LABOR DAY = UNIQUEUPHORIA DAY!

Anyone who is in the Ridgeland, Wi area this labor day (Monday) can find me with the other merchants on the hill peddling my wares. 

You will find lots of recycled feeders and sculpture as well as a selection of All Better Bubbles aromatherapy bubbles and homeopathic hot and cold packs, both aromatheriputic and unscented, as well as some fun and useful reusable cup cozies for your hot or cold drinks, stitch markers for those fiber artists and I will be working on some reusable and washable pot scrubbies in real time.  Come on down and visit and get inspired to recycle, recycle, recycle!!!

The Quasi Hippie: Lotta blogs

The Quasi Hippie: Lotta blogs: "Where have you been Jess? I have a lot of blogs and a lot of different information to add to each one. I am easily overwhelmed. Queen An..."

THANK YOU!!!

I big heartfelt thanks to everyone that participated in the stitch marker give away.  They went so much faster than I expected.   There are still a few markers on my website for sale and the promoton is still on until August 8 for whoever buys anything from the website gets a surprise gift worth $5.00.

Thank you again for all your support folks!  I will be doing this again!

Upcycled tobacco can births mini drying kit in a can

If you follow my other blog, you know I am really into herbs and natural food and stuff like that.  I have tutorials on how to preserve and use certain things over there.  My drying line is simple: 2 cup hooks with a piece of jewelry wire looped at each end to hang on those cup hooks like a clothesline situation, then mini clothespins to hold your herbs up while they dry.  Like this:

I've been asked by a couple of people to make a little herb drying kit for them, so they can dry herbs as well.  I was laying in bed one night thinking of what I could use for a container, when I spotted one of my husbands empty chewing tobacco cans.  HA!!!  Thus the Mini Herb Drying Kit in a Can was born AND I finally figured out a way to recycle my husband's bad habit residue!
                                   

Swapbot

Hi swapbotters!  Thanks for swapping blogs with me.  Make sure to go to my personal blog for info on holistic and wild veggies and how to's on making good stuff from them, general complaining and ranting about life in general.  Check out my shop and add me on facebook if you like. 

DESTASH GIVE AWAY AND PROMO!!!!

I have about 5 crochet and 5 knit stitch marker sets of 4 to give away.  Colors will vary.  Comment on my post and specify whether you would like knit or crochet, then email me at unique.euphoria@gmail.com with an address so I can send them to you.  First comenter, first serve.  While supplies last.

EDIT!  Due to the overwhelming response, I am now officially out of stitch markers; however, there is still a few left in my shop and if you chose to buy, I will still include a free gift as below.

Not a knitter or crochet artist?  Go to my Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/uniqueeuphoria.  If you see something you like and buy it between now and August 8, 2010, I will include a surprise gift worth $5.00 or more with your order.

Here comes the sun

Wow. What a storm we had last night! My electricity was off from 9-ish until 4 this morning. I let my brother in law come inside before a house fell on him. It was the least I could do. :)

Not much going on in Craftville lately. It seems my job did not read the part of the contract that said they actually were supposed to pay me for services rendered--go figure-and after a year, I quit. It has been a long week of resume typing and cover letter including. I did make a pretty something today though while the baby was being quiet. Nothing fancy, just using up some things I had lying around that was left over from a couple of other projects. I think it's legal for a recycle artist to recycle...right?

Featured!!!

I was featured on Trashion's blogger today! Come read my interview!

http://etsytrashion.blogspot.com/2010/07/feature-me-friday-unique-euphoria.html

It's hot in here and it is just me

HOT outside. Oh I know you southern belles are saying, "You think Wisconsin is hot, pft!" Yeah yeah, this Viking is waiting for her ice flow.

I have a few new bits in the shop. Most exciting is my score I got on some solar lights that the local home improvement store was getting rid of because of cracks-the solar part is functioning fine. That being said, A new element has been born to the unique euphoria. SOLAR! Go an check them out in my shop. There is more to come as soon as I get off this demon machine of addiction (my computer) and get down to the shop to talk some trash. I'm also thinking about some souvenir ideas for my shop. I am a fat quarter addict and I have a ton of scraps here. Keep your eyes open for freebies within the next week or so. Think bubbles and postcards...intrigued? Good. Muahaha...

I will be including pictures as soon as I get my camera back from the cabin. It seems I left it on the counter when I left. I hope no mice poop on it while I'm gone...ew.

Piles of undone doodads

I have a little pile to my left of scraps of wood. Some cut into butterfly's and hearts, some are just rectangles. All of them were originally destined to be wood burned and made into little plant stakes for the garden. Undone.

I have a stack of glass votives to my right that I got to make something out of...undone.

I have a pile of homeless plastic white doves with holes drilled in them. Some have been beaded and strung up on wire. Most haven't. Undone.

I have a basket of the most beautiful fat quarters for something.

