scoot in close and there will be room for everyone.

My name is Inga and I'm an artist, among other things. I have an Etsy shop, Sunny Plum, that specializes in things that are sewn.

I love perusing art and crafts, finding out how people make things, and making myself nuts adding items to my ever expanding wish list. So that's what this blog is mostly dedicated to. Enjoy!



Saturday, December 18, 2010

I Know, I Don't Know




brainstorm journal. brown and blue
Brainstorm journal by redstarINK

At work today at the vet hospital a conversation with a co-worker led me to ponder my grasp on the VAST subject of veterinary medicine.  This can be applicable to almost anything.

I know what I know.
I know of many things that I don't know.
I know that there is much that I don't even know that I don't know.

This just inspires me to keep on learning.  Exercise your brain!  :)

Gooey Brain Cupcake Soap -final 4 for 2010
Gooey brain cupcake soap by sunbasilgarden
vintage human anatomy - the brain - (khaki) Messenger Bag / Laptop Bag
Vintage human anatomy -the brain- bag by CraftieRobot

Zombies Love Brains Necklace
Zombies love brains necklace by CorsoStudio

Brain Embroidery Hand Stitched Illustration Wall Plaque
Brain embroidery hand stitched illustration wall plaque by Samskiart
zombies love brains cereal Bowl
Zombies love brains cereal bowl by foldedpigs


Friday, December 3, 2010

Ten Things I Need Daily

Wall calendar by FreyaArt
10 things that make me a better me:
(Not in order of importance)

1.  A little time every day just for me.
2.  To perform some task I feel accomplished at doing.
3.  Fresh air.
4.  To be warm next to my husband.
5.  An idea.
6.  Confirmation that I am creative.
7.  For the bed to be made.
8.  To leave the house a little cleaner than it was when I woke up.
9.  To inhale everything about my daughter and keep it in.
10.  A great big belly laugh.

What is one thing you need on a daily basis to do a good job being you?
Perpetual Tag Calendar by erinzam

Monday, November 29, 2010

This is How I Roll

The ingredients for a relaxing evening in front of the zombie box.

There comes a time when curling up on the couch with some handstitching at the end of the night is just the right thing.

I often feel guilty just sitting and vegging out because it isn't productive.  But it's OK to prioritize down time.  If my brain needs just a little bit more stimulation then keeping a pad and pen for doodling or a little bit of light sewing next to me does the trick.

So cheers everyone, I'm turning the sound down on the baby monitor and cracking open a Blue Moon while I sew some fur onto some ears and watch Law & Order.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

House Crazed

Warm thoughts as the weather gets cooler.

There are paint chips all over the floor, taped to the walls, shoved under picture frames, with circles in ink around favorite colors.  I'm having an 'I can't stand my house' moment.  More accurately there are two rooms I cannot stand and one that needs painting. 

The house is a little rancher with 6 total rooms built in 1968.  There are things that could be done without, like the horribly poor job someone did texturizing the ceilings... why would anyone do that?  And then there are these perfect weird little abnormalities that I am slowly learning to embrace.

So far I've changed my color selection for the rooms about 6 times and am faced with aggrivation and frustration due to my indecision.  Then a funny thing happened...

I was reading backlogs of emails from blogs I follow and there was one particularly interesting post.  Apparently I am not the only one who starts maniacle home and garden projects when faced with artistic stagnation.  I just didn't know that's what was propelling my behavior.

So instead of running out to Home Depot and spending $200 on paint that I might not actually want, I ambled down to my basement studio (which I'd been taking a time out from to spend more time with the hubby and tyke).  There I started work on something that had been rolling around in my brain for a couple months and it felt *really* good.

The challenge then becomes not to renovate the entire house every 6 months and leave multiple partially finished projects staring accusingly at me, but to learn my own emotional cues and balance my life accordingly.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Open for Business!

The new shop, Sunny Plum is officially open for business!  There are some old favorites from Dog&Daemona as well as fresh new designs.  I have more new goodies on the way, just check in every so often to see them.  There is a free shipping offer for the first five sales in the shop.  Enjoy!



Sunday, September 26, 2010

Consolidating

I cannot run two shops, I have decided.  Recently I read a great article and took from it how important the act of editing your product line is.  This is almost a relief, because as wide ranging and plentiful my ideas and prototypes are, it's unrealistic to include everything in my stores.  As a result I realized that I need to streamline my online selling experience, edit my stock, and make some changes to my storefront.  Part of this includes choosing one store to represent my artistic efforts, not two or three to accomodate the multiple tangents my work seems to follow.

