2009 Year of Pleasures #13

We stopped for the night in Las Vegas and spent the night at the Tropicana. We thought that a major hotel right there in the heart of the strip would be a sure bet. It was stunningly scuzzy. I think I can tell you all you need to know by showing you this picture and then telling you that we were actually in one of the upgraded rooms.

I can now officially say I've stayed in a hotel room with mirrors on the ceiling. I think they must be more fun when you share your bed with a baby. He spent hours blowing raspberries at the baby in the mirror.

Shop update is LIVE!

Well, it only took me two hours longer than I planned, but it's done.

I didn't feel like I'd gotten that much stuff finished, but I guess I forgot about all the different versions. Holy cow that took forever.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with all the shop discussion. I realize that on most blogs this happens without all the hubbub, but this was a big deal for me. Years ago, pre-etsy, pre-craft blogs, pre-paypal, before all the things that make online sales so darn easy, I started a business selling things I made. My friend helped me launch this big website and since I was independent I had to do all the hard stuff myself - no easy marketing, no payment processing that all comes with etsy - it was my own site and I had to do it all myself.

It was a miserable failure. Partly because I named it "Eclectic Sass" (I thought it was such a great description of what I was trying to do) without realizing that the url could be read Eclectic's Ass. I was doomed from the beginning.

Then there was the fact that I priced everything crazy high because I kept hoping that things would take off and allow me to leave my mergers and acquisitions job, and since I was the sole breadwinner back then, the only way I could leave that job was if I made just as much money through my crafting. What a pipe dream.

I went to craft fairs and just watched as person after person liked what I had to offer but was not willing to buy it and my heart broke more and more every time as I realized that things were not going to take off and I was going to be chained to my desk for much longer.

It really was a remarkable learning experience, learned very much the hard way, and I'm still a little gunshy about putting my stuff up for sale. It's such an investment of money and time, and there are very few people in the world who are willing to pay for all the labor we crafters put into our work. I'm doing it to try to face this fear and let go of it all. So thanks for putting up with me.

How embarrassing!

Of course my blog breaks when I'm away for the weekend. Of course. Sorry for the mess, I'll make it all better when I get back.

In a perverse way that only makes sense in my life, this is actually a good sign. It means that I've made way more internet friends than I ever expected to, so, truly, thanks for visiting.

Tresa

On our way

We're already an hour late getting on the road, and we're still debating whether or not to bring the pack and play. The trip is off to a great start.

In happier news, I was able to actually finish off that quilt I started three years ago in my quilting class, and since it's not really my taste and I don't have a little girl of my own, it's going to my Sisterfriend Schelle for her two youngest to fight over. I'm sure that cool Aunt Tresa will find herself making another one very soon.



This was my first try at stippling, and it's so very much easier than I ever realized. Like everything in crafting, it's all about having the right tool for the job and once I got myself that darning foot, the rest was easy as pie (if you don't look too close). This little girl has quite a thing for butterflies, so in each corner I freehanded a butterfly, and then did a little wavy flight path as the border quilting.



Happily, once the quilt was washed and got all those glorious rumples and bumples, it really helped to hide any squashy quilting loops, or backing that got folded over and sewn that way. Not that I would ever do that, of course, I'm just saying.

When next I see you guys I'll be dealing with this shop update. I'm sure I'm way more excited about it than anyone, you'll all probably be thrilled when I stop talking about it, but it's a big deal for me. It's hard for me to face the rejection of actually putting things up for sale. But more about that on another day. Bear literally has the car halfway out of the garage and is threatening to leave me behind. If I didn't love this cousin so much, I'd be half tempted to let him. Four days of a house to myself! A girl can dream.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Fruits of my labors

In my moping about over the weekend (and then some) I drowned my sorrows by driving to the nearest nursery and buying myself a bunch of vegetables to plant. I had been toying around with the idea of a vegetable garden, but I kind of moved that into the 'Next Year' column in the grand to-do list of my mind. Until Atti's monster teething just happened to coincide with an absolutely glorious Spring San Diego weekend. I am not made of stone. I couldn't resist.

