Cross Stitch Craftin', starting the year off right!

For the Christmas of 2013 my amazing friend and co-blogger Anita cross stitched this fantastic group of ninjas from one of my favorite animes.  I mean can you believe the amount of fun and silliness she stitched into that piece? It makes me incredibly happy every time I see it; I want to pinch their chubby little ninja cheeks.  Something I can only assume would be very upsetting to a bad to the bone ninja.

These cute little guys are from an anime called Naruto.  Anita found the pattern for these adorable chubbsters on Etsy that had been created by Clouds Factory.  All you have to do is buy the PDF and you are ready to go nuts.  I am touched that she put so much time and effort into that gift; it is quite the cross stitch gift!  My favorite character in the series is a secondary one so he rarely shows up in anything you can buy, let alone something as creatively crafty as cross stitch.  I have an entire wall in my home dedicated to art work of him I have collected over the years at Anime and Comic book Conventions.  I have had to commission every piece since most artists have never even heard of him, but that means I can pick an artist based on their style and approach to subjects and not be stuck with only pre-printed materials to choose from.  After I got the cute collection from Anita I knew wanted to make a small one of my ninja to match.  I dreamed up this idea back in 2013 and after a loverly bout with the flu this past week I finally got the job done.

I made a list right after New Years of crafts I want to get done in 2015 and the little ninja cross stitch and a bigger piece of his name to officially title my art collection wall made it to the top of that list.  Thankfully, the weekend before I got sick I had gone to the fabric store to grab some discounted Christmas fabrics and the supplies for these two cross stiches just in case the weather turned yucky and I was trapped indoors I would have something to keep me busy.  Good thing I made that trip! I had what I needed when my health took a turn for the boogery to keep occupied while ill.  I do interject that I kept my hands clean and did not get face fluids on my work!  I designed my first piece after the pattern by Clouds Factory.  She is the one that created the adorable chubbiness for the ninjas and I give her full credit, I just took the dimensions she had and made my character fit them.  Clouds Factory I am in your debt!

The second piece I put together using some cross stitch alphabet reference books I had.  To be honest I had no idea I even had these books, but after a very unsuccessful run on Pinterest to find a font I wanted to use my brain kicked in and reminded me that I should look through my craft booklets to see what I had.  I found the big “K” and fell in love with its design.  It is decorative but not curvy, the straight lines feel manlier here, and the little crosses in within the letter I thought looked like little ninja throwing stars, makes me smile just thinking about it.  I used the red and yellow for the “K” to add color and tie in the symbol on his outfit.  I used a different blockier design for the rest of the letters in black to finish out the name simply and cleanly.

Now I have lots of art up on my wall of my ninja and framing all of it could have cost a small crafters fortune, but I am a thrifty framer.  I keep my eye out for inexpensive frames at thrift stores and garage sales and keep a few on hand.  They will all be spray painted black so color or texture doesn’t matter.  I don’t get such a massive stock going that I am over run; two or three waiting in the wings is perfect.  I knew that little cross stitch of the chubby ninja was going to need a small frame so when I spied that small ornate one at a thrift store several months ago I grabbed it up and spray painted it black.  It has been patiently waiting ever since.  My wall is almost complete, only a few more small pieces will fit.  I will only buy art that will fit in my empty wall space and therefore I will pick small frames to buy.  I am proud of my wall of ninjas and that someone I love has created an inspiring piece for me really makes it complete.

Stay warm and stay crafty!

Kelly

Christmas Gifts in review

So after reading Kelly's sweet post about the anime cross stitch I gave her for Christmas I realized I never showed you all the finished products that I made for everyone.  I was a cross stitching fool for about 2 months in order to get all these done in time and I'm proud to say even early.  Before I could even begin, though, I had to turn the tangled mess you see above into some recognizable supplies.

I only had to buy about 5 colors for all these projects!  I had everything else in my flossy arsenal.  I used 14ct cross stitch fabric for each one that I bought, with a coupon, at my local Joann.  

I purchased all the patterns on Etsy as digital downloads, hooray instant gratification.  I also decided to frame almost all of them which was an excuse to use my dusty matt cutter.  Here's the details on each one.

Kelly's pattern was easy to pick and her's is what started it all.  I was wasting some time surfing around etsy when I came across a shop called Clouds Factory.  Instantly I knew this was the direction my Christmas crafts were headed.  I hadn't done a serious cross stitch project in years.....like over 10 years to be exact.  It was time to refresh an old craft.  After looking around I noticed she actually had a pattern for Kelly's fave anime comic.  Now I'm not well versed in the anime genre but I remembered the name of this one.  After contacting a mutual friend to double check it was the same comic she always talked about this pattern was my first download.  Here's another picture of how it came out.  

Laura's was a pretty easy decision too.  If you know her you'll understand why.  Clouds Factory has multiple Dr. Who patterns, yes multiple.  I picked the one that I thought I could get done in time and here was my second purchase.  I got lucky too cuz I actually already had a frame that it would fit in too.  

Here is Katy's.

