I Did Some Things, Vol. 14

I had been slacking on the crafts front for the last few months, but the prospect of Christmas spurred me into action. I do like making little presents for people, though I think of them more as a creative outlet for me than a true gift for the other person – my skills still leave plenty to be desired. Here are a few of the pieces I made for this holiday season.

My boss had asked me for a piece with that phrase (motto? lol) some time ago, and I figured it was time I obliged. I was inspired by some YouTube videos I watched with my daughter which teach kids how to draw easy anime-inspired cartoon characters. And, just between you and me, she’s not the only one who likes rainbow-coloured unicorns. It seemed like a good match for my theme; I always appreciate a good juxtaposition of sweet and salty.

One of my co-workers is a big Star Wars fan, so this Santa Yoda was a no-brainer. This was such a fun little project – it only took a couple of hours. The trickiest part was cutting the felt pieces, but the rest was a breeze. It was a big success too.

This, on the other hand, took the longest – about 20 hours over a period of 2 weeks or so. I made it for my mom, and it was my most complex project to date. I was inspired by one of the vintage travel posters in my “sticker art” book. I started by copying the design from the original poster template.

Then I applied all the stickers to the template, and used the finished poster as a colour guide for my embroidery. At the end, I added a few touches of my own (clouds, beading).

I wasn’t 100% satisfied with how it turned out, but it was a solid effort.

Last but not least, this was another fun, very last minute project. I had made something else for my BFF, but wasn’t happy with the result, so I decided to start something different from scratch. Initially, I wanted something with a steampunk (or anime-steampunk mash-up) vibe. In Googling for inspo, I came across a cool drawing of an eyeball surrounded by flowers, and decided it would be perfect. Because the original pic was low quality, I freestyled the whole thing (and especially the flowers) as best as I could. I wanted a more realistic, as opposed to cartoonish, feel which required me to brush up on some stitches I hadn’t used in a while. I think it turned out quite nicely.

All this stitching has reignited my love affair with yarn arts. Now that Christmas is over, I have a few projects I want to do for myself … aaand I’m seriously considering buying a weaving loom. Stay tuned …