Baby Princess Leia

As alluded to in the last post, I have something very, very adorable to share with you. Behold, Baby Princess Leia!

She made her debut at Maker Faire last weekend, kicking off what will hopefully be a long and geeky life.


The costume itself was made by Galactic Threads. Oh my gosh, you guys. It is so perfect. Not only is it screen accurate, Olive seemed to actually enjoy wearing it. She's a little chunk, but the costume seemed to be perfectly comfortable to her.
It was a custom order. I don't see a listing for custom work as of this moment, but if you convo her, she can probably hook you up.

The super cute wig is by Little Bird Lucy. It is so perfect! Olive didn't mind wearing it at all, which is pretty rare. Kid hates to wear hats. I guess wigs are an exception.

For more photos than you can shake a lightsaber at, check out the slideshow below:

Maker Faire 2011 Recap

Maker Faire San Mateo 2011 was wonderful! I'm positively infused with inspiration and a sunburn.
This was my first year attending as a free, non-table bound person. It was so weird for me to not be vending! Honestly, I didn't know what to do with myself. And I sort of missed having a table I could duck behind when things got overwhelming. (Which happened at about 12:57 pm. I overwhelm easily.)
This is one heck of a link-heavy post, so you may want to grab a cup of coffee and a snack. (Don't worry, all links open automatically in new tabs.)
So, what did I see? Let's start with these amazing costumes for the Venice Carnival:
They were made by Erin Mahoney. Amazing, right?


I was lucky enough to snag a dress by Field Day. (photo to come soon!) Perhaps I can start living the Summer of No Pants, after all!

Bug Under Glass was there with his super insect displays. He even had some of the bugs posed on mini-bikes displays. LOVE those!
You guys, if you're thinking of starting a bug collection, start with this guy. His pieces are amazing. And he has a baby due in two weeks. Just so you know.


This fantastic coat was made by an artist as part of the Redux Studios and Gallery in Oakland. Oh you guys, I want this coat. It's exactly how I want to dress. *ahem* Anyway, coat lust aside, the artists make amazing things out of cast off stuff. It's recycling at it's finest.

I totally regret not snagging something by Village Clayworks. Oh, those darling plates!

Also in the "I regret not snagging it when I had the chance" category: the Miyazaki Club shirt by Martin Hsu.

Amazing woodblock artist Ayu Tomikawa was there. I seriously wanted one of everything at her table. He work is so precious!


Also, anyone know which company made the fabric on this skirt? So perfect.


I was delighted to see Motormouth Press and her food-y cuteness. Laurie is one of the sweetest makers I know! Annnd I managed to not take a photo. Nice.
*No, wait! Okay, here she is. Waaaaay at the left side corner, next to my table. That's Motormouth Press' table! And Laurie herself. And it's only...3 years old! I really need to take more photos.

I feel like I'm forgetting to mention a million things. (Like these guys! And this!) And I also feel a bit overwhelmed again. I suspect you do, too. Let's wrap this up:

Naps for everyone!

A peek inside the crafty life of Raggyrat

Today we get to sneak a peek into the creative process of Raggyrat. In addition to making ah-maze-ing plushies, Raggyrat also is the mother to an adorable brood of little 'uns:

First off, a little backstory. Who are you? What do you make?
i am the raggyrat lady and i make all kinds of things, from puppets and soft toys to full costumes and masks ... i work out of my dining room and home educate my three youngest children. I began sewing seriously in 1996 and it remains my favourite creative outlet mixing quite nicely with all the mummy things that i do each day!


What projects are you in the middle of right now that you should probably be working on instead of doing this?
i should be getting on with a full sized edward tulane doll, 2 of my rat rucksacks, and some small plush for a vintage valentine faire in dorchester in february the 13th! i love making the big edwards. as they take shape and i dress them its like having a small son in the house - all my human children are girls!


Where do you primarily create?
i very the setting a bit, sketching here and there, pattern cutting on the living room floor, sewing on the dining table and closing seams sitting on the garden bench ....

Where do you find inspiration?
i love being part of the etsy plush team, i get inspired and challenged on a regular basis. sometimes i pick up commission work and enjoy doing research for that, eg my recently completed tiger head mask!

Do you have a favorite book/blog/movie/etc you'd like to recommend?
i cant wait to see the czech movie about the lost little bear - he looks like a sweetie, and i love the flavour of the trailers! i could watch jim henson creations all day, and enjoy oliver postage productions with my children on sofas and bean-bags. The Clangers are a hot fave at the moment!


Where can readers see more of your work?
http://www.raggyrat.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Raggy-Rat/352336335045
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raggyrat/

Thanks for sharing a bit of your crafty life with us, Raggyrat!

Winners, winning.

The Pug Plushie Pattern giveaway is over! And here are the winners:



I'll be emailing you all in a bit.
Mucho thanks to everyone who commented! I do believe we'll be having more giveaways in the (nearish) future, so keep an eye peeled. I feel really inspired to make more patterns. (In fact, while the contest was going on, I got a big idea. Really big. {No, not Gigantress Chickenpants!} Stay tuned.)

