I have the coolest friends - Mazie Kane

I think I have been meaning to blog about my cool friend, Amy, for a long time. Not sure why I haven't. No, this isn't the Amy that got married this summer, though I am starting to learn that pretty much every "Amy" I meet is worth knowing. I happen to love a lot of Amys.
Anyhow. THIS Amy is a fellow momma, crafter, friend who I met at church few years ago. She is the one who introduced me to my MOPS group and thus many of my good friends. She is also a really talented crafter with a business I love supporting. I know a lot of you have seen people who make picture frames and other items decorated with cool papers... but lets be honest, don't they often look a little... um... crunchy? Amy's work is flawless. She has a sensibility for the vintage that I love - her frames go perfectly in my house - and she makes the cutest baby items... diaper caddies and cool tins. What I was telling Amy this weekend about her stuff is that it's really the quality of work that sets her stuff apart. When you combine vintage taste, great items in wonderful prints and colors, and then put them together with a tremendous eye for detail - now that's a winning product. And that's what Mazie Kane provides.She recently also let me peek at her new photo albums that she is getting ready to launch. They are SO awesome. Everything is made locally here in LA, you may even see her in some local boutiques... they love her stuff. Go over and visit Mazie Kane's etsy site. Mark it as a favorite. You'll really love her stuff.

Otto the Dog

This is a project I did forever ago, and tonight I am busy working on some more Christmas gifts and a few new projects which I can blog about later, but I wanted to share this easy, sweet little project that I made back in the days WAY before I was sewing...
We love the Todd Parr books about Otto the Dog, and a certain little friend of ours, named TT, was a huge fan of the book we gave her for her first birthday. Apparently, she carried the hard-backed book around with her everywhere the family went. My girlfriend, TT's mom, was mystified that the book was TT's first lovey. So... when we next visited our friends, I brought this little guy to make it easier on momma... All I used was different colored felt, stuffing and embroidery thread. But it made such a happy little impression. I still smile when I see this pic and when I was going through old pics the other night, I reminded myself to post this.

The ocean exists

Sometimes it's better to go remember that it's peaceful and beautiful somewhere.

Tea anyone?

I had a really cr&$@y night with 4am tantrums and 4 hours of sleep. This morning, even though it is a beautiful LA morning, I've struggled keeping it together. Until I saw this yard in Santa Monica while out on my errands. I guess someone here likes tea kettles. Or maybe just the thought of tea? Is it a shrine to teatime? Is there some memory that goes with? Is it purely aesthetic? I could make a shrine to coffee mugs. Though this is so insanely tacky, but I have to admit, I love it. It made me smile and u-turn my car just to get a pic. How's that?

Superhero cape and superbaby

Needed some donations for an auction... Here's a new cape and a onesie for a Super baby

my first collages

I was going through photos tonight on picasa and found a treasure trove of my old collages from my first collage class at the Art Institute of Chicago, back when I had no idea how important collage would become in my life. I believe this lotus one above was my first collage.

I was in a program there where I was headed toward a certificate in Painting and I stumbled into this collage class and also a wonderful class on "the Artists' Sketchbook" by this fabulous teacher that just transformed my way of thinking artistically. I never did finish the program, but I do remember talking to my advisors and having them say to me in true, generous, art school form: "You're just painting with thread and paper now... you've found your medium" I'm so happy for the few years I was able to take classes at the Art Institute. What a wonderful experience that was.

This one is a pretty accurate skyline collage of Chicago, made all with fabric scraps.
I spent so much time on it. I donated it to a charity auction (I can't even remember what it benefitted!) and it sold. Sometimes I wish it hadn't sold and I'd been able to keep it!

This one was really big.
It was very soon after our wedding and I was playing with sewing on paper
and also working with acrylic transfers. I had a lot of fun doing this one.

I made this one over a weekend in Arizona, on hiatus from a very long cold Chicago winter.
The desert had never seemed so beautiful to me before.
I spent the whole (rainy) weekend in the house with good friends -
we called it "The Summit"... and stitched this little memoir.

This was an attempt to unite my collages with my growing bead collection as I was starting my jewelry company. I was a part of a funny group of much older people (and me) that called themselves the "Midwest Collage Society". We met monthly and collaged and shared together. We also would trade all the time and I got the coolest collection of burlap coffee sacks in those trades. I think I still have one somewhere... somewhere.

This one was a weird idea I had to use the tiniest scraps of fabrics from some tossed out samples from work (I worked in the Interior Design business). But when I was getting to see how they all looked stitched together, I thought it looked really lousy. So instead of tossing it, I just embroidered my failure as a joke across the project.

Tifanie's dream

My friend was describing an image she had in her head the other day. Today has been a horribly sick (sinus infection) day around here. I've got an awful headache and no one to help with two sick and cranky kids. So when the design director asked if there was anything we could do artistically, I was almost too tired to oblige. Then I remembered Tif's imagery and thought, "well, maybe something beautiful could come out of today"
Here's to dreams of a city skyline and a sunset full of colorful dreams.... Which is a lot more fun to focus on than today's events.

Summer Joy (courtesy of Designing Moms)

Do you read "Designing Moms"?  You should... my kids did a cameo there today for a "Friday Fotos" post.

Fancy day

What a day! We borrowed J's parents' convertible and went to a wedding in Malibu in the morning. We got to visit our wedding site where we got married 9 years ago... Then up mulholland drive to the wedding site, and then we took PCH down to go home to change clothes for the Emmys. As we drove up to the Nokia Theatre in dowtown and looked at all the limos, j said "I'd rather get a bounce house than ride in that for an hour" (still, we are glad to not be driving the minivan today. Thanks, D&N!)

Sept 11

I wanted to post something about Sept 11 yesterday, but simply didn't have the words. Sept 11, 2001 was such a dark and scary day for all of us. J and I were living in Chicago, both working downtown ... He was on the el train on the way downtown when the towers fell. I remember
calling him, begging him to go home. My dad was in NYC on a business trip and ended up waiting in a triage unit as a volunteer waiting for survivors that never came. He was pushed to safety by a firefighter as building 7 fell. That was a day most of us will never forget.
I say prayers for the thousands of families affected by the loss of a precious one that day.
Today, driving down PCH in Malibu, I was given an image as we passed my Alma mater - Pepperdine University... It appears there is a flag for each person who lost their life that day. A beautiful, sobering, precious image.