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!!

geekyGAMERgirl Kickstarter

It's live!  The geekyGAMERgirl Kickstarter!  The goal is $500 to obtain a sewing machine and stock up on materials (so I don't have to save up for three months just to put new items in the shop!).  Even $1.00 donations get a reward so spread the word!

Click here to view the geekyGAMERgirl Kickstarter!

Also!  I officially applied to become a business and become self-employed yesterday (hooray!).  I had to to begin selling at craft shows!  It feels so official and completely awesome to say "I'm self-employed".

This does, however, mean that sales tax will apply in Texas beginning October 1!

And just a moment of mommy bragging ... my youngest twin is rolling over now, too!  All of this has put me in  such a good mood that I'm going to be completely crazy and post the newest item in the shop for $6.00, plus  S&H of $3.00 for one week only!  After that it goes to the regular price of $8.00 plus $3.00 S&H.

Say hello to the Puff Monsters!

Also, I'm currently working on a Ultros plush commission.  He's a baddie from the Final Fantasy series.  I'm waiting on huge 60mm eyes for him so I can finish him up!  I'll be sure to post him when he's done... He's going to be gigantic. So far his legs alone are about 21 inches... so he'll be about 2.5 - 3 feet tall.

I'm also working on a "Surprise Monster" listing for the shop, which will be about $9 per monster.  I'm trying to keep things affordable for everyone because everyone deserves a monster friend! In this listing you will be able to get a monster from the "grab bag".  They will be 3 - 5 inch tall monsters such as this guy here!

 

There will be all sorts of monsters in this listing... some with legs, some with three eyes, maybe even some with wings!  Who knows?  Great for those who love surprises and hate choosing.  :)

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... ;)

Back to School!

My latest project that I did tonight wasn't a monster, but it was pretty cute so I'm going to blog about it any way.

My sister, over at Teaching Chick, is getting ready for the start of school.  She's a fourth grade teacher, and a few weeks ago she saw my pincushion (you may have seen it flitting around in pictures and in my video) and said she wanted it.  I didn't really want to make her a pincushion since last I checked she didn't sew often.  So instead, I took the pattern (which is free and available here) and enlarged it, and made her a felt plush to match her classroom, which is done in polka dots.

I embroidered her name on the dog as well.  I figured she could use something soft to throw at students. (Kidding!)

You can see it's a simple pattern.  I used three pieces of 50 cent felt, pink DMC floss in three strands, poly-fil to fluff him up, and 15mm safety eyes.  In all, he cost about three dollars.  Pretty awesome for a nice, handmade and personalized gift.

Small felt projects like these are a great way to practice sewing by hand and learning new stitches.  I used a blanket stitch on the edges of the dog for a neat decorative look, and a back stitch for embroidering.

On the bottom middle seam I used a whip stitch with the seam facing in towards the inside of the dog.  If you don't know how to do these stitches, they are VERY easy.  The best how-to I've found for the blanket and whip stitches are at Futuregirl's Craft Blog.  This took about two and a half hours of work, but mainly because I was (ashamedly) playing Facebook games while sewing after the kids went to bed.

I ordered new fur!  Just a bit of it, and in some fun colors.  I'm planning on making little newborn monsters to give as rewards for my Kickstarter project (which should launch in the next two weeks sometime!).  I may also stock some in my Etsy store, simply because my sketch for them is too freaking cute to not share the finished product.

Oh! Also, my husband is amazing.  He found an open box drawing tablet on Newegg and bought it for me!  Awesome surprise. So now I will be able to sketch straight to the computer (or trace my current sketches) and share them on here!  

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!

Foxtopus!

Lately I have been working with a new character I want to turn plush!  ... the Foxtopus!

I think I have finally settled on a design that I like for him.

I think I'm going to add a few more legs, and a bit bigger ears.  Then, prototype plush done in felt, probably three or four times just to make changes in the pattern until I'm happy.  Then.. faux fur foxtopus plush!  I'm super excited about this one.

Also, I was being my internet troll self the other day and I ran across a site called www.kickstarter.com.  You can put a project on there (a creative project or invention.. things like that. No business startups unless its for a new product or tuition begging or anything...) and try to convince people to fund it.  A number of people have gotten their plush designs funded for material to make them, so I may give it a whirl.

It's a great site.  Pretty much you pitch your idea, and offer rewards for amounts people pledge.  Say, if you pledge over $5, you get a keychain or something similarly cheap.  If you pledge over $15 you get a slightly larger reward, and so on.  You choose the amounts for rewards, and you have to provide the rewards as well.  But you just factor the cost of rewards in the amount  you pitch for.  Amazon and Kickstarter.com take about 10% in fees... plus it's all or nothing funding. If you meet your goal (or over) you get the money.  If the goal isn't met you get nothing (but you're out nothing as well!).

Any way... Foxtopus coming soon! Check back for updates.

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!