Yzzy Sue's Poodle Skirt & Saddle Shoes

It was FIFTIES day at Ysabel's school. She was in Kindergarten that year, and it was so exciting to dress her up for a "theme day"... :D

My Grandmother used to make us costumes and accessories all the time. So I was so happy to get a chance to do such a thing for my daughter. I bought the sweater and pettycoat at Target. But I made the poodle skirt and faked the saddle shoes. 

Poodle skirts are not so hard. The material you use doesn't have to be hemmed, so that's a relief in itself.  And crafting the poodle onto the skirt is so much fun! 

I couldn't find her any saddle shoes last minute... so I bought a plain pair of white shoes at Wal-Mart and pasted black felt pieces on. I looked online to see what shape the black parts were supposed to be. She was so cute! And I was so happy to show my little "Yzzy Sue" off! My mom even took off work to see her in full costume for her school event. Great memories... <3

The... Sharktopus!

This was for a boy's room. His mom told me he liked sharks and so I studied different pictures of sharks online. Well, when I went to measure the wall out and consult with her further... that's when I found out that he didn't just like "sharks", he liked a CERTAIN shark... 

THE SHARKTOPUS!

lol... he was straight out of a monster movie that aired on the SCI-FI channel, and had been floating about in the depths of the $5 DVD bin at Wal-Mart. LOL... 

This was exciting to me. I have always only done little girly stuff. And how much more testosterone can you get than fierce monsterous THE SHARKTOPUS? lol

I totally did not know I could paint in color like this... I had never done it before! I wish I had. I was always too afraid to try. All I've ever been able to do is draw in pencil, and paint flat 2-D stuff, with minimal gradations. Monochromatic mostly. But, I just concentrated on what colors were being used and where to blend and fade them into eachother. AND I DID IT!!!! lol... yay!

First I sketched it out... then I taped off everything but the water area. The water was going to be the easy part, so I wanted to get it out of the way...

I mixed my paints and got to work...

Water DONE!

Now to start the intimidating Sharktopus. I kept the picture taped in view to make sure I was following this monster's every shaded colored detail...

Once i got the bloody teeth and spikes and highlights in... I sighed with relief... I was actually going to pull this off! 

After the intimidating head and torso... the tentacles seemed easy... whew!

YAY! "all done"... whew!

I hope to get more jobs doing murals... I really loved this experience :)

Valentines 2012

So the plan was "not to make homemade valentine cards for Yzzy's class this year"... 

I guess my imagination had other plans :( ... 

It was set. We had a box of some old store bought wizard of oz valentines... that's what we would hand out. Well,  I couldn't leave well enough alone... so all the cards will got personalized character-specific "envelopes" (more like pouches) to be placed into... ♥

The boys all got Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Lion presentations. And the girls all got bright red hearts back lined with Dorothy's blue gingham fabric :) 

Tin Men... silver painted foam-core board, with heart on the flap

Scarecrows... complete with stray and stitched patch

Lions, cuddly furry mane lined heart with tail peeping from behind

Lions tail on back of heart- lol

The girls' front with gingham border

Back of Girls' hearts

The idea for teachers' pouches came to me last minute & I wish I would have done this for all of the girls. But, I like the variations. We just slipped the card into the yellow brick road pocket, which was made of yellow felt. I made the brick lines with yellow glitter-glue. The hearts are the foam paper stuff.

I used foam-core boards with gingham fabric glued to it.

It was fun... even though I was  not supposed to craft cards this year... lol... which I TECHNICALLY DIDN'T! ........ (I just crafted the holders for presentation- lol) 

SPiriT ShiRtS!

Made these for my son's J.V. Football season this past fall. I purchased the jersey style shirts from a local t-shirt place. I even had them put the names and numbers on the back. I did all the front designs with t-shirt  puffy paint. And, on "us girls"'s shirts, I outlined the names with the bright orange, and put some glitter on the numbers. We love our MNHS Bulldog very much. 

Next year, "we" hope to be on varsity for those "FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS"... this year we were just "thursday night lights"- lol... it's just not the same- lol 

Pre-made, Ready to fill in FALL SCRAPBOOKS...

After making Sammie's custom book, I thought, "maybe I can make a few custom books for a generic type theme that many people would like to put their personal photos in... ?" So, I started drawing up designs to encompass my favorite time of year... FALL :)  I started fall with the First day of school, to football season, Halloween, and the grand finale being Thanksgiving.

I used foamboard as my "pages" because I like the thickness of them. I bought black 30"x20" foamcore board, and cut it into 3 pages per board, at 10"x16" "pages".  I didn't want to use bendable scrapbook paper. The ideas I had in my head needed something a bit more sturdy than paper. Cause remember, I like to handcraft my own visions. I love the stuff in the scrapbook aisles at the stores, but they can be expensive for me. And the textural look I was going for wasn't going to be accomplished with store-bought items.  

I made the trees' bumpy bark by letting streaks of glue dry before painting them a dark brown. For the foliage, I either used synthetic flower petals, cut up synthetic fall leaves, felt, or tissue paper. It was fun :)

I came up with x-acto knifing a die-cut picture space in the cover, and used a hand-crafted school bus flap on the inside to camoflauge the hole (for the interior layout) and place the cover picture in.

I used loose binder rings to hold the book together and tied an array of ribbons, strings, and fabrics on the outside for frill. 

