Forest Oracle - The Fox

 Hi everyone! So I have been very busy for Christmas, making presents and orders for you guys. I've decided to keep the shop open for another week and will be taking the last orders for Christmas on Sunday the 7th of December. What I wanted to tell you though is that this Forest Oracle is up for grabs in the shop. It will be an amazing Christmas present for anyone and super unique. It is a one of a kind item and full of wisdom.

 Her body is needle felted and her face hand sculpted out of polymer clay. Her eyes are taxidermy glass eyes and extremely detailed. Her face is painted in acrylic paint.

Head over HERE for more info and price!

A Forest Oracle...

Hello everyone! Long time no see.... As you might understand I am super busy being a new mom and everything. My little baby Nova turned three months yesterday! Can't believe how fast time moves. The only spare time I've got these days I tend to spend on making and shipping the orders I get during the months and not much time is left to create new things. However, I wanted to make something very special for my mom on her birthday. So I set a few days aside and made her this Forest Oracle. It is a sculpture mixed with Sculpey and Needle felting. I love mixing the two mediums and I will definitely make more to sell. I am in love with the process and I love working with the sheep's wool. It even smells like sheep. Amazing! Anyway, hope you like it and I hope there wont be three months to my next blogentry. I really miss you guys! 

About becoming a Mum...

I've now been a mum for three weeks and one day. So far nothing could have prepared me for this. The emotions and how hard it is to get things right. First of all the labour was hard, it took just over 18 hours and in the end I had to have an emergency cesarean. Going through the labour is one of the hardest things I have ever done but also one of the most amazing and strongest things I've ever done. I look at myself and at my body with a whole new perspective. I think we underestimate our bodies and undervalue them and it is all so stupid. Nothing matters anymore once you've given birth to your first child. Who cares about the stretchmarks on your belly or the little pouch that sticks out. You have just created another human being, a life, and given birth to the greatest love you will ever know. There is no greater love than the one you feel for your baby. If you have ever loved someone so much that it felt like your heart was going to burst, well take that and multiply it by a thousand and you might come close to feeling the love you will feel for your child, but you still wont be anywhere close. I look at her when she sleeps and my heart aches with love. Every time I have to wake up during the night to feed and change dirty nappies becomes a faint memory when I look at her. Every second of lost sleep and exhaustion is worth it. I wouldn't do this for anyone but my daughter. She deserves every second of my time and energy.

The first week was so hard for us. First of all the cesarean made it real hard to settle in to things and then when she stopped feeding the night after we came home things got even worse. We ended up in hospital a few days later again as she was getting dehydrated and I could not get her to eat. Everything looks so easy on film, but to be honest there is nothing that can prepare you for what is to come. You carry a baby for 9 months and then poooof she's in your arms and they send you home without knowing anything really. I do wish they were born with a manual but that don't happen unfortunately. I can tell you one thing though, the midwives in this country are something else. The support I've had through the hard first week has been life saving. These women deserve all the credit there is and more. I wish I could gather them all and give them a huge hug. Words just aren't enough for the gratitude I have for them.

Now that everything is working and my little girl is eating as she should and is packing on the pounds I finally have the time to sit down and look at the past three weeks and how strong I've become from this whole experience. I do cry an awful lot, I think mainly because it is so hard to get used to all the emotions I feel. There is so much that I haven't felt before, and the acceptance of my body that somehow always was something I looked down on, is new to me. I look at my "battle wounds" and I admire them rather than hate them. I feel so comfortable in myself and I think with Nova's birth I was re-born as well.

All I can say is that becoming a mum is the biggest thing I have ever experienced and that nothing else matters anymore. And I want all women who ever doubted themselves and their bodies to think again and look at yourselves in the mirror and no matter what size or shape you are, look at yourselves and remember what remarkable creatures you really are. You can create the greatest thing; LIFE and you can give birth to the greatest of love. Don't ever forget that, and think of this at your darkest hour. Your body is amazing! Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

Ladybirds and Blossoms....

