Monday, June 28, 2010

RUBBER STAMP BOGO 50% off SALE

Here is just a sampling of some of the Hand Carved Rubber Stamps ON SALE NOW at The Star Box on Etsy. Buy One Get One of equal or lesser value 50% off.  If you love cardmaking,  rubber stamping, collage or making altered art, this sale is a must see! Check it out - and Happy Stamping :)

Snail Mail Stamp



5pc Art Doll Stamp Set


Marie Antoinette Art Doll Accessories Stamp Set


Chandelier Stamp


PostCard Stamp Set


Skeleton Keys Stamp Set

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Faerie Cakes, Birthday Wishes, and Spinning!

What better treat for a Birthday Girl than creamy rich chocolate Faerie Cakes complete with wings and Faerie Dust! These scrumptious little morsels were made especially for me by my cousin Holly Marie! Check out her blog sometime for wonderful knitting patterns, knitting, spinning and yarnie goodness too. These Faerie Cakes were first seen on a lovely little blog called Attic 24! These were made using a Salad Dressing Cake Recipe and my cousin's own recipe for butter cream frosting. I have asked her for the frosting recipe, but she says it's a secret and refuses to give it up!

These are pics of a batt I carded and spun up on Friday. It is a blend of all different fibers in shades of blue and sprinkled with brighter colors. It is mostly corriedale with some bamboo, merino, mohair, silk noil, angora, and firestar for sparkle. I call it Metropolis, and I have plans to knit something pretty with it.


I was able to get in a bit of spinning today in the sunshine! I stayed up late last night and carded up a batt of various shades of orange and blended it with yellow, pink, magenta, purple, blue, blood orange, and white with some firestar for sparkle. I started spinning it this morning and as of right now, it is all done. I will skein it up tomorrow and set the twist. You will find this yarn available on My Etsy by Tuesday.





I am going to be pretty busy this week getting batt samples together for the July Phat Fiber Box, and I am also submitting some items for The Spotted Box Sampler, so I will try my best to blog each evening and share little glimpses of my life with you. I am still working on the studio revamping and finishing up orders for my other Etsy Shop, and I hope to have some new stamps for sale soon as well.

Happy Spinning!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Bashful Handspun Yarn

I am so excited! I just sold my first handspun skein on my new Michigan Spinning Etsy Shoppe! I purchased this Merino Alpaca Fiber from Jehovah Jireh Farm at the recent Fiber and Animals Fest held right here in Marshall on June 12th.

I call it Bashful and it was single spun on my Kromski Minstrel and measures 271 yds at 12wpi and now it's SOLD! YAY!





I am still working on Revamping the Studio. No pics yet, it is still a mess, but there has certainly been some progress. I hope to have it all completed tomorrow night, but we'll see what happens.

Still working on Stamp Orders. Every day brings more orders in and I am very thankful for each and every one and for the Lord's blessing and provision.

Lord willing, I will have some time tomorrow to card some new batts and add some more items to Michigan Spinning on Etsy.

Have a good night :)

Friday, June 18, 2010

Revamping the Studio!

Spontaneous Combustion Batt 5.6 ounces! This is the one batt I didn't sell at the Festival
So I spun it up myself and will share some pics of it in tomorrow's post.

I realize I haven't blogged in a while and I promise to rectify that shortly. When I first started my blog I had envisioned writing daily posts and then it dwindled down to weekly posts, and now sadly I am lucky to post once a month.

Well, I am making a commitment that I will blog everyday from here on out. You are my witnesses, and I expect you to hold me to it and call me out if I fail to follow thru! It is a wonderful thing to be able to share the projects and accomplishments of the day, as well as brainstorming sessions, new projects and patterns, dreams and goals for future endeavors with all of you. Currently I am reorganizing my Studio to fit all of my new Vintage Fabrics and supplies as well as to set up a fiber prep station for carding my batts and storing my raw and dyed fibers. I will share some pics of the new set-up tomorrow.

I am extremely excited to be starting 2 new business ventures this month. My Michigan Spinning store is up and running on Etsy and soon will also be accessible at www.michiganspinning.com and I just opened a vintage inspired shop on Etsy called Sew Simply Vintage where I will be selling handmade aprons, household linens, baby linens and various other vintage and vintage inspired items.

My Star Box Shop is still going strong and will now be devoted to handcarved stamps and paper crafts only. I will be submitting some new stamp designs to The Spotted Box sampler box for July so be sure to check it out!

On the fiber front, I will be a contributor to July's Phat Fiber Sampler box as well. I am ecstatic over that and hope to send in enough samples to get a sampler box of my very own! We'll see if I can manage 50 samples this month. Expect to see samples from Michigan Spinning frequently in the Phat Fiber Sampler Box as I am determined to join in every month.

My first Fiber Festival event was on Saturday June 12th and went over pretty well. My cousin joined me, and I am thankful she did because I was not 100% ready for the event and my booth would have been a pitiful display without her. I did sell what I had, but I wish I was able to accomplish more in time for the show. The small success has encouraged me though, and my next show will be very well stocked. I spun up 4 skeins of yarn from Saturday to Monday and I am currently knitting with one, and the other 3 are going up for sale on the Michigan Spinning Etsy shop, so check them out.

On the home front, the family and I went out to pick strawberries at a local farm yesterday and so now I have 9 quarts of strawberries in my kitchen just waiting to become freezer jam, strawberry syrup, shortcake topping and maybe even a pie! It is way too hot, 90 degrees, to stoke up the stove today, so I am going to process all my strawberries bright and early tomorrow morning! I will definitely share some pics at the end of the day :)

Next post: Strawberries, New Studio Space, Carded Batts, Current Knitting projects, new yarns...............just for starters!