New items in my Etsy shop

I added five new items to my Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/DeniseDoesCouture) yesterday. Click on each image to take you to the shop page, where you can see more photos and read more descriptive information, if you feel so inclined..

A dark yellow hand-knitted scarf...

A Gold tone Seahorse ring....

 A Glittery Blue button ring...

 A Baby Pink Bow hair barrette...

 A Black Bow hair barrette...

I'm working on a lot of different projects right now and hope to be adding a few more things over the course of this week.

a sewing machine of my own!

I set up my new sewing machine today. I haven't threaded my own sewing machine and bobbin since I was a teenager, though I usually did it wrong back then and majorly screwed everything up. I feel accomplished. 

I had been going over to my friend's place for our arts & crafts nights (also an Etsy user: www.etsy.com/shop/stuch) and seeing her using her sewing machine sparked something in me. I eventually got her to let me use it (though she didn't mind of course):

...and I was terribly delighted. I asked for a similar model for Christmas, and I got it. I got the Singer Esteem II. It's a start.

So....today I watched the instructional DVD, read some of the handbook, and I got it set up and ready to go. Just now I was sewing for about five minutes and my bobbin thread tangled and pulled the thread from the needle down into the bobbin pit. Argh. This is not good for my esteem, "Esteem". 

That's fine. I wont be discouraged. 

Back to the handbook we go...

Etsy

     In early October of this year I decided to jump on the Etsy bandwagon. I've known about Etsy for a long time, but had never considered myself the type to actually open up an account of my own, until recently. My experience so far has been a good one. Etsy has proven to be a great community of artists offering handmade and original items. I have so far had four sales of my own, but am still slowly building up the inventory in my shop. Here's a widget preview of some of my items:

Etsy DeniseDoesCouture

12.28.2010

In an attempt to not overwhelm my LiveJournal friends with post after post of things related to arts & crafts, I've decided to create this public journal, with the intention of using it for discussing my arts & crafts projects. A few months ago I completed a wall-mountable art decor mirror. It's too heavy to sell on my Etsy and thus have to ship, so I'm hanging onto it for an upcoming craft fair. I don't mind. I kind of dig it, but something about it seems really dark to me as well. It's impossible to photograph; there is no justice here:

I recently got a sewing machine and I'm pretty excited about it. I have a vintage Oscar De La Renta sewing pattern for a skirt suit, which is way too formal for my current place of employment so I'll probably not get to wear it anytime soon, but this wont stop me from sewing it up. Other sewing projects I'm planning on are a quilted throw blanket, and a decorative 12x12 inch pillow with the fabric from a vintage Popeye and Olive Oil sweater from when I was a tot in the 1980's.
I am currently in the process of knitting two scarves, which must be completed before I will allow myself to move on to my next project, which would be one of the above mentioned sewing ideas. That's enough of an introduction for now, I suppose.