knick knacks & ric rac

i know i’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again, i love etsy! one of the big reasons i love etsy is because of ilona’s shop gaudy goods, and her delightful handmade brooches. these newest ones really knock my socks off! i mean really!

i have several of her brooches, the most recent one i bought is this cuckoo clock one. the detail is incredible, she cross-stitched the little cuckoo clock on canvas with the tiniest cross stitches i’ve ever seen!

her goodies are right up my alley, filled with dutch boys and girls and nesting dolls. it’s so hard to decide on which ones i like best, i just love them all.

digging up those flower pins got me thinking about other things i used to collect that i don’t really collect anymore. i collected travel tiles for a while, i was planning on making a table out of them, then i collected so many i thought it would be fun to do a kitchen counter or backsplash, although i’m not sure how the graphics would hold up to that kind of wear and tear.

some of them i bought while i was actually visiting the place, some i picked up at the thrift store. i’m sure i will think of something good to do with them. i still might make a big table for outside.

when i was little i used to collect cat food labels, i kept them in a shoebox. i liked the pictures of cats on them. i think my favorite was the figaro brand, because it had that sassy cat playing the fiddle.

i’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for some kind of reusable grocery bags that tickled my fancy, but haven’t seen any that i liked enough to actually buy. i just fed the birds the last of the giant bag of bird seed and i was marveling at the fine strength and durability of the 40 lb bird seed bag, and i thought to myself, now this would make a great grocery bag! and it does!

it was really easy to make, after only about 10 minutes of figurin’ and a half hour of cutting and sewing i was finished. i modeled it after the size and shape of a paper grocery bag and used your typical canvas tote bag construction. i stitched the creases so it would stand up and stay open on its own. the bird seed bag is a little narrower than a paper bag, so i made mine a little bit taller to make up the cubic inches of grocery space. mine is 17″x5.5″x12″ (a standard paper bag is 14″x6.5″x12″) the material is some kind of super strong woven plastic with a glossy laminate over it. it was a little slippery in the sewing machine, but once i got the hang of it it was no problem. as long as my stitching holds up, i think this bag might last longer than me! okay, i’m off to go buy another giant bag of bird seed.

finished! the brown one has a glass bumblebee strung with it, the red one has a glass ladybug. yippee!!

i originally made these for myself, one red and one brown to wear with my toadstool skirts, but they came out so darn cute i thought i would make a bunch of them to offer on my website as well. this is what they started out like…

my mushroom factory, the first coat of paint. the red have white stems and the brown have cream colored stems. they are about 1½” tall and wide…

i painted on the spots, added brass eye hooks and strung them on the sweetest cotton baby ric rac! i have to add one last detail, the icing on the cake so to speak. see the finished product here!

i collect, and have collected (amassed? hoarded?) a lot of different things. i was rummaging around in the basement and i dug up these metal enamel flower pins i used to collect in high school. there’s a ton of them, i started counting and got up to 200, then somebody started playing a ukelele outside and i got distracted…there’s probably about 250 of them. i think i stopped buying them after they started to cost more than 50 cents at the thrift store, or maybe i just had enough? is that possible?

pinks and oranges…

blues and greens…

spirit of ’76!

i had artfully arranged them by color on a big piece of green felt before i rolled them up and forgot about them.

the target near my house is part of a mall full of odd discount stores and a chuck e. cheese. about a month ago i was there picking up some kitty litter and i left through the exit that spits you out into the mall part, when walking by a newly opened store i saw The Cutest Handbag In The World. i nearly fainted dead away, i couldn’t believe my eyeballs!

i dropped the kitty litter and ran inside the shop. the lady took it off the display to check the price. being the kind of mall that it is, i nearly fainted dead away again when she told me it was $970. yikes! i was so shocked i ran out without checking the name of the designer. i was there again today, and some of the shock has worn off so i made a point of walking by to write down the name. i found this picture of it online at braccialini.it. i covet this handbag. the dangling pinecone zipper pulls are the most! sadly, i’ll call it The Cutest Handbag In The World That I Will Never Own.

the summer temps this weekend got me thinking about picnics, and got me sewing up some tasty picnicking skirts! take a peek at them over here in the ‘limited edition goodies’ section of my shop. 

i’m into textiles, you probably know that already. i have a little collection of fairytale textiles. i really go for the ones that use techniques i don’t know how to do, like weaving, knitting and embroidery. okay, i know how to embroider, i’m just too impatient to do it. and i knew how to knit once, a long time ago. here are a few of my favorites…

it’s 15″x23″. some of the things i like most about this one are the smiley and frowny trees, and the wolf’s naughty red tongue dangling out of his mouth (and his polyester slacks!).

this one is all yarn embroidery on black canvas, it’s pretty large, about 42″ wide…

can’t get enough of those gnomes!

this is a thick cotton tapestry depicting hansel and gretel at the witch’s house. the colors are super vibrant and it has tons of details…

critters in the woods, and spotted mushrooms! i love the cookie border. it’s huge, 60″x24″

this one is my all time favorite…

it’s a woven heavy wool rug, 30″x45″. the colors are so intense, and the dyed yarn has so many variations in it i could look at it all day. i imagine i’m that girl, with all my ducks in a row. that’s corny, i’ll shut up now.

there’s alot of crazy squirrel activity around here. they love peanuts. i think if i left the door open they would walk right in and help themselves.

the guy on the right has been waking me up every morning for a week now, clamoring for peanuts. when he climbs up on the screen door it makes quite a racket! this here is my little tribute…

i’m calling it “aw, nuts!”.