Make Me Something I Don't Know

The other day, my four year old son, Freeman, asked his dad to "make me something I don't know" which means "surprise me with something new". So Alex and son decided to make a hand puppet out of an old sock. Alex stitched yellow eyes on a long tongue onto a lone black sock. Freeman was excited about the new puppet, but he was frustrated trying to manipulate the sock puppet with his small hands.

The next day, Freeman and I sat down at the sewing machine with a simple goal - to create a sock puppet that his small hands could work. After a few hours and a number of prototypes, the Sockatoomi was born!

The Sockatoomi is created from polar fleece with felt accents stitched on. It is durable, washable, and lovable! Each Sockatoomi is hand crafted with every detail lovingly applied. No two are exactly alike. However, all Sockatoomis are non-smokers and are created in a smoke free home.

Not a good blogger

I started this blog hoping to chronicle the ups and down of the creative process. For some reason, I thought I might be disciplined about writing. For weeks, I have been busily making pendants, dolls, and puppets and slowly listing them in my etsy store, but I have not written a thing. My hope is I can make up for that today.

So I struggled to get the pendants looking like I envisioned. After a few bumps in hte road, I began to get the results I wanted. Then came the issue of photographing them! I do not have the greatest camera, but it has always served me well, so I was shocked when my pictures were so bad! Here is how they looked:
I did a little research and found an fellow etsy member Duet, who sent me a picture of hte light box she built. Basically it is a cardboard box with windows cut in the top and side and covered with tracing paper. Inside, you place a background to photgraph on. I use a piece of watercolor paper that curves through the inside of the box. Now I take my box out into the bright sun and shoot great pictures! Here is the result: