Finally Caught Up - New Projects To Consider

The events are all over now, the stock has been dropped off to several places (Cat Doctor had an order in, Cat Faeries has gotten her order for her site, the Country Cellar is up and running for the Christmas season, and Jim has my mice in the store that needed 108 of them).  Now it's time to get some of the boxes finished and inventoried for next year and complete all those half sewn items that are begging to be finished.

 

AND I was talking with someone about all the patterns, they asked if I'd ever considered doing a pattern book for sale.  Hmm.  Definitely a thought.  So many stuffed toy pattern books show horribly outdated things that might have been good back in the 1950's but which look absolutely awful in today's world. 

 

The stack of fabric in the 'hoarder room' has grown thanks to all the sales and remnants at the fabric stores.  I'd like to use up as much of that as I can.  My stacks of fleece and felt are huge, the fake fur is almost as large. then there's all the 'pretty' things.  Argh.  They just keep accumulating. 

 

I found three great looking 'wizard staffs' for 1 1/2 foot tall dolls, and want to make a few large items for those.  Beautiful root structures on them, the sticks just beg to be used. 

More Liquor Bottles --

Well, I did another stop over at the liquor store on Brown Deer Rd.  Kids get the little bottles, drink them and toss them over the bushes towards the railroad track.  I picked up 28 bottles (all but 2 have caps on them too) as well as finding three 'wizard staffs' for some future shaman raccoon or opossum I'm planning on making AND I got a good handful of leafy fresh growth catnip.

 

The wizard staffs are some sort of thick vine wood that's been laying there long enough to dry out, they look great with curved tops and lots of stem projections in the right place. Not sure what the plant was, but the pieces are over an inch thick and about 14" long so they're a nice size for the dolls.

 

The catnip, that gets dried and used soon, I'm making the Christmas mice in batches.

 

And the liquor bottles are all washed and dried. I filled them all with crushed catnip and today will be doing up the fancy labels for them.  I was planning on keeping them for Pennsic's event next year but with Zinefest coming up in two weeks I may just take them over there instead.  I need to fill out the table a little more since I have 6' of space on it.

 

The labels are printed on regular computer paper, an image and text, I size them for around the bottle itself and use 2" wide, clear packing tape over the image.  They tape right on. Simple, neat and they sell fast at $2 each!

 

It'd be nice to find another outlet I can get these bottles through, but I'm NOT going to pay 60 cents a bottle for these.  Free is better.    They look like this (I use the clear bottles, not the white Malibu rum things).

 

Baby Octopus Sushi As A Cat Toy

Been working on 'baby octopi sushi' as a cat toy, with the intent of packaging them two to a container as a set.  The online pictures of octopus sushi are sort of gross though.
              

Yuck, right?  It's much better when you cartoon it up a bit. I've been using gray polar fleece for them and cut the octopus out as a U shape 2 inches wide by 3 1/2 inches long, rounding the 'head' and leaving the bottom open after only stuffing the top half.  A gather stitch right under the stuffed area ties off the tentacles, and then you only have to add the bead eyes and take a scissors to the unstuffed bottom and cut 1/2 inch wide slits up towards the body to make the tentacles.  They flop loose, just tack down the stuffed part of the body to the 'rice' rectangle it's sitting on.

 

I'm thinking of using other colors with the fleece, even mottled or patterned types to add interest.  They all get the black felt 'seaweed' wrap around the rice and octopus of course.  I tack that down on the bottom and in the center where it goes over the body, to keep it from sliding.
.
.
.
LOL -- I see my 'views' went up dramatically this week. Must have been the 'porn' mention on the previous post!  Love ya guys!

Back To The Ever Lucrative Porno Market.....

Got an order for the Giddy Kitty Ding Dongs for 18 of them for the store in Arizona, and today an order for 3 dozen came in from the Tool Shed.  Looks like I'm going to be making 'man parts' all evening trying to catch up with what's needed. I only had seven or eight on hand here (no pun intended). 

Amazing what you can make with a 6x6" square and a 6" circle when you modify it just a bit.  LOL.

They seem to be steady sellers at the Tool Shed, 1 or 2 a week on average.