A Christmas Story inspired ornaments

When I first watched "A Christmas Story", I always loved the image of Randy, all bundled up in winter clothes! That's how I always feel during winter. To share that memory and the fun of this beloved movie with you, I made Randy Christmas ornaments in the same outfit!

There are only three of these this year, each is individually made and all of them are unique and one of a kind. Check them out at my store.

Christmas is coming!

My days since December stepped in are divided into making products for my Etsy shop and preparing for our early Christmas celebrations.

So shop talk first. I've included Philippine folk art inspired Christmas tree ornaments to my offerings: painted red horses. These horses are usually seen during Christmas and town fiestas back in my tropical island home. They are traditionally made of paper, which in the Philippines is called "taka", shaped into horses and painted bright red. Then it's finished off with simple but bold and colorful patterns.

And in the bright and cheerful category, I also have these adorable pet miniatures - dogs and cats that would make wonderful gifts for pet lovers.

For the non-traditional, I have creepy eye pendants that can be worn as a necklace or forehead accessory.

On the home front, I've been scavenging! It was windy a couple of nights ago and the fir trees were shaking in fright. Lost a lot of their branches and leaves they did. So when I drove past those poor lonely branches, I had an idea.

You see, hubby's Mom and Grandma usually go up in the mountain before the big holiday to get fresh boughs. Grandma would put it up on her fireplace mantel and add Christmas ornaments to them. This inspired me to pick some of the fir tree branches and create our own Christmas boughs!

I also decided to add Christmas stockings to this year's decorations. I went full circle on this one. First I thought I'd make them, then I decided to save myself the trouble so I can concentrate on making gifts. I went to Daiso, the only dollar store or close to a dollar store I know in our vicinity but I did not like what they had. They were surely affordable at $1.50 a piece but I did not like the materials nor the design. They looked too cheap.

Next door  was Joann but even at 60% off, which brought the prices down to $11.99 (if I remember correctly) multiplied by three came up to an amount I would rather save than spend on some nice looking stockings.

But, when I saw that their fleece and other furry fabric were up to 60% discount too, I knew I had to make our own. It was the only way. I wanted our stockings to be bright, furry and plush and there's no way I'm gonna get it cheaper than $5 (which might not have been a realistic target to begin with for ready made items). So after a few minutes of wandering about, deciding on color, I left with $11 worth of fabric: half a yard of some cream, plush furry thing, half yard of red fleece and another half a yard of checkered green, brown and cream fleece. Two days later, I am happy to report, I have homemade stockings that I feel pretty good about.



Made letter clay buttons to add a little interest to the stockings and placed them against little fleece ribbons.



So that makes the final Christmas decor for the year! Now I need to go back to making Christmas gifts! Gotta rush, there's only a few more days to go. 

ARTE Souq Ikea (Nov 2, 2012)

It was a Darth Vader day. My day opened with the sale of cutie pie Darth Vader (about 1.5" tall) and ended with the bigger Darth (about 4" tall) being broken.

A group of teens passed by and saw the Star Wars inspired items and immediately bought lil Darth. Yey! First sale of the day.

Unfortunately, towards the end of the evening, not much people were passing through so I started reading my book. A lot of kids from all ages have grabbed the clay collectibles, particularly the one in the red shayla and Darth Vader, so I don't mind kids holding them. They are sturdy and will not break easy.

So there I was reading, when I heard a couple of kids gab excitedly about Darth Vader (he is such an attention getter!). As I looked up, I saw one of the boy's hand grab Darth Vader and use his other hand to bend the light saber the other way. He quickly put it back, still talking to what I assume what his sister, and walked to the other side of the table. I took Darth V and sure enough, the light saber was broken, I looked at the kid and all I can stammer was "You broke it". Kid promptly turned around and disappeared in the crowd that suddenly formed going out to the parking. There goes 4-5 hours of work in a blink. I can repair it but I don't feel comfortable selling items that have been repaired.

Sigh. Guess I have to be more vigilant about warning kids to be careful.

That said, I got a good sale from my Gingerbread and Camel Christmas tree decor, so yey again! Lots of people found the Shrek Gingerbread man during torture and after torture adorable and bought them as sets.

By the way, thanks to Rohini of Ragmatazz for including my little mummy in the ARTE Halloween blog entry. Little Mummy also found a new home yesterday, as an adorable little boy promised his dad that he will keep him beside his bed and not be scared. Awww.

Big shoutout to all my friends who dropped by to give their support (and much-needed bathroom breaks!).

Here are some images from my table yesterday.

In the morning after set-up

Near closing time

Gingerbread and Camel Christmas tree decor. I also have "Shrek" Gingerbread Man during and after the torture versions.

I was also super duper lucky with my highschool friend Dea coming over to say hello before going off to sniff out great jewelry finds at ARTE. Her hubby, Chef Andrew made sushi and I got two full boxes! It was yum, I gobbled up the first box for my sit in dinner, since the souq yesterday was until 9pm. 

Yum!

Anyways, one more week till the next ARTE Souq - gotta get busy again creating more Christmas Tree decorations. Hope to see you at ARTE Souq Timesquare on November 9!

Camels & Christmas

Happy Halloween!

The rest of the world is still celebrating Halloween but for us it was last night. And instead of scaring ourselves, hubby and I decided to laugh the night away at the premiere of Here Comes The Boom. Quite a funny and uplifting movie, thoroughly enjoyed it.

That was our treat to ourselves, the major break in our last two days' mad rush to finish work.   I've been creating new items for tomorrow's ARTE Souq Ikea. Been working mostly on some Christmas tree decorations - I have some pretty cute Christmas camels that will be charming your socks off.

Here's a preview of the Gingerbread men. Bet you would recognize this fellow here. Each piece will come with a red silk ribbon to make your Christmas tree more merry.

Hope to see you tomorrow at ARTE Souq Ikea!