Handmade Owl Costume

With just a few days left before Halloween, I thought I should get this posted before it's too late! Pretty much right after Darcy's birthday projects, I jumped in to Halloween and costume mode. For a few weeks she said she wanted to be a unicorn, then last week she changed gears and said she wanted to be a, "WOO! WOO! AN OWL!"

Honestly, crafting an owl costume sounded a lot more fun and exciting than a unicorn. Nothing against unicorn costumes, it just seemed like it was going to be another embellished hoodie costume.

I didn't wast anytime and jumped right on the owl costume production. Originally, I had one idea in mind, then the ideas just kept coming, and I just. couldn't. stop. But I did it! I finished Darcy's owl costume.

What you're about to see is actually a mish-mash of 3 different ideas I found online.

What do you think? Is it too much? Over the top? Or is it super great, OMG?

Unfortunately, my little model came down with a sickness last night, and is in no mood to try on her costume. She's way too busy today with sneezing, coughing, fever and napping. I sure hope she gets well by Saturday evening. We were hoping to take her to Haunt the Zoo at the OKC Zoo tonight. But maybe tomorrow or Sunday will be better for that.

So there are 3 elements to the costume: shirt, wings & mask.

The shirt idea came from a very cute last minute costume idea by Ellen Baker of The Long Thread. She posted this last year on Alpha Mom, and I fell in love with it then. I tried to get Darcy to be an owl last year, but she wasn't having it.

Ellen's owl costume tutorial also includes a mask. But since I'm an overachiever and I'm always looking for an excuse to embroider, I decided to make my mask out of felt. I tweaked her original design just a bit, added some inspirational ideas from Lori Marie, and came up with my own design.

I made the mask last night, and I'm still crushing on it. I still need to put a final top stitch on the inner right eye (for any of you attention to detail types), but that shouldn't take too long. I kind of want to make a larger size for me!

The wings. Oh, the wings. The wings came from an adorable owl costume idea from the Martha Stewart team.


See? Adorable, right? But the instructions are supposed to be suited for a baby. Reading some of the comments on the website, a lot of the people were saying the suggested template enlargement of 375% was way too huge for a baby. So I just decided to "wing" it (har!) and print wings #2 - #4 on to a regular sized sheet of paper. For the base wing, wing #1, I cut it in half and printed each half on to a piece of paper. Using those measurements, the wings are just the right size for Darcy.

The issue I ran in to was a color issue. When I purchased the felt, I bought light pink for the largest wing. But with only 4 wing layers, I just couldn't get it to look right. I decided it was the light pink that was throwing it off. But I'm stubborn, and didn't want to purchase more felt in a darker color, so I just added another wing in the chocolate brown. There. Problem solved.

The wings have strips of velcro underneath the shoulder, and they attach to the top of the shirt. I also added some elastic arm bands under the wings to help hold them in place, but I might end up adding more velcro. I think the elastic might end up being too tight or bothering Darcy after too long.

If you decide to use any of these ideas for an owl costume for your kiddo, hopefully my information will be helpful to you.

What are your kiddos dressing up as this year? Are YOU dressing up?

Hugs & Stitches,
Amy

Hand Embroidered Pillows

Just checking in with a couple of photos of a new project I started last week. I'm so in love with it, I just have to share it with you!


Isn't she sweet? I have 3 more all stitched up and I'm hoping to get them sewn and stuffed tonight. Hopefully I'll be able to put these in one of the local shops, along with some more new plush I've been working on. (This project was made with the Cute Little Heads pattern by Sublime Stitching.)

I have more to share with you, but I'm really short on time right now. I just wanted to pop in and say hi and tell you I miss you! *sniff*

Busy just never stops around here. ;-)

Hugs & Stitches,
Amy

Handmade Father's Day

Darcy has been on a drawing kick lately, and we're really enjoying it. It's so awesome watching her drawings evolve, and the different shapes and faces she comes up with for her people and animals. One of my favorite drawings she's created was a picture of John. I knew right away I wanted to embroider it and make it a snuggly for one of John's Father's Day gifts.

Ok, so a quick and funny story about the picture she drew of John. Darcy likes to pretend she is a pony named, "Honey Pie" & John is the bad guy named, "Licorice." Licorice hates lots of things and just about everything makes him angry. Especially ponies. So Licorice would capture Honey Pie and lock her up in an invisible cage and Honey Pie would kick the cage door open and gallop her way to freedom!

They would play this game for an hour at least every night when John got home from work. So much fun to watch. :-)

The picture she drew is John as Licorice, and it's the best thing ever.

All snuggled up:

John really loved this gift and I'm pretty sure he got a little misty eyed. I love it when that happens. You make something for someone and they're so overjoyed they get a wee tear in their eye. Best. Feeling. Ever.

