Cleaning and Crafting

I spent an inordinate amount of time today cleaning up and organizing my sewing room. What a great feeling to have everything put away, nice and neat and uncluttered! Once I got that done, I went and messed it all up again making Easter/spring/Martha Stewart things!

Remember those pipe cleaners I was dyeing last night? I used them to make those little chicks above, a la Martha. I don't think mine are quite as cute and fluffy as hers, but they have a certain appeal. These babies are tiny! In fact, I'm not quite sure what I'll do with them. My two cats, on the other hand, know EXACTLY what they want to do with them. I'm not sure they realize they're made out of pipe cleaners. I caught the young cat trying to carry one off, and the old cat was eyeing them pretty closely too.

Once I finished a suitable sampling of chicks, I moved on to the bunnies. Kind of cute, but again pretty small.



Kind of goofy too. Why do their whiskers look more like arms? Probably because I'm not Martha! Martha also made some cute little carrots to go with the bunnies, but she used Fimo clay to form the carrots and then wrapped them like the eggs (below). I don't have Fimo clay, so I'm trying to think of something else I can use. Any suggestions?

Finally, I tried wrapping an egg. Not too bad. In the magazine, Martha has eggs on candlesticks, which seems a decent way to get a photo since they just roll around on the table otherwise. My plan, though, is to make several more and put them all in a basket or bowl for display. (That's one of the pair of candlesticks I bought at the Department 56 store in S.F.--I need to get some candles for those.)


Time to go clean up that sewing room again. Sheesh!

Later Note: A friend said my bunnies look like space aliens! OMG, they do! LOL!

I'm NOT Martha Stewart!

Despite Kairle's kind comments about my decorating abilities, I have to post a disclaimer here. I'm not Martha Stewart! Nope, I've never even really liked watching her much. It's not that I don't think she has some great ideas--she does! Good taste too. It's just that she seems so rigid and "proper." Oh, and probably the WORST transgression in my book--very little sense of humor! Nope, I'm not Martha Stewart. Not tonight, anyway. I'm trying to be, but I'm not sure it's working.

If you've read my blog lately, I've had a couple posts about spring decorating and I'm really ready for it, but I can't seem to find decorative "stuff" I like this year. I have a cupboard in a spare bedroom where I keep seasonal and holiday decorations, and while I can't even come close to saying that the cupboard is bare, it certainly doesn't seem to hold anything remotely "springy." It's a long story, but I've been kind of anti-pastel for awhile, which would explain the lack of spring decor, but surely I've done SOMETHING to decorate the house the last few years, haven't I? Hummm. So, off I went to Michael's, searching for "good" spring or Easter decorations. Nope. Not much other than plastic Easter eggs, poorly painted ceramic figurines, and silk flowers, which are okay but not what I had in mind. Maybe eBay? Well, yeah, there are some things I like there--okay, more than "some"--but I don't want to spend a whole lot of money and have to wait a couple weeks before anything arrives. (I had a good chance on a Buy it Now auction for a couple Lu Ray serving pieces but I wanted to think about it a little. Oops! Gone! Yep, I thought it was a good buy! LOL!)

So I put the question to my online quilt group: Do you know of any cute spring decoration/craft ideas? Well, they certainly did! Several had read this month's issue of Martha Stewart Living and were kind enough to steer me in that direction.

Okay, have you ever dyed pipe cleaners? That's what I'm doing now. Why can't you just BUY them in the right colors? Having spent what seemed like hours at the craft store, I came home laden with two bags of styrofoam eggs, pipe cleaners, fabric dye, pom poms, tiny ribbon flowers, and various different strings, yarns, and threads for wrapping and decorating eggs. Seems like it's going to take awhile, particularly if having to hand dye pipe cleaners is any indication. And what I thought were reasonably sized bunnies and chicks turn out to be pretty tiny. A couple inches. I'll need a whole herd of each, I think. So that's what I'll be doing this weekend. Hopefully I'll have something to share with you in the next few days. At least I should have some nice hand dyed pipe cleaners, if nothing else. Unless the dye doesn't take. After all, I did tell you, didn't I, that I'm NOT Martha Stewart?!