Porcelain Doll Days

Good Morning All. Well I have been adding dolls eyes to my Etsy Fickle Crafters page all week. I'm still not done! I created porcelain dolls for about 6 years and during that time I have collected lots of supplies from eyes to patterns to trims.... Whatever you can think of most likely. I really enjoyed making the dolls as I added that craft to my "ceramic" history. My parents opened a retail/wholesale ceramics shop after my Dad retired from the Navy and I worked there. I poured more molds than I could ever count as we supplied all of the local military bases, all of the local retail shops and individuals and held classes on site. I began pouring porcelain for my Mom who finished (china painted ) the reproduction dolls and then I designed and made the clothes. I began doing my own and was hooked. That was when I first began selling my hand crafts to the public. I designed what I called the "wiggle baby" which was a small porcelain doll with porcelain head, hands and feet and a soft body. I dressed her (as with many of my babies) in a long christening gown. The special part was the mechanisim I placed in her head and neck that made her look like she was actually wiggling. The local television station picked up on the wiggle baby "craze" and did a clip on it. If I can ever find it and transfer it off the VHS tape it's now on, I'll post it. I'll add some pics to Flickr of some of my favorite dolls that I kept. Porcelain dolls ended after the 3rd back surgery so I moved on to corn shuck dolls. Once again, that's another story for another day.
Happy crafting,
Lisa

My fiber travels

Yep, I do love fiber. I have uploaded a bunch of photos to Flickr from a few of my fiber crafts from the last 2 years.
Rug hooking was fun but took a long time. I started doing smaller and smaller projects and then I remembered crewel. In my guild (AlbemarleCraftsman's Guild) there was a wonderful older lady who did beautiful Crewel. I always admired her work but at that time I was into porcelain dolls. From there I went to cornshuck dolls - Oh that's another story for another day. Anyway... I did enough crewel to have a booth in the Albemarle Craftsman's Fair and did quite well that year. Cindy shared a booth with me as it was her first year with her quilling.
I began combining hand embroidery with crewel pieces and also with the rug hooking. I haven't done any rug hooking in a while but I still love embroidery as there is always a new stitch to learn.
So then it was off to needle felting - I saw it on Etsy and was hooked before I even tried it. I have done a little wet felting and last week tried nuno felting. Now that ended up wrong. I had thought about doing some cobweb felting and that's what this turned in to - kinda. My wool didn't bond completely to the fabric and I just went ahead and pulled it all off. I really do like the piece I ended up with but will try to figure out the nuno-felting again. I used an organza fabric instead of the silk piece I also purchased. I guess I'll try with the silk. Anyone have any suggestions?
I think I may stay with felting a while as there are different techniques and projects that I would like to try. Stay tuned and I'll talk about my sculpey days too!
Happy crafting,
Lisa

Wow, have we been out of service a while or what? Well, now that the day job is history, I have added the books back to our etsy page -ficklecrafters- I've combined some books to create collections of 3 - 4 books. I have several vintage books available and will (hopefully) be adding some other items soon. One glance in my craft closets and I have seen doll eyes and doll making supplies, jewelry supplies, fabric, fabric, fabric...... and much more. I even have a lot of odds and ends of when I sculpted Santas and dressed them. I'll get there eventually. Right now I'm into felting. I began with needle felting, moved on to wet felting and am now trying to figure out nuno felting. Anyway, I'm having fun and that's what it's all about. One day I might even add some finished work to our other etsy page - fiberfamily-
Time will tell......... Happy crafting
Lisa

Is it bad?

Cindy here.

Is it bad that I want to do 2, no 3, new crafts? All at the same time? How about if I don't know how to actually do any of them? No? I can learn them? All at the same time? See, I really think I'm just a tiiiiiny bit ADD. Maybe ADHD. Sure, I've never been diagnosed, but my brother has. And my Mom & I have self diagnosed ourselves. Anyway, that's another story.

I want to learn to make (and sell succesfully on Etsy) children's hair bows. They are seriously the cutest things ever. And from what I have seen, they sell really well. My quilling...not so well. I also want to make camera straps. I just purchased a new Canon Rebel, and would love to have one of those fancy-dancy straps that make you look oh-so-cool. I also want to learn digital scrapbooking. And how to be a decent photographer. And how to design blogs. And all the good stuff that goes along with that.

Hmmm...are you getting why we call ourselves Fickle Crafters?

