the start

There is so much going on with my design projects that I've neglected my handmade work. I've decided to start on a small piece and just work on it a bit every day. So this is day one.



I sketched something on the back of this but it's going in a completely different direction. I'm going with the flow...

wip - calendar

Remember this embroidery on paper? I really like those random circles and I've been wanting to use them somewhere else. I knew I wanted something for us to enjoy and it hit me last night—a hand written calendar to put in our studio. It's a WIP because I'm going to embroider some of the circles with white thread. Yep. White-on-white again.



Some overdue thank yous...
- To the generous bloggers who've mentioned my 2010 calendar. There are always great designs out there and this year is no exception. Thank you to Holly, Kristen, Kelly and Print and Pattern. Thank you. Thank you! If I'm missing anyone please let me know.
- To Sara for an interview with me that she posted at Handmade News a few days ago.

Friday Tidbits
- This is a repeat from Twitter but I just had to post it again here. I love Noriko Ambe's work. Amazing.
- There are days that I crave absolute simplicity like this.

Have a wonderful weekend!

challenge

I will be making a huge chandelier for the kids' school (cruise themed) fund raiser. I'm torn between excited and worried. I've never worked on such a large scale before. On the other hand, large installation type pieces are something I've dreamed about doing. The chandelier will be a center piece for the room (aka "cruise ship ballroom") and it needs to be really big in order to look proportionate to everything else. I've been doing a little research on shapes and styles. I'm leaning toward doing something a bit more contemporary due to weight and time constraints. I'll try to post some photos as it develops.

If I go the traditional route I will definitely be using Jeff Ruddell's beautiful paper chandelier as inspiration. Isn't it amazing?

runneth over

This is a complete set of tealight covers. They are all based on the designs of my latest series of flats.

The shadows created on the wall are rather interesting and the kids approved of them with an emphatic, "Cool!" I actually have them lit right now. There's just something so relaxing about candlelight.



I have several projects in the works and I'm trying to be a guilt free Mom, so I think the best will be for me to be absent for the rest of the week. The balancing act is one I have yet to perfect. I'll have some new things to show and announce when I get back. I hope that everyone has a wonderful week!

happy 4th!

I hope everyone has a safe and relaxing weekend!



(Something I played around with today. It's inspired by my latest cards but mostly by this lamp, of which you'll see the full version soon).

a new chapter

Our kitchen table can be the coziest place to draw. A cup a coffee and a few minutes later this is what I ended up with. I can't seem to stop drawing the leaves I drew on our wrapping paper project.



I've received emails asking me about the wall art section of my website. Yes, it is completely empty at the moment. I've decided that I'm ready for renewal. My printables will continue but the artwork will change.

I could delve into a diatribe, several paragraphs in length, of complaints regarding why I've decided to do this. But, I will save you the negativity and leave it at—it's time to evolve. Change is good.



Speaking of renewal, it's also affecting our home. I have bags and bags of things ready to be taken to goodwill and the library. The kids' closets are done and I've tackled a part of ours. The latter is taken longer than expected, because it includes my craft stash (scary!).

We live in a small house, so I've tried to keep things as uncluttered as possible. With two kids and my crafty habit it can get out of hand at times. Every now and then I get the urge to purge, purge, purge. I'm in the middle of that and it feels so good to get rid of the surplus. It's so freeing. I'm not done, but I'm feeling lighter already.

Our summer is moving along slowly and I love it. The kids are only worried about playing with their friends and asking for lemonade every few minutes, because the heat has definitely set in. I couldn't be happier about being away from the computer during the day. The early morning thing is working after all.

New season. New habits. New work. Love it.

wrapping paper - family project

Here's the start—although I like it as is. I used a black marker and drew this on a large piece of butcher paper that has been around for a long time. I'm going to stretch it on the kitchen table and enjoy some coloring time with the kids. I want them to fill in some random leaves with a crayon. I hope I can convince them that there's no need to color every single leaf. Less is more.

out of my head and onto paper

I've had the idea of making the petals of a flower out of a specific shape for several days. I worked over it in my head until I thought it was ready for paper. It doesn't look exactly as I pictured it but it's really close. I think I know how to fix the center, which is the part that bothers me. I may include a small tutorial of this flower in a project I'm working on.

back in more ways than one

We're back in business... sort of. As far as we know the kids' school still has no power so we're not sure when they're starting up again. There are still many homes and businesses in our area that have no electricity. We came back home on Thursday night and were lucky enough to get power two hours later. We were beyond excited.

Thank you to everyone that kept tabs on us during this whole thing. Your comments and emails meant a lot. Thank you!

It turns out that all our neighbors had fun while making lemonade out of lemons. While they waited for the power to return they had a huge grilled feast as meats thawed out, played Pictionary, drank wine, had the kids playing outside all day (what else was there to do-nice change) and in general had a wonderful time. The camaraderie has continued and today we all went to eat to a restaurant together—all 19 of us.



