Oodles of Updates

I survived my travels, despite delays and detainment. (Awesome! Not.)

I've finally adjusted to the 13 hour time difference. (I'm now a time travelling machine!)

Since being back I've enjoyed many swims at the local lakes and beaches, umpteen BBQs, a fair share of rum and cokes, and a ride around the trail. (And maintained my pale skin so far so good.)

I've got some sewing done, though mostly hems and corrections. I've a new purse in the making but not much to show for it right now. Soon!

I've got a bunch of jewellery made/started that I'm really proud of. (Here and here.)

Although I mostly use tumblr now for general life updates, I figured I'd let anyone who's still following me on blogger know what's what. 

I split my shop into two divisions and opened a new etsy shop for one. Tamed Raven Designs is now for the weird, quirky things. 

Like these.

The new shop, called Eltu, hosts the eco friendly, recycling fueled pieces like the spoons, shells, and some new designs I'm working on. 

Like these ones.

Since I'm only home for the summer I'm currently just working on jewellery for the shops, and will continue with the purses and clothing when we finally settle back in Canada, whenever that may be. A small price to pay to see the world and take part in all these experiences.

I'm thoroughly enjoying spending my days making things instead of running off my feet selling coffee or candy, and spending time with family and friends. I hope all your summers are going just as well. 

Tutorial: Painted Glitter Heels

Glitter shoes became immensely popular quite fast, but they seemed like such a pain with the layers upon layers of mod podge, glitter, mod podge, glitter, mod podge.. Not to mention when you walk it would crease the fabric and you would lose your glitter..

These shoes are much more subtle, and guaranteed to not lose glitter on me! Plus it's the perfect way to spruce up a pair of nude pumps and give them some more 'oomph!'. 

I chose my base colour as a frosty mint, and added two coats to the back of the shoes. I also painted the back of the heel itself, but stopped at the area that touches the ground. No point in painting that part, I say.

I let those two coats dry overnight to ensure that they were, in fact, dry. After that I started on the glitter coats. The first coat does a light splattering of glitter. The second coat really pumps it up because the first coat gives it a rough feel so the glitter really has something to stick to. And, if any spots were missed, your base coat will take care of that and no one will notice!

I smoothed out the glitter and made sure it was all laying flat, and now they're ready to go!

Easy peasy, now go rock your new glam kicks!!!

Note: You should clean the area before painting, and tape off the parts of the shoe you don't want painted just in case. I had no tape so I made sure to be extra careful. 

The two brands of nail polish I used are ones I found here in China. They're soooooo nice, I want to buy every colour the store has!

Follow Me Elsewhere!!!

The apartment is torn apart, things are packed, thrown out or waiting for a place to go.
Vaccines have been given, insurance bought and things cancelled.

This is happening!

I'm going to be away from the computer for a bit, and I'm not sure where I'll be able to post things once I get there. The best way to get updates for now will be through instagram and tumblr, and so I highly suggest you follow me on those for fun updates about adventures and crafty fun in China!

Easily manageable haircut for my travels. 

We went to see Winterlude on Valentine's Day. 

Packing up a book I forgot I had.

Dad's up visiting and helping us move our stuff. Please ignore all the crap in the background. :)

Dry Splatter Mani

I had a lot of fun with this one, also made a grand mess.

Instead of using nail polish and a straw with a normal splatter mani, I used a makeup brush loaded with loose pigment and tapped off the excess onto the nails. 

My colour choices. Next time I'll use much brighter colours, and maybe a base colour instead of clear.

How to:
Apply your base coat to a couple of nails, and start picking colours to put on your brush and tap over the nail so the pigment falls off. Once you figure the polish is probably dry, blow away the excess and add a top coat.

Too big dress to funky apron!

I bought this dress ages ago and it sat in my 'to reconstruct' pile for a very long time. I took it apart, put it partially back together, decided I didn't like my original plans for it and took it apart again. Then it sat for some more time.

Whoa buddy.

The other night I decided to finally make myself an apron and whipped this up. Didn't take too long and it does the trick. See? I already got flour and banana bread batter on it.

{We're still waiting for news on when we may be going.. Hopefully we'll here something soon. I'm put everything half off in the store with the coupon code 'CHINA' so if you're looking at something this will be the last sale for a while!}

Box Set

I ordered some earring bezels before Christmas and have finally gotten around to photographing some of the sets I've made with spoon pendants. I just love how these came out. 

Now if only I wore earrings myself to show them off ;P.

A Day (and a half) In The Making

Phew! As I type this up I'm struggling since my fingers are so sore and probably slightly swollen. I made myself a new purse the other day and it had a little bit of hand sewing to finish it off and my fingers dislike me now for it. I started working on the pattern the other night after supper, and started the purse right from when I got up in the morning, with only breaks for food. I wasn't stopping until it was done.

Totally worth it.

BAM! Check it.

My old record purse was falling apart and I wanted something new. Record purses don't fare well in the winter anyway (the records crack much easier) and I used this one far past the point of it looking good or being responsible. One of the straps was worn away to just threads and it was going to let go any day.

I kept seeing people around with these really good looking bags, with two huge side pockets and a zipped pocket in the middle. After searching 'purses' on pinterest and scrolling for ages, I finally found a reference picture to go by.

Not the most helpful of pictures without zoom..

From there I sketched out the pattern (which took a while, I kept getting stuck on one piece until my fella miraculously solved the mystery!) and made a pattern to size.

One of the pieces.

From there it was pretty basic putting together-ness..

And after ages I finally got my finished product!!

From the side. My zipper pull will always be a key. 

I love the detail on the strap. It's simple but came out looking great. 

The outer pockets are lined with snap closures.

Top down. 3 huge pockets!! This purse holds everything, it's fantastic.

Since we were taking pictures of the purse anyway, I wanted to get one of my shirt.. I seriously love this pattern, it's so comfy and fits like a dream!

But because I'm a nut case, one thing led to another and we ended up taking blurry pictures of me being a moron.

If you actually sat through this ridiculously long post, thank you! 

Sonnetarium Polish

I don't care that it's after Christmas. I finally got my hands on this polish, so I'm gonna put this polish on my hands!

Sonnetarium's Peppermint Kiss. You might remember it from this post about my favourite holiday polishes. Well after it being sold out for a while, me checking their website repeatedly paid off! It didn't take long to arrive despite it being the holidays, and it got here bubble wrapped, in packing peanuts, in a little box, with a hand signed business card.

It's everything I hoped it would be, looks like you could eat it, and I got a compliment at work today about my nails when I just painted them this morning ;) awe yeah!

(Please forgive my crappy pictures...)

Sonnetarium polishes are big 3 free (no formaldehyde or the other icky harmful things). You can check out their polishes on their website, and their facebook to see when things are getting restocked.

Leather Scraps

A few months ago I got a huge bag of leather scraps in the mail from home. If it hadn't been for me feeling so sick lately (since November!) I probably would have done more with it by now but alas, that's how things roll.

I did however get inspired to finish this bib necklace (which has some leather from my last batch and swarovski crystals, cute!) and some more fortune cookie charms, which are going to become bracelets and necklaces, along with these earrings.

I can also finish my patchwork belt, much like my patchwork corset, which was the reason it's not finished. I ran out of black leather! I can't wait to start wearing it so I guess I should dig it out. I've had it shoved in a bag for ages waiting to get more leather to work on it.