S- What was the first plushie you created? How did it go?
LAAS- I think my first ever plush was in my home economics class in middle school. I chose this super difficult cocker spaniel plush to make. The pieces were all there and all I had to do was sew them together, but I got bored of it real real fast. My mom finished it for me so I guess that doesn't count, haha. After that I tried it when I was 18, and I made this panda pillow out of an old tshirt and some night sky fabric from an old crafty christmas present. Oh boy was that horrible. It took me a good 10-12 hours to finish it, and it was lopsided and more bordering the lines of scary than cute. I gave it to my little sister.
S- How long have you been sewing and how did you learn?
LAAS- A little less than a year, actually, haha. I picked it up last summer while I was working at a craft store. One of my favorite artists, Brandi Milne, had started making these creepy cute dolls and I thought they were awesome & wanted to try it myself. I didn't know how to sew at all, I knew the basics of a straight stitch just from stitching random things to my clothes or to my backpack. So I took out some embroidery and doll making books from the library and taught myself! It took a lot of trial and error, and I learned a lot from plush specific books. I've made one (or more) almost every day for the past year. I still haven't mastered the art, but everyday I get faster & learn more. It's like anything else... the more you do it, the better you become.
S- How is your alphabet project coming along? What made you do that?
LAAS- I finished it! A little less than a week ago. I put them all together in a nice little digital collage to show them all together. I started it because I wanted to have some sort of plush-specific goal to work on. Something that would take awhile but I'd have a lot to show for it. Plus I've just always loved projects revolving around the alphabet, because I'm always thinking things like "oh man, what are they gonna do for X!? or Q! Those are toughies!" Things like that are exciting to me.
S- How do you promote your work? What do you think has helped you the most?
LAAS- I try to be active on as many sites as I can find. I'm a part of myspace, craftster, getcrafty, indiepublic, livejournal, deviantart, flickr, conceptart, etsy and probably some others I can't think of. I contribute, enter contests, update often. I figure the more places I'm on, the more chances of getting noticed I have. Probably what has helped me the most was updating so often, and keeping my work fresh in peoples minds. I was always working on new things and updating, and I think that always helps a lot.
S- Have you made more mini plush earrings? Those were super cute!
LAAS- Haha thank you! I havent made too many recent ones, but I remake the popular old ones because they sell really well. I've remade the yeti ones a little less than 20 times. I do want to come up with new designs, and this reminded me! I probably will real soon. I didn't realize how popular wearing little fuzzy guys on your ears would be. I've made about 15(?) earring monster designs, plenty of room for more.
S- What is your most popular character? What is your favorite character?
LAAS- My most popular is probably my first big monster, Weeko. I've remade him about five times, two were special orders. They were my most expensive monster by a longshot, and every time I listed one they were gone so fast! One of the special orders I did was a 2 foot tall Weeko! And he had a 3 foot antlerspan. It was excitingly huge & the biggest plush I've made (so far).
Oh man, I couldn't choose my favorite plush, that's like asking a mom to choose their favorite kid! But if I had to choose I'd probably choose one of my 90s rappers bears I made for the Crammed Organisms shows. I worked on them so hard. Fresh Prince of Bear-air probably was the best, because the name just worked so perfectly & he had the best accessories. A huge flat top, shutter shades, neon striped hoodie and an attitude problem.
S- Where can folks find your work?
LAAS- on my shop! http://loveandasandwich.etsy.com or my blog http://threeeasysteps.livejournal.com
or on a lot of sites, but I update & post the most work on
http://loveandasandwich.deviantart.com &
http://flickr.com/photos/loveandasandwich
S- Name the top five albums played during your plush making.
LAAS- Chromeo= Fancy Footwork
Daft Punk= Alive 2007
The Essential Michael Jackson
Run DMC Greatest Hits
Any album by The Knife
I also listen to a looot of audiobooks. Roald Dahl books are the most fun to listen to. Especially when read by a very old british man.
S- What is your favorite part of making plush?
LAAS- It used to be writing their mini life stories & giving them names. But I recently moved from a plain flat city in Illinois to a green mountainous small town in New Hampshire, and now my favorite part is filling up a backpack of my monsters and taking them around to rivers and up mountains to take pictures of them in their "natural habitat". Or just thinking up cute scenes for pictures in general. I really want to make a monster photo book.
S- Any exciting news you would like to share with us?
LAAS- I have a website in the making! loveandasandwich.com Right now all it is is an enter page, but it's a damn good one! It's fairly close to done, it might even be done by the time this interview is posted! But probably not.
Thanks again for wanting to interview me!
<3Chelsea