So I've started the process of closing my two existing shops and opening a new one.  This act ties into a whole slew of other personal growth and identity recognition activities I have engaged in recently.  My house has been reorganized, stripped of all the junk that clutters my self expression in my living space.  It feels... fantastic!

The new shop should be announced in early October.  October is the best month, it's my birthday month.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

So big!

This is the cutest thing I ever made.  Got some great pics outside in the yard yesterday!


Yum, grass!  Nom Nom!  I guess we've been spending too much time with the horse.  Had a great time hanging out at the barn watching the farrier put shoes on the horse today.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Doorknob Allure

I am experiencing a growing obsession with antique doorknobs.  It's really difficult justifying wanting to collect them, especially since I splurged on nice ones when we moved into our house 4 years ago.  The real underlying and undeniable problem is that our actual doors are hideous and cheap.  I've spent the last few weeks while Mark has been out of town reflecting on what in this house is representative of me and what is just crap I've accumulated.  Turns out I have a lot of crap.  The doors are definitely NOT representative of me.

Now the questions is... do I paint the doors and throw some awesome antique doorknobs on them, paint them and leave the nice expensive doorknobs on them, or leave them crappy with nice doorknobs?  Here are a few that I found browsing on Etsy:

nikkimyers1127
VintageNewHampshire
TexasSkye
kizzyrayan123

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Tiny Tuesday Promo

As many of you know the Plush Team has a Tiny Tuesday special every week.  A handful of artists post items for under $10 in the team shop.  How cool is that?  This is my day and I made these bitty bunnies.

Monday, August 23, 2010

And They're Off

Adieu my sweet little plushes!  Four fantastic beasties are currently all the way across the country at the Stuffed magazine offices in CA.  After putting the finishing touches on them and the requisite photo shoot off they went, crammed in a cardboard box and destined for greatness.  Hopefully my positive thinking and sending good thoughts to the Stampington staff will ensure their acceptance.  Here is a little peekaloo:
These guys will be available at Zefuzz as soon as I can get everything together to open the shop.  I knitted the scarf myself too!

On the downside I caught one of those stupid summer colds.  Bah.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Yay!

Lookie what came in the mail!  My earrings from tekaandzoe... they are just as awesome in person and they arrived in this charming little box with a grass bow.  I love getting pretty stuff in the mail.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Plush Team Virtual Book Tour

Rusty and Playboy are best friends. They spend oodles of time playing outside together and getting into mischief, as foxes do. On this particular day, however, it began to rain… and rain… and rain. The two little foxes high tailed it inside to look for something else to get into.

Maybe something tasty in the pantry… nope.
A conversation with Wilbur the crab… senseless, he’s all shell.
O won’t it stop raining outside.
“Hey Playboy, c’mere!” shouted Rusty from the living room “I found something totally awesome!”

They stuck their noses into the Plush Team Annual, their newly found prize that sat right out on the coffee table, and began perusing the plush. Totally enamored they ooh’d at all of the tentacled, tusked, antlered, and fanged plushies. They aah’d at the squishy soft, furry, and huggable softies. And they drooled a little at all of the plush food. Dinnertime came and the book got a little spaghetti sauce on it.

That night as they snuggled into their beds the two little foxes clutched the Plush Team Annual in their paws and dreamed of the happiest rainy day they ever had.

My process starts with lots of doodling, sketching, messing up (lots of messing up, it’s great!), and seeing future stuffed creatures in everyday shapes. As I assemble and sew I imagine who this little creature I am making is. What does it like? Is it nice, shy, grumpy, vicious? By imagining life and personality in these little guys I feel that I can capture some emotion in their eyes, their expressions, and their body positions. This makes them more than just the sum of their parts. Then I make up little stories about them like the one you just read. Sometimes even just a word or a curve spawns a whole new creation.

I joined the Plush Team just a little too late to have my own plush featured in the Annual. You will find Rusty and Playboy in ‘The People’ section though with my shop info. What a treat to get the book in my hot little hands and be able to read about such a fantastic and diverse group of plush artists! I highly recommend visiting the Plush Team Shop on Etsy and picking up a copy. While you’re there check out the Tiny Tuesday and holiday themed plush made by Plush Team members. There’s so much cool stuff in the shop and in the book, it’s kind of like a plush-gasm!

