Craft night!

Spent my Saturday evening in, doing crafts with some cool ladies.

I made some felt flowers for a travel toiletry bag for my mom's birthday. (I'm TOTALLY addicted to these flowers and they will probably be on everything I own in, like, a week.) The bag was actually a purse I got at Target for $10, and cut the strap off.








I gave a short crochet tutorial to one of the girls so she could make an infinity scarf for her dog. It was more of a cowl, but the hostess's fine cat, Steve, modeled it.




I need to have another night like this very soon!

My sweater project

My finished project! I love it!



This was what I started with:




Scoped out some tutorials.

Added about 20 flowers. Here is my tutorial .




Kept the detail around the neckline:




And on the pockets:




It took quite some time, but I love the results!

Fabric flower tutorial

I made these great flowers for an embellished sweater project I decided to do this past week, and made a little tutorial to help out anyone else who wants to try. It looks like a lot of steps, but I wanted to make sure it made sense and any steps that were hard for me to follow were clarified a bit. Once you've made one or two, it goes very quickly! Enjoy!

Seven years of 89.3, The Current

Last night I got to go to a show at First Ave for The Current's 7th birthday celebration. I've always wanted to go, but the tickets go on sale to MPR members first, and almost always sell out before they're available to the general public. Well, I just so happen to have a friend who's a member, got tickets to both nights of the event, and offered to let me tag along for one night!

The first two acts were Low and Night Moves. Low was a bit slow for my taste, but I really liked Night Moves- 70s-ish rock 'n' roll.

The third act was Dead Man Winter, featuring members of Trampled by Turtles <3, Dave Simonett in particular. They were, of course, great.






And the final act- Tapes 'n Tapes. I've seen them, what? Maybe 6 times now? I don't even care because they're so good and I can dance like a maniac (as best as possible in a sold out show, ten feet from the stage).






They ended the show with a rendition of Purple Rain. Hooray for Minnesota music!

Oh, and First Ave got rid of that staircase that came down to the floor and blocked major sight lines. Made a HUGE difference in the flow of the place.

$5 find of the week!

So, I went to the Mall of America yesterday. I really dislike that place (partially due to a year and a half of employment there), but when looking for a very specific type of ensemble for the most fabulous gay extravaganza of the year, it does the job. Generally, I'd rather thrift, but I knew the chances of finding the right getup within the next month were slim-to-none. Not only did I find my outfit (which I will post after the event) for $12 AND another fabulous dress for $8, but I got these:



The most wonderful slippers in the entire world. $5. Urban Outfitters. I want to wear them forever.

Winter = sweater weather.

I had time to kill before class tonight, so I went to Unique Thrift. I'd never been there, but I'm always down for a new thrift store, so I checked it out. I noticed right away by the displays and tagging that it was operated by the same company as Valu Thrift, which is good, as there's a huge amount of stuff, but not so great because they mark up name brand clothing a LOT (e.g. $30 for a pair of Born flats).

So, I found a few cute sweaters. $10 and $6 for two longer cardigans. I generally prefer longer sweaters because they're comfy, warm, and I'm not constantly tugging at the hems.

After I bought them, I had a moment of inspiration and decided I'm going to embellish them! Initially I was thinking that I'd throw some felt patches on the pockets and add some birds or something, but I decided to look online and see what ideas I could find. Here are my favorites:


I adore this idea! Sachiko at Tatertots and Jello refurbished an old cardigan with bunches of flowers and I love how whimsical and fun it turned out!






This one is from The Sisters 4. I like the simplicity of it, but it's still very cute. It could probably be done with more colors for a little more excitement too!





This is actually just a dress from ModCloth, but I love the details, and it's very much what I was originally thinking about doing with my pockets.



So, once I get these sweaters washed and decide on some ideas, I'll be ready to go! Hope to finish this project within the next few days!

Bits and pieces of a weekend.

So, now that I have an Etsy shop up and running, I've been pretty consumed with crafting, taking pictures and posting things on my shop. I haven't sold anything (yet) but I hope once I get more projects completed and posted that I'll be able to get some sales!

So, this weekend consisted of a show, Paper Diamond at the Varsity. Most incredible bathrooms I've ever seen, I wish I'd taken a picture. Also, danced my butt off. It was great.




Put finishing touches on a lot of projects this weekend- sewed a little detail on this hat:





Lined some of my wallets/ pouches with cute fabric. This is one of my favorite shop items:








Ate MAD amounts of sushi with my love. He tried to teach me how to use chopsticks. Generally I opt for my fingers rather than humiliate myself by asking for a fork, but I think with practice, I'll get it down.

And started some new projects. More to see soon... I have one BIG goal that I think is going to result in some very cool projects.

Etsy!!

Hey, so I finally got around to setting up my Etsy shop! Please visit KareWares and show your support! I only have a few things up so far (my camera died after a long day of snapping pictures of my work) but I hope to get much more up soon.

Here are some samples of what is up so far:

Crashed Ice pt. 2

80,000 people came out for it yesterday. It was insane. I could not believe the crowd. People were dancing to house music and drinking Red Bull (among other things).




Picturesque surroundings.




20-some degrees. Vodka and Smart Wool socks failed to keep me warm.




Down the course to downtown.