3 is the magic number!

I meant to post this yesterday...whoops! We have a winner for my Zombie Lip Balm giveaway! I used random.org to draw the winner and it chose 3 which is Evan's comment! Congratulations! Send me an email me and I'll get these out to you ASAP!

And that is that for Zombie Lip Balm...Columbus folks however, do not despair! Wholly Craft is well stocked (I made it there just in time...the day before Eliza was born) and you can still purchase it there until they run out.

I'd put this on, but...

I'm still pregnant...yup, 41 weeks as of today. I've gone ahead and stopped working, which has been good for my lack of energy. I am paying much better attention to myself, taking note of every little baby movement, but man my mind does wander and worry! To distract myself, I made this post-pregnancy halter top. It's the Amy Butler Cabo Halter Top pattern. I have had the pattern for a while. I even cut this out once with a different fabric one crafty afternoon with Angie a couple years ago, but never stitched it up.

Last weekend I was convinced that if I started a sewing project, I would surely have my baby, but here is my project, completed...and we are still waiting. In the meantime though, I taught myself how to install an invisible zipper, so I am feeling mighty accomplished! The fabric is new Anna Maria Horner purchased from Sew to Speak last weekend. I really hope I can fit into this post baby, it seems perfect for summer. That is one flaw in making yourself clothing pregnant...you can't try it on, so I'll hope for the best I guess.

I really think this will be my last sewing project for a while (although I thought that about the Oliver + S dresses and the bibs too...baby wants mama to sew I guess). I was showing my friend Kelli how to sew this afternoon and my sewing machine all of a sudden started sewing by itself without having to press the foot pedal. It was as if the thing was haunted or possessed! I cannot find anything online about this type of problem, and the foot pedal wasn't dropped, so I am completely stumped. We're off to the Bernina store tomorrow to get this checked out. I am sure by the time things are all better, baby will surely be here.

***While I wait, there is still time to enter my Zombie lip balm giveaway! I am running it through the end of the month. To win all you have to do is post a comment on my last post. Good luck!

Zombie Lip Balm Giveaway!

About a month ago I decided to close my etsy shop. The thing is, I still have a good deal of inventory so I've decided to do a little giveaway. If you would like some all natural zombie inspired lip balm, post a comment by midnight 5/31 and I will draw a winner June 1st! The winner will receive 3 flavors of scrumptious lip balm: wild cherry, tangerine and peach!

I plan to take the last of my Zombie lip balm to Wholly Craft very soon, so if you are a Columbus reader you can still buy it there, while supplies last. But the truth is, I am probably going to retire from the lip balm business. Zombie lip balm may be gone for good after that so get it now, while you still can.

And, in case you are wondering what the deal is with zombie lip balm, it all started a couple of years ago with a video David made for a class he was taking. You can view the video here. Enjoy and good luck!

My latest guilty pleasure: Vampires

I've had a mild interest in vampires lately...all the hype about the Twilight movie coming out and then I just finished the second book in the Twilight series (New Moon) myself. Now I am impatiently awaiting the 3rd one, but am about 1 billion on the library waiting list. So I have had vampires on the brain a lot. Even though the books are really not that well written...I can't help myself, I want to read more! I want an obsessive vampire boyfriend who watches me sleep! I also got sucked in to True Blood (which is also kinda bad) for a while, and then we canceled the cable. So I am without any vampire fix whatsoever! Except this...lip balm is my new vampire fix. Don't you just love these labels? David did some Photoshop magic to create the vampire bite. I decided these should only come in two flavors...peppermint because it is cool like vampires and wild cherry, since cherries are blood red.

Yeah, it would've been awesome if I had thought of this in September or something because it would've gone great with Halloween, and today is the day after Halloween...but at least it's here in time for the Twilight movie premiere! Stop by my shop and stock up on Vampire Bite lip balm while vampires are still hip!

Featured on Craftzine!!!

Karrie just informed me that my contribution for the Columbus City Sampler was featured on the CRAFT blog! Yippee! How exciting to be featured on one of my daily reads. Hopefully my promos pay off! I'm restocking flavors in the shop on Sunday April 6th in preparation!

And for those of you wanting house pictures, we have our inspection tomorrow, so I'll try and snap some blog pics then! Hopefully the inspector doesn't find anything. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Houses, Houses, More Houses and a couple of crafts

Somehow I did not take photos of my latest 2 projects. Perhaps it was because they both had deadlines. So if I can convince you to read craftiness without photos, here are the details...

I made curtains for my friend Jamie...this was my first time making curtains. They were fairly straight forward. I didn't use a pattern. The hardest part was cutting the fabric because it was canvas-like and the curtains were 84 inches long! So I kinda wrestled with the fabric a little. And I have to say it was a little nerve-wracking making something for a friend because I was obsessed with them being absolutely perfect. I had this fear of Jamie thinking they completely sucked...but of course that didn't happen!

