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Sea otters holding hands = cutest gift ever!

By on October 6, 2012 in Batilmore

A good friend on mine is getting married soon. When it came to the shower gift, I knew I wanted to make her something! I thought it would only be appropriate if I felted her a cute animal so upon learning that sea otters are one of her favorite animals – I jumped at the opportunity!

What could possibly be better than making two sea otters holding hands for a bridal shower gift? I couldn’t resist :)

Did you know otters hold hands in the wild while they sleep to prevent each other from drifting away and getting lost at sea? So cute!  If you have not yet been graced with the video of sleepy, hand-holding otters – you should click here.

I decided to frame them – thinking it would be the easiest way to display them – and I’m glad I did! I think I will be framing more felted animals in the future. Just need to get out to buy more frames!

What animal would you like to see in a frame? This is not yet listed in my Etsy shop but you can request one in the meantime by either sending me a convo on Etsy or contacting me through the site!

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Where oh where have I been?

By on September 18, 2012 in Batilmore

So you may have been wondering about this extended absence of mine, or not, but I will fill you in anyways…!

The last 30 days have been a complete whirlwind, and to be honest, it feels like both a year and a day have gone by all at once. This time last month we were returning from vacation in Banff and Jasper National Parks (highly recommended) and as a newly engaged couple (thank god)! I will be perfectly honest, I was becoming a complete crazy person about this engagement. A crazy person! We have been together for 7yrs, through several years of long distance, lived together, share everything and it was time. Time!

Thankfully, Dylan spared me an unreasonable breakdown and anxiety attack by proposing midway through the trip on the very beautiful Amethyst Lake in the Tonquin Valley. Amethyst is even my birthstone – a sign!? (the picture above is the lake itself : )

Either way, I thought my craziness had subsided and Dylan probably did too. Surprise! Mom calls about wedding plans, details galore, and panic sets in again. How did I deal with this? Read lots of Game of Thrones, have a giveaway, and brood. I may have been unpleasant, especially while the ring was being resized and everyone was wanting to see it. Sorry! I thought I would at least spare you, my reader, since few others were spared! Is this normal? I don’t know. But it definitely happened.

We had thought we would just go to the courthouse and get married there. Ultimately, we ended up deciding to have a small wedding. In December. Yep, this December. At Christmas. 3 days before my nephew is due.

Blah.

Self induced stress? Most definitely, but all the family was already going to be in the same location for the baby and we wanted something casual and informal. Suffice it to say, we basically planned an entire wedding and half a reception in the last 2wks. This has been both awesome and confusing. The easy part was finding the location, setting a time, and figuring out who to invite. The vision? Who knows! I keep thinking I know – laid back , fun, easy going, not too much planning. Only to find out, even a small wedding takes some thought!

The most confusing part so far? Dress shopping. I went in looking for a knee-lenght casual dress. I came out with a full length, lace, bridal gown. The sheer excitement of finding a dress and purchasing quickly turned into panic and anxiety as I realized it did not quite fit into this easy – we’re getting married a restaurant and eat dinner – laid back kind of feel. Gah!

Oh man. This is what has consumed my life this past month. And, on top of this, I decided it would be a good idea to volunteer with the animal shelter to help them place and adopt cats at a nearby pet store. While this was a good idea, I also decided I should volunteer to lead the other volunteers and be in charge of which cats are coming and going. Busy bee!

Oh yeah, and I’m trying to work on my experiments at some point, which are never working! So, I will be doing my best to get back in touch with my pre-wedding life but there may be dry spells. In that case, I may be going full on bonkers, but I will be sure to update at some point and will be posting photos of all the things I hope to make for the wedding!

In the mean time – orders are a most welcomed break from thinking about the wedding and life in general. Have an idea for something you do not see in the shop? Even better! I hope to make a few new things, but encouragement is always a helpful push!

If you made it this far, thanks for listening to this rant! I kind of needed it…

Sara

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A One Year Esty-versary Celebration- ie Give Away Time!

By on August 27, 2012 in Shop Updates

UPDATE! Congrats to Monica for winning the I Felt Fuzzy giveaway! There were over 80 entries from 29 people – wow! I feel so loved (: I hope you will stay tuned through the newsletter and blog to keep up to date on the latest developments and coupon codes as the holiday approaches! Thank you to all who entered and congrats again to Monica!

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Last July I decided to try selling my needle felted animals on Etsy. I set up an account and then got to reading the guidebook and TOUs. I finally began taking photos and started listing items in August!