If I had been thinking clearly at the time, I would have remembered that we have a trip planned from tomorrow until late Sunday night and my schedule was packed solid already. I still don't have a thing to wear to the wedding (why does no one make clothes to fit post-pregnancy boobs?), I'm actually toying around with the idea of sewing myself something to wear, I have a quilt to finish to take up with me for one of my dearest friends, I still have that shop update and the weather is not making pictures very easy, and now I have to squeeze in some major yard work. Clearly, I am insane, y'all.


On Monday I put a bunch of seeds out to start. There's three different types of lettuce (I couldn't find Arugula, but I'm still on the case), carrots, spinach, and dill to make up for what got killed off in a sprinkler explosion last year.


Then I spent all day yesterday weeding and weeding and hoeing. My inner thighs are so pissed off at me today. Bear had to yank me out of bed this morning and be a spotter for me as I staggered down the stairs like Frankenstein. How can I just now be 30 and already my back and knees are pretty close to worthless. One of the many injustices in life.

I think this little plot is about 12' x 8', and once I got everything all prepped, I realized that I'm going to need a lot more than three little tomato seedlings, 1 pepper, 1 pea, and whatever makes it out of those little seedling pots. Time to go back to the nursery.


I planted this little persimmon tree at the end of last summer, and it ended up staying in it's little pot for several weeks before I could get it in the ground. I was sure I killed it, but I planted it anyway just to see what it would do. A few weeks ago I saw little buds popping out and it seemed like such a miracle. Hopefully I'll get to start eating persimmons come October.


In flower news, that pack of poppy seeds I threw out into the yard is now taking over everything. I don't think I'll have time to thin everything out before we have to leave, and I'm a little worried about what I'm going to come back to. As I was weeding yesterday, I realized that a lot of what I was pulling up looked pretty darn familiar. I think some of those seeds must have made their way over the wall and onto the ground next door. And it means that they managed to grow while underneath a table that used to live there. These poppies seem to like it here.

2009 Year of Pleasures #12

The ice cream of the future. It's regular ice cream, frozen below zero, and it makes these little beads of frozen goodness.

We had a branch of this place in the nearest mall growing up. I don't know what it is I love so much about this stuff. The texture's really interesting, and then when it melts it becomes more like ice milk than ice cream, which is a really good thing to me. I love that light taste.

There are a few franchises around here, but none that are super convenient, and you can't keep it in your home freezer, so when I go I usually buy two or occasionally three flavors and power through them as a once in a great while, out of control splurge.

Today is one of those bitter days.

Atti's teething about four teeth at once, he's had a low-grade fever on and off for nearly a week, and I cannot do anything to make him happy.

In the past couple of weeks it seems like a little lightbulb has turned on for Atti. All of a sudden he's interacting with us so much better. He can start to communicate with us, to follow simple instructions, he's aware of so much more. Which is of course a good thing, but it brings some big fat complications.

Now that Atti is aware of what he wants to do, he's also aware of what he can't do. I keep hoping that it's just the teeth, but lately when I put him down for tummy time he just starts throwing a fit. Instead of working and muscling his way over to a toy, he starts to cry and bangs his head. And instead of my sweet, peaceful, content baby, I suddenly have a very bitter little man.

I keep trying to remind myself that in parenthood, everything will pass. For good and for bad, everything will pass. So maybe I'll be in for a rough few months, but I shouldn't let myself think that this is how it's going to be forever. But boy is it tempting. He's more dependent on me right now than he even was as a newborn. At least then he would sleep, or I could pop him in his sling. Now I have to lug around a 20 pound sack of flour, all day long.

When someone you love is going through therapy, there's a standard pattern of behavior. They work and work and work and seem to get nowhere, so you agonize that they've reached their limit and whatever ability they have right then is all they'll ever have. You worry and grieve about their options and what this means for you as a caretaker, and just when you're ready to give up and settle in to what your new life will look like, they have a breakthrough. The elation you feel is more than can be described in words. The clouds part, heaven itself seems to shine down upon you, you weep with gratitude and pledge to always remember this feeling and never be so pessimistic again. You commit to celebrating achievements and to stop focusing on limitations.

And then time goes on, they work and work and work and seem to stagnate, and no matter how big the previous breakthrough, no matter how glorious you felt before, you will still eventually face those feelings of hopelessness again. You will still have visions of yourself dealing with this same problem 10, 20 years from now. You still count up all the things you're sacrificing.

And then they have another breakthrough, and the sun comes back out from behind the clouds.