I also finished up my contribution to my very first attempt at promoting my little side business. I contributed to the Sampler.It comes out in April and will feature Columbus Crafters and Artists. I contributed zombie lip balm of course.

Other than that we have been house hunting like MAD. We put an offer in on a house yesterday so we'll see how it goes...Our offer was kinda low, but we figure if we don't get it, it just wasn't meant to be.

Oh and I seem to be getting a run of spam comments. Does anyone now how to stop these?

Valentine

This is my new pal Valentine, or Val for short...David managed to make giving me an electronic device romantic. He hid it in the Chinese food last night, wrapped in an old comic book page. I was completely SHOCKED. And my valentine card seems pretty lame in comparison now...We've been talking about getting me one, but not for a while still. I never thought I needed an I-pod, until the podcasts...After discovering craft sanity I found more and then I realized I could download This American Life to my itunes and I was hooked...I am still figuring it out though. My tech knowledge hasn't transmitted that well to sound devices...

I've been busy this week with a custom lip balm order and it has pretty much taken up all of my free time. It's funny because it takes much more time to label lip balm than to just make it. I think I only spend about 1/4 of the time actually making the product. But the good thing about labeling is it is a great cuddle up on the couch and watch Netflix craft :) I have all these ideas in my head though that just want to get out, but there just isn't enough time! I am looking forward to not having an agenda again.

Oh and check out this swap I received! I participated in a dish cloth swap and my partner even sent me one with my name knitted in it. How cool! She even included the pattern so I can make one too! This truly made my day. Thanks DeeBee

I'm back!

So last week I started a little tree from the book Softies. This book contains most of our niece and nephew gifts this Christmas. There are lots of fun critters for the 5-10 yr old set. For the first time, I am working with 100% wool felt and I don't know if I'll ever go back to craft felt again...it is so easy to cut and it's so soft, it's just heavenly! I bought the felt from Weir Dolls and Craft. It was the best priced I found and it got here quick! I can't wait to use the rest of it on the other little guys I'll be making! There are lots of project beginnings around the house right now...pictures to come later in the week.

I also want to post about an exciting discovery from my road trip this past weekend to Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale in Chicago. There was a lovely vendor Cleo Dee who creates little squids! She even has a Squid of the Month Club and makes a Squid Nativity scene for the holidays!!!! The Catholic in me really loved this...I think I may have to save up for Xmas 2008. It kinda gave me an idea, what about a Zombie Lip Balm of the Month Club? Perhaps...

Zombie Black Monday?

The shop has been BUSY, BUSY these last 2 days! Seventeen lip balms in just 2 days, sheesh! Between the new orders and a custom order I just finished, I've been doing a lot of labeling and shrink wrapping tonight. Seriously, I just stopped for the night! Thanks for all the zombie love out there!

So it's only my 4th day in a row and I'm starting to wonder how I am really going to pull this off. Everyday, sheesh, what was I thinking? Maybe I'll turn NaBloPoMo into NabloPoWe and see if I can make it to Saturday.

I made some new lip balm for the shop tonight...so you can get pear, marshmallow and pomegranate now. Stop by an stock up!

A few more things I love

About a month or so ago I posted about some of my favorite things around the house. I remember saying in that post that I was going to post about more things I love around my home...and here it is a couple months later. I never did post anymore favorite things. Well here they are!

The first one is boring, at least to photograph. So I livened up with another favorite...my Wizard of Oz fabric from Japan!

I love my scale. I used to weigh my lip balm ingredients on a little dollar store scale. Who knows how accurate it really was, but it got the job done. I wanted to buy a real scale, like bakers use, but figured I could keep holding out. And so I kept on making my lip balm with my dollar store scale. Eventually I put a scale on my amazon wish list and there it sat for probably another year. Well this year, my dad proudly gave this scale to me for my birthday, straight off my amazon wish list. For 2 months before my birthday Dad kept telling me how he had my birthday present already (but didn't mention my wish list of course). I had strongly encouraged my parents to buy me gifts off it before, but it never worked, they're more store shoppers. I'd given up hope. My dad was so proud for figuring out how to order something off my wish list! I never in a million years thought I would get something from him off there. I love how it is the scale he picked and not a book. The one practical thing. And my lip balm is actually a million times better because of it (Thanks dad).

There's also a new favorite...David and I got this hand-crafted wooden cutting board from my cousin as a wedding gift. Something to inspire me in the kitchen:

I decided this morning to try participating in National Blog Posting Month. I'm hoping to train myself to be a better blogger. And since this blog is supposed to be crafty, I'm hoping it will in turn make a more crafty lady out of me! I'm not quite sure how I'll make up for my late start (the 4th) though.