They came out so nice... My husband likes the ones where the leaves are blowing across the page. From the outside of the book, the chunky pages can't close all the way, and the illustrations appear to be bursting out from the page. I like it! I think it generates excitement as to "what will i see when I open these books?!" lol... it's like they are bursting at the seams... 

Since the boards were so thick I had to limit the number of layouts. And with fewer layouts, I had to get creative as to how to accomodate more picture spaces for wonderful fall memories. I left some areas for flat picture layouts. But I also included some flap options to include more pictures. I say, if you're gonna have an awesome scrapbook, why limit the number of picture you wanna install? The more pics, the longer to enjoy each layout... 

I was really happy with the completion of this project. It took my weeks and weeks to accomplish. I'm sure they will make some people very happy. I have some smaller versions to complete as well. They are  10'x8" in size. I will include them in the blog later. On deck to create... different seasons & even an all-inclusive year book! Sketches & designs are in the works! 

Family Trees

 I made this family tree art/narrative for my senior project in high school. It's a canvas tapestry. I drew all the portraits, painted the tree, inked the narratives in a calligraphy, as well as using fabric dye on the geographical items that were hand-sewn on. It took me weeks. My family really enjoys it. 

Well, I got to thinking, maybe other families would enjoy such artwork. Something they can fill their own portraits in. So over a year ago, I started handcrafting some trees on salvaged wood. I left spaces for picture entries.  And I was also sure to leave some negative space for personal narratives to be installed. I was quite pleased on how they turned out...

 

I made the tree trunks bumpy and textural by letting streaks of glue dry before painting over them. For foliage I used synthetic or dried petals from the craft store, or cut up canvas, I also used synthetic leaves, and I made one tree with scraps of cut up sweater... interesting experiments. It was fun :)

However... I think they ultimately didn't sell because I had already "fixed" the number of options for picture entries. So, I ended up taking the trees, and filling in all the picture areas. That way buyers can decide whether or not to install family tree photos/narratives, or just use the trees as artwork alone.

Btw... I LOVE trees

Homemade Earphones for Yzzybell

Old headphones all BLING'd up :)  In actuality, the sponge stuff had torn off the ears, and these headphones were about to get tossed in the trash. But, they still worked. And being Maria del Carmel Urbano Garcia's grand-daughter... I couldn't waste them! I recovered the ears & bling'd them up to put in yzzy's stocking <3

I used felt, scrap material from old clothes, pipe cleaners, hot glue, and needle& thread.

I had to make the head part a little more plush to accomodate her small head. Even on the smallest adjustment they were too large for her. She likes them. And they work really well... I couldn't resist using them a couple of times... :)

THEY ARE A HIT!

She LOVES them!

Yzzy's Thrift Store Couture

 I LOVE going to the thrift store & purchasing textiles for crafts. I look for materials, not always clothing. The textures, colors, and garments can inspire unexpected ideas. I will bring the items home & rip them apart to make something new. Or I trim, tailor, alter them into something unexpected. Sometimes I think they are nice and plain & CLASSIC, so all I need to do is EMBELLISH, EMBELLISH, EMBELLISH them... you know... bling them up in my own way:). 

As I did with these overalls for my little Ysabel...

 

Final front design... those colorful edges around the denim hearts- they will eventually frey within a wash cycle or two. Then they will look like a 
colorful fringe border around the denim hearts :)


I was kinda deviant because I very carefully dabbed the letters & hearts in place with a tiny bit of hot glue. I kinda dread straight pinning around an entire letter or shape. They came out fine. Just  make sure you don't place any glue in the sewing path. That's a headache to put a hand needle or machine needle through... they will break. Been there, done that :/ 

How I bought them... was a little too plain for my little sunshine girl.

And... Hearts on the back pockets... Always a hit! Lol :)
I just hand-sewed the scraps of fabric on. Took time, but I actually like that homemade looking stitch as opposed to a professional machine doing it. Then it would look "too perfect". I think the texture of a hand stitch looks so much more interesting and LOVING :) 

The colorful fabric I sewed layered under the denim heart (one heart on top of a larger heart)... it's starting to frey... just as planned. If you don't want it to frey, you can always sew those edges down as well.

Since I made the letters different colors, she can wear any color shirt underneath... it's bound to pick up a color somewhere... 

I wish this photo had come out more in focus. She loves her overalls :)

Sammie's Book

This was a pre-made ready-to-use scrapbook I made for a friend's daughter, on the occassion of her Quinceañera. It's ready to fill with her own choice of personal photos. Many people love the idea of frilly girly scrapbooks; but haven't the time, motivation, or information on how to make them. If you are a scrapbooker... you might want to make a couple empty books and try to sell them. See if anybody is interested in purchasing your work... ? Who knows... Just an idea.

Anyhow, I had this wild idea that I could make a scrapbook made from ACTUAL scraps... no store-bought cut-outs, no cute pre-illustrated stickers, no scrapbook aisle for me- lol. It was actually fun!

Each of the cover letters flips on their own to reveal colored cards on which to place photos :)

  Below are the layouts after the name flip letters... What I like was the lift-the-flap cards available to install more pictures than today's scrapbooks usually allow. But what I treasure are the illustrations my son made of Sammie in her Quinceañera dress and her cheerleading uniforms. I was so happy he contributed to this project.   

The MNHS letters each flip up for more photo space. I say there can never be enough photo spaces... especially for a teenage girl :)

This project happily lead to other custom scrapbook projects accomplished and still in the works :)