The sun will shine again for me, I'm just getting tired of living in this gloom.

Alphabet Wall

The majority spoke, so I went ahead and hung up my alphabet wall as I planned. I struggled and struggled to get decent photos, but the area is so wide and there's a pillar in the middle of everything, plus all those weird angles that forced me to get creative in the first place, so here's the best I could do.



The main focal point starts with this big canvas I painted.


Then I made up some coordinating mini canvases.


And then I mixed those with some loose wooden letters I painted up, and some framed images I made up of different font alphabets. The tiny letters are just stuck straight to the wall with little sticky glue dots.


I think it looks fantastic and I can't stop looking at it. I think I'm going to keep my eye open for some more letters, and Anonymous had a great idea of hanging something above the door to help bring it all together, so this will probably continue to grow. The paper mockups are perfect for getting the placement right, but they were so much more visually heavy than what I wanted to hang, so the finished project looks way more subtle than I thought it was going to.

I don't draw (yet), I don't really paint, instead I've become quite proficient at cheater methods. Here's how I made the canvases.

Start by painting the entire canvas the color you'd like your letters to be. Then print letters off the computer in the sizes and fonts you'd like to combine together. Use those printouts as patterns to cut contact paper into that shape. Peel the backing off the contact paper and stick down onto the canvas. Rub really thoroughly to get a good firm stick.



Right over the top of your contact paper, paint the color you'd like your canvas background to be.



Peel off your contact paper masks, and there you go. Something that looks like a screenprinting, so easy that anyone can do it.

I don't plan on having any of these in the shop as of now. I'm a little bit nervous about how things are going to sell since my etsy shop has been so neglected for so long. So if this is something that interests you, you'll have to drop me a line and I'll whip something up before the 30th.

The Music Man

I spent part of today finally downloading every video we've ever taken of Atti's whole life off of the video camera, and onto the computer.

So in honor of my massive feat of organization, I give you my favorite video ever:

Atticus listens to music.


I wish I could say it worked that well every time, but still, it's the most powerful trick I have in my arsenal.

Netflix just sent us Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and the whole time we were watching it I just kept thinking I was watching Atticus all grown up. A sweet, sensitive, music obsessed, quirky kid. I hope so.

Burp Rag Tutorial

This is the last project I'm going to work up for my big shop update. Maybe. I think. We'll see. But I always want to share how I make stuff with you guys because I rarely feel the need to make the same thing twice, so I might as well send an idea out into the world to see what it can make of itself. I learned the hard way a very long time ago that I am an idea person, not a craft fair person. After one year spent making hundreds of decorated matchboxes only to sit at a table and face rejection, I realized that that is no life for me. I'm grateful for those of you that can because I find it endlessly inspiring and I love to buy the stuff, but I never want to make 100 of anything again.

My! Don't know where that came from. Anyhoo, point is...here's another tutorial!

So a decorated diaper as a burp rag isn't really anything new. You can find variations of them all over etsy, including some that have been dyed to try to take away that cloth diaper look. Maybe it's just me, but the thought of using something meant to cover a bum to wipe a face seems a little bit off. Of course, nothing works better as a burp rag than a diaper, so we are left with quite a conundrum.

Once I finished Atti's appliqued alphabet quilt, I kind of couldn't stop myself. So I appliqued his initials on to a diaper, and shortly after that I came across Amy's machine sewn binding tutorial, so I had to give that a try, and I think that between the two, they do a fine job of taking away that telltale diaper look.

I started by printing off my letters in the size and font I wanted, and then I used them to cut out a piece of fabric with fusible web ironed on to the back.


I ironed those in place and then I machine appliqued them down with matching thread.


Now, a word about machine applique. For the longest time I thought that you needed a fancy embroidery machine to get decent results, but that is so not true. I use a nice middle of the road Singer and when I'm on my game I can get results that look just like something mass produced with industrial machines.

For almost any fabric you're going to need a stabilizer. A firm fabric to hold your actual fabric in place and prevent it from being pulled and puckered in every direction from the force of those stitches. This might be heresy to die hard machine embroiderers, but I usually just use a coffee filter I've ironed flat. They work fantastic for the simple machine work I do, and they're wicked cheap. For this particular project, the diaper is so thick and heavy that I didn't bother with a stabilizer at all.

The only trick is to get your machine settings right, so reading the manual can be helpful here.


