break from studying

i finished the dreadful paper and i hope i did well on it. i've completed one exam, 2 more to go. ugh... studying is such a drag.

on the fun side, lots of photos!

first are my purchases from a short time ago that i never had a chance to show:


i bought this adorable and useful messenger-size bag from a housemate who was helping raise funds for some group against sex trafficking. i was more than delighted to help out and shop at the same time! this bag is made of recycled rice bags.


these lovely peony letterpressed cards are from satsuma press. they are delightful. i love these large color prints and i was happy there was something i could afford!


i remember reading someone's blog about a letterset by poppies for grace so i found some at beyond pink and blue online and am delighted by them. i'm a teensy bit disappointed by how they were printed - they looked like ordinary stationery, but they did use good quality paper (nothing flimsy). i just don't know what to do with them!


badges, buttons! i don't know what to call them, but they sure are pretty. i immediately recongized the japanese fabric when i saw these. it's amazing how much more aware i am of the materials that artists and crafters use, especially if they're well known stuff. so that was nice. a bit pricey at $8 each (okay, i'm a student so everything is pricey), but worth it i guess. my cousins didn't seem to think so. (they're even stingier about money than i am!) feisty elle is the designer brand and you can head on over to feistyelle.com for more goods.

now i'm going to show you things i've been working on, when i'm not studying like i ought to...


i started this pillow - what will be a pillow anyway - a long while ago but never had the time to finish it. i was trying to find some way to make the bright neon-ish yellow fabric seem less glaring by mixing other prints with it. i don't know if it'll look so nice once it's completed... but we'll see i guess...




then i received my package of fabric goodies from lara not too long ago and had to have at it with the fabric! i just couldn't let them sit there without making something with them. (i really wish i had my sewing machine with me for instances like this). i quickly hand stitched a little wallet/pouch, which i'm now using to store my feisty elle badges. the front with the flap looks a little funny since the ginkgo print is upside down... haha... but it still looks rather nice. and the japanese print on the inside is a nice crisp surprise.




for a secret santa exchange at my house i decided to make some stuffies since she seemed to like plush toys. i wasn't able to finish the giraffe (not photographed) but i'd like to present to you: ellie the elephant (based closely on lotta jansdotter's elephant soft toy for babies - i couldn't find a better example of a cute elephant so i borrowed lotta's design), hoot the owlie-owl (hmm... i'll have to revise this design if i want to make more in the future), and woar the whale (so cute!). i'm thinking i should make more of these stuffies but in a bigger size. what do you think? currently these are about 4 inches in length. and i love the brown butcher paper that i used as gift-wrapping. reminds me of lynn's giftwrapping as seen on her satsumalynn blog.

alrighty! back to studying for this girl! :)

end of semester

Final exams and papers have taken over my academic life!

I'll be on hiatus for quite some time.

I received a generous extension on a paper I am having difficulty completing, but I hope to be done with by tomorrow afternoon and send it off to my GSI (graduate student instructor, aka teacher's assistant). Then I have final exams Thursday, Saturday (in the evening hours too!) and Tuesday. Then I'm off to the San Fernando Valley area (near Los Angeles) for a few days of shopping and eating and seeing the socal sights! :)

I'll be back home on the 23rd of December and hopefully I can go straight to work on making a few personal projects (which I will post up pictures here) as well as create a small inventory of items to test out and see how well they sell.

Happy Holidays everyone!

little flippy notebook

two posts in a row! who would've thought? not much to update but i did make a quick notebook last night as well as just an hour ago. (when i really should've been studying or working on my term paper... ah well... when you are inspired, what can you do?)

so... i do have class in a bit so i shall leave you with pictures and will add text later. enjoy!





another book... the one i made just a while ago...

Prettiness for my eyes

Hello everyone,

Many apologies for not being on my blog lately. I have had some family things to deal with -- we've recently "lost" our paternal grandfather and with finals and term papers due as well, it has been hectic, to say the least. I will return messages from my previous post soon, so please bear with me! And thank you Kaija for posting photos of the little notebook I made for you. I hope you enjoy it.

Meanwhile, I've been snooping around blog-land and etsy for goodies to purchase for myself... and I am in love with these cute, bright objects.

Here's a pretty birdie print from joom


As well as a really lovely pillow. They have so many lovely prints! I wish they printed fabric!


I really, really want this duvet and sham set from patapri! Wish someone could get these for me... ;)


marta from m.writes wrote such a lovely post about letterpressed calendars. It would be just lovely if I could afford them all! But what does a girl need with more than 1 calendar? especially one that I can't even write notes in (now those I need more of). but I did have just enough money leftover from eBay sales to purchase this calendar (the rest were unfortunately above my range as a college student):


you can find ilee's stuff here.

