Did I tell you that Chloë has opened her own Etsy shop? I think I have, but in case I haven't, it's called Crafting With Curls. I suggested the name, and she liked it right off, so we went with that. Simple and cute.
It all started with the bottle caps.
I had hundreds of them, given to me by fellow local Freecyclers, supposedly for a craft that I was going to do with my Daisy troop. Well, that didn't pan out, so I've been staring at this huge bucket of bottle caps stored under my desk for, like, six months at least. They were driving me crazy.
So, finally, a trip to Michaels later, I had the resin and its hardening catalyst, all kinds of clearanced doo-dads, and other cute crafty things in hand. I got to work. The results, at first, SUCKED. I let Chloë list those gooey, tacky, non-hardened bottlecaps on her website, and guess what? They sold right off the bat. Crazy, but yay!
Then she wanted to get involved. I love doing crafts, she loves doing crafts, and I love doing things with her, so of course I let her go crazy. I gave her my Martha Stewart 1" circle punch, a whole crapload of scrap, uh, scrapping paper, and the myriad doodads I had collected.
She went to town.
Literally. We had to go to town, to Walmart, to get a bunch of button magnets and thumb tacks for her creations. She made lots and lots of sets, some random, some - to my mind - more coherent, and I dutifully mixed up the resin and set them in acrylic stone. I wouldn't let her touch that part; not at nine years old. Am I wrong? Anyway, she can't stand the smell - nor can anyone else in the fam-damily except for me - so she probably wouldn't.
Then came the frogs. One of our newest friends, whom I'll call Posy, loves frogs of all kinds. We couldn't find ANYthing suitable at the stores to put in bottlecaps of a froggal nature, so we made our own with paper. Aren't they cute? I think Posy liked them, as she snapped them right up out of the shop.
And that got us started on making all sorts of sets with paper and clip-art, which you can check out in Chloë's shop. The only problem now is that we've actually run OUT of those bottle caps, which I thought would never happen in a million years (seriously, there were SO many), and now I need to source more. Because Curls has LOTS of ideas for more sets, and I would like to see them come to fruition. She's become the little business-woman, putting her earnings in her 'save' section of the special piggy bank, toward her trip to the American Girl store in D.C. for her birthday coming up in Septiembre.
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Meanwhile, the kids have been sick for the past couple of weeks, and it's been hotter'n blue blazes both inside the house and out, so I haven't done much myself besides crafting, too.
Ha, I forgot about the caption in some of the listing pictures in my shop, Smellyann's Stitches. I had a ton of felt to use up, mostly scraps, and I started sewing some tiny (and some less so) little pouches for fun. Then I got out my container of brads and eyelets and started hammering eyelets into all the pouches, and adorning them with all manner of ribbon and rick-rack and lace, or whatever. You can see them in my shop. I've made 15 or so, having hand-sewn at least 7 or 8 of those while we were in Charleston for a few days this past week! (Yes, I brought my hammer and everything to Charleston. I am admittedly nuts.)
Now that I'm done to the really itty-bitty felt scraps, I've moved on to making headbands with other things I've collected over the years. Scraps of tulle, silk and ceramic flowers, the elastic bands I used for my tutus back in the olden days, and lots and lots of ribbon. I've got four or five that I made tonight but haven't listed yet, in case you're checking them out and, you know, what to go "favoriting" my things.
Oh, and the exciting thing, besides selling six of her sets, was that Chloë was featured in her first Etsy treasury! I don't even think that I have had that honor, so I'm very proud of her. Once she understood what that meant, she was quite excited, as well.
Oh, I forgot. As well, Chloë commandeered some toilet paper rolls, lots of my ribbon, and my glue gun, to make these streamer thingies. I don't know if any of them will sell, but they're quite pretty, and I enjoy looking at them in her special "for sale" bin that I've set up.
She's making these too-cute personalized door hangers, too, though no one has ordered any of those from her yet, either. I love that she snipped up some yellow foam item or other to make the ë right in her name!
So, I think she and I will do some craft fairs together this fall, and earn her a little spending money to buy accessories for her American Girl that she'll be getting for her 10th birthday. (Ten! Oh, my word.) And maybe I'll sell a few things, too, to help pay the bills and stuff. That's why I'm so busy crafting. I need to contribute somehow; times are tough. Really tough. But that's a whole 'nother post; one I might bring you later on after I list these other headbands on Etsy.
Now if only I had a head to model them on... guess I'll have to use my globe. Ha!
Take care, and get your craft on, peeps!
Fin.
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