I have my machine set to a zigzag stitch with a fairly wide stitch width (this changes based on how wide you want your embroidery in proportion to your applique) and a fairly short stitch length. An applique stitch is really just a whole bunch of zigzag stitches squished really really close together.


Then I just bound it with bias tape I made out of a coordinating fabric, using Amy's tutorial.


I'm going to be selling these in groups of three with different coordinating fabrics, but for the ones I made for Atti I made six, each with different fonts and different letters. I used his initials, but the ones I'm making right now I'm using 'abc,' '123' and 'Baby.' Of course, I'm open to custom orders so drop me a line if there's a monogram you must have.


Atti approves of this message.

2009 Year of Pleasures #11

A little something green in honor of St. Patrick's Day



I planted a whole bunch of bulbs in the yard in late January, terrified that I'd missed the winter planting window, which is pretty darn short in San Diego.

But it looks like some of them are making it just fine. I have Dahlias along the back brick wall, Anemones around the magnolia tree, and along the long planter I've planted Ranunculus. I've also spread a ton of poppy seeds out in the bed with the Anemones and they're taking off like gang busters. It will be time to thin and spread them around soon.

In a few weeks I'll go shopping for roses to plant among the Ranunculus, and Hydrangeas to line along the house. I'm also toying with the idea of some Sweet Pea along the fence behind the roses. Then maybe come summer I'll get to fill my house with fresh arrangements.

I have a home decor emergency!

I may have just created a problem for myself. For the past year I've been collecting things to put on all my painted and yet naked walls. I have a lot of wall space in odd places, so I've been brainstorming different options to fill things in.

First, there's this wall under the stairs. This is the wall we stare at the most since it is behind the television and the computer, and yet with all the weird angles and niches and doorways, I didn't really love just hanging up something traditional. I was watching Sesame Street with Atti the other day, and saw a home office wall decorated with framed images of font alphabets. It just made my brain explode it was so clean and graphic and fabulous. Then I started seeing "type walls," all over online. With my well established love of the written word (hello, Atticus?) and the fact that this is essentially the wall of our home office, I thought it would be a perfect fit. So I made up a bunch of projects I'll show you soon that fit with this theme, canvases and frames and loose wooden letters, and I thought I'd do a grouping starting on the wall over that niche, swooping over the top of the computer, and down behind the T.V.

Then, there's the wall up the stairs. I have so much real estate there. Since it reaches 20' tall in some places, I easily have 100 sq ft to fill. I liked the idea of hanging a collection to kind of break up that huge space and so I started collecting vintage glass plates.

This weekend I finished compiling everything I wanted for my type wall, and as soon as I hung the paper copies on the wall to fine tune the placement, I realized that I was going to end up with two big collections coming visually right up to each other.

Bear and I debated this last night and we decided that it was either going to look like crap or look like total genius I planned all along.

The two walls are actually part of the same wall, just divided by the stairs. They're also painted two different colors. I'm leaning towards the thought that the two collections will echo each other and provide harmony with enough contrast in the colors, shapes, and items that it won't just look like one big cluttered chopped up mess.

Here's a few different views. Decide for yourselves:






So what do you guys think?

Spring has Sprung!

The weather here today is absolutely glorious. This is the best time of year to live in San Diego. It hasn't entered the part where it's so hot that I have to shut the house up and away from any blistering sunlight, but the relative gloom of the winter has blown away. Now we get bright sunny days with a sweet crisp breeze blowing through. It's still just a touch chilly for it, but we are days away from leaving all the doors open all day and letting that breeze play through the house.

In celebration we spent as much time as possible outdoors this weekend, playing in the garden, letting the kitties pretend they were outdoor cats, and firing up the old grill.


When we lived in Orange County, I used to love to go to this Aztec restaurant where they served simple grilled or panfried meats with rice and fresh sauces. This weekend we tried a version of that here at home. I found this recipe from Martha that was pretty close. It's basically a pesto made from parsley, and since my parsley and cilantro are growing so abundantly they're threatening to choke out anything else, I used a whole mess of herbs from the backyard. The sauce I remembered was a little creamier, so I think next time I might toss in an egg to make it a little more mayonnaise-y.

