Crochet animal hats

I've decided that being a "stay at home mom" is awesome (I get to watch my child grow and thank the good lord that we can afford it) but it does tend to get monotenous. I was an art major and I miss it. A lot. Just drawing and creating things--- and making a financial contribution to our family! So I have decided to create MOOSEink to fill some of this gap. MOOSEink is basically all the things I'm good at- Drawing, Photography, crochet and design. It's been a great way to take my mind off the fact that all I do all day is cook, clean and play with Jackson. The only thing I like of course is playing with Jackson lol. I don't plan on making this my profession forever, just until Jackson (and if we have other kids too) gets in to 1st grade or all day Kindergarten and then I'll make more of an effort to expand.
Recently, I've discovered my love for crocheting. And I think I'm getting pretty good at it. It takes a couple (OR MORE) efforts to get a design right, but -then again- I make up all my designs, so I guess that should be expected. Right now, I'm making animal hats for friends and friends of friends. It's a great feeling knowing that someone wants to buy my items! Again, I'm not planning on making a huge profit, but it's a wonderful way to spent my time! As I was debating on prices, I looked on Etsy.com and saw, to my utter amazement, how much people were willing to pay for the same items I was making. $30-70- ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?! And this was for CHILD sizes too. No way! I'm just trying to find a reason to justify why I need to go to Michael's just about every other Wednesday- NOT about ripping people off. WHen it's all said and done, making a hat is not expensive- it's the time involved in making it. If you have the time and it's not too terribly important to you, like me, then making someone pay over $40 / hat is unreasonable! So I decided that for child & toddler hats, I would charge $25 and adult, $35. That seemed reasonable to me and apparently a lot of other people think so too! Right now I'm just making hats for friends, but once I'm finished, I think I'll sell them on Etsy--- for good price!

As I'm making these hats, I'm trying to write down HOW I made them in case anyone else wants to make them. I admit, my instructions are a little confusing so give me some time to sort them out and make them coherent... I'll post the pictures to a blog about them along with SOME of the instructions. Then you can email me or comment and I'll try to walk you through the rest of the hat--- or you can just be like me and make it up as you go! GOOD LUCK!

"To Outline or Not to Outline"

Tonight I finished my drawing for my friend's son, Kaleb. It is a wonderful birthday present for him and I hope he'll like it. As I said in my last post, I will be describing how I make my art. In tonight's session I'm going to explain when you should outline a drawing and when to leave it alone!

In art school- my teachers ALWAYS told us not to outline. "This is not a coloring book!" is the phrase I heard over and over again. It was eventually engrained into me and I never outlined again... until now. It IS ok to outline certain drawings. Outlining something makes it stand out from the rest of page. Outlining has a lot of down sides too though-
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
Just in case I didn't make myself quite plain here lol. But if you are drawing cartoon characters or characitures (a cartoon of a person that emphasizes ONE facial feature), then outlining is great!

If you want to make a drawing look more realistic (and - in essence- like a photograph) then outlining is not the way to go. In this case the same type of effect can be acheived by using a darker color next to a lighter color or using shadows and highlights. Whenever I'm making a photo-realistic COLORED drawing, I almost never use black. It's unnecessary- seriously. Instead, try using a darker purple, blue, red, green or any combination. It's actually overkill if you use black.

Another thing I always do is make sure I tape down my paper before I begin. I pretty much always work in either charcoal or colored pastels and they leave a chalky residue behind that can get everywhere! When you tape down your paper, not only will you avoid your paper moving on you unexpectedly, but there will be a clean, sharp line framing your artwork and it makes it look more professional. Sometimes I'll even use a larger piece of paper to do a drawing and then cut out only the portion on the drawing I was to use and recycle the rest. If you want to do that too, then don't worry about where you place your tape.