This hedgehog pattern came from Cupcake Cutie.  I have to say I breezed through everything until that blue background.  I spent an entire 7 hour drive home from Minnesota with blue floss and still wasn't done by the time we got home.  I really didn't want to see that color for a while but it turned out super cute.  There's something about woodland creatures that always makes me smile.

The pattern I picked for Sarah went in a bit of a different direction.  I wanted to do something festive for the season.  I had been eyeballing this pattern from Pattern Bird.  I love the skandinavian feel of the white and red.  I ended up doing something a little different with this one as well.  I left it unframed and gave it to Sarah as a kit to make into a pillow.

Wow that was a lot of stitchin!  I'll admit I would get hand cramps from binge stitching sessions but one of my fave part about making these was the making of these.  I got to have lots of snuggle chair time in the lay-z-boy with my pooches as I worked.  There's something very comforting about having a pup, or two, in your lap while crafting.  

Stitch on!
Anita

My newest obsession and a beauitful gift

Let me start off with a heartfelt thank you to my fantastic co-blogger Anita.  She made me one of the most wonderful nerdy gifts I have ever gotten.  I like the anime, ok, I love the anime! Anita gets me so well that she handmade me this cross stitch art for Christmas out of my favorite Japanese cartoon!

I was blown away.  I can cross stitch just fine, but the amount of time that must have taken her to complete this boggles the mind.  It took me years to do a Footprints cross stitch.for my dad and she managed to finish this in a few weeks.  She got the pattern off of Etsy and chugged on through each and every of these cute little ninjas.  My partner here at Rhinestone is so amazing and I want the entire internets to know it!

Thank you so much Anita, it is one of my treasures on the wall of ninja!

While I was visiting my mom during Christmas I fell in love with a new craft medium....para cord.  I made my self one of those para cord bracelets last year after I couldn't find one that I liked.  I know I'm a girl but I don't want to wear eighties teal and pink no matter what some folks say.  I went with camo and have been very happy with it.  I have a long commute and I wanted to spice up my jeep for the long haul.  During the Spring and Fall the sun is right in my eyes and the sun visor just doesn't cut it.  So I decided to create a set of "oh shit" handles for the Wrangler.  The handles would give my hand a perfect place to rest during the commute and block the sun from my eyes at the same time.  

I made a couple of bracelets to fit the inside roll bars and used "d" rings to hold them together with the grip in the middle.  They didn't take long at all to make and I was kind of sad when they were over and completed.

I like working with the para cord so much I decide to make a matching set for the Jeep in other places other than the roof, lets talk doors and glove compartment.    

I had purchased the glove compartment swing and door swing in a flame pattern to dress up the vehichle when I got it.

I am going to make these out of the same camo I made the handles out of.  I love my car and I like using my creativity to update her.  She is an '06 with almost 200,000 miles on her and she is going strong!   I can't wait for this painful winter to be over so I can clean her up and trick her out Rhinestone style!

Keeping it so very cold,

Kelly 

Cross Stitch Peegs!

So this post is going to start out with a little love for my co-blogger Anita.  I have many crafts that need doing, so many in fact that I oft get overwhelmed by them.  I get to a point that I have no idea in what order to do them in, so much so that I actually do none instead.  I wish I could assign them an importance ranking like at a job so that I knew the pjs for the husband come before the string wrapped eggs for Easter. 



I think to myself Anita seems to have all her crafts in line like baby duckies behind their momma maybe I should ask her.  I admit she does have a lot of crafts up there in that nugget of hers, but she can whip one out and get it done in any situation, boy scout style! Sinking ship, no problem, Anita has a craft for that.  So I asked her how she gets this all planned out with no stress. No kidding she had the most simple answer ever: is it family/dog/tv time, then your craft is one you can work on with just your hands, alone/day off/or can't take another minute of daytime tv time, you pick a more long term craft and settle down for the fun.  Why? Why has this taken me so long to figure out? I know a smart thing when I hear it, so as I set off down the path of tv and husband time, which included NASCAR and a very shirtless Bond movie, I pulled out a cross stitch craft I had started in, I kid you not, 2001.



I recently cleaned out my craft binders, also known as the keepers of all my "some day" craft ideas, and found a partially finished guinea pig cross stitch bookmark I had started forever ago.  With Anita's words ringing in my ears I set to work.  I may have underestimated the time required to complete each piggie on the canvas, "oh yeah I bet I can do one piggy in 20 minutes", um no, but I have completed it with pride and on time for blogging.  This bookmark is going to be donated to the Critter Corral guinea pig rescue to help raise some funds for them and the awesome work they do.  It is time to send out our donation and I think this little something extra will fit quite nicely in the envelope. We have adopted several guineas from them and love their rescue dearly. 



A big thank you to my friend Anita who shined light on a very smart bit of crafting wisdom and showed me the way.........to the sewing machine.

Keeping it moving,
Kelly, the origami ninja



P.S. Wednesday night my man gets to play Red Dead Redemption on the PS3 so sewing craft it is!