Then Bear, bouncing back from his KIDNEY STONES of last weekend (I threatened to take a picture of the offending stone to share on the blog, but he vetoed that idea. It was a horrible ordeal, but he's feeling much better now.), decided to have a little fun with his baking book and whip up a little dessert.



His crust was perfection, and so was the lemon filling. The meringue was a little on the weepy side, but it's not considered one of the hardest desserts to make for nothing. I think we need to spend a little more time whipping it next time.

The flowers I've planted so far are springing up fabulously, I'll be sure and share pictures of that soon. I still have quite a lot of work to do out there, but now it's just the fun stuff, the planning and shopping and planting, the dreaming of new possibilities that spring brings.

Mark Your Calendars!

I've finally pinned down the date!

There will be a bunch of whatever you've seen around the blog lately, plus a few other things that I haven't shown off yet. Brides, I'll have a bunch of those organza flowers, plus some cards that are perfect for thank you's or invitations to a special bridal party.

Bear and I will be out of town the weekend of the 27th, so I wanted to make sure I put off the shop update until I was back. I'd hate to have a bunch of questions just sitting there ignored in the inbox.

I still have a lot of work to do to make the deadline, but I will take requests! So let me know if there's something you're dying to have included.

Knowing when to throw in the towel...

When you have your hand in every little bit of crafting like I do, it can get pretty dang pricey. Having a fabric stash, and a paper stash, and a bead stash, and a yarn stash....you get the idea.

Nowadays I deal with this dilemma by not having a stash at all. The only stuff I buy now is stuff that I want for a specific project. Except paper. You can't buy paper for every little thing. That's just crazy.

But I used to try to stock up on everything, I'd just buy the cheap stuff. Huge mistake. HUGE. I'd spend all this time working on something, only to have it fall apart in a couple of months. If I even made it that far. I'd often give up halfway through the making because the fabric was bunching or the yarn was uncomfortable.


This yarn was so much fun to knit with. It was soft and spongy and wicked cheap, I got a ton of this stuff back when I worked at Michael's.

I should have listened to Crysta. I made her a blanket out of this yarn and a few months later she warned me that it tended to pill. I didn't pay attention because I loved working with the yarn, and it all pills eventually. Ho boy. Crysta was trying to be kind. This yarn doesn't just pill, it turns into velcro.

I made a green blanket for myself, and I just loved it. I had a whole bunch of this yarn left over in different colors, so I cast on for Mason Dixon's Log Cabin blanket. I've been carting that one around for years as my "car project."

But now I see. Oh boy do I see. After a few times in the wash the fringe of the green blanket is mushed together in balled up dreads. It clings on to hair and fuzzballs like it's magnetized. It's sad, but that one is finished. I'll deal with it until I gt so sick of the whole thing that I just chop the fringe off and the blanket finds its way to the back of a cupboard somewhere.

But the log cabin one still has a long way to go. I still have time to save myself. I picked it up to work on it during a drive the other day, and there was an audible "Riiiiiiiip" as I pulled it off the floormat.

It has turned to Velcro, it's time to walk away.

2009 Year of Pleasures #10

If you come to my house, chances are you'll find a candle burning somewhere. The more fragrant the better. I especially love fresh, clean, citrus-y scents. Lately my favorites are the White Barn Candle Company's Mango Mandarin and Pink Grapefruit, but I'd love tips on smaller companies I might be missing out on.

Resin Earrings

I'm really pleased with how these earrings turned out. I used to make a version of them a few years ago with clear embossing powder, but I found that even more time consuming and messy than working with the resin. Other than the investment in a big box of the resin stuff, this is a really cheap project, another great way to use up paper scraps, and a way of taking those papers and fabrics we love so much and draping ourselves with them.

Start by cutting a pair of earring shapes out of chipboard or really thin cardboard. I just love this stuff, I can't stop working with it. And again, if you're looking for it, go somewhere that sells scrapbook paper and ask to raid their shelves. Chipboard is shipping material in the paper world, so it's usually treated like garbage.


Cut a couple of pieces of paper the same shape as your chipboard for each earring. You'll need four total for each pair, one for each front and back.

Glue the paper to the chipboard with an acrylic sealer. Here's the one I use.


Of course, if your design requires something printed off your home computer, and, like me, you don't happen to have a laser printer, you're going to have to take one extra precautionary step. An inkjet printer doesn't print water tight, so if you start spreading a sealer or glue around your ink is going to run. So I use a spray sealer first to seal the printing, and then I proceed as normal. Here's the spray sealer I happened to have around.


