Neck Tie Creative!

For the last week and a half, I took a small vacation just to work on art and relax. I drove about 90 miles away to some of my family's and got snowed in for a week. It was a good for me as all I could do was projects, within the next few days I'll be posting some of the fantastic and not so fantastic art forms I worked on. One of those days, I bundled as warm as I could and walked in the snow to one of the greatest antiques stores I know of! In the back was a basket of mens neck ties, so I picked one up knowing something wonderful could come out of it. So here is what I came up with, along with instructions. Behold the neck tie headband!

Step One: Acquire yourself a nice vintage neck tie ( NOT a bow tie).
Step Two: wrap the tie around your head to determine the length. Be sure to add a few inches for overlapping. It should fit fairly snug. Mark and cut off.
Step Three: In the case of the tie I chose, one end was quite a bit wider, so I needed to slim it down. To do this, slit the stitches in the seam on the back side of the tie, fold the sides in until its the right width. Now slip stitch closed. Fold the raw end of the tie in and slip stitch.
Step Four: Set the tie aside and take the leftover that was cut off. Measure down the tie about 2 inches, and cut. Turn this rectangular piece inside out and stitch one whole side and half of the other. Turn right side out and slip stitch closed. Now try on the headband again and pick a spot somewhere in between the side and top of your head, mark this spot. Wrap your rectangle around that spot, scrunching up the tie, (so it looks like a bow) turn over and sew the rectangle in place.
Step Five: Try it on again, overlapping the ends on
backside of your head, make it somewhat tight, mark it with chalk and on the flap that will be on the bottom, (the one touching your head) pick a nice slightly big, flat button and sew on the spot you marked. Directly under the button on the other side make a button hole a teeny bit smaller than your button. Try it on to make sure you have a good fit and viola`! Your new fashion accessory!

New Year, new Robots

It may seem odd, but I really do look forward to Christmas every year. I'm like a kid, I count down the days after thanksgiving and can hardly sleep Christmas Eve! But then the grown-up in me is so glad when its over! I can finally sigh in relief and relax.
Although, now that its over the next to is Valentines Day, not exactly my favorite one but it comes anyway and happens to be a great month for sales of plushy robots. So like Santa's elves I'm back to work sewing and drawing sweet nothtings for BFFs and lovers alike. Here are a few things I've been working on in the past week, my favorites are the tiny Mr. and Mrs. with their Valentine balloons, Check out my Etsy shop in the next few days to see more!

This one here is an experiment, sometimes I tire of making cubes so much, so I decided to branch out and try dinosaurs, the Mr. Dino is still being worked on.