I have a stack of composition books waiting to be covered and embellished with beautiful fat quarters. Still waiting.

I wish so much I didn't have to work today...

Memorial weekend, doves, Jesus and angels

I managed to score a pile of these little white doves that I thought would make awesome wind dangles and I am trying my best to decide on an appropriate centerpiece. At first I was thinking an earth/globe situation with the doves raining down from it. Then, since it is memorial weekend and I do make most of my sales as grave bling, I thought a Jesus would be cool with the doves raining down. Maybe I could do both? On the other hand, I do have deep respect for my Jesus and I can't seem to really capture him in stick person form. Nothing that makes you take one look and say--Hey, isn't that Jesus?

I might be safer just going with an angel...whatever I decide, I need to decide quick. Until then, I am busy drilling holes into these little plastic doves...

NEW! NEW! NEW!

New stuff is in the works! I have not had the time to get into my shop like I should, so get ready to see some wire art. I have a new addition to my sculpture-solar lights! I can't wait to see them in action. Until then, they are on the paint rack waiting to dry.

I have been working on some things lately though. I had a HUGE order for daisy scrubbies, but I took a break now and then to support my fellow crocheters/knitters and all their sustainable craftiness and made some funky stitch markers.

I also have some bird feeders up that I made from some garage sale finds. One of them is just plain crazy. I might keep that one for myself. Think of those giant silverware sets Grandma had in her kitchen--Awesome!

Anyway, Unique Euphoria is back online, so come and check out what's new, let me know what you think!

www.uniqueeuphoria.etsy.com

Film swap and other stuff

I am gearing up to get my shop up and rolling again. I cleaned out the old and the new is in the making. I am still swapping on the side. Well, okay, I am trying to get swapping on the side, since it shoved it's way to my forefront the last couple of months. This is because of my cabin fever and general malayse that comes to me automatically at the end of every winter. I am getting cought up now, so I can start making money again instead of givng it all to the post office :)

I doubt that my partner for the "Friday is movie night" swap has visited my blog, so I'm probably safe to post what I sent.

The rules were 1 movie in it's original case will fulfil the swap. This is what aI did to make it fun:

My partner loves Dr. Who, so I managed to score a new dvd from Amazon for little-to-nothing. While I waited for that to come, I took my own advice for the film canister idea I had posted in December and made a film can out of an old cookie tin. I spray painted it silver, then went on line and found what a real canister looks like and printed a copy of the picture onto some sticky paper. I stuck that t the top, but because I had to blow it up so much, I ended up having to go over it with silver and black makers to make it look less...pixle-ey. Here is how it turned out:

Then, according to my partner's likes and dislikes, I stuffed it with snacks (popcorn and chocolates), drink (flavored water pack for cold, hot chocolate for hot), the movie of course, and stuff to do because, like I told her, I can't just sit there doing nothing. I have to crochet or sew or something, so she got fun fat quarters, a handmade journal with an owl (she said she loved owls) and some crochet stitch markers I made.

The kicker was, after all the work I put into the film can, my dvd was too big which was why I sent the journal-to make up for my stupid mistake. Unfortunately, after I made the owl, I read that she despised the color orange. I gave up trying at this point and packed it up and sent it off. I'll have to try again next time and make sure I have a big enough can.

Butterfly Journal

I did an image search on google for a butterfly shape I could copy and you wouldent believe how many butterfly themed crotchless panty images came up. I wonder if the have crotchless panties with crabs? Hahahaha! OKay, bad joke. Get on with it..I know, I know...

How come my applique is all centered and then I sew it and it's all...not? Sigh.

here we go...

Today has been one of those days. More than one of those days. My puppy, who has been my love for 5 years was hit by a car and killed today. I feel so...heavy. I keep thinking, thank God it wasn't a kid. On the other hand, I am so sad. I pet her before we buried her. She was really tore up, but I pet her anyway until she got cold. I thought I was done and ready to bury her, but I wish she was on my bed as usual so I could hug her. My fat little beagle girl...She was one of my babies too and I'm gonna miss her so much...

I need some cheering up big time, so I want some advice from my readers...

Since it is spring, I will be getting back in my shop again to weld, but while it was cold I started making journals. I really like it, but its really hard to have nice even pages when you make your own. I found where you can buy those composition books for a dollar a piece. I have been just working on nice covers and the overall affect has been more desirable, in my opinion, than the from scratch journals. I am just happier with the pages being even and more professional.

Anyway, here is 2 journals I made. The red one is scraps, but I use heavy fabric stabilizer on everything to make is sturdy and to keep the appliqué nice. The black one is covered in fake leather. The owl is appliquéd on with scraps and decorated with...uh. graphics? OKay, so I'm not exactly thrilled with that one, but its only my third---cut me some slack.



