Was it the worst year? That is debatable... but sufficed to say, if it were not for the many obstacles that have presented themselves, I would not be currently scurrying and crafting to meet the opening of my etsy shop in January, of which I have many little treats in store (if you've been following me on instagram):
Though I am stressed up to my gills, it's that kind that is more laced with excited anticipation for the future state of my personal life fulfillment.
But stress by any other name is still stress, so that is excitement is tempered with a healthy dose of worry haha.
There are several things to look forward to seeing in my shop, I have been tapping into every one of my creative skills to offer a variety of items from sewing to painting, and knitting to jewelry making. I have also been dabbling in ones that are still fairly new to me, mostly because they all share the same format.
So I guess this entrada began when I had this intense urge to have a bunch of little glow in the dark bats to cover my new Christmas tree in-- like the kind in Oogie's lair
I decided they should be in perler format because perlers have glow in the dark beads I could work with, but I hit a wall since I could not find a good forward facing pattern for a bat to then modify into these cuties. So I tried using a bat vector and plopping it into one of those programs I linked in my perler bead post, but the results were still not satisfactory.
Christmas came, and with it I was given a rather fortuitous discovery of a new method of creating embroidery and cross stitch patterns via this blog post (The HomesTeady).
Regrettably, I ran out of ink in my printer... but it churned my gears, and I remembered I had make-shifted a lightbox so I could trace one of my drawings for inking; since my design didn't necessarily have color it would do well.
It surely did work like a charm. I made the lightbox from a cardboard box, a little lamp I bought at Walmart for $3 and the glass came from a frame I accidentally broke; I am also mystified why the glass didn't break but the frame did, and I never toss anything so what luck!
Since it's a perler pattern I was after, I couldn't do the half boxes (stitches), so some of the lines needed to deviate a little. Then it was a matter of filling in and taking creative freedoms, and bam! I had the pattern I wanted! I copied it into a little graph paper notebook I have been keeping all my little pattern creations in.
So I began the task of creating my little bat...
I almost finished her too in the colors she needed to be, but I realized I was going to need the majority of my glow in the dark perlers to bust out some trinkets and things I was going to do for another soul; she was taking up half my current glow beads... and I needed a pay off before I could make a trek to buy more perlers for my own projects... so I compromised and inverted her since I needed one now and had plenty of black
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| She is ridiculously cute paired with my Jacky, don't you think? |
Since my fridge is already covered in magnets and post cards there was no room for these to be turned into magnets...
Next best thing?
Make them window clings.
Looking at the words 'embroidery' and 'cross stitch' and even 'plastic canvas' so often in these perler endeavors, the desire to do all of these has been unequivocally and heavily hammered into my head.
So I treated myself to a bundle of goodies!
I have got so many cute things coming! Some that I dearly want to keep, hah!
I want to say that the big reveal is soon, but the way things are going it's going to be to some extent a gradual process, since everything I am doing, I am doing strictly and solely by myself.
Is it too late to ask Santa for octo-limbs? ...
Here's to the new year, may the adversity it brings us help us to continue to strive forward!
Keep it spooky, fiends.