Since there is nothing else for me to do I will just keep the patterns coming. I guess it is a great thing as I've had the time to really focus on MobiLOVE over the past week. It needed some attention and I feel that I've finally found the originality I was looking for. MobiLOVE now breathes Emelie Jensen and nothing else. I never thought it would be so hard to give MobiLOVE an identity. The mobile phone accessory market is so saturated these days, and it is extremely hard to stand out and especially to be original in this sea of mobile phone cases. The good thing is that I've had to force myself to explore my mind and push myself to invent something new. And I have found another path along the way. I am researching some new products at the moment. I don't know if it will work or if I have to financials to sort it out. But I will look in to it. My aspirations as a designer has grown tremendously over the past month or two and I really want to see where this can take me. I am very curious.

If you want these cases then you can find them in the MobiLOVE Etsy store as usual. Just follow the links below.
LadyBirds and Blossoms for iPhone 4/4S/5/5S
LadyBirds and Blossoms for Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4

I am still waiting for baby to come out and I am now 5 days over due. I am not very "happy" at the moment as I am struggling in this stupid heat wave and I can just about move now. I force myself to go for a walk around the block every night when the sun has gone down as this should help to get baby in position. I hope she'll arrive within the next couple of days, but who knows. Till then I will use my fan and my bed as much as possible lol.

Birdies and Water Melons...

I'm sorry for the lack of updates. I am moving at the speed of a Sloth at the moment. Baby is weighing me down and the unbearable heat is not making things better. I am two days over due now and I swear with every day that I go over time I just get heavier and heavier. I can't wait to deliver this baby, for so many reasons. I am longing so much to see her face for the first time, and I'm not going to lie, I can't wait to feel a million pounds lighter again, and to sleep on my tummy.

Anyway, enough of the complaints! I have got some new cases and prints done anyway. I would feel so bad if I didn't get anything done. So I have chosen the things that demands the least physical effort of me, which is phone case designs and patterns at the moment. So I did this little Bird and Water melon pattern yesterday. Very happy with them and I love the colours. Very summery! Also I've got cravings for Water Melon at the moment so this pattern really suited me hahahaha. Hope you like them! They're all available from the MobiLOVE shop, or you can click the links below and they will take you straight to the listings!

Birdy Melon - iPhone 4/4S/5/5S or Samsung Galaxy S3/S4
Melon Pattern - iPhone 4/4S/5/5S or Samsung Galaxy S3/S4

Cloudy Birdies and Foxes in the Woods...

Good morning Everyone! And happy Monday! I've spend all my weekend sorting MobiLOVE out with new designs and I've explored my Graphic Design skills a bit further. My mission at the moment is to work with geometrical and fairly simple and straight forward shapes, to create something new, and unique. I am enjoying myself as I always do exploring new art forms.

So these are my two new designs that you can buy from the MobiLOVE shop if interested. Other than that I spent more or less all of last week preparing for the babies arrival. I am happy to say that the baby corner is ready and my bag's packed for the labor. At the moment I can't sit by my desk and eat properly without my tummy hitting my plate. That's how big I am, and that is how ready I am for baby to arrive now. Maybe this week! Fingers Crossed!

You can find the "Fox in the Woods" design here: iPhone 4/4S/5/5S and Samsung Galaxy S3/S4
You can find the "Cloudy Birdies" design here: iPhone 4/4S/5/5S and Samsung Galaxy S3/S4

The Needle Felted Circus Rabbitses...

And so another Monday has arrived. At the moment the days seem to just float together for me. I really have to force myself to keep track of them. I bought myself a needle felting kit anyway, and some wool that I had delivered last week. I had this idea of two circus rabbits hanging above the crib and for some reason I wanted them to be needle felted.

 I can tell you on thing about needle felting; it is NOT as easy as it looks. I had to learn this the hard way, sweating away at my work station. These two took me about three days to complete and I just kept adding and adding and adding wool to them.

I think I did pretty well for my first try though and in the end they came out exactly as I wanted them. I will definitely make more of these type of things. Maybe not so cutesy but more like little monsters and creatures.

