Painted Turtle

I did a little iron on turtle stencil on a shirt and painted over with fabric paint.  Simple and cute.

Chocolately Body Butter!

This recipe is sooo delightful. I got a few 4 oz tubs of cocoa butter to use on my skin, but was really annoyed that I had to heat it every time I wanted to use it. So I decided to try a body butter recipe. Slightly altered from several I found when I googled. It's totally delicious smelling and nourishing. It's the consistency of thick soft butter. It melts on contact with skin so it lasts! Recipe below the pictures!

Recipe for thick and creamy body butter (4 oz):
1/2 cup cocoa butter
1/4 cup coconut oil (solid)
1/4 cup of olive oil (or another liquid oil. almond and jojoba oil were recommended by various people)
optional: essential oil, vitamin e oil

Melt the cocoa butter and coconut oil over a double boiler. Add the olive oil and mix together until well blended. Turn the flame off and once the oil has cooled a little, add any essential oils or vitamin e drops. stick it in the fridge (or freezer if the room you're making it in is hot) for 10-20 minutes until it's a thick goopy sort of texture. Then whip it in a blender until it's light and fluffy. Stick it in the fridge if you are in a hot climate!

Kanye the Shark coming to you in pastel

I wanted to make a humorous post card to send to my friend. So I asked another friend to tell me what to draw, and this is what he suggested. I think it turned out fabulous.

It's on pastel/watercolor safe card stock. Done with water pastels.

Embroidered Bag

I started this tote months ago and finally had time to finish it on summer break.

Embroidery floss is a mix of Sublime Stitching and DMC. The bag and pattern itself is from Sublime Stitching. Go check them out if you are interested in embroidery :)

More posts to come through the week!

Embroidered Tote and Card

So I finally gave my friend her Christmas gift and now can show off what I made!

This tote bag I embroidered with an owl pattern from Sublime Stitching:

And this card, which goes with the others I made (here, click click).

Gradient Nails

I did some more nail art this week. :)

This time a gradient from pink to orange.
Just do a base coat and then use a makeup wedge to press on the color gradients.

I am almost finished with another embroidery. That should be done by the end of the week! :)

Galaxy Nails!

Crafting doesn't always have to be done with random objects :)

I painted my nails to look like the galaxy after being inspired by a few youtube tutorials on it (searchy searchy...there are quite a few that are awesome). I only had limited colors so I did one with pink and blue and glitter, but I really like how it came out. Perhaps nail art will be done more often.

The flash takes away some of the glitter and that's what makes them look so cool, but here it is:

Close up of my thumb:

Scarf number ONE! Finished

Yay. It only took about 2 months :P But I finally finished my first knitting project ever. A 50 inch long scarf with long fringe.

I followed the pattern exactly, but in my opinion it's way too short for me as  a scarf. I like them really long. But I am excited to have finished a project.

I am working on an embroidery also and started another knitting project. Trying trying trying to keep up with crafting and university. :)

I Can't Think of a Witty Title for Knitting!

...Though I really wish I could...

Anyway, my brother got me knitting supplies for Christmas, as well as this book that teaches knitting. Thus far I am still on lesson one. However, I totally know how to knit now! Or at least do a garter stitch. And I am making a scarf.

I started it over like 3 times, but it is finally nearing completion (it's sadly not completed yet because I forget to work on it a lot) and knitting is a slow-going process.

I definitely recommend the book that I linked "The Chicks with Sticks Guide to Knitting" if you want to teach yourself. It has a few practice patterns and goes by lesson on specific stitches and patterns. They're all beginner patterns too. And the book covers just about all you need to get started.

I really like knitting. It's quite relaxing and like 10 times easier for me than crocheting. (I really don't like crocheting. It hurts my fingers and I always mess up the patterns I'm doing).

Anyway, here is what I am working on. Just a basic scarf ;)

Also, I updated my post of my first embroidery. I cleaned the blue pattern ink stuff off and stuffed it! Check it out. 

Oh yeah...and I'm back in school! More classes this quarter than before so my crafting will once again be sporadic, but I will try!

Hand Embroidery!

First, a note on my Christmas projects. I ended up not seeing one of the people I made some things for so I have no idea when I'll be able to show those items. Perhaps not for a while :/

So on to other things:

In the past I've tried machine embroidery (which you can see here *clickclick* and here *clickclick* on my attempt at a 365 craft blog), but never had I tried hand embroidery.

...Never before a couple weeks ago! When one of my good friends got me a very exciting Christmas gift. All the supplies I needed to start learning how to embroider by hand!

I believe everything that I used was from www.sublimestitching.com. I spaced out and didn't keep track of the specific floss colors I used, but they were from the "Parlour" and "Flowerbox" pallets which you can find on the website (some of the colors were not in those pallets...I found them in a box I had or got them from my friend without packaging, so I have no idea what brand or colors. Oops). And of course, this pattern was from Sublime Stitching. It's called "Shy Boy" and it comes on a pillow case (which I plan on stuffing with a pillow and displaying on my bed). I have "Shy Girl" as well and plan on finishing that as soon as possible!

Sorry it's very wrinkly. I have yet to wash it and get a pillow for it. You can see, some of the washable pattern is apparent beneath my stitches. But overall, I'm happy with the results. It was fun to experiment with different methods of color use. I really like the colors I used in the mask. It started to become somewhat peacock themed! I think I'll get more experimental with Shy Girl.

P.S. My friend who got these embroidery supplies for me is, herself, an awesome embroiderer! She does some amazing projects. Stay tuned for updates, as I may direct you at her blog (if she ever gets around to making one) or other places you might be able to see what she's done when and if she decides its time to display it. ;)

UPDATE:
Here it is, ink cleaned off and stuffed with a pillow!