Anyway, my question is, do you think they are sell able? What do you think of an etsy shop selling swap items? You know, just little things to make swaps special-unique bookmarks, small packets and unique envelopes to make simple swaps special like my little mug envelopes that work awesome for coffee, tea/drink swaps that otherwise would be nothing more than a packet of something in an envelope? Of course the price had to be right and maybe have minimum orders for small items? Thats what I'm thinking about right now...

Other than that, I have sent out a few swappies the last couple of weeks. Here is my "seeing green" swap:



I packed some hot chocolate and a chocolate treat in the mug envelope and sent a handmade journal. This is one of my first journals with hand bound pages. I made up some swap cards and a quick little bookmark for my partner...I haven't heard if she got it yet, but I hope she enjoys everything.

Pimp my table

I signed up for this swap in which the participants had to sew 2 placemats and 2 napkins to "pimp" your partner's table. I'm not really sure why I signed up since I have never made a placemat or napkin in my life, but I did. There were a few links at the end of the swap description with how-tos on how to make placemats, but they were all quilted. Unfortunately, unless the quilt is actually a quilt, the look is not my thing and the whole process of quilting makes my eyes cross.

I was on my own.

So, I took 2 matching fat quarters and guestimated how big a placemat should be and backed them both with some fabric stabilizer, then I took some pinkish flower fabric (my partner's only hint as to what she likes on her profile is that her favorite color is pink) and proceeded to applique some hearts here and there. I had some white fabric that is like dress shirt material and used that as a backing, sewed right sides together, fliped everything right side out and topstitched. I then had some flour sack material I thought would make good napkins and cut out a couple of decent sized sqaures, hemmed the edges and used the scraps from the placemat material to applique hearts onto those. It wasn't that hard! I think they came out kind of cute and are much busier than any placemats in a store...hope she likes them :)

So, My daughter found this music box I had with one of those lampworked pianos on top? Yeah, well my piano had broke and it was not my favorite, especially since there were jagged pointy raw glass edges of death sticking up all over. So, I took my trusty dremmel and removed the broken piano and sanded all the pokies off leaving the mirrored base. Well, since my daughter is almost 2, a mirrored base would probably be less than safe, so I wrapped it up with quilt batting and crochet a cover to go over the glass. Thgen it sat for a long time just like that...with nothing.

I then picked up my crochet hooks again and decided a few amigurumi would be fun to have around. I started out with a goldfish and then moved on to a pig. The pig was cute but I was getting tired and lazy by this point and had no desire to put feet on him. It didnt take me long to realize you can't see pigs feet when they stand in tall grass...so I made him some fun fur grass. Unfortunately, doing that made him not as fun to play with, so I sat him aside.

This morning I saw the music box base and it all came together. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that the music box polays "Memory" which is a far cry from any happy piglet songs. My doaughter is thrilled though and could care less if it played Metalica's Master of Puppets. It's a "Ooombig" and Ooombig's do not have a theme song.

Ooombig.

ATC Envelope

I broke out my sewing machine and decided to play with a few of the fat quarters I have laying around. I love Mirkwood Designs and decided to make her ATC Envelope out of fabric.

I'm not an ATC fan. I don't make them, but know of so many people who do and even collect them, I thought these would go over well as swapping extras...





I also put together one of her petal envelopes. I thought it would be cute to present a bracelet or something. I like to put lots of little packages to open up in a swap.

To bead or not to bead, that is the question.

I am stagnant. I honestly don't feel creative. I always saw an artist as this beautiful, free spirited, wild haired tree hugger with paint stained, gluten free bib overalls and a cool tribal tattoo around her upper arm. Someone who hugged a lot, stood up for the little guy and smoked the occasional clove cigarette after sex and a good long day of art stuff. It might be the weather and the fact that I don't own any bib overalls any more that I have lost my mojo...I'm pretty sure I have a cool tribal tattoo left in me somewhere under my pajamas and saggy boobs. Sigh.



So it's winter in Wisconsin and the long cold days are dragging. I have cabin fever and my studio is too cold to venture. And...I have 4 kids, meaning, there will be no creativity in this house outside the realm of pipe cleaners and dollar store felt. Of course, there is the occasional googly eye...



Anyway, I have taken to indoor things. Amigurumi, hats, I painted some safety eyes to add a little life to said amigurumi--they make safety eyes so plain you know. Last night I found some sunflower spacer beads (sunflowers being my favorite flower ever) and decided as a midwinter blues present, to make myself some stitch markers. They are pretty friggin adorable.



I then decided to visit my old haunt Swap Bot. I soooo needed something...different to occupy my spare time. I have so little of it, why waste it you know? So, I signed up for a couple swaps and for fun, made up a few more stitch markers as extras, should I get paired up with a fellow crocheter. I'm starting to worry though, that I may have made them too big and bulky. Not heavy, just...in the way?

I can't wait to see the snow gone. I need my scroll saw and my kiln and my welder and my drill press. I miss my table vice. I want to open the double doors of the loft and let the sun in. I couldn't be more ready for summer...