But for a baby I wanted it cute and fun rather than a bit creepy/cute. I am sure some people might find these little rabbits creepy anyway to be honest. There's just something about things coming out of paintings rather than sitting inside them, that is creepy.

I hope you like them anyway and that you're looking forward to seeing more of these type of things in the future. For now though I am going to rest my poor swollen and sore hands and just take it easy today I think.

I've aaaaalmooooost finished the baby area now. A few more bits and bobs to sort out, but I am not far off.

I am really happy with it and I can't wait to show it off! And I especially can't wait to put my little Nova down in her cot for the first time and see her reaction to all the little creatures and things around her. Awwww baby come out!!! <3

Cot Cover DIY

Good morning everyone out there. Today I thought I'd show you this little throw I did for the cot about a week ago. I don't have a tutorial for this one as I really struggled to get things right. I don't know how many stitches I've ripped up and sewn over again and again lol. Who would have thought that a flat throw would be so hard to make huh?! Well not me anyway, but I go there in the end and it turned out super cute once all the obstacles were over come.

 I also made heart bunting to hang over the cot, with the left over fabric. I will show you photos of the whole baby corner once I'm done with it. Starting to get a bit frustrated now as I am running out of time.

 It is strange how obsessed you get with becoming a mum. You don't want to do anything else than baby stuff. I don't want to work or anything and if I have to I go into a grump cause I can't make baby stuff. The pregnancy hormones are really something I can tell you that much. You can go from feeling on top of the world to just start crying hysterically in a second. But you can always look back at it after and have a good laugh about it anyway. It is quite comical to be honest.

 I am in love with the colours! I found it so hard to find a fabric that I liked. Here in the UK everything is sooooo pink for girls and soooo blue for boys that it is driving me mad. I really don't like the fact that everything have to be pink for girls and blue for boys. I thought this was old news but it is still so obvious. So I don't know but I love blue and so blue it is for my baby girl.

 It almost look professional if you turn it over too lol ;)

 And here is is in the cot....

 The bunting looks so cute. I don't know if she'll notice, but it is nice for me to look at too. I'm going to order some fairy light that I've found on Etsy, with little elephants on as well. I think it'll be nice for her to look at when it's dark. Then she can dream of happy elephants instead of having nightmares. I like to think that soft toys and trinkets around your bed takes away bad thoughts and nightmares. I always felt that they protected me when I was a kid.

Yet again I have saved loads of money making this by myself. A throw like this costs between £45-£70 in the shops and I think that is outrageous. It cost me £10 and a few hours of my day, which compared to the price above, is absolutely nothing! If you don't know much about sewing then there is plenty of free tutorials online that will help you through the process step by step. Don't go out spending a fortune if you don't have to. And yet again, there is nothing like the feeling of making things yourself. You just feel so proud.

Tutorial: TOTORO Pram Mobile

Hi everyone! I am back! And guess what?!?! My PC is up and running again. I don't have internet however so I have to alternate between the PC and the laptop. But that's ok for now. Atleast I can get on with my work and edit photos and what not. It was the slot for the network card on the mother board that killed my sweet PC. Expensive to sort out, but luckily I can sort it out temporarily with a USB WiFi to get internet on it again. Since I've been gone for a whole week I have quite a few blog posts lined up for you. I will do one every other day to catch up. So let's start with this Totoro Pram Mobile = O v O =

 As you all know by now my baby is due any day. I am panicking to get everything ready. There is many things I just wanted to buy as I am quite tired at the moment and can't be bothered making EVERYTHING myself. But when I look up things I want and scan the baby stores around here I just get upset and angry over how expensive everything is. It makes me so frustrated as I think things are way over priced, especially if we see to the fact that they'll only be used for a few months and then you have to move on to the next thing. So I have taken things in my own hands as I'm not going to be a slave to the baby and toddler market. Simple as that! My first project has been this Totoro Mobile anyway. It is super simple and super cheap to make on your own, just follow these simple steps and you'll be fine.
Start out with drawing the simple shape of Totoro. If you're not sure on drawing then just get a picture that you like with a good silhouette on Google Image Search and trace it or just cut it out as your stencil. There is plenty of cute pictures out there.