Before you start throwing the resin down, you'll want to cover up those unsightly cardboard edges, so I gave them a quick brush with some acrylic paint. If you do this step after you've sealed the paper nice and tight, then you can just wipe off any stray paint.

Apply your resin, one side at a time, and let cure.

A few days later you're ready to add the hardware.


The cardboard splits easily, so don't try to drill through the whole thing. Use a small drill bit to get your hole started and to create a nice finished look on the front, and then stop once you hit cardboard. Use a thick needle to finish off the hole. Attach a jump ring and earring hook and you're all done.

I'll have a whole mess of these waiting in the shop at the end of the month too.

Organza Flowers

Technically, this was one of my string of crafty failures. Not because the craft itself was a failure, but because what I intended was a failure.



I think these turned out just beautiful, which is a good thing, but I also think they're a little too beautiful for what I was going for. In one of the many fancy pants boutiques around the area, I came across a big bowlful of silk flowers. Normally I don't like silk flowers at all, but these just looked stunning. I could tell the edges had been melted which caused the petals to curl in and gave the whole thing a more haphazard look, which almost came across organic. So I ran home to raid the stash and see what I could come up with to fill the many many empty bowls I have scattered throughout the house.

I happened to have a bunch of organza laying around from a series of failed projects, so I thought it would be perfect. But the flowers came out so pretty and romantic, and very shabby chic, that it could not have been more out of place in my streamlined modern home.

So off to the etsy shop they go.

Here's what I did:

Cut four or five flower shapes out of an organza. I'm sure mine was some poly blend, since I got it all at JoAnns. You can see from this picture that I'm being generous by calling this a "flower shape" I could really just say cut four or five little blobby guys that have vague suggestions of petals.


Hold each petal over a lit candle. You don't want to touch the flame, just let that hot air kiss the fabric. This takes a little bit of practice, but don't worry about any messups, this is one project where sloppiness is only in your favor. The worst thing that could happen is that you're petal looks extra curly and crunchy. Once you layer these, you'll be amazed at how great it looks.


Layer the petals together. I usually put the extra crispy ones on top and the floppier ones on the bottom to really emphasize the curling in of those petals. Arrange them so the petals aren't stacked neatly on top of each other, but kind of go all over the place.


Use a thread that matches the organza, and come up from the back of all but one layer. This way your knot will be hidden by the bottom most petal. Sew on a scattering of beads, making some loops of five or more beads to look like little stamens. When you're finished, go back down through all but the last layer to tie off your thread.


Honestly, I'm a little surprised I could make something so girly and pretty. It figures that it could only happen by accident.

edited to add:
Wow, what a great response! Isn't it funny, I never even considered these would be useful in a wedding, and that's where they really seem to be attracting attention.

Brides, if you're interested in these just drop me a line. I do take custom orders.

Anonymous asked if I had any tips on how to make the petals bend more naturally. A little practice here is really the best teacher, but I found that if I held the flower over the flame in a certain way, I could kind of encourage how the petal was going to curl. I basically just held it so that my thumb was in the middle of the petal, kind of bending it as I held it over the flame. It will always be a little unpredictable, but this at least makes sure that all the petals curl in or out in the same direction.

Desanera suggested doing a modern version with layered circles, and I think that sounds fantastic. In my head they end up looking like ranunclus.

DMB suggested adding a stem to make a bouquet out of them, and I think she's a genius. I'm sure you could rig up something with some wire and floral tape, but I just might have to experiment with that for a while.

Resin Artwork

As I mentioned the other day, these are papercuttings that I've mounted on a wooden board I stained a reddish teak color, and then covered in resin.



I have this little trio of niches I needed something special for, and I just couldn't find what I had in mind, so of course I decided to make it. {I haven't decided, should I leave them propped up or should I hang them in the center of the niche? What do you guys think?}

I was scouring etsy, looking for some kind of a painting or illustration that reflected a midcentury modern or art deco style, and I just couldn't find anything. The only midcentury artwork I found at all was very 60's lounge looking, and I don't want to go to far that direction. Ever since Austin Powers, that starts to look very campy very quickly.