Inspiration! The Summer of No Pants

★☆★☆★☆Pssst! There's still time! Be sure to leave a comment on the Pug Pattern giveaway post: http://www.absolutelysmall.com/blog/2011/05/12/pug-pattern-and-giveaway/ Now back to the post.★☆★☆★☆

While I was pregnant with Olive, I discovered the joy of wearing casual dresses. I've never been a dress girl, but holy cow! A dress is the perfect thing to wear. One piece! Cool and breezy! Also, pretty! And! They hide post baby bumps magnificently!
Imagine my sadness at no longer fitting into said mumus, and trying to stuff said self into jeans again. I vowed then and there to be a casual dress wearing machine! OK, that hasn't exactly happened yet, but the intention is there. I bought a pattern and everything.
Thus, imagine my delight to find Hideous! Dreadful! Stinky!'s Summer of No Pants. It's a 4 week challenge to make a dress or skirt EVERY WEEK.

Check out the lineup of tutorials & guest bloggers here: http://www.hideousdreadfulstinky.com/p/summer-of-no-pants-2011.html More inspiration than you can shake a skirt at.
It starts May 23rd (the day after Maker Faire!). I'm a little scared to sign up, honestly. (Newborns make it tough to stick to things like this...or get daily showers.) But still, INSPIRING!

A peek inside the crafty life of Jessica Puckett of Plushroom Soup

Today we get to talk to Jessica Puckett, the artist behind Plushroom Soup. She's the maker of a whole menagerie of original plush. Behold:

First off, a little backstory. Who are you? What do you make?
Hi! I'm Jessica, the creature creator behind Plushroom Soup, and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Yes, it's cold here, and it snows a lot (especially this winter! 35 F and counting), but it also gets unbearably hot in the summer. So hot that I often fantasize about moving to Alaska, or Iceland, or northern Finland. Am I crazy? Probably.
Anyway, in this land of ice and snow and mosquitoes, I make strange little softies, ala zombies, dragons, yetis, fractured fairy tale characters. If it's bizarre, I want to put it in plush form. I like challenging popular notions that plush needs to be cute, or that it's only for children. Embrace the quirky, because we're all a bit odd in our own way!


What projects are you in the middle of right now that you should probably be working on instead of doing this?
Oh, so many. I have several outstanding custom zombie orders; I need to put the finishing touches on my pieces for Candyland, the Plush Team group show at Hot*Pop; I should get around to putting some V-Day themed items in the shop if I'm going to do it all. Oh, and unrelated to plush, I should also be ironing out the final details for my upcoming wedding reception, like ordering the keg or making sure there are enough chairs. . . .


Where do you primarily create?
I am lucky enough to have a dedicated craft room. This is a blessing (space! for fabric! and yarn! messes that I can close the door on instead of cleaning up!) and a curse (extra space means I can buy more fabric! and yarn! messes that I never clean up because I can just close the door!). All of my scheming, cutting out, and machine sewing takes place in this room. Most of my stuffing and hand finishing, however, takes place in front of the television. But I'm not rotting my brain on all that TV, because I'm still being productive. Right?

Where do you find inspiration?
Pretty much anywhere. I studied mythology and fairy tales in college, and both are continuous source of inspiration. I'm also inspired by nature, bits of conversation with friends, pop culture. Some of my ideas also come out of custom orders. My customers have awesome ideas for their custom orders (a unicorn horn on a zombie giraffe, for instance), and some of these details become regulars in my designs, or form the seeds for larger ideas.


Do you have a favorite book/blog/movie/etc you'd like to recommend?
This is a hard question to answer, because I have soooo many favorites. I'm a huge book nerd. HUGE. (No, like epic. I'm suge a huge book nerd that when I was younger, my parents punished me by taking away my books, because having my Barbies taken away wasn't really effective punishment.) So, for book recommendations, I'd say check me out on Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/691384). For blogs, all the usual crafty suspects, plus right now I'm really digging everything Paul Overton is writing on Every Day Is Awesome (http://www.everydayisawesome.com). Very deep food for thought.

Where can readers see more of your work?
Etsy: http://plushroomsoup.etsy.com

Blog: http://www.plushroomsoup.com

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87199759@N00/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PlushroomSoup

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PlushroomSoup

And if you're the knitterly sort, I'm also on Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/Pucky

I love the above photo so much. It's not often that we get to see the middle of the process of making plush art. It's messy and fabulous! (And yes, of course there is coffee involved.)
Thanks for sharing a glimpse of your crafty life with us, Jessica!

★☆★☆★☆Pssst! There's still time! Be sure to leave a comment on the Pug Pattern giveaway post: http://www.absolutelysmall.com/blog/2011/05/12/pug-pattern-and-giveaway/ ★☆★☆★☆

Pug Pattern and Giveaway!

With little miss Olive on the scene, things have been changing left and right. I've had to try new things...like sleeping in two hour shifts, Vicodin, and crafting in tiny snatches of time.
I've had to change the way I do...well, everything. To that end, instead of making tons of my new favorite plushie, I made a .pdf pattern.

