Creature Feature!

I think I have more new projects in the works for fall 2015 than I have for any other fall season yet! I'm really excited to be branching out and working on some brand new accessory options, and hopefully a limited edition line of children's clothing and shoes this year. When I made the set of clothes and accessories for a baby shower gift a few months ago, I enjoyed the process so much that I couldn't go back to only making toys.

I started off by making a set of sleep masks with a creature theme. I've always been a huge fan of naps, but I also enjoy having a lot of natural light in my bedroom to help me wake up in the morning. Lately, I've found it difficult to fall asleep for a nap, since there is so much sunlight in our bedroom in the afternoon. I started using sleep masks and I LOVE them. There's no reason to have a plain one when it could be something cute, and why have just one when you could have a whole set?

The fox mask is made from a scrap of vintage orange wool, with machine embroidered eyes and a leather nose.

The owl mask is made from a scrap of vintage burgundy velveteen with appliqued scraps of vintage wool and large plastic buttons.

The cat is vintage wool fabric in sage green, with machine embroidered features and faux leather accents in ultra-pale pink.

The bear is a gorgeous chocolate brown woven vintage wool with machine embroidered eyes and real leather ear and nose features,

When I made the tiny little shoes for the baby gift this past spring, I got totally addicted to making mini shoes for mini feet. I have a lot of vinyl on hand from years of making coin purses, so I decided to design the line of animal shoes I've always wished I had in my own closet. I used the animal themes from the eye masks as a jumping-off point for what creatures should be featured in the shoe designs, and ended up with this set of 6 pairs:

The raccoons are vegan leather in silver with dark purple and white accents, and black rhinestone eyes.

The owls are burgundy vegan leather with accents in sage green, bright yellow, and eggplant purple, and black rhinestone eyes.

The fox shoes are a patterned vegan leather in orange, with bronze and beige accents, and black rhinestone eyes.

The cats are black vegan leather with gold accents, machine embroidered whiskers, and silver rhinestone eyes.

The bears are bronze vegan leather with gold glitter accents and black rhinestone eyes.

The bunnies are ultra pale pink vegan leather with magenta accents and black rhinestone eyes.

There are a few modifications I would like to make to a couple of the pairs (mostly I'm not 100% satisfied with the cat shoes, and would like to go back and revisit that design) and I have a handful of other animal shoes I would like to try out as well (I'm already working on frog shoes!); but I really love the first set, and wish they all came in my size! These will be up on Etsy soon, in a range of baby and maybe toddler sizes, as soon as I finish drafting the pattern for each individual size.