You (my lovely customer) have made this past year incredible. You have shown me that my creations are meaningful, enough so that you were willing to purchase. When I opened my shop, I was completely unsure of whether or not my creations were worth purchasing. To be quite honest and frank, I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what my work was worth, or if anyone would notice. Fortunately, you noticed and have supported me! 

Without you I would not be here, and for that, I am incredibly grateful!

And with that, let’s get on to the give away! For such a big occasion, I could not quite decide what I wanted to offer, so I have decided to offer you 2 things! One of my latest Christmas ornaments and the cutest beaver!

To read more about the items, you can click on the image(s) directly!

To enter for a chance to win you must do at least ONE of the following (and you may do more than one if you want more chances to enter):

  • Sign up for my newsletter (see the upper right hand corner of the sidebar) or click HERE   ***BONUS***  you will receive 2 entries for this and new subscribers will receive a coupon code for the shop!
  • Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter
  • Share (on Facebook) or Tweet (or re-tweet) about this give away to your friends, family or followers
  • Lastly, leave a comment on this post!
  • If you do not live in the USA – please only enter if you are willing to pitch in for the additional shipping cost! It’s usually $5-10 more depending on your location (I’ll cover the US shipping and will put that same amount toward the international shipping).

Contest ends Friday, 5pm EST, September 7th (09/07/12) and the winner will be announced here on Monday, September 10th! Good luck!

Thank you so much for everything this past year, I would not be here without you!

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Oh Baby! A gift for my future nephew – baby mobile!

By on August 8, 2012 in Shop Updates, Travels and Vacation

When you find out your little sister is pregnant – what do you do to get that perfect gift for the baby shower?

I knew I could have referred to the registry or found some adorable baby clothes but I chose to make something – for better or worse! I eventually decided on a felt baby mobile. The next dilema? Whether or not to create felt balls or felt animals. The felt balls hang nicely and allow you to have a variety of colors and color combos. They are also fairly easy to make in comparison to the animals. When it comes down to it, felt balls just aren’t as cute as a felt animal!

Ultimately I decided on trying to make some colorful animals of varying shapes. Apparently babies see black and white the best when they are first born so that was also a must! I ended up choosing a sheep, duck, piggy, frog, whale and clown fish. This allowed me to use multiple colors, including black and white, and have at least 2 different kinds of basic, contrasting shapes. Not to mention, they are all general shapes that are easier to create!

As for hanging them? I had no idea so I brought the animals home with me and had my parents help! We chose to use wooden dowels and fishing line.

The finished product turned out better than I could have imagined. These pictures are the few I was able to get, but rest assured, there will be more once the nursery is set up!

This will be available in the shop at some point – once I have better pictures!

 Cheers!

 

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Meet Ludwig – My Little Helper

By on July 16, 2012 in Ludwig

Ludwig says hello!

As a kid, we always had pets around. It only made sense that later in life I would have a pet of my own. Like many a college student, I jumped on getting a pet as soon as I moved out of the dorm. Within a month, my roommate and I both had kitties, and were both sent taking them to our parents after being scolded by the landlord (our lease forbade us from having pets…). As you can imagine – neither of our families were impressed or excited about getting kittens at this time.

Lesson learned, I thought, until it came time to move to Baltimore. Months before I moved, I had already called my roommate and told her I wanted to get a cat. By the time I moved she had already adopted 2! I decided to live vicariously through her kitties and helped to feed and care for them. Little did I know that one of these kitties would become mine!

packing the suitcase, modeling, and pretending to not have favorites

When it came time to move I was pretty attached to one of the cats, Ludwig. I ended up taking him with me and moving him to my new apartment. It was just him and I in the new place and he completely transformed from a fairly reclusive cat to an affectionate love ball!

Ludwig would great me at the door when I came home, follow me around the house, and cuddle in the bed at night. None of which he did in the last place. For the first time in my life I had a pet that seemed to adore me as much as I adored them! To be quite honest, when my boyfriend moved to Baltimore I was more than concerned my cat would have a new favorite owner. I know this is pretty irrational, but it was a true fear of mine!

 

Fortunately, Ludwig stills seems to favor me a tiny bit over Dylan… 

This is Ludwig, my best pet and my little helper.

 

Ludwig helps me study, change the channel on the TV and even hands me the scissors!

 

If you would like to keep up to date with Ludwig – you can follow his Tumblr blog, or follow me on Instagram (@PhDstressrelief)

 

 

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Want a sneak peek into how I create a needle felted squirrel?

