Snuggle Herd Mystery Revealed!

All of you who guessed "elephant ears" were correct, and Meredith, you are the winner! I will contact you later today about your prize, a set of my "Say What?!" coloring cards. I was very amused by all of the creative answers - thanks for playing, everyone!



I've been working on a slight re-design of Elsa the Elephant, so it was sort of a trick question! The ears I'm making now are quilted, so they look a bit different.



The material I'm using for the body is now quilter's cotton instead of upcycled t-shirts. Using cotton allows me to skip a couple of steps & make them more quickly & easily. However, I think I may still keep making the t-shirt ones as a "luxe" type of item because they are sooooo cuddly soft, and I like the re-use aspect. I'm going to be using many vintage & re-purposed fabrics for these new cotton ones, too, to keep them earth-friendly.



I hope to have these new elephants listed in my Etsy shop soon. Also working on a few other super-cute animals... stay tuned!

Snuggle Herd Sneak Peek & Contest!

Can you guess what I've been working on???



Ok, I'll give you a hint: it's a body part. But can you guess what part it is & who it belongs to? Leave your answer in the comments for a chance to win! I'll send a special gift to one lucky person, drawn randomly on Thurs, 7/8 at 10am from all of the correct answers.

A Zandra for Zandra!

I had to share this story with y'all because it's so cool! As you may have read, The Snuggle Herd was recently featured on Little Austinite with a giveaway of one of my Zandra the Zebra stuffed toys.

This caught the attention of a gal named Shannon, so she visited my Etsy shop & the EtsyAustin blog & left a couple of comments about what she found. When the contest ended, a commenter was picked at random, & Shannon was ecstatic to learn that it was her. She sent me an email explaining why:

"There is special meaning to this for me. I have a very dear friend who lives in Minnesota (where I grew up) and her name is Zandra (we call her Zandy). She never finds anything with her name on it, so she will be completely blown away when I send her my awesome Zandra the Zebra!"

Cool, huh? Zandra the Zebra is now on her way to her new home with Zandra in Minnesota. I'm sure both Zandras will be very happy to meet each other. And here I thought I had made that name up!

Bunnies.

It's really feeling like Spring around here, so it's high time to get some bunny things out into the world! I first mentioned my new Betsy Bunny design back in December, and I was all excited about being "ahead of the game."

yeah... and now it's March and I'm sitting here with a huge pile of half-finished bunny clothing in my work room! I did have a few bunny shirts & onesies in the tote full of stuff I took to The Oasis gift shop last Friday, so there's that to feel good about. At least I haven't been totally unproductive!

My brain just keeps spinning around with thoughts like, "oh my gosh; it's already March! I've got to get the bunny stuff listed in my Etsy shop & out to the boutiques I consign at right away!" Like I won't sell any of them otherwise & then I'll be left with a huge pile of bunny stuff nobody wants come May. Is this crazy of me? Do you other crafters out there suffer from this same kind of self-inflicted hysteria? Do people buy bunny-themed stuff after April? Someone reassure me that the world won't end if I don't get these bunny things done today. Please. Because I really don't feel like finishing them today...

But, lest you all think I'm a lazy good-for-nothing, I have also done a cute little bunnies coloring sheet for the activity book I'm (still) working on. You can download & print it for your favorite little artist!

And I've been meaning to put that image on some coloring cards as well... geez! So much to do, so many distractions!

Want to win a Zandra the Zebra toy? 4 more days to enter!

I've been featured on Little Austinite this week! It's a great website & I'm so honored by the write-up. You can read my interview & leave a comment for a chance to win your very own Zandra!

You have up to 4 ways to enter this giveaway so do all 4 and increase your chance of winning!

1. Visit The Snuggle Herd or The WonderCraft. Leave a comment on Little Austinite in this post about something interesting that you saw or learned from either website.