De-cluttering -Sharing - out of space

Hi all,
Well I have been busy adding how-to books to our Fickle Crafters Etsy shop. Man, I never knew we had soooo many books! I've added about half of what we are planning on adding but I'm too lazy today to work on it. Must be the rain. It's a dreary day here but we need the rain.
I will be adding doll supplies next. I have a slew of doll eyes and other stuff related to doll making. I'm thinking about adding some of my porcelain doll parts but don't know if anyone will be interested.
Anyway, back to watching DIY- I may see something else I'd like to try...
Happy crafting everyone!

Upcoming Fine Arts Festival

Anyone interested in coming to the East Coast? The 3rd Annual Harbor Arts Festival is looking for artists, photographers and craftsmen who are interested in participating in this wonderful juried show. The show, held May 2 & 3 is located downtown on the banks of the Pasquotank River. This quaint historical town is a great town to visit and is located within an hour of Norfolk, Cheasapeake and Virginia Beach, Va and an hour from the NC Outer Banks. Lots of visitors to the event and if you come Saturday, you can attend the fun Taste of the Albemarle. Visit http://www.artsofthealbemarle.com/ for more info.

My first blog attempt

By Lisa:
Well, here I am. Yep, the original "Wow I want to learn how to do that -Ok I'm bored with that -" Oh let me try that." I have created and sold at craft fairs and galleries porcelain dolls, corn shuck dolls, corn shuck flowers and wreaths, wheat weaving, polymer clay figurines and jewelry, polymer clay Santas, embroidery and crewel, rug hooking and too many more to list! I have now found wool felting and I can combine all of my loves with that craft. I began with needle felting and making bears and animals-proceeded onto jewelry where I discovered wet felting and making sheets of multi-colored wool fabric (which I haven't decided what I'm going to do with yet) and of course had to incorporate wire wrapping with the jewelry and then back to needle felting on clothing - YIKES- I really love this craft. I can use my hand embroidery, crewel and rug hooking as well as sewing with any part of this craft. So for now-this is it. I hope to post some pictures soon so I can share some of my favorite designs. Happy felting!

I got a Cricut!

I got a new toy this week! I was watching TV (aka infomercial), and saw a program on the Cricut. I have seen them before, but had no idea how much it could do! After watching the program, I was convinced I needed one. Not wanted one, I needed one. Right then. I shopped Ebay & various websites through the weekend, and ended up purchasing the Cricut Expressions from Wal-Mart. I have purchased two cartridges off of Ebay, for less than half of the cost of what I found in-store. So, that means I have a total of 3 cartridges. I have the Palotino Storybook, (came with the machine) new Home Accents, and Mini Monograms.

Does anyone have any tips, and what are your favorite cartridges?

Quilling tip of the day

Here's a tip, one that I learned the hard way. I made this cute little daisy card, embellished with some embossing around the edge (which doesn't show up very well in the pictures).

When I looked at it today (after all the glue dried), I realized I made a boo-boo. One that I cannot fix, and will probably have to throw away the whole dang card for. See if you can spot it...

Do you see it? If not, here is a close up...

What is it, you ask? Well, those orange/brown spots in the center of the top two petals are...rust. Yep, rust. It is visible in each petal, but most visible in the top two. How in the world did I manage to get rust on my beautiful flower creation? Well, it goes like this. The other night, it was last when I was cleaning up my supplies. I mistakenly grabbed the wrong pin to insert into the glue bottle. This is what my bottle looks like - it has the fine tip, which makes gluing small projects oh so much easier.

When I pulled the pin out yesterday to begin my quilling, the glue at the top of the tube was brown with rust. So, I thought that I cleaned it out well enough, didn't see any brown tinged glue when testing it, and proceeded to make my project. After gluing the flower together, I went ahead and glued it down to my card. Little did I know that when it dried, it would be spotted brown. Ugh! Dang it, and I really liked this card, too! Lesson of the day: use the RUST PROOF pin in the glue bottle.

Paper Quilling Intro

Finally! A real post on our new blog! My name is Cindy, and my Mom & I have opened our own little shop on Etsy, selling various crafts that we make. I do paper quilling, embossing, and basically paper-related crafts. Each of us will try to blog at least a couple times a week on the crafts we are working on, or different little tips and tricks.

I have been quilling for a little over 3 years now. I saw it is a book, purchased the supplies, and taught myself. Paper quilling is a simple craft, and to make the different shapes, you twirl a piece of paper around a tool, let the shae expand, and form it into the shape you desire. Here are a few photos of projects I have completed.

As of right now, each of these are for sale on our Etsy site. We have many more, so please check us out. Enjoy!

More to come soon!

We are just getting our blog set up, and promise to have updates soon, so please check back!!! It will be worth your time!