I went out and bought this Dover book* looking for inspiration. On a piece of tissue paper, I traced the image from the book, and then made the lines thick enough to do a paper cutting from it. Images intended for stained glass make PERFECT papercuttings.


* Side note - I didn't know about Dover until my graphic designer friend Chris turned me onto them. If you are a collage artist, or really any kind of artist, they are just indispensable. Royalty free images from throughout the history of art.


Here's a papercut I made when I was toying around with the idea of making coasters like this. Um, no. WAY too labor intensive. But this gives you an idea of how thick I made the lines, about 1/4" thick, to hide the edges of the paper behind it.


Then I pulled out all the scraps of solid colored cardstock I had lying around. As a scrapbooker I literally have drawers full of this stuff, and it made color selection pretty easy since I tend to use my favorite colors over and over, the scraps of them all kind of worked together.


Now, take your papercutting and use it to trace the shape you want to fill each section. Make sure that your papercutting and your cardstock are both right side down so you don't have to deal with pencil marks. I ended up marking the back of my papercutting because I kept getting confused and then all my pieces were facing the wrong way. Cut your traced piece out, leaving about 1/8" margin around the pencil line to make sure that all the edges get hidden.

The gluing is a little bit tricky, so you have to do it in steps. You'll need to make this paper water tight because the resin will change the colors, so instead of using a glue, I actually use an acrylic sealer. I took a spare piece of cardstock, traced the papercutting to make myself a kind of a map, and then used the sealer to glue all the pieces in place. I let it dry with a heavy book on top to prevent the curling that wet paper does so well. Then, when it was dry, I used the sealer to glue the papercutting on top. I sealed the whole top about twice more, sealed the papercutting to the wood board, and when it had dried overnight, I poured the resin over the top.

I made a whole extra set of these while I was making mine, so they'll be in the shop whenever I decide to make that happen. It's a little bit of a time consuming process, and since I've decided I'm not a huge fan of resin I'd like to see if there's anything else I can use to get a result I'm pleased with, but the papercuttings themselves? Mighty addictive. Especially the playing around with color and making a little puzzle for myself. I think I'll come back to this project again soon.

Now on to some more successful crafting

Thanks for the love on my resin projects. I've been working on stuff for the shop, so those little bits will turn into earrings, and the wooden artwork will go up too. They're actually a papercutting I did that I mounted on a wooden board and then covered the whole thing in resin. I'll show those in more detail later this week.

In bloggy news, I actually found myself with a couple hours in front of the computer last night and since I have managed to successfully dig myself out of most of my emails, I could make a change to the blog that's been in my head for ages. It's amazing how much I can get done when my studio is taken up with chemicals and my sewing machine is in the shop. I even weeded my backyard on Monday.

Now, if you click on that little tutorial tab up there just below Atti's nose, you'll get a very cool little streamlined page with all the tutorials I've written up. Each picture links to the instructions, and now you won't have to scroll down through everything I've ever written. I can't stop looking at it, I love it so much.

The challenging thing is that I had a hard time deciding what counted as an official tutorial and what didn't. Does it have to have step by step pictures and instructions? Or is just a detailed description of what I did enough? I don't know. I left out some projects I had previously included in the tutorial category because I didn't think they were explained enough, and I included others I'd left out before. Honestly, I think what ends up on that page will probably depend entirely on how much I like that project.

I managed to finally finish up another work in progress that's been over in that sidebar for forever and a day, and these will also appear in the shop in a couple of weeks.



I just adore seed beads, but I don't often know what to do with them. I have a few books on different stitches, but I haven't really found a way to convert that into wearable jewelry that I really like. I've had these beads sitting in the unfinished project pile for years now because every time I had an idea I liked I couldn't quite make it look like what was in my head. Here we go with the lacking skills part again.


These necklaces had about four different incarnations, but I'm happy with the way they've finally turned out. Each ring is woven together with peyote stitch, and then bound to each other with embroidery thread.


I had intended for the whole necklace to be a series of circles woven together, but once I started I realized that I liked the look of it better as pendants.

I'm keeping the small one for myself, so the other two of these will be in the shop at the end of the month. I'm still debating on the date, but I'm thinking the 30th or 31st since I'll be out of town the weekend before and I'd hate to not be available for questions.

I'm still working on stuff, so if anyone wants anything in particular that they've seen around the blog, please drop me a line and I'll see what I can do.