Tune in on Saturday for the next stop on the Plush Team Book Tour, Moon’s Creations!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Peekaboo

Hey I'm back from my unscheduled absence from ye olde blogge.  No, I didn't go anywhere, life just happened.  After an incredibly crap-tastic day I put the babe to bed early and thought about crumpling up and expiring in the corner. 'But Self,' I thought, 'you have a delicious batch of homemade dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) to eat for dinner'.  That was just the incentive I needed to pull through, and now I feel much better with a belly full of spiced meat, rice, and those yummy salty leaves, plus fruit salad for dessert.  Delicious.

Yesterday I moved Duncan (most handsome horse ever) to the farm behind my house.  How cool to see my big pony out my kitchen window.  Now maybe I can start riding again!  Woo!  I can't say how much I will miss the 300 acres he was on before, but perhaps when I am richer he can move back.  Oh!  If you're interested in seeing some competition photos from 2008 before he got injured and then I got pregnant they are here at GRC photo.  The photos don't justify how ridiculously powerful and fast he was trying to be the whole time which is why I look like garbage, just sayin.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Drool Pool aka Pass the Hanky

Welcome to Tuesday!  I had a very refreshing breakfast of a banana, strawberry chobani yogurt and a miniature scone.  After breakfast I tossed some blankets down in my backyard, put my daughter on one and am now sitting listening to cicaedas in the sticky gross Maryland summer heat at 9 am.

For today's drool pool I decided  to visit some my favorites on Etsy.  I've been shopping for earrings for some time and favoriting many shops with beautiful jewelry.  Today these jumped out at me... so I bought them.  I love all of the enamel jewelry by tekaandzoe but these took the cake.
Just as jewelry making escapes me, so does needle felting.  I've never tried it but I absolutely love the soft sweet creatures made by other artists in this fashion.  Kasey of TangleWoodThicket takes it to a whole new level with her amazing needlefelted fantasy creatures.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

AUGUST GIVEAWAY! WOOT!

Oh yes, it's the very first Pretty Stitchy Giveaway!  I'm so excited to announce that the first item seeking a new home with you is something that everyone needs a little bit of... genius.

TWO SEEDS OF GENIUS!
These little Einsteins are reading up and getting ready to inspire your very own idea of pure genius.  Read more about them here.

How to enter this giveaway:

1.  Follow my blog.
2.  Leave a comment on this post with your name and email (just so I can send notice that you won)

Ways to get bonus entries:

1.  Buy anything from either of my shops dogdaemona or zefuzz during this month.
2.  Like my facebook page and share this giveaway on your wall.  Let me know that you did this by commenting there.
3.  Tweet a link to this giveaway.  Make sure to send me a link so I can verify you did this.
That's FOUR chances to win!

I will pull a random name out of a hat on September 1st and announce the winner of this month's giveaway.  Monthly giveaways will be announced on the first Sunday of each month.

Friday, August 6, 2010

It's Frizzleday

Props to all the single parents out there.  My husband has been away for only four days and already I feel like I'm going to crumple up in a corner and just start babbling incoherently.  It's not the childcare at all, it's the ten thousand other activities that I'm trying to do in addition, goals and deadlines to make, etc.  Sometimes I wish I was satisfied with a more simple life with less extracurricular fun.  Alas I am not, so on top of working at the vet and caring for a 5 month old I've added riding my horse, teaching riding and coaching a high school team, keeping up with 2 online businesses, and what... cleaning my house?  That's too much but I'm unwilling to give any of those thing up.  Stubborn and overcommitted like my mom.

I'm excited to be working on a few pieces to submit for the winter issue of Stuffed.  I'm also excited to get to work on a few awesome new plush designs.  Stay posted for some unveilings.  Off to go eat my spinach and drink some super vitamin juice or something.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Bathed in Red Red Red!

Red is one of my absolute favorite colors.  It is bold, passionate, saturated, and juicy.  If you licked it, it would be spicy and burn your tongue.

As a side note, my router is down so no wireless internet!  Here I am sitting in my basement chained to the wall.  Kind of makes me see red... heheh.

