Business Card Display Board and Recipe Holder

Oh. My. Goodness. What a day! In fact, what a week it has been!! Talk about crazy, non-stop, headache-inducing busyness. *Sigh* Okay, now that I have that off my chest, time to talk about something I've made recently.

I have a beautiful friend who very sweetly and trustingly puts custom orders in to me. The conversation goes something like this:

Friend: Candy, I'd like to order something from you, and please make sure you charge me enough, and it doesn't matter when you get it finished, and if I love it I may order more...

Me: Okay, what would you like me to make?

Friend: A fabric-covered canvas roughly yea big, you know with the diagonal ribbon and button effect? For displaying my business cards at wedding expos and the like. And a recipe-holder like you have, but to hang here, in this one little spot in my kitchen that I can put something on the way, and all girly and over-the-top like I am, pinky, you know...

Me: Sure, well I can bring some fabric swatches over for you to have a look at.

Friend: Oh no, you choose, whatever you choose will be gorgeous, I'll just leave it up to you!

Me: Well, do you want some felt bunting spelling out your business name on the display board?

Friend: Oh yeah, maybe? Up to you, whatever you think. And no rush, seriously, take a few months if you like, just whenever...and make sure you charge me enough so that you can make money from it! 

Isn't she beautiful? I love her to bits.

Anyway, here is the outcome of the above (somewhat accurate, if my postnatal memory is serving me correctly) conversation.

Recipe Holder

Close-up of the fruit themed buttons adorning the pegs

Business card display board

Close-up of felt bunting

By the way, there is a cool story about the buttons on the business card display board. I did a mock-up of the ribbon placement with string, to get an idea of how many metres of ribbon I would need to buy, and to count the junctions to know how many buttons to buy. But I forgot to check how many rows I ended up with, and I forgot to count the junctions!! Once I got to Spotlight, I searched through the rather meagre supply of buttons for blue ones - I was going to do the ribbon in pink, but there were none that matched that colour. So I switched my plan, and went with pink buttons...the ones I wanted only had one or two buttons in there. Then I found these, that had a flat back but a nice curved top, they were the only pink buttons that had enough in the tube to even come close to sufficing. I counted, there were 39 buttons. I thought, "I hope there will be enough!"

When I got home that afternoon, and attached the ribbon, then counted the junctions, guess how many? Yep, THIRTY-NINE! Perfect! (A big THANK YOU to God for that one!)

Hope you love it, dear friend!

Friday Fun: Kimono's Townhouse

Can you believe it is Friday again? Hooray!! 

Just because Fridays are supposed to be fun and laid-back, I thought I would share some fun with you today. 

Have you heard of Kimono's Townhouse? I have been reading it for about a year now, I found it via Frankie. 

It is a wonderfully unique comic strip about ponies (think My Little Pony) living in a townhouse, updated each week. You might wonder why I am sharing about a comic strip on a craft blog. I have a perfectly good reason - it's because creator Dava Butler is a craft whiz!! This comic strip is photographed rather than drawn. Yep, that's right. Dava sets up each scene, often creating incredibly miniscule props to support the dialogue. It is really incredible work, but you kind of forget that because you get sucked in to the story and the characters and just enjoying the wit and craziness of the actual comic. 

Anyway, I like it. And I thought maybe you would too. 

 

[Pics are small due to copyright issues - click on them and they will take you to the original pages. Images  from www.kimonostownhouse.com]

MadeIt Front Page - Woohoo!

Ooooh, look at this. I MadeIt to the front page. Can you spot it? Can you? Look third row down, third from left...

Op-shop Haul

Okay. So this was a while ago. Maybe two months ago, I walked into the local op-shop on a quick trip out by myself, and as usual, I went straight to the craft and sewing supplies section. The pickings are usually fairly slim, but it's always worth a look, I tell myself. I had to work hard at keeping my cool, because I found the box of sewing patterns was filled to overflowing with exactly what I am always looking for and rarely find - amazing vintage patterns for kids and for me, from the 50s through to the 70s. I think they were all from one particular donor, who dropped them off all at once, and they were put out all at once, and I actually happened to make it there at the right time to snap them all up (thanks, God!). I bought TWENTY-ONE of them. Mmmhmm.

Seriously. I was so excited about these. I still am, I just have not even begun to find time to actually SEW any of them. But thanks to Cass from Cass Can Sew, I was reminded of the great haul when I read her blog post today.

To be honest, I have not had the guts to go through each pattern yet and see which pieces are still in tact. However, I love the gorgeous illustrations on the covers, even if the patterns are not there! Unfortunately, some of the covers are not in the best condition. But still, they make me gasp with their gorgeousness. 

There are too many to have all as separate pics, so here is a collage of them: 

 And close-ups of just five of my favourites:

What great finds have you scored at op-shops lately? I would love to hear about them!

Gift For A Teenage Boy

Does anyone else have a hard time coming up with gift ideas for boys? Specifically teenage boys? 