2. Visit EtsyAustin. Poke around and find an Austin Etsy artist that you like.

3. Post about this giveaway on your blog. Leave a comment with a link to your blog.

4. Retweet about this giveaway. Leave a comment with your Twitter name.

This giveaway began March 1, 2010 and will end March 7, 2010 (Sunday) at 11:59 pm CST. A winner will be randomly drawn and announced the following Monday. Good luck!

Fun Freebie: Pretty, pretty desktop wallpapers from Liberty of London

Oh my goodness, aren't these new Liberty of London for Target designs gorgeous?! I just saw a sneak peek from Nicole at Making It Lovely. Had to pass it on! You can find the desktop wallpapers in the Pattern Your World menu. Roll over your favorite pattern & the download links will appear below it.


I cannot wait until this stuff is at my neighborhood Target (as if I need another reason to shop there)! I already have a hard time getting in & out of Target in less than an hour because there are so many fun designer things to look at. These new Liberty things are going to make it impossible!

Fun Freebie: My Birdy Valentines

Some little birds for all the lovelies in your life. You can download a sheet of them from my Fun Freebies Flickr set & print your own. How sweet!

Fun Freebie: Patterns for Colouring

Check out the awesome Patterns for Colouring blog to download tons of cool, free patterns! Perfect for coloring as relaxation, making some art to spruce up your work area or giving to the kiddos as free & creative entertainment. This site is really well-organized & searchable by tags such as organic or symmetry. Fun stuff!

Fun Freebie: A Snuggle Herd Dot-to-Dot

I've been hard at work on an activity book that I hope to have ready this spring. It will have coloring pages, dot-to-dots, complete-the-picture pages & more! I wanted to share my first completed page with you, and would love to hear what you think. If you have any kiddos at your disposal, please print this out for them & let me know how they like it.

How to print: Use the "Download the Original size" link on this Flickr photo download page. The "original size" file is sized to fit on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. Enjoy!

Fun Freebie: E-Postcards by Eric Carle

Who doesn't love Eric Carle? His illustrations are so joyful & adorable! Four designs from the book, Eric Carle Decorative Prints are available as e-cards from Chronicle Books. By the way, Chronicle Books has tons more e-cards in case The Very Hungry Caterpillar isn't quite your style!

Fun Freebie: Lovely wallpapers from Ecojot

Spiff up your desktop to start off the new year in style! Ecojot, a Canadian paper line with pretty illustrations by Carolyn Gavin, is a fun site to peruse. Download one of her lovely wallpapers here.

New Fun Freebie: Monkey Hangers

Yesterday I finished a new Fun Freebie for May (which I do realize is practically half-over - sorry for the delay!). Fun Freebies are a new monthly thing I'm doing to promote my line and try to build a following on my blog & website. They're also a fun diversion from sewing for me - I really enjoy drawing & it's a nice change of pace. I also plan on doing kids' activity books & craft kits in the future, so most of these Fun Freebie illustrations will find their way into those as well. And of course, I can use them for my ready-to-color stationery line, too.

{Editor's Note, 1/29/10: I'm no longer creating new Snuggle Herd Fun Freebies monthly, but will continue to add new ones periodically. You can see them all in my Fun Freebies Flickr set.}

I'm really happy with how these little monkeys turned out. They're based on my newest almost-finished toy designs, Max & Molly. I'm really close to having the stuffed toy versions ready to go, but I've run into a bit of a snag with the design of Max's hat. Hopefully I'll be able to work that out & get them listed soon. I'm hoping to have a few ready to take to the Green Market Festival at Austin Children's Academy this Sunday (gee, isn't that what I said before the LAST craft show I did?!).

Anyhoo... I will have some of these monkey hangers cut out to use as giveaways, in any case! I think I'll put them out with crayons as a little craft activity for the kiddos. I sure had fun coloring some of my own, as you can see. I'm partial to drinking coffee while I color and drawing wonky stripes & polka-dots in the background.

After I colored & cut them, I went around the house finding places to hang them. They're cute hanging just about anywhere! on a lamp or bookshelf...

on a wardrobe...

or in the kitchen as a reminder to buy more bananas!