This beautiful print is by blendastudio.  It reminds me of the first cardinals I see outside my window when winter is slowly turning into spring.  I want to nestle my finger under one of those soft red wings and feel the heat and the quickly beating heart of one of these sweet birds.
These red and ivory flowers would make a great addition to any piece.  I can see myself using one in the hair of one of my plush bunnies.  Wouldn't that look nice and fresh!  They are by HMCreativeSupplies.
Who can live without two red spacemen dolls?  Very imaginative... I think I might need a silver spaceman outfit just like theirs.  These super cool dolls are by Yermit.  Just goes to show that aliens and people really can be friends.
A beautiful bracelet that easily makes my wish list.  This sexy red piece of jewelry would look fantastic with jeans and a tank or that little black dress.  Gah, want.  It is made by shenandoahsunshine.
Lastly I'd like to present this delicious red vase by NewMoonStudio.  It truly looks scrumptious enough to bite into.  And so shiny... no fingerprints on the vase, ok?  I also love that you can see a tree in the window in the photo.  Perhaps that's where the pinecone came from.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

The Drool Pool

Hang on let me get a hanky and dab the corners of my mouth... *dab dab dab*.  Mmkay, for this week's installment of the drool pool aka things I sure wish I knew how to make, I've chosen to go with a furniture theme.

This first piece is stunning!  It is a table made by michaelarras that SO wants to be in my living room except that it would shame everything else in my house.  My silly Target endtables would go running into the street in front of a truck.  How fascinating are all of the circles together in table form?  Very fascinating.
What would I do for a room with this great curvy window....  Not only are the benches great but the room calls to you to just sit down for a minute with a cool fruity drink and a book.  It is by jeremiahcollection.  Love.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Feeling Beechy

Ahhh back to the daily daily after a momentary respite at the beach.  It was lovely and relaxing and fleeting.  The normal routine will start again next week but until then here's a cute picture of Rowan sporting her urbanbabybonnet in the sand.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Sketchbook Tour 2011

The Sketchbook Project: 2011
I had the pleasure of stumbling across the website for The Sketchbook Project: 2011.  It looks so fun and interesting... the kind of thing that will cause you to produce sketches you never would have otherwise.  I kind of want to add it to my plate, although said plate is more like a turkey platter currently.  If anyone has participated in this before I'd love your comments!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Fried Friday Jibber

What has been rattling around in my head all week?
  • Inventory inventory inventory.  Making tons of rainclouds for the new shop (Zefuzz)
  • How do people make small zipper pouches and sell them for $7.00???  To make any profit on those you'd have to make them from start to finish in 10 minutes!  Not to mention time spent photographing and listing.  Am I really frikkin slow or just careful?
  • So many things to make for Dog&Daemona... Bunaroos - cyclops and regular varieties, new fuzzy curious bears, poot puffs etc.  The shop looks quite bare right now.
  • Moving my horse to the farm next door.  Sad and happy for that decision to made finally.
  • Can't wait to go to the beach next week.  Need a bathing suit and to drop 50 lbs.  Only half of that is baby weight.  Sounds like a challenge coming on.
  • Re-doing my studio.  I have most of the basement to use but there's so much overflow of crap that I really need to use my thinking cap to get everything to fit nicely.  Pictures to follow when it's done.
  • I'm having a great time reading posts by furwillfly about her 365 day toy project.  I think I'm going to do it.
  • My plush came back from STUFFED magazine, yay!  Oh no they're suffocating!  Just kidding we went through training on how to hold your breath for extended periods of time before they left.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Bathe Me In Teal

Today it's time for my weekly bath.  Heheh, color bath that is.  Otherwise nobody would get within 20 feet of me.  This thread celebrates the vibrant, stimulating, thought provoking colors that make our lives... well, more colorful.  It is a variation of TheItsyBitsySpider's Color My Monday.  This week I chose TEAL!
Actually, how ironic is it that this first item I could actually bathe myself in.  This soap is by goodegear and looks so scrumptious that I almost want to eat it.
What a lovely hair clip made by Nomsa.  I'm getting ready to go to the beach next week and imagine myself wearing this clip and a gauzy white robe that blows in the ocean air as I stroll along with Mark and Rowan.
I love this print by printmakerjenn!  Such happy little dandelions they are.  This little print is going directly onto my wish list too.
Finally, I am always looking for a pretty pair of bead earrings.  This pair made with Venetian beads by blackdogwhitedog make the list.  They are absolutely spectacular and shiny! Yep I totally want these also.

That wraps up my teal bath.  I feel totally rejuvenated and ready to take on the day.  If you have any great photos that celebrate teal, send them to me!  I'll add them to the post.