Some of My Work

The first two pictures are of windows that my group and I did for our Display and Promotion class. The first one is for accessories and has an "Around the World in 80 Days" theme. The second one is for a home goods and furniture store.

The next picture is of the owl pillows that I make and have sold at the annual craft fair in Boone.

The last two pictures are my friend Sarah modeling a dress I made for Flat Pattern Design. I made an asymmetrical dress in gray wool and yellow cotton with a belt. It ended up looking a little graphic/80s, but in a good way I think.

Shopping for some Crafty Items

There are a few stores that I can go into at any given time and find about a million things I love, Target and Michael's are two of those stores. Sadly since I'm no where close to being a millionaire I'm forced to control myself and buy just one or two things. I went to Michael's with the sole purpose of buying some puffy paint for a vase project I'm doing (instructional post coming soon). They were having a clearance on their scrapbooking stuff which includes some pretty amazing stamps. Sadly even with the 40% off I couldn't rationalize spending $5-$8 on a single stamp, but I did get a teal ink pad for $1.99 so I can use the stamps I made in textile design on paper. I thought I could make my own stationary and maybe even some wrapping paper since I didn't get around to making that before Christmas. I also bought the white puffy paint I needed for $1.69 and some embroidery thread for .35 each. I've never tried embroidery before, but my Grandma Frances was embroidering some birds onto fabric and I thought it looked fun so I bought some thread. I've been trying to focus more of my energy into making things after visiting with my grandmother. She's having problems with her eyes due to cataracts and macular degeneration. I visited her while I was home and she told me that she's determined to use her sight while she still has it. That made me realize that I need to not take the little things for granted and make sure to use my sight and other gifts now in case I wouldn't be able to one day. Grandma Frances has become my source for sage wisdom these days and I've become a little obsessed with something she told me her mother used to say, she used to say that she liked to have something to look at the end of the day that she had made, that it made her feel like she'd accomplished something and for that reason she didn't like just reading or watching tv. So I think one of my New Year's Resolutions is going to be "To try to make something each day and have something to show for my day's work" or something along those lines. My brother once told me that I was going to college to become Grandma Frances...well if after 4.5 years of college and thousands of dollars worth of tuition I'm half as talented as Grandma Frances then it was a bargain.

Paisley Dress

I'll admit, I've never been the biggest fan of paisley in general. I've always kind of associated it with grandma wear and 70s kitsch, but after seeing some great, modern paisley dresses I'm in love. I want one oh so bad. Add this to my Christmas list if you please!



The first one is from a Self Magazine spread, the middle one is Juicy Couture, and last one is from the blog Karla's Closet.

I'm becoming a Wino

I've decided to try to become more of a wine person, don't get me wrong I'm not trying to become a drunk. Please I devoted the 4 months after I turned 21 to going out and having parties (which really isn't that bad, considering some people devote their entire 4 years of college to that).
I've just become more fond of the taste of wine and to be quite honest I think there's a whole really cool culture behind it. Learning about the different kinds, buying the elegant classes (I'm kind of obsessed with stemless wine glasses), and maybe even going to a vineyard or wine tasting some time. Mostly I've realized after coming back to Antarctica that I'm going to have to start drinking something if I'm going to survive all this cold weather and wine just seems like the classiest option.

Great Song

I remember my Mom telling me that once during a break-up my Dad called and played a song. The song was John Waite "Missing You", at first I thought it was my Dad being a shithead saying "I ain't missing you at all", but after hearing more of the song and the story, it was really sweet. He actually really missed her and I think it was pretty damn romantic. Don't get me wrong, my parents have been divorced since I was 5 years-old and that was definitely the right decision, but I can't help but love hearing stories of when they were together. I guess that's just one of those things that you'll always long for, the days when your parents were together and you were a normal family. I definitely love my stepDad Tim so much and they're way better off now, but it's still cool to hear what things used to be like. So here's a throwback tune and the song that I've declared my parent's "song":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e157Ner90&feature=BF&list=QL&index=5

Meowwf

So I was browsing thru Design Sponge this morning and found an awesome gift idea for any pet lover in your life. I seriously might get this for my cats and definitely encourage any one with cats or small dogs to invest in this little nugget of awesomeness. It's a cat/dog teepee, you can find it on this site Loyal Luxe for around $24. It's a real bargain for how many adorable pics you'll get out of it, mostly of your dog or cat, but it seems like it could be large enough to snap a few pics of people in there.



p.s. I really really love the cat that's in the teepee....hoping it comes with it.

Want this oh so bad:

I stumbled upon this gold nail polish from Barielle, it's called Gelt Me to the Party and it's totally awesome, not to mention very festive for the holiday season. It's part of their Holiday Hustle collection and you can get it at Ulta for a mere $6. I've been a little gold obsessed lately, gold jewelry, gold home accessories, and now gold nail polish. I haven't bought it yet, but I can't wait to try it, it seems like it will have that great metallic sheen that I love!

true.

A great quote I found:
"There are couples a matchmaker would match every time-and couples who, for no rhyme or reason, rhyme."

-Robert Brault

how clever

I'm always a fan of craftiness especially as it relates to recycling or upcycling things that already exist. We already have too much stuff in the world to just continue making more and more. I saw this article about making glasses out of wine bottles and I'm going to try it sometime over Christmas break, but as I browsed on Etsy the other day I saw an even cooler idea: upcycling beer bottles into glasses. If you want it to really have the look of the beer bottle, you'll have to pick a brand like Corona or Red Stripe that has the label in the glass, rather than the peel-off ones. Anyways here's an example I found on Etsy thats being sold by CarrollCreekGlass:

Obsession

There are very few things in this world that I can truly say that I'm obsessed with. Sushi, OPI's Ski Teal We Drop nail polish, Netflix, Chris Brown's Comeback, and my newest obsessions: this great teal cross-body bag from Forever 21 and the website "P.S. I Made This". It's an awesome site with all these terrific how to tips to turn you plain t shirt into a fabulous scarf or to make an art deco necklace of our ribbon and red coffee stirrers. I'm hooked and can't wait to try out some of these nifty ideas as soon as I have some time to focus on anything but school. Speaking of which, I'm working on my final project which was inspired by this neat picture I have of my grandmother as a teenager gardening wearing a huge straw hat and red lipstick. My final project for Textile Design is making a line of fabric for classic hats by revamping classic fabrics in a more modern way. I'm revamping basket weave/straw, houndstooth, herringbone, plaid, and of course cable knit. So I'm basically procrastinating as long as I can....but I don't have any time left to procrastinate. Which means I have to start dyeing my fabric tomorrow so I can be printing all next week until 12 Thursday (which is when this masterpiece is due). Hopefully everything turns out peachy keen and I can post some pics soon! Hope everyone's having a great Holiday season and an even better end to the semester.

Peter and Vandy

Netflix has steered me wrong more than a few times, especially when I pick from the indie romantic comedy list. Last night was a different story though, I watched Peter and Vandy. A movie about a couple looking back at their relationship when things were better and then flashing forward to their situation now. It's one of those movies that jumps around to different times and you find yourself wondering which events occurred in which order. All in all its a great relationship movie and is actually really funny (and its intentionally funny, which doesn't happen all that often). It really captured the way relationships work, how it's never one person being the "bad guy", sometimes relationships just get messed up by both parties.

The best scene in the movie (in my humble opinion) is a Thanksgiving dinner scene with Vandy's family post break-up. The little girl keeps asking "innocent" questions about where Peter is.... hilarity ensues.