Friday, September 27, 2013

let the madness begin!

September ushers in a long - loooooong - stretch of holidays, birthdays, and other festivities.  Just within my immediate family, there are 12 birthdays in September and October, never mind all our friends!  So Cowgirl and I have been busy making gifts.




An old favorite is this faux tie dye/batik t-shirt craft.  It is so simple, I cannot believe I haven't made more shirts.  All you need is some of the clear blue elmer's glue and acrylic paints watered down.  The full directions are here






My bunny design was a little too busy - simple is best. I ended up using a black fabric pen to draw in the outline and some details to make it more legible. (But in my haste, forgot to snap a photo.)






Cowgirl's snake design came out much more true to batik.  The bottom of the shirt has the name of her buddy (yes, a birthday gift!) with yellow for added pop.  She signed her name using the black fabric pen to further personalize the shirt.

We then moved on to make some Japanese Kokeshi paper dolls. I found a cute book on designing the kimonos and different style figures and thought it would be fun to add our own creations as part of a gift for a friend. 

Using a broken down cereal box, we cut out and gessoed the body shapes.

 




I had some scraps of origami paper, so we designed our kimonos (Cowgirl added a fan.)






We painted the faces (Cowgirl pointed out I made sad eyes in contrast to her happy face - but then her doll required a nose job!)






And then glued everything together using mod podge and a glue gun for tooth picks (hair sticks) and popsicle sticks to turn our dolls in to puppets.






Did I mention that a certain girl celebrated her birthday this past week?






A full day of festivities including mom delivering her a special order for lunch: 






Chinese dumplings and fried rice of course!






Busy times indeed.  And we are only just winding up September with much, much more to come in October.  I just realized Halloween is quickly approaching.  Good thing I quit my job when I did ... I need the extra time for all this fun!

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There is still time to sign up for my Mandala Moon Play offering.  The first new moon of October is a week from today.  Also, I am excited to share I have contributed to an amazing project Fearless Sisters Oracle Deck.  Forty-four artists from around the world have created original artwork to create a deck of 44- inspiration cards.  Accompanying the deck will be a booklet where each artist shares the affirmation/channeled message or story behind their card.  



The decks are in production and we are expecting to receive shipment sometime in December. (Hopefully, in time for the holidays!)  Right now I can offer a discount price of  $19.95 through October 4th.   After that, the price goes up to $29.95.  I have a limited number of decks I pre-ordered and if you are interested in purchasing one, I would be happy to hold a deck for you at the sale price. Contact me  by October 4 if you are interested.  I haven't researched shipping costs (I am thinking overseas/international would require me to charge a shipping fee) but am hoping to keep it under $5.




    My card?  Why Trust of course ♥

4 comments:

  1. A Happy Birthday to your girl! I love all of the presents you two are making. I will have to try the glue batik method. It seems as if you will have a busy, but fun and meaningful autumn! xo

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  2. Happy Birthday Cowgirl! :) I'd love to get the deck - is there a link?
    Also, is your new class $30 per month or for the session?

    So excited for all the launches my friend - you're soaring now!

    xoxo always

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    1. I'll email you separately ... but the Mandala play is $30 for the six months! Or $20 if you just want to try three months out. I feel funny taking $ for something I don't have yet, so I am honoring requests to hold a deck and when they come in, send a paypal invoice for the discounted price. I hope that works!

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  3. I'd love to reserve a deck also if it's not too late!!

    Happy birthday to Cowgirl! She's growing so fast. I think she was only about four-five when I started reading here and it seems like such a short time ago.

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