By on July 5, 2012 in Shop Updates, Tutorials and DIY

 

When walking down the street, are you guilty of glancing in open windows to get a glimpse of what’s inside? I am always interested in how people decorate their homes and cannot help but looking when the lights are on and the curtains are open. The same goes for catching a sneak peek at someone’s creative process. I can’t help but stop and take a look.

Today I want to share with you a little bit of the magic of needle felting by demonstrating how I create a squirrel.

If you are not familiar with needle felting, it is the process by which loose wool roving (same stuff that is spun into yarn) is repeatedly stabbed by a barbed needle until it condenses. How does stabbing wool with a needle lead to something cute like a squirrel? It’s hard to explain, so I will show you in pictures. Still have questions? Please let me know!

 

 

I use two different colors of wool to create a squirrel, both are merino. I also use some small cording to help form his arms and legs and beads for eyes. There are several different kinds of felting needles to use, I prefer using a 38gauge tri-point and 40gauge barbed needle. The 38g is best for starting and the 40g for fine tuning (so to speak). I start by making the body (step 3) and felting the whole thing til it looks like a log. Next I begin making the head by felting just half of a roll of roving (4). This allows me to open up the bottom (5) so that I can easily attach it to the body.

 

 

To attach the head of the squirrel I felt the loose wool onto the body (6). I can then continue felting the head into the shape I like (7). This is where the squirrel begins to show it’s personality – the shape of each head is always different! The belly is attached by adding white roving to the front of the body (8 and 9). I like to roll it under into the general shape I want to make the process a little faster.

 

 

Once the body is completed I can move on to the arms and feet! I start by felting out a thin flat piece of roving and roll it around a small piece of cording. I can then continue to felt the wool around the cording until it begins to condense and become less fuzzy (10 and 11). The loose wool at the end of the feet make them easy to attach to the base of the body (12). This process is repeated for the arms (13). We are getting closer to closer to becoming a squirrel! My boyfriend and I always joke that at this step it looks kind of like a mole (14). What do you think?

 

 

The ‘mole’ quickly transforms into a squirrel once you attach the ears – two small triangles (15 and 16) and the tail! I always double check to make sure the tail is the correct size for the squirrel – don’t want it too tall or too wide (17). Now begin the final touches. I felt the nose directly onto the squirrel – I’ve discovered if I start felting the nose and then attaching it tends to fall off or causes there to be an indentation (18). Both of which look bad!

 

 

Lastly come the eyes which are sewn on and tied at the bottom (19). Finally, after several hours of work, and a handful of little felt pieces, a squirrel emerges!

I hope this helps you to understand how needle felting works and to get a glimpse into what it is that I do.

You can find these squirrels in my shop. If you have an idea for something special you would like your squirrel to be holding please let me know and we can work it out!

To my fellow needle felters and future felters – I hope you find this useful. Out of respect for my design, please do not sell recreations. Thank you – Sara

 

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Why PhDstressrelief is now I Felt Fuzzy.

By on July 1, 2012 in Uncategorized

I wanted to give you a little insight as to how PhDstressrelief came about, and why I felt the need to change my shop name all of a sudden. I hope you can embrace I Felt Fuzzy as you did PhDstressrelief!

This time last year I was considering opening an Etsy shop with the hope of selling some of my needle felted animals. I came up with a million ideas for a shop name, only for ALL of them to be claimed. It felt as though everything was taken.

In the meantime I had signed up for an Etsy account with the username of PhDstressrelief and apparently opened a shop with the same name. I must have been click happy or something! Either way I was under the pretense that I had just chosen a username and that my shop name was I Felt Fine. Apparently the shop Name and Title are 2 very different things and I had them backwards!

some of my 1st listings!

It took me months to figure out why my shop would not turn up in the search result for I Felt Fine. By this time I had already set up a Facebook page and claimed it as my own (which is why it still says I Felt Fine…) and only later realized that my shop name was actually PhDstressrelief. As much as I love the username PhDstressrelief, it in no way describes my products or small craft business. It tells you a lot about me but not my shop!

At the time Etsy would not let you change your shop name. I felt kind of stuck. My ‘new’ shop name of PhDstressrelief was catchy, easy to remember, and my sales were starting to pick up (yay)! I had embraced the name, started a blog and number of other social media sites with the name PhDstressrelief to stay consistent. About this time, Etsy unveiled to the selling community that you could change your shop name 1 time. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had this problem! I was ready to jump ship and change my shop name to I Felt Fine on the spot. Unfortunately, someone else had taken that name and it was no longer available! Deciding that it must be fate I kept with PhDstressrelief.

