Pinecone Hedgehogs!!

So this weekend I decided to do some fun "for-me" crafting. I love making my clutches but I also love checking out what other people are doing and trying new things. When I saw these cute little pinecone hedgehogs I couldn't help myself! Gather the supplies was pretty ease - Clay, Beads, and Blush. But it wasn't as easy to find pinecones as I had thought. We have plenty of pine trees near our place but none of them have the right kind of pinecones. It seems silly to be picky about pinecones, but I really wanted some cute pudgy hedgehogs. Two fun facts about pinecones - Round pinecones come from Christmas-tree shaped trees, and if you want to get pinecones to open up you can bake them! I was really hoping that they would make my house smell nice and pine-tree like, but no. Smells like baking wood. After that it was pretty easy. I followed a blog post from Kiddley.com via My Little Mochi. You can find the tutorial here: http://kiddley.com/2006/11/21/make-a-pinecone-hedgehog/
Just a tip if you decide to make these youreself - Have some superglue on-hand. When I baked them (per the Sculpy instructions) their poor little faces fell off!! A little superglue and they are back to being their cute little selves again!
I don't know what I am going to do with two pine-cone hedgehogs, but they are just so cute! I am sure I can find a place for them.

Keep Moving Forward

Hello followers!! Nice to see you again! I know it's been a long time, but better late than never right?

My Etsy shop has now been open for 10 months. I feel like I have done quite a bit since I started, but there is so much more to do!  Aside from working on my shop, I have done a couple craft fairs this summer. They were great for showing off my work and getting some feedback (all of which was good!!). I would love to do more, and hope to soon. After the second fair I took a bit of a break, as my other job was pretty busy, but I have been thinking about MoonberryStarberry a lot. I have been coming up with ideas about how I can make my shop better and what I want to do next. As far as my crafts I have been looking into new fabrics and new items. One of my new endeavors is embroidery. While perusing my new Martha Stewart book... she is the queen of crafting you know :) ... there was a section on Sashiko. Sashiko is Japanese embroidery that is originally used to reinforce fabrics and is done using a running stitch. Traditional Sashiko is white thread on a dark indigo fabric, but I have been playing with linen and jewel toned thread. The pieces I have done are being turned into throw pillows. The pictures above are pieces in progress - pretty snazzy huh? I love the geometric patterns!
Other than that I have been working on coming up with a new logo and soon a new website. Any input would be helpful!!

Things are looking up for MoonberryStarberry and I am very excited about it! Stay tuned!

R-E-C-Y-C-L-E Recycle

This last weekend started with some closet cleaning and ended with a very happy dog. Somehow my husband and I got up the ambition to clean out our bedroom closet. In it we found some old unused pillows. While I was content with throwing them out, my husband took to the internet for some ideas on how to recycle them. What he found was an idea to use the stuffing in the pillow as a pet bed. It makes the pet bed oh so cushy and your scent on the pillow stuffing is comforting to your pet! Perfect! So off to the fabric store we went and found this super cute paw print fabric. By the end of the weekend our Miss Bianca was sitting pretty on her new comfy bed. She loves it and I feel pretty good about being able to re-use something I thought was dumpster-bound. I would call this one a success. I am thinking of putting these on Etsy, un-stuffed, so that people can do their own recycling!

I Love Ruffles!

I love ruffles - they add such a fun and feminine style! I have fun making them and adding them to my projects, as you can probably tell by looking through my shop. I want my bags, pillows, and other treasures to be fun and flirty and I think the ruffles are perfect. My love of ruffles started back in Home-Ec. One of the first projects we did was a pillow. I used this fantastic fabric that had moons and stars a little bit of sparkle and we added a big ruffle around the border. I love it so much, I still have it. It went to college with me and now it sits on my couch. It is sitting right next to me, in fact. When I started making clutches, ruffles were the first thing I started playing around with. I am still trying new things out and exploring new fabrics (have you seen my upcycled scarf clutch?) but the ruffles are here to stay!
This week I added another double-ruffle clutch in a fun yellow and brown fabric. I don't usually like yellows, but something about this fabric jumped out at me. It is a unique piece and is perfect for spring. I am also working on a ruffled clutch with three ruffles, like the purple leaf clutch. It is sitting in pieces at my sewing machine and will hopefully be up on Etsy soon, so stay tuned!

Have to start somewhere!

My first blog post! I am new at this, so be kind! 

It's an odd night when I'm not sitting at my sewing machine, at least for a little while. But I want to start really sharing my shop treasures and let you learn a little bit about me and my style. So here goes! I love fabric. I love the colors, patterns, and uniqueness of each one. I mostly make small wristlets because it gives me an opportunity to use fun fabrics. I currently don't have a huge fabric selection around where I live, but when I get the chance, online or in stores, I could spend hours browsing. Right now I work only with cotton, because I am still a little new, but there are lots of thoughts rolling around in my head, maybe hemp? I have lots of ideas that I want to try out so stay tuned! I will be updating my blog with new projects and some of my favorites.

If you haven't yet, please check out my shop! Here is the link: moonberrystarberry.etsy.com. I am also on Facebook, so check me out there too!