A long while back, Lara posted some photos of goodies that arrived in her mail and this print was one of them. I loved it so much that I want one too! But no money so I'll have to wait until I babysit some more and than deposit straight away to the bank! :) :) :)

synesthesia by green chair press

With school and work and family, it will be quite some time before I get the chance to make more goodies to show. Do not fret, I am waiting on some .jpeg photos from my sister who helped scan and photoshop some doodles I made recently at a house council one night. It's a typical Shirley doodle of grass and flowers, but I'm looking to printing them into notepads and sheets of notebook paper. Obviously, I am working on limited equipment and have only my hands and a computer printer but PaperSource sells this adhesive (PVA = polyvinyl acetate) that's good for making notepads. Who knows? Maybe my winter fairies will supply me with the funds to purchase some tools and supplies to make professional-quality products! In the meantime... we'll all have to make do with what we've got. Now, isn't that true?

Thanksgiving!

Somebody, anybody, tell me: is Thanksgiving a holiday known (not necessarily celebrated since it's so rooted in American history) throughout the world? Just curious.

I am back home for the Thanksgiving holiday and am enjoying some time off (mental time anyway) from school -- despite impending doom of research paper. Yikes!

I think, for my latest project, I am going to make cute girly barrettes. My dad is taking me out shopping later today (I have so many coupons to use!) and I will drop by our nearest Jo-Ann's. I prefer going to an art store but this fabric and artsy crafty store will have to suffice. Will show pictures soon!

That reminds me... I need to purchase a hot glue gun... :)

Rest, rest, rest and shop, shop, shop!

Kaija/Paperiaarre; PIF; More Eye Candy

First off, I'd like to thank Kaija of Paperiaarre for her beautiful book! I love the concept of PIF and being able to share our work with one another. And I love that we're all just doing it because we want to. My pictures are horrible as they were taken in the evening (when I'm free-est) but here's the book Kaija made for me:

1. This is the lovely brown cover. I believe it's the same material as her coptic bound journals with the stenciled artwork in her etsy shop.
2. Here's a peak at the inside cover. The tree is a stenciled card she included (I love the presentation and it was fun to open). I've glued it to the notebook because I thought it fit really well with the journal and gave it some more pizzazz.
1
2

Please do visit Kaija's blog.

Okay, I still have many spots available for PIF as I've gotten lucky and will be the recipients of artwork from a couple of other artists whose PIF I was able to join. I cannot really afford anything right now so PIF is a great way to share my work in exchange for receiving the beautiful works of others. So, please leave me a comment and I'll whip up some nice pretty things for you. For now I have 5 spots available so join in the merriment. The only condition is that you have to Pay It Forward to three other people (read my post regarding PIF for more info if you are new to this concept).

I've finally carved out some time to take photos of my most recent work. I hope you enjoy it. Let the drooling commence! :)

The first pillow is fabric by Amy Butler (the name of the fabric just left my head right now). The second set of pillows is fabric by Etsuko Furuya (cream) and Chestnut Branch by Joel Dewberry. I'm really trying to get myself to appreciate the brightness of the amy butler fabric. Just... so green and bright...




I made a few notebooks for fun. (Well, to procrastinate from doing homework but still wanted to feel somewhat productive). I think my skill is improving. I'm doing better with the details and the threading. I have yet to find any online tutorials for basic bookbinding yet and cannot afford to take bookarts classes right now. So, I'm going to have to stick with whatever I am doing that is holding the pages of the book together. It's more like a pamphlet style.

Below are images of the front, back, inside (I enjoyed adding some fun surprises to the inside covers of 3 of my books - the lush velvety paper, the japanese shiny crane paper, and the hippie tie-dye-ish paper) and a peak at my more "refined" threading skills. haha.







I hope you enjoyed this post. More to come in the coming weeks.

Until next time...

I have made a couple more pillows/cushions and a few more notebooks (with the new fabric and new pretty paper I purchases this weekend)! Will have photos up sometime this week. (Ah... the busy life of a college student).

