets need to go, but they are permanently affixed to the flooring, so I will also need to figure out what to do for the floors. That's obviously going to be my biggest stalling point, as I am not a woodworker. I'm thinking about some sort of particle board that I can cut with an exacto. The kitchen gets black and white "tile" of some sort. and is probably painted yellow. Everything else is still under consideration.


I have to plan any work carefully, so that Michelle can still continue to use it during renovations. No painting during weekend naps or it will still be wet when she wakes up! This will give me something to do in the evenings once the Lost season finale airs.

Whiplash

The convergence has finally occurred, and I not only remembered the Whiplash challenge for this week by the time I got home, I was actually struck by an idea as I was putting Michelle to bed. I came right downstairs and started working on it.





I made a small muslin doll a few weeks ago, with the intention that it would occupy a paper mache chair that I made. Michelle has claimed the chair (and two others) as her own, and the doll has been neglected.

So with the theme "yarn" in mind, I started to pull out all of my old yarn bobbins from weaving. When I used to weave, there would always end up being a little bit of yarn left on the bobbins that I just would run out of room for. Since I have lots of bobbins, I would just leave the yarn there "for next time." Needless to say, I have plenty just sitting around with lots of nice yarns. So I started to wrap the doll with yarn. Of course, soon enough I found the need to use some other yarns from the stash. Every time I added a new color, it changed the whole feeling of the doll.




I've often felt that putting yarn into some structure takes away some essential appealing characteristic of the yarn. Certain yarns that I have collected never look as good once I knit or weave or whatever with them. This doll I think conveys the pure color and texture of yarn itself, without any structure to distract from it. In any case, she was fun to do and I think a very nice transformation from a naked unfinished doll!

The Sultan's Elephant

I came across a reference to one of the coolest public performances I have ever seen in Juju Loves Polka Dots' blog. Apparently, London was visited by an elephants and a giant girl puppet, who paraded around town. I admit that I have not even taken the time to read the story scenario that accompanies this because I am so taken with the visuals. There are even more pictures here. Its a good thing I didn't know about this before, or I might have been on a sudden flight to London. It will be in Antwerp in July, Calais in September - wouldn't that be worth planning a trip around?

Ice cream queen

Ice cream queen
Originally uploaded by lemonade_sandwich.

A two part project. First I made the crown. I really love the tiaras that sally jean makes and I kept thinking about going to a workshop of hers, but it never really was going to work. Plus, I've realized that as much as I like metalwork, its really not my strong point. So I decided to make an embroidered crown. The ice cream cones were added because last summer our default activity became ice cream outings.
After a while of kicking around my studio, I thought it needed an appropriate display. I did the classic papier mache a balloon to get the form. I now have this mounted on a dowel in my studio. I have worn the crown on several occassions, although never out of the house.

Jumping in

Bunny
Originally uploaded by lemonade_sandwich.

I've been having such a good time reading everyone's craft blogs, that I decided to start my own. I've actually been so inspired that I have been doing more things and with less anxiety than previously.

I'm a lifelong crafter, and I've never stuck to just one medium. Over the years I've done everything from weaving to collage. I now have a 2 year old daughter, which means that crafts that have a shorter time frame are much more likely to get started and finished. The baby blanket that I put on the loom before she was born was not finished until she was 18 months old, so I decided to put that aside for a little bit and stick to things that I could work on for a few minutes here and there.

I've been having the most fun with paper mache recently. It has enough steps to be interesting, but it is also not so fussy that I get worried about mistakes. This paper mache bunny is one of my recent projects that I am most pleased with. I have a bunch of old projects that I'll probably add very soon.