I was in dire need of a healing moisturizer for my hands. After some searching online, I figured a concoction that was rich in shea butter and coconut oil would be a winner. Many recipes called for aloe vera or some liquid component, but I decided to stick with the basics. Voila! My first batch of healing cream (8/50), generously scented with lavender essential oil and a hint of peppermint essential oil.
Simply bound by yours truly. My first proper foray into bookbinding (7/50)!!! This has been a work in progress for the past few weeks, god knows why...especially since the entire book binding process is far from tedious.
Individual pages folded, waiting to be stitched:
Stitched books sans covers:
Finished books with covers:
Close-up of one of my favs:
And the mixed paper pages in the book:
Now that I've had a bit of practice with the mini books, I think I'm ready to tackle some bigger ones *gulp*
I've been sorting through my fiber stash and realized that I had better start spinning (or I won't have a justifiable excuse to buy more fiber when I go to the regional fiber show at the end of May)!! These were spun while trying to make a dent in my list of must-watch DVDs!
The One With No Name (domestic wool hand painted by CH)
Tide Pool (mill ends dyed by moi!)
Princess (superwash merino, milk fiber, nylon, and angelina blend by MM)
The sheep inchie I made last week looked kinda lonely by itself. So voila! More sheep. Meet the entire herd (6/50)...
For the Alphabet Inchies Swap! Somehow, I got myself placed in the "Naughty" group, so there's a bit of, erm, a mature theme to some of the inchies.
CM's Inchies - D, J, P, V
DN's Inchies - C, I, O, U
CY'S Inchies - F, L, R, X
NK's Inchies - A, G, M, S, Y
AL's Inchies - B, H, N, T, Z
HS's Inchies - E, K, Q, W
And here are a few inchies that were made as I was racking my brain for suitable themes for the alphabet inchies swap :)
Three ATCs for the Ongoing ATC Swap!
Birdie Zentangle - Bristol board, gel pen.
Language Cogs - Chalk ink, pigment ink, pages from foreign language books.
Hussy's Kisses - Aluminium foil, computer printout label, scrapbooking paper, chalk ink.
I do most of my fiber dyeing either via the microwave method or via the steamer method. One of the gals mentioned something about dyeing fiber in the oven (5/50) and of course, I had to try it. Love the method, love the results. I now have another way to colour my fiber! This batch of soft squishy merino roving is mostly for a swap, but I also kept a 4 oz piece to play with.
Braided!
Labeled!
Made a bunch of project bags (4/50) for holding a variety of smallish WIPs...some for swaps, some to give away, and a couple for myself. Keeping in line with my goal to do something with my rather significant fabric stash, I managed to use up about 3 yards of fabric for these! Awesome! Most of the lot managed to skip town before the camera was found...but here are a few that stayed put. 
And in other news, my lovely swap partner, SC (whom I sent a trio of project bags to) made me a couple of kiwi stuffies! Love, love, love them. The brown one has a bit of dried lavender stuffed in his erm, tushie (which oddly smells divine) and the bright and colourful kiwi has a glow-in-the-dark stick of a beak! They make quite the handsome couple, no?
As usual, I slacked off in the picture-taking department...but I had a blast meeting up with CD (a fellow crafter I've corresponded with for the past 5 years or so!) for a weekend filled with good conversations, dubious food, neat finds and c-r-a-f-t-i-n-g. Yes, crafting!
After a wee bit of dodgy furniture moving from my room, down the hallway to CD's room, we had ourselves a lovely work space for papercrafting (check out CD's awesome blog for erm, the incriminating pictures). We worked on ATCs, inchies, and I started on a couple of possibilities for chunky houses...but we had the most fun coming up with themes for the inchies. CD kindly offered to help me out with a swap assignment (though I felt guilty enough when I got home to realise I need to get them done myself :P)...so here are the inchies we made:
CD, the prolific inchie-maker's masterpieces:
My meager number of inchies:
And of course, we thought it would be fun to do a collaboration of sorts, so here's my side...
and here's CD's side!
But that's not all! We also found time to work on some wrapped rings (erm, still looking for these because they seem to have gone a-hiding...) and my first punch needle embroidery project!! CD was an excellent teacher. Not only did I learn a few neat tricks about embroidery, I actually enjoyed embroidering! Unreal.
On to pictures of the finished project. Yes, I love me some shroom! The bright colours make it a cheerful piece, and the bobbles and rick-rack (which I happened to have in my stash) seemed to be the perfect finish for the tin.
A lovely pattern by Rebeka Lambert that I've been meaning to try for ages. This weekend seemed like a good time to do that...especially since it's horribly cold outside, and also because I already have all materials needed for constructing the bag (ah, the merits of having too much fabric). I decided to use a fine wale corduroy for the exterior. The finished bag was approximately 12 by 13 inches, and I'm definitely likeing the long handle strap. Good design! I don't usually care much for using patterns, but this one was a piece of cake to work with! 
Whee! I'm back from the STS meet-up in Vegas, and boy did we have fun! Aside from the usual Vegas hijinks, we also managed to fit in some quality crafting time. Before the meet-up, I was frantically working on small craft items (1/50 in 2010) to gift, AND a medium item (2/50 in 2010) for the white elephant gift exchange. Talk about swap anxiety! I knew I had to up my game because I was meeting up with a bunch of seriously talented crafters!!!
It took me awhile to figure out what to make, and I finally settled on sewing a bunch of pochettes (aka 1/50 in 2010). I don't have any pictures of the ones that were given to the girls, but here are examples of some that I made this week:
In the exchange, I received a plethora of small crafted goods from everyone...
My contribution to the white elephant gift exchange, was a knitted scarf (aka 2/50 in 2010) using the April Showers Scarf pattern. Being the procrastinator that I am, I was only 85% done with the scarf when I boarded the plane for Vegas. Thankfully, due to a significant delay in my travel plans, I finished the scarf in time for the swap. Oy vey.
Image provided by NP
And I managed to snag a couple of skeins of squishy yarn in the gift exchange!!
Other highlights of the weekend included...
A buffet of craft supplies looking for new homes...
Image provided by CDM
A mini felting marathon led by NP, in which I completed my first felt!
A duo of cards (destined to be framed and hung in my work office) that I purchased from a local artist at the First Friday event!
I can't believe how much we did in one wee weekend!!!