In the meantime, I still have two spots available for the Pay It Forward thing. Feel free to sign up! I'd love to share my work with you. :)

eye candy!

a scarf two years in the making... there just isn't ever any time in a student's life for knitting...


the best attempt at photographing earrings i made. my favoritist pair!


my halloween costume: can you guess who i am?


artwork for a possible holiday card... not sure how i'll go about that. might just print off my printer and send to family and friends...


a cushion made with lara cameron's fabric!


you can sort of make out the purse and notebook cover i made - i just adore lara's fabric!


another cushion. the orange fabric is actually made out of a tea towel by tikoli but what am i going to do with a tea towel? haha


the inside flap of the notebook cover that won't fit any book i have... um... yes...

i created another fun cushion today when both packages of fabric came by post. will put up pictures of that once i get around to it. i love love love it! i was cautious and decided not to buy much but now i feel like i can be a bit more adventurous and trust that i'll like whatever i buy. i bought a yard of fabric by joel dewberry (i know nothing about fabric designers) as well as some japanese fabric by etsuko something or other...

anywho, enjoy the eye candy. don't drool now!

no takers?

i'm sad there are no takers for the pay it forward thingermabob. oh well. guess i'll just have to randomly choose fellow bloggers to send something. was gonna do so anyway.

i just finished making a few items using the fabric i bought from lara so will have pictures up once i'm less frazzled and harried. :)

until then...

Pay It Forward

I need to figure out how to edit photos. I've tried shrinking the photos on the website hosting them, but they don't seem to have much effect here. Oh well... I'm sure I'll learn. I see an "add image" feature for posting entries, so I'll learn to use that. I really do not like adjusting to new blogs. haha.

Anyway, so I stumbled upon this neat idea through a comment written on Lara's blog (kirinote.blogspot.com) and here I am keeping my promise by posting it on here:

Pay It Forward (via Kaija, via Deanna, via Sia, via Sandra, via Camilla, via Bibbi and so on) - here are the rules:
I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

(I'll have to figure out how to embed links so you can visit the respective blog of each person under 'via'.) heehee. Still learning.

Handmade Notebooks!

Make that amateur handmade notebooks. haha.
I finally have photos up. Uploading onto a photo hosting site is soooo troublesome. But here they are!

Thank you Lara for your support. I think I'll be making notebooks as one of the items I'll be selling with my sister. Hopefully I'll have enough time during Thanksgiving and Winter break to build up an inventory.










My first attempt at making the inside covers. Did not go so well...


My second attempt... much better... but I think I'll need to invest some money in a medium-sized thingamabob (temporary memory loss) to cut the papers evenly instead of by hand with a scissor.


This time I attempted to use a vellum/tissue-like paper. The glue shows... guess I'll have to do it differently.


This notebook started it all... Bought it from urban outfitters for $4 (www.urbanoutfitters.com)

That's it for now! I also make jewelry, but also amateurly. Without the jewelry findings I don't know where I'd be.

Can't wait to do my first run at selling my crafts as merchandise! :)

new adventure

seems like my sister and i will try out making some crafty and artsy things in the next few months and see if we'd like to try and sell 'em. i think it will be a good experience for the both of us. people have always told us we should try and sell our pieces - why not now? none of us have received much training in the things we make and do, though we have taken several years lessons in acrylic painting, but neither of us do that for a hobby. i like to make paper goods for the most part and the occasional plush toy or doll. my sister does great manga/japanese anime, water colors, and felt objects, among other things. sisterly collaboration! how fun!

another fave site

I found this site while site hopping and i love the bags and the fabrics they use. makes me want to draw my own birdies. i'm still in the process of trying to create a few simple images and transfer them into cards. might use moo to print them or some other service to print my own cards to see how they'd turn out. i certainly can't afford to go to a publisher or big printing company. gotta do it the cheapo d-i-y upload a photo to a photo website kind of thing. haha.

Anyway the website i'm referring to is Prickly Pear. They have a lot of really nice handmade totes and bags and pouches. It's really neat. You can visit them here: http://www.pricklypear.biz/

I'll have to take some pictures of the notebooks I made this past month.

Now how does a girl get some foot traffic into her site so she doesn't feel so lonely?

Toodles!

Pictures!

As promised, I finally have some pictures to show of some crafty things I did in the past year. During Valentine's Day, I decided to make a few valentines for close friends, as well as regular note cards. Here are a few snapshots (I apologize for the blurriness):


















I made all of these note cards on blank peach-cream folded notecards I had purchased on clearance from Papyrus using bits and pieces of craft supplies from Castle in the Air (4th Street Shopping, Berkeley, CA) and littles bits I find around the house - ribbons, cut-outs from magazines and catalogs, etc.

Below is a little rag doll I made out of discarded clothing I found at my co-op's "free pile" in the basement. The skin color fabric came from a really huge nightie, the dress came from the sleeve of some hideous tunic and the stuffing from cut up pieces from the skin color fabric (I had no cotton stuffing available). And the hair came from some yarn I had with me. It's a wonder what you can do with the bits of resources around you. Didn't even have to venture out to purchase supplies for this doll.