My teenage brother never helps me out much, just grunts "Dunno" whenever I ask what he wants. So this year for his birthday, I did not ask. I took Mum's advice and made him an iPod case. He is into all things farming, (when I asked his favourite colours, he said yellow and green as per John Deere farm machinery) so hubby suggested I make it out of leather. But considering I do not have the equipment, materials OR skills required to do leatherwork, I decided brown felt was the next best thing.

The "T" is a bit wonky. Oh well. I made up a new design, with a pocket for headphones (the small 'bud' kind that he uses), with the one elastic band to be used for both button closures.

I hope he likes it!

New Mothers' Day

Happy Mothers' Day to all Mums, Grandmas, Nannas, etc. I hope it has  been a special one. I spent the day with my hubby and kids, which was just lovely, despite everyone being just not quite well. Unfortunately, my own Mum was in bed with the flu, so we had to cancel our visit to her :(

I found some time in the last couple days to complete some little cross stitch bibs for the new bubba girls born to friends and family in the last few weeks. I am counting on the new Mummies to be too busy with their tiny bundles of sweetness to see this post. 

In the past, when I have done counted cross stitched, I have worked very much to a pattern, meticulously counted to get placement right, and generally been too scared to branch out. This time, I knew that would put me off even starting, so I just got right in and stitched the girls' names first, then worked out what else I was going to put on the bib with what space I had left. 

I took the general pattern for the girl with balloon from an odd ringbinder full of collectable cross stitch and embroidery patterns from the 1980s that someone had given me. I tweaked the design and the colours to suit me, and I think it turned out quite well. 

Are you a stickler for patterns, or do you like to wing it? Or are you somewhere in between?

Oh, and aren't these names just gorgeous?

A Win!

Hooray!! I won something!! I rarely win things. *super happy dance*

The lovely Donna, of Donna Duncombe Designs, had a giveaway over on her blog this week. And I happened to win the digital prize - I got to choose something from her digital section of her Etsy shop. So exciting! I chose a pack of digital scrapbook papers, the Daydreamer pack.

Thanks to Donna, I have now upgraded my blog background. I have been itching for a change, I really just chose the previous textured paper look rather quickly when I was trying to get set up last year, always thinking I would change it eventually, but the last time I updated the look of the blog, I couldn't find anything I liked better. So this was a rather lovely little surprise. 

I am working on being able to use the single continuous design, rather than tiled as it is at present, but my Blogger and I are not getting along when it comes to that issue at present. We will work it out. :)

Also, considering going back to a white background for the posts...what is your opinion? Is it too busy behind the main text? Would it be better with white?

I am still itching to do a hand illustrated header, but that will have to wait for now. Too many new orders to fill!! (A good problem to have, but I must get cracking on those orders).

Thanks to Donna for the lovely giveaway. Donna also creates funky crochet hooks - you should totally go check them out.

Mummy and Me Oilcloth Aprons

Wow. It has been another crazy week in our household, what with sickness and exhaustion. Do you ever feel like you are just always at least one day away from catching up on everything? I just never quite get caught up. A common dilemma, I guess.

I have been trying to keep up with my making, alongside all the normal stuff of life. I just have not managed to blog about it for a few days. So...here's a little update of just one of the things I've been working on.

Remember the Kids' Oilcloth Apron I blogged about a couple months ago? I mentioned then that my friend had put in an order for matching aprons for her son and her. I have *FINALLY* made them. Sorry it took so long, my friend!

I learned a lot while making these about what a difference the quality of bias tape can make. Not a fun lesson to learn. As much as I would love to keep things simple and buy as few gadgets and gizmos for my sewing as possible, sometimes I think it would just be easier if made my own bias tape. I know I can do this without a bias tape machine, and have done that before. But...part of me just keeps saying "It would be quicker and easier with a bias tape maker". Arrrgh. Maybe I will relent and request it for my birthday.

Looky here!

Just had to share the news! Candykins Crafts, and more specifically, yours truly, has been featured on the wonderful Caheez Designs blog. You can find it here. 

Dress Up Doll Brooch

Completed Dress Up Doll Brooch Set

 

Hi there, friends. Remember me? I feel like I just do not get to blog as often as I would like to lately. Anywho, here I am on Monday evening, finally getting to a post I have been wanting to do for a few days. All about my latest project which I have just completed - a custom order for a felt Dress Up Doll brooch with four interchangeable 1950s style dresses. The request was for dresses in hot pink, lime green, purple and one other colour that I could choose. The concept is based on my Washing Day and Dress Up Doll set, but without the necklace. This actually made it a lot more versatile, as I did not have to make the dresses match each other (even though they kind of do anyway).

Original concept sketch and watercolour for Dress Up Doll custom order

I was really excited to make this set. I just love making these little vintage-inspired dresses, they are so much fun. Plus, the details are really satisfying to complete. This time, I plaited the embroidery floss for the belts and bows, used french knots for buttons, stem stitch for pleats and running stitch to stitch the two layers of felt together. Each dress is two layers of 100% wool felt.

I got a little thrill when I heard back from the customer after she received the brooch. She said: "It is perfect! I love all the outfits and the detail is just right. Thank you again for making these for me. I'll be wearing them to work this week to show them off."

Mmmmm...satisfied customer = satisfied maker. :)