First New Item in the Shop!

The first new item is in the shop, and it is this smart (if I do say so myself) knitting needle roll!


I made myself a needle roll (finally) a few months ago, and then made one for my Ravelry fiber friend, and have had so much fun making them I decided to make a few for the shop. What do you think?

The shop is back in action!

The holidays are coming, and the CactusHead Studio Etsy shop is getting back in action! Keep an eye out for new listings of aprons, bags, other sewn items, sculptures, some supplies as I destash the studio, and other surprises! The new items will start popping up in the next week, but there are some nice things in the shop already. Have your eye on something already in the shop? Use coupon code oldfriend15 at checkout to get 15% off now through Thanksgiving.

Its the crafty time of year!

For me at least. My regular school year classes are ending, my summer hours and classes don't start until July, and so I have some time on my hands! I have puppets to make for our next show, but I am going to spend some of my time at home making things just for fun.
I finally picked up my shrug again this week, and it was much easier to get started again than I feared. I am knitting away, finishing up the ribbed border, and should have finished pictures to show soon!I joined a sock knitting group on ravelry with the goal of knitting a pair of socks per month too. I am sure I won't be able to keep up with that pace, but hopefully it will encourage me anyway!
I am also going to several weddings this summer, so I need to make some gifts. I am not sure what those will be exactly, but I have a little time to figure it out. Any suggestions, what do you like to give/get as a handmade wedding gift?

Oh!!! The garden needs to be started too! I planted peas already, but haven't done anything else yet, so more on that to come.

Chronicle Books Haul-idays!

Hey everybody, Chronicle Books is having a really great give away right now, and they have so many great crafting, art and other DIY books that I couldn't not enter! The basics of the give away is this:
Post a list of Chronicle Books valued at up to $500 that you’d like to haul in, and you’ll be automatically entered into a drawing to WIN your list of books! And, one of your readers who comments on the post will win the list too!

Awesome right?

So here is my list of books, and if you leave a comment here you could win it too!

Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free

Lotta Jansdotter's Handmade Living

Ramayana

Garden Anywhere

DIY Fashion

Witch Craft

America's Doll House

Let's Bring Back

Lost States

Fast, Fresh & Green

I Love Macarons

Tea & Crumpets

Picture Perfect Knits

Holiday Knits

Soil Mates

Weekends for Two in New England

IDEO Eyes Open: London

MoMA Make Art/Make Mistakes

Eco Fashion

The Map as Art

Lists

You can find out more about the giveaway here.

Where Have I Been?

Hello!

Where have I been you may be asking. (Although, I am pretty sure there is nobody who reads this often enough yet to really ask that.) I am still here, I assure you!

I have been really really busy lately (so busy I started writing this post about 2 weeks ago and just now got around to finishing it), and it seems I have had a hard time juggling all my new projects. So the bad news here is that I don't have anything new for my Etsy shop, or any new crafty stuff in general. The good news though, is that my classes and all that stuff I have been doing are going well, and I have been very creativly productive in those veins. The other good news is that one of my classes is now on break, so I have every Monday until March 30th off!!! That is right, a whole day off every week, just for me. I am so excited!

I want to take the opportunity to make Monday my day to work on things for my shop, for my own new puppet show I am planning, or any of the many things I have been meaning to make for myself that have pushed to the back burner. My hope is that if I make it a habit now, I will be able to continue at least having half a day for this stuff after my class starts up again.

So, my plan is to sleep in a little on Monday (cause everybody needs a day for that) and then get to my studio and spend the day there. I also am going to take picutres, no matter how much or little I get accomplished, and post here Monday evening. Does that sound like good plan? What helps keep you motivated and in the habit of crafting & blogging? Any suggestions would be appriciated. See you Monday!

Bags + Busy, Busy

Ooops! It has been a while since I updated. A big part of the reason it has been so long since my last post is that I have been really busy with lots of exciting things lately. So here is the quick run down of whats new.
I have starting teaching puppetry classes in after-school programs at two local schools. One is a high school, and the other is an elementary school. It is lot of fun to see the students learn and enjoy themselves, and it is also interesting to see how the different age groups work with some of the same materials.
I have been doing lots of craft fairs lately, and they have been going pretty well. The only downside to that is all the new stuff I have made has gone to the fairs and I haven't been able to add anything new to my etsy shop in awhile. The upsides are that I don't have to spend as much time on marketing when I sell at fairs, and I really like meeting the customers face to face and seeing them enjoy my work. I have two, count them, two fairs coming up this week. Here are the details, please stop by if you happen to be in the area.

Indian Orchard School
95 Milton St.
Indian Orchard, MA 01151
12/4 6pm-8pm

Farmington River School
555 N Main Rd
Otis, MA 01253
12/6 10am-4pm

The classes and fairs are taking up most of my time, but I am also still working on some other puppetry projects and hoping to make some Christmas gifts for friends and family. I also haven't been the best about taking pictures of what I am working on, but I do have these pictures of ribbon bags in process.

Blues and greens:And reds and browns:

I like the way they are coming along so far, and if they don't go at the craft fairs you can probably see them in my shop next week. I should get back to sewing, so that is all for now, but I will try and update again later this week.