A little house love

I'm waiting for some thrifted sweaters to felt tonight, so I went on a hunt for some of my favorite things around my house. Like this, my buddha cookie jar:

You lift up buddha's head to get the cookies. It was a wedding gift to my parents some 35 years ago. I found it a while back in my parents basement and luckily it wasn't cool to them anymore, so I inherited it. When I was a kid I used to rub Buddha's belly sometimes...I'm not really sure why...maybe I should end my story there...

I also love this corner of my house:

...even when it's messy (like it is right now...) and blurry (I always seem to miss the natural light), as it is in this photo . This is my cramped little corner of the living room where I sew. I'll post a few more of my favorite things over the next month.

Today, I had an appointment at Wholly Craft so I can start consigning my zombie lip balm there! I've been thinking of doing this for the last couple months and am so excited that my lip balm will be available at a real live store! So if you live in Columbus, go there and check it out! See it in the flesh!!!

Since I've been creating zombie lip balm I've not posted my initial inspiration...so here it is. It was born partly out of a general obsession on the part of my fiance, which I have to say has rubbed off on me. In April he made a music video, after which I felt inspired to create my now infamous (ha) zombie lip balm. Here is the video, enjoy:

It's Yard Sale Time

David and I are getting ready for the Victorian Village Yard Sale. This is perhaps one of my favorite yard sales in Columbus. About every other year my friend Kelli and I have enough stuff to sell and we take a truck load of our castaways over to my mom and dad's and set up shop. We always seem to sell our old clothes like crazy. But then, we have had a pretty serious case of clothes-buying addiction for at least the last twelve years...Here are this years goods:


Not the most appealing picture, but since I don't have any "works in progress" to show...Also, this year, I'll be selling my lip balm and scrubs too! So if you are in Columbus this weekend....

Once I clear myself a spot, (since the yard sale goods are packed tightly around my crafting table) I hope to finish up my first felted project, which is extremely late for my swap partner. This is my first time being late for a swap-bot swap and I am feeling extremely guilty....but I guess I'll make up for it by putting a little extra heart and soul into this project. I did finally find a great burnt orange sweater to felt at the vintage shop. When I was procrastinating I didn't count on how hard it would be to find a wool sweater in late May! And sadly I didn't even have an old wool sweater in my own closet! But I can finally get started.

Another thing I am realizing, once again (because I know this --I just always seem to forget), I am only as busy as I think I am. In reality, all of the "stuff" on my to-do list is quite doable! Yes my schedule is tight, but really, it is almost all stuff I like to do...so with that, I'll get back to drinking my AM coffee! I do still run on lots of caffeine to get all this stuff done!!!!

A new look

Opening my shop has re-ignited my love of lip balm LABEL making. I am still not entirely sure which I like more, making the actual lip balm or the labels...both use different areas of my brain I suppose, so maybe they aren't even comparable. I decided to redesign my regular (meaning not zombie) lip balm labels this week. In the past I've always just used colors, fonts and clip art to make my labels, but I wanted to make something completely my own this time. I am no graphic designer, so I have limited skills and tools, but you can sure do a lot with simple photo editing software. I turned a random picture from West Virginia this November (the same one at the top of this blog) into this and then played with the colors until I got things like this. And my idea for the labels came from 2 things: a Marrimekko fabric wall hanging in my living room I love and my trusty fiberoptic bonsai tree (which I don't have a good picture of). What I love most though is that it is completely my own. It all started with a single photograph that I took. That photo became the banner of this blog and then my etsy shop and now my labels. The only thing I need now is some sunshine so I can take some more pictures of my newly labeled tubes. I see my shop being full (or fuller, say 7 items???) very soon!!

I'm open for business

I finally did it! I opened an etsy store. I've only listed 3 items for now and although I have a lot more lip balms I could list, I decided to just do it and I'll tweek it as I go along. The hardest part is just getting it out there...I'm sure I have a lot to learn, but I think I did good. Vist the shop at the link to your right! OK...I'm running late for my dinner date tonight, so I can't say much more. Gotta primp!

Craft with a purpose

I made goodies for my good friend Susan's baby shower this weekend. My friend Jamie and I decided baby showers would be much more fun if everyone got something. And we didn't plan any of the usual baby shower games, so after a long absense, I returned to my first craft...soap and lip balm making. The lip balm starts out simple enough...

And then it becomes this:
An the end product is....
I am happy to report these were a hit! And I now have even more lip balm than I know what to do with! Perhaps I should open up that etsy shop I keep debating...