Shabby Chic Vintage Carnival Cotton Candy Necklaces

Hello Friends~

Well it's super hot here and my clay isn't cooperating so I thought up a little something new to do today! I made cotton candy necklaces in two shabby colors - Aqua & Pink of course! I just wish I could eat them for real : )
 Enjoy your weekend and perhaps if the weather is hot where you live pour yourself a nice tall glass of pink lemonade to celebrate BBQ season coming up!

Romancing the Strawberry & All About Apples

Hello Friends~

I know it's only been a couple of days since my last post but I have two more pincushion sets I wanted to share with you : ) Remember that fun movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner "Romancing the Stone"? Well I sure do since I probably watched it 30 times one summer on Showtime when I was a kid! Anyway......I don't know if any of you shop owners out there wrack your brains trying to come up with the perfect title for your shop listings, but yesterday I was sitting there trying to come up with a good title for my (what I would call a "romantic" version of some strawberry related pins and all of a sudden it hit me: ROMANCING THE STRAWBERRY! Did I get it right?
Ever since I was a little girl I have had a real love for Apples.......why? The only thing I could think of is they remind me of a cute dress I used to wear in Kindergarten that had the ABC's, 123's and Apples on it! So maybe that's it! When I first opened up Pinks & Needles in February of 2008 apples were some of the very first pins I made : ) And they're still soooo popular! This little eggcup set I've entitled "All About Apples" is very simple and makes me happy just looking at it plus these 4 pin toppers are extra extra tiny!!!! Perhaps they're about 1/3 of the size of a regular apple pin!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day today!
I've been working overtime trying to get a bunch of stuff taken care of before we leave on our yearly vacation in early June! I can't wait!

Vintage Carnival Treats Pincushion Set

Hello Friends~
I hope everyone had a nice weekend! I had the whole house to myself for almost a week since hubby was on a business trip/golf tournament in Vegas but he's home now asleep (like I should be).... but until around October when the weather starts to cool again I'll be up early every day to work with clay : )
 Just wanted to share with you a new pincushion set I finished up last week! It's one of my very favorite themes to work with "Vintage Carnival"! I can't explain myself really about my obsession with "vintage" anything.....I suppose it reminds me when life was simpler and not so busy.
 This pin topper set was really fun to make especially the cotton candy! I am very new to wool felting but thought it would be fun to make the cotton candy a bit more life like so here's what I came up with! Isn't the fabric is delightful? I'm hoping to make more sets centered around this theme so stay tuned!
 I have another pincushion set I'll be listing in the shop today at some point entitled "Love Letter Afternoon" too~

Have a great week everyone!

Here's "Love Letter Afternoon":

Strawberry Afternoon & Paris Afternoon

Hello friends~
It's a busy busy week here in the studio! Plus hubby's getting ready to leave tomorrow for a week to Las Vegas (1/2 business & 1/2 pleasure) - lucky guy! Well while he's gone it's my goal to get really caught up! The hot weather just makes me lazy........
 I wanted to share a couple of new items in the shop! People often ask me what pin takes the longest or is the hardest to make and I never really know what to say....until now! The little shoe in Paris Afternoon was a real bugger! It's so tiny and is completely hand sculpted from one piece of clay so I think to date this was the one pin that took me the longest for sure!
Strawberry Afternoon is a cute depiction of Blythe having tea and reading a book about Strawberries! The book binding has the word "STRAWBERRY" down the spine (see the shop for more pictures).
 Paris Afternoon has pins related to shopping in Paris like a hat box, shoe, basket of flowers and last but not least my personal favorite a red heart with the word Paris on the sash.
Have a great week everyone!
Oh I almost forgot about the Butterflies & Buttercream sets which include one Butterfly (with unbreakable antenna) and one coordinating Cupcake Blossom!

And also the Mini Mushroom sets with birdies perched on top which includes one button mushroom with a birdie sitting pretty and a coordinating mushroom cap!

Happy Mother's Day Baking Project

I'm sure many of you are familiar with wafer paper transfers...but I wanted to post anyway because it was my first time working with them. So yesterday I baked off my shortbread rectangles and made a whollop of frosting from scratch. I didn't really know what to expect from the transfers but to be honest I was a bit scared to try them. I wasn't thrilled with how they looked as soon as I adhered them to the cookies....they seemed unfinished and kind of messy looking but I let them dry over night as suggested. Well the good news is by this morning they had transformed magically! The buttercream really melded them nicely and the colors even seemed to pop more!
So I packaged them up really simple and sent hubby with a cooler full of cookies to all of the Mom's on his side of the family today.
 I hope all of you Mom's have a wonderful Mother's day this weekend! May your families spoil you rotten and do the dishes for you!

Butterflies & Buttercream DIY Cupcake Kit Giveaway Winner is.....

Congratulations Sugar Sugar 2010 for winning this fun baking giveaway! Thank you everyone who entered to win! We'll be doing another giveaway really soon!

Pinks Squirrels & Chocolate Rabbits

So everyone I know who lives here in Tucson is talking about our weird weather! It rained and it was freezing yesterday but get this........it's suppose to be a whopping 98 degrees on Wednesday! So I just had to tell you that because it brings me to what I want to show all of you:

 Make sure to click on the pic above so you can see the details a much better : )Since it was stormy out yesterday I was able to work freely on some new designs and this is what I came up with! I love the pink fabric with the white squirrel silhouette....the fabric also has birdies and deer too so I'm looking forward to designing some other woodland critter sets very soon. I only have one more white eggcup left exactly as shown in the picture. : ( Isn't that how it always goes? You find something you love and then they decide to discontinue it!!! Well anyway, I love the style of eggcup as it is very old fashioned with the pretty ridges. I decided to jazz up the bottom too with a trio of millinery flowers in pink, yellow and white and then hand painted the stamens red to tie it all together ~ and last but not least I hand dyed the chenille trim a pale yellow to match!
Oh I guess I should mention that the little bug is indeed in fact a butterfly. I hand painted her little face and gave her somewhat googly eyes for fun! Her body is white and has pink polka dots and she has 4 wings which you are unable to see from the picture. Her antenna are unbreakable as are the stamen in the flower too so there's no need to worry about that, which back in the olden days when I first started working with clay was always upset when I broke a critters antenna : (

My next set I was able to finish has been dubbed Cafe du Pinks & Needles! The fabric is imported from Japan and sports so many different scenes of Blythe doing what she does best....shopping, baking, dancing etc! I don't know about you but as soon as I purchase fabric, my first impulse is to NOT cut into it...I always get a little sad when I cut a circle or a square out of a cute fat quarter! It just isn't right! But then after I take a picture and study it for a while I break down and hack away! I am really hoping to be able to create lots of different pin topper sets from the inspiration of this particular fabric ~ it's probably one of my most favorite kawaii fabric I've ever seen! So keep checking in to see what I come up with next.

P.S. The chocolate rabbit comes to life at night time I want you all to know ~ he's the one in charge of all the baking and strawberry dipping : )