I managed to get a lot of work done during the weekend and finally made a decision regarding my pattern designs. I will be selling fabric produced at Spoonflower from my Etsy shop (which I had abandoned a while ago). I'm excited about this and I'm really curious to see how I do. I only have the gray fabric in the shop and it's still missing some photos to show scale. I'm still narrowing down the designs and color choices that I'll be offering so I hope to have everything fully up and running in about a week or two. But I just couldn't wait to share the news. Here is a small preview of a design in two colorways. The swatch on the left is the sample I got from Spoonflower to help me with color choices.

varying results

This is going to take a while, but I can't wait to see it complete. This project came to mind as soon as I saw this lamp that Holly bought for her new apartment. I'm going to make a paper version. I'll be cutting a small section at a time, between breaks from my other projects. I figure I'll be done by the end of the week. So far so good.



The lamp idea came about on Saturday, after I tried my hand at sewing a tote of sorts. It didn't work out the way I planned it so I've already pulled it apart. The only evidence it existed are these photos. I still had pins in the bag and I already knew it wasn't working. I wanted a tote but I wanted one that didn't exactly look like one - if that makes sense. The straps were all wrong and the actual bag was too long (it's much wider than appears in the photo - the sides are tucked in). So that was that.

Even though I don't like the bag, I decided to show it here to hopefully show a progression (improvement!) of my sewing projects as I make my sewing machine my friend. But I'll freely admit that it makes me uncomfortable to show something I'm not happy with. No taking it back now.



The good thing here, is that the idea is out of my head and I can move on to something different. I had to spend a couple of minutes explaining this to my lovely engineer husband (the part where I didn't consider it a waste of time... lol). I'm trying to decide what to make next. For some reason I think this pattern is better suited for something home related like a pillow, coasters or place mats. Maybe that's just me. It'd be interesting to see what someone else would make with fabric I've designed. Any suggestions on what to make? Not that I'll be sewing any time soon.

I'm going to have a very busy week ahead of me. I'll be editing the manuscript for my book, maybe for the last time, and I need to take more photos. So I've decided that there will be no internet for me. I'm going to my little corner of the world and sticking my head in my work for several days.

Have a great week and good luck to the kiddos that are starting school in the next few days. We're starting our second full week and everything is going great so far. I hope your weekend was as relaxed as our was.

side projects

Even when my plate is full, side projects keep me happy.

Side project 1 - Today I got the SFG Blankbook! It's my turn now. I've been flipping through the whole book and the artists that have illustrated spreads so far are amazingly talented. I think I was a bit (more like - very!) delusional when I signed up for this. Where did I come up with the idea that I could measure up to the likes of all the illustrators here? Too late. I've got to come through with something.



Side project 2 - Remember I mentioned fabric designing a few days ago? It seems like things are lining up for me to give it a try. First off, I learned about Spoonflower a few weeks ago. I signed up and got my invitation yesterday. At Spoonflower, you can upload your own patterns and a few days later you get your custom designed fabric in the mail. Then, today, Jessica blogged about her start with fabric designing and she provided a wonderful link to tiling in Illustrator which I really needed. Thanks for sharing Jessica and thank you for sharing my to do list with your readers.



So here are the two swatches (8" x 8") of fabric that I ordered. No, these aren't part of my tiny stash of patterns. I decided that before I invest any serious money on fabric (for things like cushions - nothing too adventurous) I want to verify the quality of the printing that Spoonflower offers. One swatch is to see a sampling of some colors and how they may or may not change from file to printing. The second swatch is to verify coverage on a larger area and the crispness of lines. I guess I should've included some thinner lines here too. Too late. When I get my swatches I'll let you know what the results are.

Side project 3 - I put a mood board together for Holly's mood board contest. I've never done anything like this so it was a fun exercise. Here's what I put together.

Tiny side project 4 - I gave my freebies page a small face lift. It was looking really sad.

wip rectangles

Inspired by this and wanting a little break from work I made this partial hurricane cover. I say partial, because my initial intent was to go all the way around, but time doesn't allow for that right now. In order to make the process quicker I eyeballed everything (no measurements) and made the sizes of the rectangles random. What did I use? Regular office printer paper from our recycle stash, an Xacto and a ruler.

Thank you for the warm anniversary wishes. :)

Now back to work!

a question if you may

With much work to do, I still chose to run out of the house to the nearest bookstore, get my creative juices going and some alone time before picking up the kids from school. I'm still not feeling 100% but I had so many things going through my head that I needed a moment to get away from it all. Inspiring books and magazines are heaven to go through and my quickest remedy. What are your quick fixes to get centered or de-stress? I'm curious.

Tiny preview of my next template idea.



Thank you Molly for posting my egg-carton project at BabyCenter! :)

absence...

Does it make the heart grow fonder? I hope so. Sorry for the disappearing act. When I said that the new year was going to be exciting someone must have heard me because I've had nothing but great things happening. Trust me, I'll spill all the beans in due course. Last week was a careful-what-you-wish-for week - but in a good way.



I will try to make up some of the time away by posting a new kid-friendly recycling project (from the photo can you guess the material we used?) and my second template offering too. Just keep your fingers crossed that tomorrow is a good day to take photos. The weather out here has not been cooperating with me in that sense. This of course has been happening just as I needed to take at least 40 pictures in the last few days. Sigh.

I have finally succumbed to the cold that has been going around here (kids had their turn last week - husband is still immune) so I'm going to make this short and head off to some tea and bed. I hope you all had a great weekend and I'll see you tomorrow.

Oh and does anyone have any ideas for a new header? I'm tired of thinking but I'm also tired of looking at those trees!