Crafting Mama!

Aaaaah! Craftster has a new challenge next month: Pixelate Mama


(image from thread)

The goal of next month's challenge is to create a pixelate project featuring Cooking (Crafting) Mama!

My brain is churning with ideas right now. I will most likely use fabrics and sewing as my medium. Hopefully, the finished project will come out half as good as what I'm envisioning. :)

Ambitious much?

Okay.

It is most unfortunate. Despite the size of my ever growing craft book collection, I've not one craft to show for it. This fact is very discouraging and has prompt me to create a goal of sorts: At least one completed project a week.

Simple enough, no?

I think so. This week I shall start with a small amigurumi project, a really cute and free Onigiri couple pattern curtsy of HandmadeKitty. I've actually almost completed one save sewing on the details, and I've got two more in the works. Maybe I can complete each project before Monday. We shall see!

If I some how pull this off by Monday, I shall complete a bunka doll next. My book came in today. :3 It's full of pretty pictures and one full pattern. It really sucks that I cannot understand a single word, but fortunately (as with most Japanese craft books), following the instructions is pretty straight forward. :D

(If you would like to create a bunka doll of your own, but you're unable to find a copy of this book, here's a really good tutorial at Three-Fourths.)

Well anywho, wish me luck!

EDIT:

Hmmmm...I almost forgot. I ordered some polymer clay tools this past week. Should they arrive by Wednesday, let's add the goal of making at least one piece of miniature food in polymer clay. :D

*sigh* I'm hopelessly addicted to Japanese craft books!

They're much more interesting than most American ones I come across. Unfortunately, just when I think I'm satified with my current collection, I always find more that I fall in love with. :-(

Recently, I've taken a great interest in doll making. What sparked this interest was me stumbling upon Bunka dolls. Extremely cute cloth dolls.

I found a pretty good tutorial on making the dolls. But, that wasn't enough for me. I searched around and found this book:



It's currently in route from Japan to my house, and I eagerly await it's arrival. Anyways, after discovering Bunka dolls, I decided to look more into Japanese handmade dolls and I found all kinds of adorable dolls to make. My searches eventually led me to ball jointed dolls. So while searching for a great book to get started on the topic, I found this guy:



From what I read, it's one of the best on the subject. I purchased a copy on Hobby Link Japan. (This seems to be a good site to purchase reasonably priced doll books.) I also got really lucky and found a translation available for the book. :-D

I'm currently on a quest to get ahold of two Japanese hemp books from the publisher Ondori. The one I REALLY want is Hemp Strings and Stones:



Unfortunately, the one place that had a copy is now sold out! :-( I requested for two people to search to see if they can find it in Japan, so hopefully one will have luck! :-)

I hope once my quest for the two hemp books end, I will then be content with my current collection of craft books. I have dozens and I've no finished projects to show for it. :-(

I blame my poor time management skills for that one, >:-( but I do hope to do better. A finished craft a week would be a nice goal. :-P

I'll be sure to post reviews on the books once they arrive and I've finished one project!