I've created patterns before, but this is my first .pdf. You guys, I had SO much fun making this thing. Olive willing, I might just make more patterns.
I'd love to hear what you think. And better yet, I'd love to hear what you might like to see made into a pattern! To that end, it's giveaway time!
I'm giving away THREE copies of the new pattern. To be entered to win, just leave a comment below telling me what you'd like to see made into a pattern. It can be anything, and it might just wind up being the next thing I work on!
Make sure I have some way of contacting you (Email, Etsy, Twitter, whatever.)
I'll pick the winners by random number generator next Thursday, the 18th.
Go forth and comment!


*Want extra chances to win? Okay, we can do that.
Leave another comment if you do any of the following:
Link to this on Twitter
Link to this on Facebook
Link to this on your blog
Link to this anywhere else!

Visual Caffeine

There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
-Oscar Levant

Photo by Jim Crossley

Your turn! Do you have a quote or a photo that you think would make a good Visual Caffeine post? Email me using the Contact tab above!

J is for Joss Whedon

Have you seen most ABC books? Yawn. I wanted to create a book for Olive that would be tactile and interactive. Also, awesome. I wanted to show her things that mean something to her father and I. Important things, like trademarked characters and ice cream.
Thus I raided my stash of felt and set to work with scissors and a hot glue gun. And a gob of fake hair. (See page H.)

I cut every piece by hand, thus the general wonkyness. I created a few pattern pieces, but mostly it was just easier to cut them free hand.

Here are a few of my favorite pages:

S is for Sun and Stars, T is for Totoro. The T page is actually the first one I made.

I'm happy with how Zelda here turned out:

She's one of the few princesses who don't make me want to throw up. Even if she is mostly just baggage to be saved for most of the video games. She really comes into her own around the Majora's Mask era, however. But I digress.

I incorporated a few photos, too:

O is for Olive, of course. The photos turned out being some of the simplest pages to make. Photo, thin sheet of plastic, felt, glue, go.

J wound up being for Jetpack, but I like to imagine that it's Joss Whedon wearing a jetpack. (A million thanks to the lovely people on Twitter for helping me out with J. Other honorable mentions: Jabberwocky, Joule, Jellybelly, Jawa, Jabba the Hutt, and Jock Strap.)

You can check out the whole book here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallchick/sets/72157626558378113/

A peek inside the crafty life of Amy Cluck

First off, a little backstory. Who are you? What do you make?
Hi! My name is Amy Cluck. I am a writer, web designer, baker, lover of all things pink and covered with sprinkles, hostess-with-the-mostess, and all around crafty gal.
I was inspired to start Peptogirl Industries in 2005, after finding an amazing and supportive community of crafters on the web. Peptogirl comes from a nickname I earned while working as a student assistant (during college). You could say I was crazy for the color pink — and still am!
Today I create one-of-a-kind jewelry, accessories, craft kits, and embroidery patterns under the name sweet&salty. I try to incorporate a little bit of humor into everything I make. My products never take themselves too seriously!

What projects are you in the middle of right now that you should probably be working on instead of doing this?

I changed my shop name recently (to sweet&salty) so I should be working on my new website and branding. Or making Christmas gifts. Or stitching new embroidery patterns.


Where do you primarily create?
At home – on the couch, on the kitchen counter, at the kitchen table, at my desk, on the floor…pretty much anywhere I can cover in craft supplies, I do.


Where do you find inspiration?
Flickr, blogs, magazines, changing seasons, everyday life


Do you have a favorite book/blog/movie/etc you'd like to recommend?
Daily blog reads: Thompson Family Life: http://thompsonfamily.typepad.com, A Beautiful Mess: http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com, Style Me Pretty: http://www.stylemepretty.com, Bakerella: http://www.bakerella.com, and My Girl Thursday: http://www.mygirlthursday.com

Movies: Pretty much anything with Zooey Deschanel. ELF is one of my favorites this time of year and I'm also loving 500 Days of Summer.

Books: To Kill A Mocking Bird is my all time fav.


Where can readers see more of your work?

My blog: http://www.peptogirl.blogspot.com , My Website (currently in-progress): www.sweet-n-saltyshop.com, and my etsy shop (It’s looking kind of bare these days): http://www.sweetnsaltyshop.etsy.com

Thanks for letting us peek into your crafty life, Amy!

Annnnnd deep breath.

I get so frustrated with myself for not being able to do as much as I could pre-baby. A productive day now just means that I was able to get a shower. I was feeling a little down on myself about this when I found this quote on a sticky note:

"Children are gone before you know it.  I would advise artist parents to remember that their work is always there, ready to be resumed, but those first few years with your child can never be replaced.  Through the fog and frenzy, remember to relish the moments and not worry about being “productive” unless your livelihood truly depends on it.  Children refresh us.  Having them is the one truly great nearly-universal human experience.  Listen to them, let them affect you and inspire you as deeply as possible, and just watch how your work takes off."
-Marian Henley

This was just what I needed. Thank you, the lady who brought us Maxine! (No, not that Maxine. This Maxine.)