Hugs & Stitches,
Amy

Tote Bag Up for Charity Auction

Hey guys! I feel like I've been living in a time warp this summer. I've been SO busy around here with family life, and having lazy summer days, blogging's taken a backseat to the daily routine. My 12 year old stepdaughter is visiting us for the summer, and it's been so much fun having an older kid around to help and have new conversations with. Plus my husband was on vacation last week, so we all enjoyed not being tied to a clock for a week. But he's back on the daily grind, and so are we. So I thought I'd try to take back the early morning hours for blogging, before I surrender myself to the kiddos.

My favorite food blogger and baker Natalie, of Bake and Destroy is on a new mission. She is determined to help those with cancer by any means necessary - through online auctions, bake sales, you name it. If you don't already read Natalie's blog, you're really missing out. She posts the most mouth watering cupcake recipes, she's hilarious, literally cute as a button, and she loves helping people who need it the most. This is really only a very small summary of Nat's amazing talents and accomplishments.

Natalie started an online auction appropriately called, "Bake and Destroy Cancer." When I heard about this, I wanted to help too, so I offered one of my embroidered items, and she happily accepted. So up for grabs in the Bake and Destroy Cancer auction is the Floral Fantasy tote bag I embroidered a while back!




I would L-O-V-E it if you would take the time to place a bid and help us donate money to Grind for Life. It's a win-win situation, really. You get a gorgeous new tote bag AND you're hard earned money is going to a great cause. 100% of the final sale price will support Grind for Life.

If you're on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or you want to post about this auction on your blog, that would be great. Be sure to bookmark Natalie's eBay account, as she will be listing more items periodically.

Spread the word and fight the fight!

Hand Embroidered Doll

Keeping with my last post of embroidered snugglies, here's another one I made over the weekend.

For this doll, I used the Black Apple designs for Sublime Stitching. The artist series are not part of the licensing program, so I guess I'll just have to keep this cutie for myself, or give it away to someone special. ;-)


Guess what? Mr. Fox was purchased this morning, so he'll be headed to his new home tomorrow! The hedgehog is still available, though. ;-)

Hugs & Stitches,
Amy

*Digital frames are from the "Fabric Covered Buttons" kit by Kitschy Digitals.*

Fox and Hedgehog Pillows

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I was busy with embroidery and taking care of two sick girls. If I can say one positive thing about the girls getting sick over the weekend, it's that I had John here to help me. Darcy is still fighting her bug, but Harper seems to be doing much better.

I'm not sure if you know this, but lately I've become obsessed with making embroidered pillows, cushions, snugglies, whatever you want to call them. What are the kids calling them these days, anyway? I like to refer to them as a snuggly. :-)

If you follow me on Twitter, then you may have already seen this first guy.

Isn't he cute? He's having fantastic dreams.
Maybe he's dreaming of traveling to a far away land?

He's listed here.


I just can't get enough of the adorable Forest Friends patterns. Here's my latest creation using them.

You can find this cutie listed here.

Why yes, I am planning on making more snugglies! Already in the works are an owl, squirrel, dogs and a bike! Plus more surprises to share with you soon. ;-)


xo,
Amy

Let Go Of My Logo

Hello, readers! I know I still owe you one more stitching lesson, and I promise to get that posted this week.

Today's post really isn't embroidery related, but I feel like it's important. Two nights ago I googled "Early Bird Special" and this blog was the first return. That's pretty cool, right? But then I noticed image results with my logo were being displayed too. So I clicked on the image results to see what was going on.

I found 5 different companies using my logo without my permission to advertise for their "early bird special" sales. So yesterday I emailed each company, politely asking them to remove my logo, because I own the copyrights to this image, and I didn't want there to be any confusion as to where it belongs. I've had 3 responses. 2 willing, and 1 not so much.

I'm posting today to clarify, this logo is indeed mine. It was personally commissioned for me by David Bruehl in 2007. You can see that's when I uploaded this photo to my blog and to Flickr.

Logo with white background. This is the version I use most frequently.

With brownish background. This is the version others are currently using.

With blue background. Updated for Spring fun!

It does not matter what color the background is, the image above is mine and should not be used by anyone else without my permission. My concern is where are they finding the image with the brown background? I could only think of one place where it was visible with the brown background, on Indie Public. Before yesterday, I hadn't signed in to Indie Public for 2 years. Yesterday I deleted my account.

One of the people said she found it on a clip art site. I asked her if she could tell me what site she found it on, and she couldn't remember. She said she sometimes just pulls things from Google image search, and maybe that's where she found it. You can't just do an image search on Google and use whatever image you like.

Sorry to get all serious on you, but this is a serious issue to me. The issue I have has absolutely nothing to do with the phrase "early bird special" which is a common phrase and one people have every right to use. I am asking people to remove the COPYRIGHTED IMAGE that I OWN which they have used for their company's advertising.

If you have seen my logo being used by any other business or even being offered on a clip art website, please let me know. I can't police the entire internet, you know.

Next time I promise to have a happy and inspiring post all about embroidery.

xoxo,
Amy