Help Fifi Spread the Word

Meet Fifi. She may look all soft, but she's a real activist, here to fight the many dirty misconceptions about her and the rest of her family.

Fifi will come to you smelling oh-so-sweet. You see, she's vegetarian, eating nothing but dried lavender flowers (although half of her is stuffed with polyfill scented with lavender essential oil). She won't mind it if you stick her in your closet to scent your clothes with; although she'd much rather prefer your bed, where she hopes her aroma will help you sleep better at night.

As she makes your home better-smelling, Fifi is pushing her agenda. She's aiming to raise awareness. Her message: It's Not True, Pigs Don't Stink!

Help Fifi spread the truth about pigkind. Welcome her into your home--for cheap! Fifi is part of The 5,10,15 Dollar Sale at my online shop. Check it out.

Other facts about Fifi: She's been taking up Provençal cooking lessons from Madame Barthelemy down the road, and these days never goes anywhere without her apron. However, if it gets too splattered with grease, the apron can be taken off. Fifi is 8.5 inches or 21.5 centimeters high, and from the tip of one arm to the other is 7.5 inches or 19 centimeters wide.

A Christmas Story

Have you ever asked yourself this question? Nah, I didn't think so. Still, if you're just a little bit curious, you may want to read a story I wrote for The Storque, the e-zine of Etsy. I've always loved local arts and crafts, so it was predictable that I become infatuated with the santons of the South. Read my story here.

Ode to Sleep

My Sleep Angels and a Sleep Pillow--available at my shop.

I awake already looking forward to that time very early the next morning (for I am one of them they call night owls) when I sink my head into a soft rectangle of cotton enrobed in cotton, let my lids drop down to shut off the rest of the world, and begin what is often the slow languorous promenade into my dusky refuge. It is a village populated quite often by very regular folk, but then they also make their regular appearances, my giggly vampires and my favorite chocolate trees, a few overweight robots and some nude parents, a couple of 27-year-old dead rock stars and a mouthful of singing teeth. Somewhere in there, inside a green apartment on the 56th floor of a breathing skyscraper, of course you will find a bullet-dodging, flying version of me.

Sleep. Why wake up to brush your teeth and wash last night's dishes when dreaming is often so much more interesting?

Hello, Dolly!

This is the cat
that inspired the key chain
I am totally in love with this purring ball of fur.

Merci, Karlita!

I got an early Christmas gift when felter and jeweler Karlita recently held a contest over at her blog which I won. The prize: a slip of a scarf, grey streaked with marroon, ethereal-looking but tug and pull and you'll find that it's surprisingly sturdy. Since I received it early this week, I've taken to wearing the length of wet-felted whimsy wound around my hair as some sort of head band, prompting my husband to say that I look like an elf. Not a bad thing to hear, especially when earlier he had said that I looked like some sort of extraterrestrial creature. E.T. phone Karlita: I love your work! Thanks again.

A Copper Blast From the Past

Once upon a time, in an island far far away, I used to crochet and knit copper wire and sell them as strange-looking jewelry. Moving to where I am now, I didn't know where to get the right supplies, so I ended up crocheting and knitting regular yarn, and eventually sewing linen. They made my fingers bleed occasionally, but I still miss copper.

P.S. That circle in the middle of the last row is a wristlet, still unlined.

What Was The Last Handmade Thing You Bought?

On Etsy buyer Pam's shopping list: (clockwise from top right)
necklace from Dingle Dangle, straight pins from Robin Bird's Nest,
Coke jewelry set from Vintage Nouveau, and an angel
from Debby Arem Designs.

Pam from Omaha, the USA, answers the question this week. (If you're a regular on Etsy.com and frequent the forums, you would know Pam by her username PussDaddy.)

What Was The Last Handmade Thing You Bought?
"This devil/angel necklace made by Dingle Dangle and it cost US$18 plus US$2 shipping."

