Clutch Bag Adventure

On a recent shopping trip with my lovely mom I came across an awesome canteen-shaped small purse (I'm a sucker for off-the-wall stuff) but $20 for a tiny purse is a bit outside my college student budget.  So as I walked away from that itty bitty thing, contemplating how perfect it would have been for my meal card and keys and pencils and such, I thought to myself "dadblastit, I'll just make my own!".

Ok, so a bit of an obvious deviation from "canteen shape".  I don't know what came over me yesterday morning, but I suddenly found myself on a sewing rampage!, and this adorable li'l zipper pouch is one of the results.
I made it from some lovely brown plaid streaked with peacock blue and mustard and red ("vintage", for all of you infatuated with that word).  I jazzed it up with some pleating and thick blue stitching on the front, and I added two little mustard stars at the end of each short blue line after I took the pictures.  With it's red zipper (again, "vintage" lol), blue satin lining, and pleated pocket made out of leftovers from a botched skirt project, it turned out adorable, surprise to me!
I'm thinking about adding a tutorial, but it's such a simple pouch I don't know if I should.  Especially considering that I move back to school TOMORROW, ahhh!!

Upcoming First Tutorial

Ah! If you read my incredibly long and drawn out and angsty rambling post http://poorgensalmanack.blogspot.com/2011/08/life-lessons-from-world-of-crafting.html (and, my God, so many points to you if you did) then you might be a bit familiar with my semi-failed beading project.

Well, I refound my creativity last night and, this very afternoon, finished that booger of a project! *does happy dance, fanfare and confetti, yaaay!^_^*  I'm going to sort through my excess of pictures, type up directions, and post the whole shebang as my first tutorial!

But, that'll be for tomorrow.  Until then, here's a pic, woohoo!

toothiness! forest dweller, grr! a fun experiment with 3d peyote shapes

Upcoming Etsy Listing For Fall

I am so excited about fall time coming up!  I have a mini stockpile of these adorable beaded acorns that I started making completely out of season in the spring, so they've been waiting a long time to be ripe for Etsying.

I hope to get pictures taken and descriptions written up asap, so that will be Friday's goal.

My first beaded acorn, it's so lil-bitty and cute! (it makes me crave blackberry candies though lol)

Let's Start At The Beginning...

I'm not really sure what I'm doing on all of this blogging whatnot; I'm brandspankin' new here, and I've only read a handful of blog posts myself.  But I figure, what the hey, why not check this out?

As for what this blogging adventure might entail?  Probably a bit of this and that:

I've recently started up a new little shop on Etsy (www.etsy.com/shop/NorthbyEast) full of beaded jewelry at the moment, and hopefully to be packed with sewn, knitted, and papercut goodness soon.  I'll be posting shop updates and maybe even some lovely lil crafting tutorials for the tidbits I come up with.  Here's a taste:

Golden Honey Comb Drops: fun circular peyote stitch

And Icarus Took Flight: fabric/stiffener sammiches edged with embroidery and beading

The Desert Queen: various beading techniques, all super-easy and super-fun^_^

From time to time, a cooking experiment is warranted, and that's bound to be posted.  Being as I love food and the eating of it, the cooking experiments of others are also bound to be posted (my boyfriend and I have acquired a series of very interesting birthday cakes over the past couple of years).

A favorite (http://xkcd.com/18/), from a favorite webcomic xkcd; got to check them out if you don't already know!

 As far as actually writing up a plain-o post, I think I'll review and ramble on about my latest book-reading conquest or, to use a blog for its gloriously dramatized purpose, to go on the occasional mild societal rants.^_^

I hope that this expansion out into the wild world of the interweb turns out well, and I hope that if you come across this in your browsings you've enjoyed it. Thanks!