Magazine file

The design director needed something to hold her magazine collection (she's starting early, I know)... And Mommy figured it needed to look like a little girl's file and not so serious... Add a little paper, a huge button, ribbon and Mod Podge... Not so bad. (she loves it)

Embellished bag

Store-bought bag. Hand embellished monogram. Easy-peasy... When I use my favorite fusible webbing. I'm having fun with my new machine and learned a trick last night... If you are sewing something a little sticky and it starts to ruin your needle, stitch through a dryer sheet a couple of inches to clean it off. (I used ones that had already been through the dryer, so as not to cake up my machine. I also took a previously sticky needle and cleaned it with the sailme said sheet.
Nice and clean) I don't know if doing that a Tom would be so hot for the machine, but after 9 names (close to 50 letters) I needed to not change needles every few minutes.

Faux Makeup

(pic not mine)

I just love the site Dollar Store Crafts and when I saw this post, I knew we needed to do this one around here. This mom bought $1 makeup at the dollar store, carved out the actual eyeshadow and poured nail-polish into the slots to have fake makeup for her girls. What a great idea. click here to see instructions. I made some here and Mimi now can't go anywhere without putting on some makeup. It's part of her routine... what does that say about me?

Fancy clips

And you thought just because I've been quiet, that I haven't been busy? (on the contrary! Now that the summer reading romances are over, I'm a busy little bee again...) Last night I finished the ninth niece/nephew Christmas gift (as I showed you in my spoiler a few weeks ago). I also have the Design Director's birthday in 3 days and 2 more niece birthdays within the next 2 weeks... So I've been staying up late, "cramming" as it were, to make gifts and goodies for everyone.
This project is an easy one the kids love to help me with. We are big fans of clips around here... We use them for everything and somewhere along the way, I learned that clothespins are gentle on little hands, cheap and actually fun to use markers on.
The kids have colored these with regular markers, and then we Mod- podge or glue fancy papers to one or two sides. I sand down the edges and then for a flat look, Mod Podge works to finish them, or for a dimensional glossy finish, I just learned about this stuff in the photo, called "glamour glaze" that is easy to use and gives the appearance of a resin bubble on top of the paper, only it's non-toxic and doesn't stink or require mixing.
The end result is an pretty clip which you can usefor chips, apply a magnet to, or use for a myriad of other uses... Only just a little prettier with some fun and quiet memories attached.

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.