The "Toy Story" drawing I did tonight, I used a tinted piece of paper (which I LOVE!) and colored pastels. I have pastel pencils as well and I use them for finishing touches as they are able to do details better than pastel sticks. The drawing itself didn't take me long, but I am a major perfectionist when it comes to color. I don't think I've ever made someone pay for one of my drawings unless I felt like there was nothing more i could do to make it better. So that took awhile. When I finished, I sprayed it down with hair spray- which sounds odd I know- but it acts a fixative so that the chalk from the pastels would stay in place and not get all over your hands OR WORSE on your glass in the picture frame (it ruins the picture should it ever move bc the glass acts as a chalk magnet and lifts it up from the picture). So it's really important to make sure you "FIX" your pastel or charcoal picture before you frame it. I used to spend insane amount on actual Fixative at Michael's but then i got smart and switched to hair spray which is 100xs cheaper! Just remember to spray your piece while it's still taped down and leave it alone until the spray dries--- otherwise it'll roll up a lot more than necessary. Lastly, spray your piece in long strokes about 6 inches above your work--- any closer and you'll leave spray marks, but too far and you won't get any fixative on your work! Hope this helps anyone who wanted to know about pastels!

GIRLS NIGHT!

Last night was our monthly get together with all the military wives I know (which isn't a lot, but they are seriously so much fun!). Before we drove North to Kari's house though I was bound and determined to buy my lil Moose some rain boots and a rain coat. I realize we live in Southern California, but the rainy season is starting and we will be going back to St. Louis in a month where the rain will be continuing! I shopped around on Friday and couldb't find anything! I was really dissappointed bc I found a lot online--- but my problem is that I like to have things right away--- so yesterday, Hana, Dannika, Victoria and I went up to Mission Mall and Nordstrom's FINALLY had toddler-sized rain boots! I was elated!... until I saw the price- $35 for boots!?!? seriously! do they know how fast my son grows? Apparently not- so AMAZON, it looks like I'll be buying from you! Woo-hoo!

Well, we got home and instantly had to start cooking and packing for Kari's house. I decided that I wanted to drink wine so all the girls agreed that it should be a sleep over. We've never done it before and let me just tell you that it totally brought back memories of middle school! It was so much fun! I packed my car literally to the max with toys, a pack n play, food, wine, pillows, blankets and (OF COURSE) my trusty camera. We headed out. It didn't take as long as I thought, but about 5 minutes into the drive, Jackson decided that us listening to "Harry Potter" audio books was not acceptable. The only thing that would calm him down was hearing me sing (and let me tell you that I'm pretty sure I'm tone def). So I sang everything- the ABCs, itsy bitsy spider, Twinkle twinkle little star and I even busted out some Glee songs once I had warmed up my voice lol. This continued for the whole 45 minute drive and I really wished I would've brought a drink-- well a non-alcoholic one lol.

The party was really quite a blast! When we get together, our conversations typically revolve around our husbands. I guess that's normal- I mean you can't really talk ABOUT your husband TO your husband can you? As more drinks are consumed, the topics tend to start drifting down the dirty path and I can just tell you that my friends are hilarious! I laughed so hard and long about stories last night, but for the life of me- I can't remember every one. Oh well.

They also are helping me out with my blog! I'm obviously a novice and so I think I suffer from a lack of cohesion when ever I write. I also need insiration- I mean what could I have to say or do that other people- people who don't even know me, I might add- would find interesting or funny enough to read MY blog. I think we've come up with a topic of high interest. As I said before, I am an artist. I've always been good at creating things and somehow making them turn out amazing. Thank goodness I was professionally trained though, bc let me just say- I would totally have missed out on techniques and materials that are now my favorite to use! The only down side of being an artist and being trained be REALLY GOOD artists is that everyone in my field tends to look down on "CRAFT"-art, which includes scrapbooking, drawing & painting (without a concept... so pretty much just because you WANT to draw or paint something), knitting / crocheting things and most of all hobbiests. Well I like doing all of those things and I'm very happy to teach what I've learned and am good at to anyone who wants to learn. I'll admit, I'm probably not the best teacher, but I'm ok. All the designs I use for my crocheted items are one-of a kind--- I literally made up the design and "fake it til I make it". So here I am, thinking of what to post next- should I do a blanket or hat? I think what I'm going to end up doing is making something and writing about it during the process. Hopefully, you'll all be able to understand my directions b/c I tend to work from a grid & design around it. Well, off to start making things!