Iron Craft 2014 Challenge #1: Three

My goal for Iron Craft this year is to complete more projects by having a list ready of projects that I want to do, and finding one that fits the theme (or is close enough that I can make it fit). My problem has always been coming up with ideas that fit the themes, so I'm hoping this will help. I have a pretty good project list going at the moment, so I'm crossing my fingers that it will work.

So. The first challenge is three, meaning the traditional and modern anniversary gifts since it's the third anniversary of Iron Craft.  Between leather and crystal, I chose crystal, because it fit with a project I wanted to do anyways. Score! My method worked! At least for this one.

One of my goals for January was to do an embroidery project. In my head, I kind of always knew it was going to be a mixed media embroidery project, as inspired by this, which I pinned like a year ago.  I immediately started planning the specifics in my head, including a very specific kind of bead I needed to make it work.

And that was kind of a failure, because I'm trying to do some stash-busting with my craft supplies, and I had to go buy beads and an embroidery hoop.  Still, I'd say it was $3.44 well spent.  I did start to wonder if this was going to work, since I didn't end up getting these supplies until January 7, about halfway into the challenge, but it didn't take as long as I thought it would to finish.

First I cut up an old t-shirt for the background.  It had some stains on the front, so I may as well get some use out of the back besides just throwing it in the rag pile.  I drew my design in pencil.

Then I sewed on the yellow dress, which is from a fabric sample from Spoonflower. I don't sew much, but I always order samples from them when they offer them for free because they just have such cute fabrics I can't help it. More projects like this might be in order, since this actually worked out really well.  I purposely made it look a little uneven and handmade.  Actually, I knew it would end up that way because I can't sew perfect little lines, but I love how it turned out, so we'll call it planned.

Then of course I started on the beads, because besides the yellow happy fabric, I was most excited about that part.  I did a few lines, then realized I should probably finish the rest of the girl so the beads didn't accidentally run into her head or something. So I stopped from that and started embroidering the phrase.

I initially wanted to do an embroidery project because I've seen some really cute ones, and I thought I had never done one, but while working on this I realized that I once embroidered my friend Mel's name on a hat, and I embroidered a few words on some jeans in college.  So hey! I've done this before.

I picked the phrase "Sing in the rain" because I think it's an awesome reminder that even when things are hard, there is some good to be found, and we should celebrate that.  Plus, my mom always sings, and one of her favorite random lines to bust out is "I'm singin' in the rain!" from the musical.  I do the same thing now to my kids, because I am turning into my mother.

And here's the final product. I feel like the girl's face could have been better, but, well, my drawing skills pretty much stop at stick people, so she is what she is.  This was a fun and actually pretty fast project. I can't wait for the next challenge!