Mortem's Tricks or Treats: Sweetening The Deal

Hum.

It's only 7 more days till my giveaway is over, and I have to be honest-- I'm a little disappointed by the lack of further interest in it. Thank you to those whom are currently participants and commenters-- you make my heart glow with warmth. On the brightside, I guess this means there's a bigger chance to win *wink wink*.

I thought I had a zipper to make the make up bag... but it turns out I didn't. What this means for the winner is that I'll be adding a few more things to the pile before the deadline.

Today inspiration struck me, and I thought it'd be really neat to create a mug cozy to add into giveaway.

Here it is all finished up! I made one for myself, since I am a huge tea drinker (hot and cold), I figured I'd get far more use out of it. I hope the winner is the same, hehe! This will be the one I put into the giveaway.

It's funny because that tiny little black applique on the skull is what sparked it. I used two others in the creation of the jewelry piece I promised to make for the giveaway.

But anyway, enough talk... here are some progression shots of the mug cozy as it is being made.

I was going to add in two, but I lost the inspiration for the one above it... and I don't I liked how I cut it, anyway-- the bias tape would've covered the skeleton's head.
The inner lining is felt, which makes a perfect insulator for those hot and cold drinks. The lining is a heavy weight canvas material to prevent any sweaty drinks from bleeding to the front of the cozy.

Here it is in action:

Speaking of cute, I'm also quite proud of the necklace I made for the giveaway. I was bummed I couldn't tat it, but I figured that would be the case... I'm just starting to learn how to needle tat, which is a lot different than shuttle tatting.

I had some leftover applique trim that I cut into individual sections; I sewn them together to create a nice little center piece.
I tried my hand at a bit of knot tying-- like for hemp jewelry-- for the strand. I slipped in a few black seed beads throughout the length for added pretty.

A few minutes of digging around and I found some plastic pearl beads, purple ribbon rosettes, a charm, and a little length of chain-- perfect!

Next thing you know, I created a piece of jewelry from nothing but the scraps and things I had lying around, hehe.

I love it so much, I am going to use this same train of thought and creation to revamp an old necklace I made some time ago; I still have several applique pieces, lots of seed beads and string to make one more.