Latest Project and Latest Giveaways

This is my latest project:

It may not look like much but ever since I saw this project on the 'net, I'd been obsessing over the idea of it....'til I finally gathered all the necessary supplies to make it.

First I had to haul out to Home Depot which is on Stone Church Rd. here on Hamilton Mountain. It took me two buses and both were long trips. I got a long piece of MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) for around $8 and I got a guy in the lumber department to slice it in half. He assured me I could carry both pieces back home on the bus but I knew I couldn't, so I left one of them there. I was told that all scraps get donated to Habitat for Humanity so I felt OK about paying for it and not taking it home with me.

Then when my husband and I were at the Ottawa St. "Sew Hungry" food truck festival I went back to the fabric store I went to with C two weeks before that, and got this really groovy chevron-patterned fabric. I also got 2 layers of batting (the stuff you use in a quilt) and used J's staple gun (and her help!) to staple it all down. Here is how it looks from the back:

I guess we should have placed the staples closer to the edges of the fabric but I'm not too worried about how the backside looks. The batting is sandwiched inside and I intend to use this to press my crafts.....things like heat-setting the ink in my screenprinting, affixing interfacing to pieces of fabric for stiffening purposes, even to press my husband's work shirts (which I never do but there's always a first time!).

 

This is a bracelet I made for my friend J....the one I mentioned above)

 

 And this is a piece of pottery I gave to my friend JS who recently turned 90! I had made this in Seattle, WA a couple of years ago. This bowl was from the era when I started to really know what I was doing and was throwing really well!

 

 

The rim is strong, the curve inside matches the curve outside and the thickness is uniform throughout!

 

New to This Blogging Thing!

Hi and welcome to my very first blog post! After months of toying with the idea I finally took the plunge and created a blog to act as a companion to my Etsy shop which is called Kim Made.

I've had the shop for over a year now (maybe even 2?) but only put items in there sporadically. I'm hoping this blog plus having the shop will spur me on to make more things and put them up for sale.

What things? Well, for the last 5 1/2 years my husband and I lived in Seattle, WA. I have a disability so I was the homemaker. This meant I stayed at home, quite a lot, actually, and started going nuts with boredom. That's when I began crafting. I had taught myself to knit a few years before living in Seattle so I did more of that. Here's an example:

 I also went on craftster.org all the time to pick up new techniques and crafting ideas.

I took a couple of mini-classes (4-hour classes) at a local Seattle art school (Pratt): one in jewellery-making (although they called it "jewelry") and one in fused glass, both of which I loved and vow to do more of! I took a pottery class as well, at the Pottery School at Pioneer Square (Hi Erik!)

I also found a Continuing Education pottery class at South Seattle Community College and this is where I was able to totally focus my life around pottery-making! It was the best! Any student enrolled in one of their courses could come into the studio anytime there wasn't a class and make stuff! The studio was spacious and part of my disability is balance issues related to the space around me. I need a lot of it! The studio was great for me and I felt calm there. I just started to get good mere months before we left Seattle and unfortunately I haven't found a pottery studio here in T.O (or El Toro, as Eye Magazine has dubbed our fair city!) that will let me spend so much time making pots.

Ah well, soon come, right? I'll keep looking.

Here are some examples of pots I'm particularly proud of:

Meanwhile, I'm taking another jewellery course here in Toronto. I'm not sure how I feel about soldering with a torch but I'm really looking forward to making a bezel-setting for one of the gems that we got at the Gem and Mineral Show in Tucson, AZ many years ago.

About a month ago I took a course through the Toronto Business Development Centre on how to start a small business. I decided I wanted to make crafts for a living.

My first formal batch of resin fridge magnets has come out of the molds and I've posted 8 of them here:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/Hippie9?ga_search_query=Hippie9&ga_search_type=seller_usernames

Feel free to let me know what you think!