Flash forward to this past month – June 2012. I signed up for an online class, Blogging for Your Creative Business by April Bowles Olin. I was working on a branding exercise when I was again forced to really evaluate my shop name. For those of you who know my shop, PhDstressrelief may be synonymous with needle felt animals. But what about the casual passer by or other potential customers? It may not be easy for them to understand what my shop has to offer.

I would like to introduce you to I Felt Fuzzy – the new name for the PhDstressrelief shop.

Why I Felt Fuzzy? I wanted to express that feeling you get when you receive a gift for no good reason. Or the excitement you feel when you have really made someone’s day. That feeling you get when your significant other comes home with flowers after you’ve had a bad week, or to suprise you for no good reason. The warm fuzzy feeling you share by giving someone something to smile about. Even if it is as simple as buying yourself something special. This is what I had hoped to share with the world when I originally opened my shop. 

I have come to the realization that if I really want my small business to flourish I need to take it seriously and make educated decisions. Up to this point things have been kind of half hazard as some of you may have noticed. There was not much rhyme or reason to things other than I did what I like when I liked. I had not realized how bad it was until I started this class. Some of the things April is teaching are things I knew – but somehow escaped me when it came to dealing with my business. I guess the word ‘business’ threw me for a loop and intimidated me into thinking I did not know where to start. I’m glad she has been there to remind me of what I already knew and continue to teach me new things to improve my small business! The best part is that I have 2 more weeks of class left and am continuing to learn more and more about how to make my business and blog work!

I am ready to start making your shopping experience better. Bear with me, it will not be as fast as I’d like (still a student 1st and foremost!) but please know that I am working. As things change please let me know what you think – the good and especially the bad :)

Thank you for being so patient in this time of transition!
Sara (aka PhDstressrelief)

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The Newest Shop Additions – Needle Felted Beaver and Walrus

By on June 4, 2012 in Shop Updates
Just wanted to share 2 of my newest shop additions, as well as some of the inspiration photos! I really enjoyed making both the walrus and the beaver and to felt again after a bit of a hiatus. My goal for the summer is to make at least one new felted item a week so we shall see how I do!
(pictures of my actual items are all linked back to the listing for more info!)
1st off – beaver!
and walrus!
To see the full listing for the beaver, click HERE!
To see the full listing for the walrus, click HERE!
Cheers,
Sara (aka PhDstressrelief)
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A Few of My Favorite Things – 06.03.12

By on June 3, 2012 in Etsy Faves
Wooo! It’s June already, for better or worse, this year is almost half over. Time is flying! I wanted to share a few of my favorite finds on Etsy this week before I get back to my book – so close to finishing the first book of A Game of Thrones I can hardly put it down!
Hope you all have a fantastic Sunday and a great week to come!
All pictures are linked to the Etsy listing so you can click straight through or below in the text!
Love these bear pillows BeciMay has created and printed with her very own Grizzly design! The bow tie and the hat are also amazing additions. To see the full listing, click here!
I love all things corgi so I was super excited to see these cookies! So cute. Created by SugarLaneBakeShop, you can find the full listing here!
These are rad. And, I’m glad to know that before there were plastic moon shoes, kids still had hilarious jumping shoes! Discovered by bellalulu, you can see the full listing here!
I want one of these so bad! But what letter to choose? So many choices… Created by SDMarieJewelry, you can see the full listing here!
Last but not least, Father’s Day is quickly approaching and this card would be a great for any outdoorsy dads! Created by MichelleBruseGaard, you can see the full listing here!
Cheers, and have a great weekend!
Sara (aka PhDstressrelief)
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A Few of My Favorite Things – 05.27.12

By on May 27, 2012 in Etsy Faves
This is going to be short and sweet. We are busy cleaning and cooking for an engagement party (I’ll be sharing some of the recipes later this week- both food and drink) and are looking forward to having Monday off to relax and recover! There is a possibility that I may have 1 too many mimosas or other tasty cocktails….
Hope you all are having a great Memorial Day Weekend!
I love that this necklace/bracelet created by IWAS+WILLBE is inspired by RNA. Maybe it’s the nerd in me but I like it! To see the full listing, click here!
HandyMaiden recently debuted Squeecosystems where you can buy a set of 3 mini totems pertaining to a specific ecosystem (in this case African savannah)! To see the full listing and learn more about these cute guys, click here!
Where to start, I love everything about this piece! The color, the shape, how awesome it is. Found by Tipple and Snack, you can find the full listing here!
This vintage shadow box is full of tiny little boxes that I would love to fill with tiny and amazing things! Found by AMradio, you can find more info here!
Once again, I hope you all have a great holiday weekend!
Cheers,
Sara (aka PhDstressrelief)
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