 Make sure you got a stencil for the general shape and then another stencil for the eyes and for the belly. Yet again very simple shapes. I choose to go with Totoros original colours as I think the pram we got looks just like a Totoro pram and his colours would look perfect with it. But you can obviously use whatever colours you want. I used a pretty hard and sturdy felt, as I do with all my work. I don't like the thick soft stuff and think that the harder type just look like much better quality. For the grey shape you need a back and a front. So two exactly the same pieces. Whilst you only need one pair of eyes and one tummy.

 Place everything where you want it and use simple running stitches to sew the tummy into place.

 Since the eyes are so small I wont use any stitching here. Just make a little hole where you want the eyes in the grey felt piece and then poke little holes in the white felt eyes and use safety eyes to fasten them. I cut off a little bit of the safety eyes so they wouldn't poke out the back to much. If this is for a baby or toddler, make sure that you leave enough for the eye to still be secure. We don't want any accidents.

Then I move on to the stitching around the outside. You can use a machine for this if you don't like hand stitching. I find it quite relaxing and I also love the look of blanket stitches, so that was my obvious choice. Make sure you use allot of pins to keep the felt in place. It is easy for it to slide and look a bit funny if you don't.

 Blanket stitches are very easy to learn and once you get the hang of it you don't even have to think. Here's a little tutorial on how to do blanket stitches if you haven't done them before: Blanket Stitches: How to

 Before you finish off leave a little hole and leave the thread and needle in and put a small bit of stuffing into his belly. I didn't want him to look all flat as Totoros belly is what makes him so cuddly and cute. You can of course skip this step if you, unlike me, would like him flat. Once you've got the roundness of the belly you want, stitch him up and voila you got a Totoro. My camera battery died here and since it was pretty late in the evening I decided to finish off the main bits of painting so that everything would be dry in the morning. I also made two Dust Bunnies which are super simple. You just need four circular pieces of black felt and four small white circular pieces of felt for the eyes. Go about the eyes the same way you did on Totoro and then sew the two black circular pieces together with about 1 cm left on the outside so that you can give it little "sun rays". For the rays I just cut little scores all around the Dust Bunny and then cut some out completely. Very simple!
I also painted Totoros nose, whiskers and mouth with Dylon Fabric Paint, and also the grey marks on his chest.

 The morning after I continued with making little decorations for the mobile. I found it a bit plain to only have Totoro and two dust bunnies. So I cut out some leaves in different sizes and once again used Dylon Fabric Paint to do the fibers of the leaves.

 A little picture of the Dust Bunny I did the night before.

 I started out with placing the leaves out on the twine (that I later changed to brown elastics as I don't want any twine bits to come off and land in the pram). I started out with sewing the leaves on individually, but didn't like the look of it.

 So I went ahead and made little flowers instead. I didn't mean to use the buttons at first but found them in my little scrap box with loads of forgotten things. I had enough to make as many flowers as I wanted. You can use any types of shapes here. I decided on a four leaf clover looking shape and you need three pieces per flower. One back piece, one off coloured middle, and one for the front. The reason why I used so many is to give the leaves somewhere to sit without it looking funny. So the leaves can be glued of sewn in between the back piece and the middle piece. Then you keep them all together by sewing on the button and that's that.

 Aren't they super pretty?!

 And when you got all the pieces finished just pull a chord or whatever you fancy between them all. I would recomend elastics as they are very easy to work with and can fit any pram really. Make sure that things don't hang to far down as well. We don't want our baby to pull the whole thing apart. Just look and observe :)

 I am well happy with it and it goes so well with the colours of the pram. Now go and make your own. It is loads of fun and something you can always be proud of and say you made yourself. Absolutely priceless!

Here are some details :D :D :D

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and that it can be handy. If you've got any questions just let me know and I'll be happy to help!