Crafting for Charity

I have been making preemie baby hats for the last couple of months whenever the mood would strike me. Last week I mailed off five to The Preemie Project, based in Coralville, Iowa, and I received a lovely note back from them. Check it out on our Facebook page or Twitter. If you find yourself inspired to craft, but don't know what you would do with the finished product, please consider charity! There is a list of some charities here. Check them out!

Happy crafting!

It's Summer!

School is out for the summer, and I am throwing myself into the Fuzzy Dorff Creations business head first! I have been crafting, updating Etsy, starting a Twitter page and a Facebook page, checking in and restocking the booth at Emma Rae's, and planning lots of cool new crafts. It's like a full time job! Now if only I could make enough money to live off of.... :-)

I put up this sign at the booth yesterday when I went in to restock:

I need to make business cards to put in the booth. I'll have to put that in the plan for the next couple days. We got our first paycheck from Emma Rae's yesterday! It certainly wasn't a lot, but it was more than we paid for our first partial-month's rent, so we'll take it! Anything in the black is a win in our books.

It's about time for the May wrap-up!

I crocheted this reflective ear warmer (it's up on Etsy):

I finished weaving and sewing together this scarf I made on the Zoom Loom:

I weaved this scarf for a dear friend that is battling cancer:

And I started three projects-

This knitted toy monster:

These crocheted colorwork mittens:

And these knitted colorwork mitts:

I have a lot of crafting to get done this month! I've made a couple fabric flower pins already, plus I have more fabric cut out and several knitting/crochet projects I want to make for the shop.

Happy crafting!

We Have a "Store"!

We have opened a booth at Emma Rae's Antiques and Uniques in De Witt, Iowa! The booth was built by my amazingly handy father and stocked by myself and my crafty mother. Come visit it! We've got homemade crafts by myself and my mother as well as antique dishes, books, baskets, and more! There are 35 vendors at Emma Rae's, so there are lots of shopping opportunities!

We're on Twitter now!

Check us out on Twitter!

@fuzzydorff

I post what I'm up to craft-wise and I'll include updates on the business. See you there!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

April was very busy! I had very little time for crafting, so I'm afraid I only have one FO (finished object) to share:

This isn't even the real FO! I made this same hat with the same kind of yarn, but in yellow. One of my friends had a little girl in April and I whipped up a quick little yellow hat that looked exactly like this and mailed it off before I remembered I hadn't taken a picture! Bummer! I'm hoping for baby pictures with her wearing the hat in the near future. :-)


I also worked on a Zoom Loom scarf which will be finished up in the near future, I continued work on my long-time WIP shawl,

I continued work on my naalbinding rug,

and I started a pair of stranded colorwork crochet mittens.

So, crafting happened, but finishing was very rare last month.

Tune in later this month! I hope that I will have a very exciting announcement about FuzzyDorff Creations!

Happy crafting!

Intentions....

I intended to write a lovely post about origami during the last week of March. Whoops.

Real life has gotten really busy lately! I am busy prepping for a big event at work, but I've stolen a couple quick minutes to write this.

Quick, the March monthly wrap-up!

I made this slouchy crochet hat:

I loom-knit these pretty cabled socks (my dog approves of them):

And I finished this long-time WIP, a giant felted bag:

I was so busy that I really didn't do any more than that all month!

I have spent this month mostly planning, working on WIPs, and sketching up some ideas for original designs. I will definitely share them with you if I can figure out how to make them work and whip up a sample!

Alright, back to the real world. Keep crafting!

Craft Month Projects Post 2

So this is a bit of a "What Not To Do" post, by accident.

I wanted to select a project that would be quick and would celebrate spring. When looking through a craft store for inspiration I saw some decorative mesh and thought, "Why not a mesh wreath for Easter!"

You're about to find out "why not".

I wanted to make something that looked like this, but using a foam wreath base and floral (greenery) pins.

I picked up an instructional brochure at the craft store, some pretty colored mesh, and the pins.

Monday night I sat down to make this. It seemed so easy! Just gather the mesh every 8-10 inches, pin it down 2 inches from the last pin, continue until covered. It took about 20 minutes from start to finish. Sooo easy!

Right.

This is what I got:

It was really easy to make! Unfortunately, I just happen to hate it. I don't know if I picked a bad color of mesh or if I should have pinned it together closer (I followed the directions, honest!), but I hate how it turned out. I'm going to leave it together for a while because I hate doing the work for nothing, but I think after Easter I'll pull it apart and do something different with the materials.

So, here is my actual recommendation for what to do for craft week:

Make a mixed-media collage!

I haven't made mine yet, but what I plan to do is start with a chunk of cardboard and just start hot-glueing interesting objects to it, like pictures, drawings, bits of lace, an old key, some fabric, etc. Here is a Google image search of some neat collages from which you can take inspiration.

Share your projects with me in the comments! Maybe you decided to celebrate this week of craft month in a completely different way. That's great, please share your ideas! We all need a little inspiration! Plus I would love to share it on here and credit you (plus link your website/store/etc.) so I hope to hear from you!