Dabbling, because my ADD told me to.

Thats about it.  Boredom hits me pretty quickly and I flit from one thing to another.  Etsy tells me, as a store owner, its much better to have 1 kind of thing instead of lots of things.  Sadly, if I focused on 1 kind of thing, I would be one kind of asleep.  I sometimes think that is the real difference between an artist and a crafter.  An artist is all flitty and do whatever.  Their work is from their hearts.  There are no patterns and no plans.  It just happens.  The crafter is structured, refined, expert even.  They have a plan of attack and rarely waver. Crafters are predictable.  I can't say that is entirely a bad thing.  I mean, if I want a handmade coffee cozy, my best bet is to find a crafter who has thousands of them.  In my store I might have one or two, but its only because I thought it might be fun to add hair to one, or feet.  Absolutely everything in my shop is an experiment.  I never have a plan.  It just comes and if I love it, I list it.  if I don't love it, it gets put away somewhere until another idea strikes that will make it better, or I destroy it.  Either way.

So it all started when I was digging around in the deep freeze for some hamburger.  In the corner I saw a bag that was questionable to say the least.  I opened it and found the hide from a pheasant a friend had harvested for me during last year's season.  The feathers are beautiful and it had been a while since I played with them. I felt it was high time to separate the feathers from the hide, wash, sort and strip them and if I still have the gumption, make something.

I had the gumption.

Feather fascinator and others...

Happily, I sold one right away.  This beautiful lady is also a 

etsy seller and makes wonderful meditation pillows.  Her husband also makes

gorgeous handmade pottery which is sold in the shop as well.

By all means, go and see what she has!

Barbieszenhouse

I flitted around with this and that, but looked over in the corner at a gallon sized pickle jar I had, full of seashells.  I decided to play, but was not thrilled with my lack of imagination.  I had made all this before.  It was then I discovered that I had Polymer clay.  

Since seashells are indeed cast offs from various sea monsters, 

I thought a mock taxidermy of sorts would be fun.  I ended up with  some pretty cool little monsters

growing out of those seashells.

Octopus and other questionable sea-krakenary

Alas, my thoughts turned back to my bullets.  They are, after all, my favorite medium.

Something different though.  After the invention of the corseted bullet, I really felt I needed to step it up.

I went out to the shop and broke out the cutting wheel and started hacking away at a bullet hoping something would come of it.  At first, I was really going for some kind of  sculptural thing.  I beat on it with hammers and trimmed off bits and pieces, when I kind of saw something in the rubble.  

It wasn't long before I had a plan-ish and hacked away until I got this shape:

I don't know.  A cicada?  I filed away at it for a while before bringing it inside to stare at it for a bit.  

I had a fella, who had shot a very beautiful deer this season, ask me to make something cool out of the bullet he used to harvest his deer.  While I was digging through some scraps of filigree trying to decide where to go with THAT project, I spied a piece that was still whole.  It was then my 30-06 cicada became a 30-06 cockroach.  

Of course, as the prototype it is far from perfect, but seems to be well on it's way to being a recycled UniqueEuphoria original.  

Hair clip I think.  I mean really, what woman doesn't invite bugs to crawl through her coiffure? 

Especially when they are made from spent bullets and scraps of filigree.  I'm just sayin'

New item and a couple of new friends

It has been debilitating hot.  I know, I know.  Wisconsin polar bear girl has no idea what summer hot is.  Well folks, my cankles know what hot is.  This is it :)

I jumped on the steampunk bandwagon this week and managed to score a pretty kick-ass octopus pendant.  I just listed the final product today in the store: https://www.etsy.com/listing/103558111/octopus-shell-and-pearl-necklace-and

I'm happy enough with it for my first try.  I kind of got the look I wanted, but luckily, it was a 2 for 1 sale on big damn octopus pendants.  Muahahaha

I also want to mention some new friends of mine that I have recently met in Swapbot.  First, is Jenifer, who has an etsy shop located here:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/soloflair.  Her style is very alternative with a little darkness and a light peppering of steampunkary.   She features handmade gauges and accessories, which I love.  There really is so little in the way of gauge and extreme ear wear.  Shes even been very sweet in answering some of my questions about the rules and supplies allowed to make jewelry like hers.  I am all about a crafter willing to share information :)  One of my favorites from Soloflair:

Oh man....you killed my sister! Heh...so great...I can see these as Christmas presents.  Perfect for my  silly family...

Okay, the next shop I want to show you is that of  Suzanne from House of Plush http://www.etsy.com/shop/houseofplush

Here its all about cute and kawaii.  Don't let the cuteness fool you.  It looks all hugs in smiles in plush-land, until I ran into this: 

Which made me laugh out loud.  One of my favorite items in her shop right now.  I really love vulgarity expressed in cross stitch...It just makes me giggle.   

She also features stuffies and plushies  for the little ones, personalized onsies, brilliant softie toy sets, cutie broaches and pins, and of course, her kick ass and unique embroidery.  Personally, my mom would love tea towels with brains on them.  They would totally go with her scull pincushion I got her for her birthday last year...Second only to the hedgehog with a retractable tape measure that you pull out of his butt.  Brilliant. 

Make sure to check these ladies out.  They are both very sweet and very talented.  Christmas will be here before you know it!!!  We need to support handmade.  Nowhere else can you find such an awesome variety  of original and quirky items.  If you don't usually shop handmade, I highly suggest it.  Check these girls out, check me out and discover some awesome.