What made you buy it?
"I bought it because I thought it was very pretty. I collect angels, and I was having a bad day and the thought of an angel with only one wing seemed to sum up the day I was having.... Plus it was on Time Machine 2 almost immediately when I went there. I also have a fondness for things made from found objects and unusual things."

What are you looking to buy next?
"I have some things in my favorites that I hope to buy next. I get a Visa card for Christmas so that I can choose some of my own gifts. Here are a couple of things I have picked out if they do not sell [first]: a circuit board angel pin, a pendant-and-earrings set made from Coke cans, and these straight pins which I should probably go ahead and just buy."

9:52 p.m. - What I'm Loving This Minute

Linen.

I love how you can clearly see the warp and the weft of it. I am infatuated with the light colors of it. In this age of plastic and synthetic, I love how it is all-natural. My mom always said that a woman doesn't go out of the house unless she is wearing impeccable and impeccably pressed clothes, so I have to admit that I wish it didn't wrinkle so easily. Still, come summertime, along with cotton, linen is all that touches my skin.

I just got hold of a few meters of linen recently. Cut piece by piece, they'll be making their way into my Etsy shop these coming few days. Click on often to watch linen transformed into not-plastic, anti-synthetic, warpy-and-wefty dolls, stuffed toys, mobiles, pillows, and key rings.

What Was The Last Handmade Thing You Bought?

Tara Vaughn of Pennsylvania, USA, who is a crafts artist herself, working with felt and selling her wares online at Project Felt, answers the question first:

Tara's latest buy.

What Was The Last Handmade Thing You Bought?
"A clay sculpture made by LoopyBooby on Etsy. She does amazing work and it's actually the second piece I have purchased from her. I paid US$40 for it and it's worth every penny."

What made you buy it?
"Impulse. I really didn't have a 'need' for it. But I can't help myself sometimes! If you check out her shop you'll see what I mean."

What are you looking to buy next?
"Right now I'm in the market for some promotional materials for my shop. I'm having someone design a post card for me and I'm working on getting some buttons made too."

Now have a look at Tara's stuff! Click here to go to her online shop: Yes, here!

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NOTE FROM THE BLOG AUTHOR: One of the first handmade objects I ever bought was this suggestive flower made by the Filipino artist Jenny Cortes. It was sculpted from wood and then dyed. I got it when I was fresh out of university, and have brought it everywhere with me through the many times I moved from one apartment to another while living in Manila, the Philippines, and up to now as I type away from my home in France, the flower looks down at me from where I've hung it on a salmon-painted wall. This, I think, is testament to just how much I am fond of surrounding myself with the works of artists and craftspeople. So I came up with the idea of every week on this blog having people share with me their love for handmade stuff, by asking them the question, "What was the last handmade thing you bought?"

The Beginning

Once upon a time, there were four girls locked up in a room...

It all began because my parents were quite paranoid about the security of their four daughters growing up in the big bad city of Manila that aside from to go to school they rarely allowed us out of the house. I remember I would have to sneak out to enjoy rides on a bicycle borrowed from a playmate; and that we had a neighbor who thought my parents were childless because he never did see us out.

Children must play, however, and us sisters found an outlet in arts and crafts. One of our favorite games involved the paper dolls we ourselves would make from thick cardboard. We would draw, cut, and color numerous dresses for them; would fashion for them complicated lives that included apartments whose floor spaces were defined by hardcover Time-Life books and cars that in real life were rubber Spartan flipflops.

We loved those dolls so much that we wouldn't just throw them away with the trash when they got too old. One got her head torn off at the neck, so we staged her death as a shark attack during a vacation near the sea. She was buried in our backyard, complete with a matchbox coffin and holy collected rain water sprinkled on the mound.

Nowadays, I can ride my bicycle wherever I want to, although I prefer my car that I drive often to the not-so-big, not-at-all bad, actually-quite-tame city of Montpellier to hang out with friends. But to be honest, I am rarely more calm and more content than when I am alone in my room, making fabric jewelry surrounded by my sewn-up dolls.