Fiber Friday - Handmade Felted Journals

Last fall I appeared on the morning television show Showcase Minnesota to help promote the fifth annual Alpaca Farm Tour hosted by Alpacas of Minnesota. On this show my handmade felted alpaca journals appeared briefly but were not left unnoticed. I have received requests for the instructions on how to make these handmade felted journals. I ment to get this tutorial put together sooner but real life got in the way. It took a simple request from my online twitter friend @AlpacaFarmGirl to get my behind in gear and get pictures taken and the tutorial compiled. Click here to download this FREE tutorial to start creating your handmade felted journals today! I hope you enjoy my Fiber Arts Friday Blog Carnival Entry!

Wordless Wednesday - My kids love having an artist in the house, especially when the face paint comes out!

More Wordless Wednesday here.

I've been bad...

at blogging that is. Just terrible. I've been micro blogging on twitter so you know I am around. I haven't been busier than usual so that isn't my excuse for not blogging here. I have things to do, of course, but busier days have found me blogging (here). I even joined a 31 day blogging challenge and still I am not blogging. I've been creating things so it isn't for lack of things to share :). Let's face it, I've just been bad to my blog. Then, yesterday I get this email from my friend Brenda. She gave my blog this neat little award:



The PROXIMITY Award is defined as follows:
“This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY-nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!”

This award has given me good reason to write! I thought about myself and the nature of what I tend to write on my blog and realized, Brenda is right on. I love to help out. I am an improver. I see a lot of that in Brenda too :)

With all of this in mind, I want to share some blogs with you that I think deserve this award too.

1. Helen at My Heart Exposed. Helen is deserving of this award because she shares freely of her creative designs and owns and operates a successful loom knitting group on yahoo dedicating to helping out fellow loom knitters all over the world!

2. Maria at Loom Knitting and Something Else. Maria is my friend from Mexico. She is a kind and gentle spirit. She is always ready to give a shoulder to cry on. She freely gives out compliments and lifts artists and crafters up all over the world as a Moderator on the DAlooms yahoo group!

3. Dusty from Dusty's Doings is my third nominee. Dusty is the co-ower of the yahoo group Loom Knitting Newbie Beginnings. Dusty has been very busy caring for her 14 yr old grandson Tyler who is Autistic, but she still has had time to offer a shoulder during my own personal crises and she organized and executed a huge Chemo Cap drive for Bev at Bev's Country Cottage.

Please check out these wonderful bloggers and make friends with them. They will offer friendship and lots of help if and when you need it!

Wordless Wednesday - Snuggeling

More Wordless here.

Raining cats and dogs...and ducks and geese and every other kind of animal you can think of...

And my 3 year old wanted to go outside. I told her I didn't want to go outside because it was soaking wet out. A few minutes later I told her I was getting in the shower and she said, "Well, it is soaking wet in the shower too!" LOL, LOL, LOL!

My new Etsy name is...

Since I've gotten some emails lately about my Etsy name, I think I better post what name I picked! I don't want to keep you wondering and voting...

I added my new banner to my Etsy shop and that is about it! I looked at my banner so long I am not sure it reads the way I want it to. What do you think it says?

Will you help me pick a name?

I am setting up an Etsy shop. My shop will have mostly alpaca yarn, roving, and raw alpaca fiber. I plan to add dyed alpaca fibers and drop spindles eventually. I want my name to be creative and rememberable but don't want to limit it to just alpaca. I want it to feel like my brand name. For many years I used the name "Creative KJ" because my nickname in highschool and college was KJ. Someone added "Creative" to my nickname because they thought I was always so creative. A few years ago I changed it to "Cre8tivkj". My blog name uses it. My pattern's blog uses it. It is my Ravelry ID, my Yahoo ID and now my Twitter ID. Now I am wondering, have I successfully branded this as my name online?

Should I stick with my online spelling of the word creative? Keep it spelled correctly? Change it only a little bit? Forget about the word altogether? Which name do you think I should use as my Etsy store name?

1. Cre8tiveSpin
2. CreativeSpin
3. CreativSpin
4. Cre8tivSpin
5. Spin4Fun
6. Fiber4Spinning
7. Spinning4Fun
8. FiberDreams
9. SpinningFiberDreams
10. Luv2Spin