My Small Vacation, and Various Projects

Well as you all have probably noticed, I've been taking a mini vacation this week. Nothing new up in the store, and not much blog-wise either. This is because it's my son's second birthday this week, and I am really busy doing party prep for this weekend. He wanted a pikachu and mario themed party... that's my boy!

 I have been working on a custom order and a couple new patterns, as well as making some plushes for my December show (some vacation, right?). I finished my monster swap as well! My partner liked the Bride of Frankenstein, so I had to make her a doll.

I'm planning on adding dolls to the shop, I have a couple designs in the works.  But they are very labor intense and time consuming, so just a few.

The Kickstarter thank you's have been up about a week now!  Find your name on the list if you haven't already and you participated in "Plush Monster Mania".

I have noticed that many people, (mainly the ones who inquire about custom orders), are interested in animal plushes as well, just with a geekyGAMERgirl style twist.  (Wasn't aware I had a style, but someone told me it's eccentric and unique...)  So I am beginning pattern design on a few animals.  I will add a separate section to the store for these guys when I have some patterns ready and plushes made.

And here are some of the first plushes I have made for my December show!  Whales!  I will post one or two in the shop in the new plush section when I have about 10 made for my show stockpile. There are two without the mouth and fins attached, and one with in the photos.  Not great pictures, but it was about 1 AM. You can also see my new sewing cabinet with machine (THANK YOU KICKSTARTER!).  It's used... but it was a $700 machine new and can do anything I want it to and came with a serger!  And replacement parts aren't hard to find.  I learned the ins and outs of it in about two days, which is pretty good seeing as I haven't ever had this high end of a machine before!  

If my show goes well in December, I may be able to get an embroidery machine, as well!  

September Giveaway!

Win this monster!  

Contest open worldwide and includes free shipping!  All entries verified.  Ends September 8, 2012.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ultros from FFVI

Finished Ultros!  He's the octopus from Final Fantasy VI I've been working on this week.  He ended up measuring about 3 feet in length.

I never made a plush completely from fleece, but man is it forgiving fabric!  I could even use his legs as pincushions and the holes just disappeared when I took out the pins.  He has a polar fleece body, legs and eyelids.  His teeth are 3 inches long made of felt.

The eyes were a bit tricky.  I couldn't find the right colors anywhere, so I had to customize my own safety eyes.  It's not too difficult.  I know of two ways to customize eyes.  One, if you need a black pupil you can just get clear safety eyes and paint the backs of them before applying them to the plush.  With these eyes I needed a red pupil, so I had to customize full black eyes.  I bought the largest I could find (60mm), painted them with acrylics and sealed them with clear nail polish.  The polish just needs to be applied to completely dry paint, then left for a day to dry thoroughly.  It creates a hard protective cover coat, doesn't chip easily, and makes a glassy look without the high price of buying acrylic sealant at the hobby store.  These eyes took six coats of paint (yellow on black is a nightmare) and three coats of polish.

 I honestly think he turned out amazing!  Here's the picture that I had to work with:

Hand sewing this took a while, though.  Glad I'll be getting my new sewing machine soon!!!  On that note::

KICKSTARTER UPDATE!

I met my $500 goal in ONE day!  It's amazing!  I didn't know people would love my plushies so much, but I'm honored they do.  It's truly what I want to do with my career, and launching this business means so much to me.  It will help me do something I love, as well as help support my three beautiful babies!  My husband is so supportive as well :)

My next goal is $1200.  Seems like a bit of a stretch (more than double what I wanted initially) but with 11 days left, I'm already over $900!!  With that extra $700 I could go to my first professional craft show and do business face to face with customers.  It would do WONDERS for my business!  That amount would cover rental fees, display cases, material for product, and transportation.  Here's to hoping!

And a braggy mom moment to end this post:

My twins rockin their chuck taylors! They will be four months old on the 23rd. Hard to imagine!  Also hard to imagine their brother will be 2 next month!!

Spyster

The newest member of our little monster family: The Spyster.

I want to get better at my sphere sewing, so I'm trying to come up with patterns that utilize them.  I think he turned out pretty freaking cute.  He has six legs, with paw prints.  My son loves Blues Clues, and anything that has a paw print on it he goes insane over... so I had to do this little nod to him.

