New ceramics (posted a while back) and these guys:

Wish me luck! I’m sure it will be fun.

MimiBird included me on her Birdies Tweet Tweet treasury today.

Check out the adorable things she picked out. Mine is definitely not the cutest.

I’ve had some lovely vintage ceramics sitting around the house and I finally had a chance to play with them today.  I had a lot of fun with the salt and pepper shakers and the vintage pitcher.

salt and pepper shakers

Floral Party pitcher

Birdies and Coffee Sugar Dish

Birdies and Coffee Creamer

Birdies and Coffee Mug

Except the totally cute spoon … so cute!

Somebody on craftster.org saw my work and was inspired to create a few cups of her own. So exciting!

It’s not often that I get press, so I’m pretty excited about this.

Needless to say … whoops!  Especially since I’m moving in less than a week … but, oh well. I’ve got more cute dishes!

I found a pretty complete set of pyrex grey dishes, so I’m working on making 4 place-settings with a dinner plate, salad plate, saucer and teacup.  I just received some teacups that I ordered off ebay — so I’ll be painting those soon.  I have about 12 additional plates to the ones that will make up the 4 place-settings.

My little birdies pattern looks really cute on this set of dishes. It’s simple and not over-powering.  It’s also something that can be easily replicated on several pieces so it looks pretty consistent across the board.

I toyed with the idea of making each dish have a different pattern, but I think that idea’s going to go on the backburner and I’m going to try working with a cohesive set first.  I also thought about adding a small quote on the pieces, but people are so subjective about text that I thought it best to just stick to a pattern for now.

Birdies and Coffee Cup

Flower Fiesta Bowl (Gold)

Butterflies in Wonderland Baby or Lap Quilt

OBEY Andre the Giant Men’s Winter Set

Mention the code mrfidgets and receive FREE SHIPPING on any order until December 15.

Both my stores, chimes design and toDIYfor, are having a 20% off special this month.  To participate, convo me on etsy with the item you’d like to apply the sale to and I’ll adjust the price and reserve it for you.

An extra 5% off if you blog or tweet about my sale and include the link to your blog post/tweet in your convo.

Easy peasy.

As per usual, I’m offering free shipping to Des Moines and Ames as long as we can arrange a drop off/pick up.

1. I’ve got a couple of paying freelance projects so I’m going to blow their minds and try to get a chunk of work done on them this weekend (one of them that’s not due until Sept. I’m pretty sure I can actually finish today).Kim’s friend, Lisa Inman, and I are working together to update her website. She likes her current one, but she doesn’t like that she can’t do the updates (or atleast that’s what I’ve gotten from her so far).  She’s supposed to send me the original artwork today so I can work from those files since she likes the current design of her site.

   I’ve got an order for some customized wedding rehearsal dinner invites based on the sunflower invites I listed the other day.  It’s going to be a whole package: invites, envelopes, mailing labels, table place cards and tags for favors. I’ve got the invites and labels done. I need to pick an envelope and order it. I am designing the place cards and tags today.

2. I’ve got an awesome album cover project I’ve been working on since February that I need to throw together a press kit before the end of the weekend.  I’ve been working with The Half Hearts — who will actually be coming to Des Moines on August 19 if anybody’s interested — on their album art for their very first album.  My friend Kim did the painting that’s the basis of the album cover.  The album’s finished mastering and they’re planning to send a press kit August 1, so I’ve got to get a few things together for them to print.  That’s the first thing I’m doing when I’m done blogging here (important things first, right? hehe).
3. I’ve got an order for 2 custom tattoo mugs for my co-worker, Tory.  She’s the one I did the cute sunflower wedding shower invites for the other day. I don’t think she needs them right away, but I told her I’d do them this weekend, so I best stick to that.
4. I’ve got some dishes I started working on last weekend that I need to finish and bake. It’s a set of 8 — 4 bowls and 4 plates. I’d like to get that done today. I only have 2 more bowls left to paint, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
5. I need to paint a set of 16 dishes before Market Day next weekend.  I’m doing an entire set with the tattoo theme. I haven’t completely decided what’s going where…but I’m thinking mainly swallows and flowers on these dishes.  I might pick up a few more colors of paint before I get started on these.  It’s kind of a time-consuming project though, so I might not try to push it for before Market Day.
6. Speaking of Market Day … I need to blog about my deals that I’ll be doing — including a special deal if you advertise or blog about me somewhere.  Details to come!
7. I’m doing a Michael Jackson Craft Swap. Yes. For real. Go ahead and groan.  Unfortunately, I got paired with somebody in Australia, so that limits what I can make because of the price of shipping. I had some really cool things planned before we got partners, but I can’t afford to ship there and I’d rather spend money on the things to swap than on shipping.  I’m completely lost for ideas, which is not good.  I was originally going to make a 16-piece dinner set with silhouettes, but, not shipping that to Aussie for price and fear it will break.  Anyway, I’ll be brainstorming this weekend and purchasing supplies. I have until 8 PM to figure it out since Hobby Lobby closes at 8 and isn’t open tomorrow. I guess I can go to Michael’s but I like Hobby Lobby.
8. And … I have a few backburner projects that if I have time I’ll get done this weekend.  I was hoping to make a bunch of fast t-shirt bags to sell for $1-$2 at Market Day since it’s a BYOB sort of deal. A few people were upset last time that I didn’t have bags, but it’s like Farmer’s Market…bring your own bag.

I’ll probably put my string quilt away. I’m getting sick of looking at it and I know I’ll just end up working on that instead of these projects that need to get done.

Anyway, wish me luck.  I also need to run sometime today, so hopefully the weather cooperates. I had a bad week for working out and I ate terribly the last 2 weeks…so I’m definitely feeling like BLAH right now.

AND … I’m off!

There’s also a water pitcher, which is what he picked up first… but I haven’t gotten to that yet. I want to do something different with it, and I’m not sure what. That’s the reason it took me so darn long to do this set in the first place, but I decided to go for it tonight.

I’m waiting to hear back from him to see if he wants them.  If not, I’ll probably be selling the set at this month’s Market Day...which is coming up FAST.  (July 25 for all of you who are interested…which should be all of you.

I want to come up with something new and fresh… which I have… I just haven’t had time to execute it. I have a 16-piece set of white dishes I bought from a high school friend 2 weeks ago that is definitely turning into the coolest dish set ever, but first, I have to draw it out on paper (I normally don’t do that, but this is going to be totally badass).