I video taped the entire sewing process, but I had to do it in several sittings over two days (watching three month old twins and a 22 month old is a bit distracting...).  We'll see if I can edit it into a passable time lapse.

Also!  A Kickstarter for geekyGAMERgirl should be up late this weekend, or early next week.  I'll post here  and keep everyone updated.  If you can't donate then spread the word!

I ordered a large batch of fabric earlier this week, so I should be cranking out tons of monsters by the end of the month. Woo!

Also - congratulations to Angela C. who won this month's giveaway!  She won a free customized baby cloud monster!  Didn't win?  I'll do another giveaway the first week of September.  Wonder what it'll be... ;)

YouTube Channel!

geekyGAMERgirl has a YouTube channel!  Woo!  Well, I only have one video up for now, but it's pretty awesome if I say so myself.  Last night I decided to play around and just do a quick sketch of a monster and make him up in one night while recording what I did.  My husband recently bought some pretty expensive video editing software (which he has not used...) so I decided to play around with time lapse and other things.

I'll put a YouTube link to my channel on the side bar, as well as a link to the geekyGAMERgirl Facebook page.  

Update on the Foxtopus monster... I'm still working out kinks in the pattern.  But I should have his prototype done fairly soon!

Free Giveaway!

I opened up a geekyGAMERgirl Facebook page! Woo!  To celebrate, let's do a giveaway.  That's right... free stuff!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

For participating in this giveaway, you will be entered in to win one CUSTOM baby cloud monster!  You will be able to pick your monster's face coloring and style (any color), fur coloring (white or gray) and number of eyes and size of eyes. You just tell me what you want your baby cloud monster to look like... I'll create it for free for the winner! (free shipping too!)

This contest is only available to US residents. Ends August 8, 2012.  Winner will be announced August 9, 2012! You must "LIKE" the geekyGAMERgirl Facebook page to enter, and in order to gain access to additional ways to enter more times.

I also wanted to share how I package my monsters.  It's important to be creative in your packaging, as well as your shop items.  Here's how I do it!

I wrap up the monsters in bright colorful tissue paper, include their original sketches and a packing slip and... voila!  My husband's reaction, when I first did this, was literally "WTH Heather...?".... but I love it.  It's personal, it's creative, and it's freaking cute.

Oh! And Adora has come by from her sky-cave to find a new home, as well. You can check her out on my Etsy.

And a big shout out to Matin Lapin for featuring our very own Trevor the Thundercloud Monster in her blog,  that you can read here, and in an Etsy treasury in honor of Ilyap'a Day that you can see here!  Check out her Etsy store, too.  She has a lot of cool items, see them here!

The Birth of the Cloud Monster

Lately, I've been sewing my fingers off.  I love making completely handmade plushies, and I've gotten rather good (if I can say so myself).  This is the first time I've worked with faux fur, and I think I'm in love.

Thus is birthed, the Cloud Monster.  I have a feeling his species and I are going to get along great.  Apparently, they live in sky-caves and go birding, much like we go fishing.  Not to mention they are super cuddly and cute.  Making up all the different faces is a ton of fun.  It's great getting to see my sketches come alive in these little guys!  I sew felt pictures on the back of the larger ones to display their personality.  The babies have just plain backs, because they are still growing!

I created my pattern on cardboard (to save the pattern for multiple uses) and cut mirror images out of the faux fur for the two sides.

Designed his face in felt

and sewed him all together.  

Stuffed and fluffed!

The felt is easy to work with, and is one of my favorite fabric mediums.  It's great for a beginner if you want to start designing and making your own plushies.  You can literally draw on the felt, cut and backstitch it together if you don't know any other stitches.  The faux fur was a bit trickier, and it looked like I sheared a sheep in my living room when I was done cutting the pieces out.

I'm definitely going to make more of these.  I made about a dozen this past week and a half, and I still have about half a yard of gray faux fur in the old crafty closet that needs used up.

One of my little baby cloud monsters is already on it's way to it's new home in Ohio!  His new roomie named him Cosmo (cute!).  Yay for my Etsy's first sale! I think I'm going to send out the sketch page for each monster on his journey to his new home, so people can share in the creativity that birthed their new cloud buddy.

So long, Cosmo!

Gonna look into making a giveaway soon - stay posted!