Handmade round-up: Baby boy

Lately I've been seeing so many cute baby girl things, that I was on the hunt for some baby boy cuteness for my little man. I discovered these awesome handmade goodies which we'll have to see about carrying in the shop:


1- Little Sidekick on Etsy (found via Austin Craft Riot)
2- Little Goodall on Etsy (another Texan!)
3- By Laura Design on Etsy
4- Crochet Baby Boutique on Etsy
5- BabyBolt on Etsy (Available in our shop!)

You can view more of my handmade baby selections on my Pinterest board.

Here's a pic of the little dude sporting his mama's Mustache Onesie, always available in our shop.

Get Inspired: Pinterest

I'd like to make the forecast that Pinterest is going to be the next big thing. I might be wrong, but I'm certainly enjoying 'wasting' a lot of time getting sucked down its rabbit hole. Honestly, I'm starting to look at it more than Facebook! The above image is from my "front page", all the ever changing goodies I see when I log in.

What is Pinterest? They describe it like this in the about section of Pinterest "Think of Pinterest as a virtual pinboard — a place where you can create collections of things you love and "follow" collections created by people with great taste." But for me its a cross between a visual twitter and a really pretty google image search meets google reader. The layout is great and the functionality is so easy. What I like best is that I don't have to open any new programs, or do anything special exactly, other than installing the little browser add-on which makes pinning something super simple. Without investing any time in learning to use it, I can just create inspiration boards, group products together, and keep track of the things I like and inspire me!
This image from Kim's "Ideas" board, one of my favorite boards.

Why am I telling all of you about it? Well, one of my favorite things to follow on Pinterest is the ever growing DIY segment. So many people have boards titled DIY and there are some really great ideas, how-tos, and of course more inspiration!
This from Jesyka's "I heart handmade quilts" board, also great.

And, the more people on Pinterest the wider the variety & quality of the stuff pinned thus making searching on Pinterest better and better. I just can't get enough of it! (While looking for images to use in this post, I again got sucked down the rabbit hole!)

My Handmade Nursery

Today I was at last able to get some decent pictures of the nursery. Baby Orion was born way back on January 8th and almost everything in the nursery was ready for him. I know I've mentioned a few projects in previous posts so here they are, finally!

A few weeks ago in the post about the Martha Stewart Fabric Crafts book I mentioned that I used her tutorial to make a bumper for my crib. I didn't follow it exactly, and thus my bumper is more floppy than I'd like, and I definitely ran into a few crafty disasters, but I'm really happy with it. Kim and my mom helped me finish it in time, only a week before Orion's due date.
We did a patchwork of a bunch of lovely Echino fabrics I bought both here at the Stitch Lab and back in LA at Michael Levine. Getting the order of the patchwork just right was pretty complicated, especially since I've never done quilting!
I'm proud of the finished product and Orion loves to stare at it, especially the black buses. You can also see the signed crib sheet from my shower that I love to read for Orion.

Also from my Texas baby shower, the monster mobile! Now making that mobile was a lot more time consuming than I'd figured, below is the way I did the layout. I actually made two mobiles since I had so many monsters,the second one is for over the changing table, and he loves it!Some of you know the story of my crib, so I'll just tell a condensed version here. Long story short I couldn't find the crib that I'd fallen in love with available anywhere, so I ended up buying it on Craigslist from someone in Orange County, CA! Had it shipped out here and then I painted the ends gray to match the nursery better (they were originally a blue shade that I detested). I had specifically fallen in love with the slats with their little circles, and still, I'm in love with it!We also did a DIY changing table inside our old armoire. Aaron built a little slide out shelf for the pad to go on and it works like a charm. We ended up taking the doors off it though, cause it was annoying to always have to open them up when O needed a changing. Also above on the back of our glider, you can see this quilt a friend of mine's mom made, its pretty amazing!
Here is the opposite view of the room with our little fold out futon for guests, I have been meaning to get it reupholstered so for the pic I just tucked the fabric's on, you get the idea. The little owl guy there is a crocheted gift from a friend in LA who owns Peanut Butter Dynamite, she also made the crochet throw hanging on the side of the crib. And note my Vampire Weekend print I got last year at the SXSW flat stock show.

Next, I'll talk about the lighting. We got this sweet anemone light (I'd seen on the Project Nursery blog) from my awesome Mother-in-law, but when it arrived it was soooo heavy. Probably weighed like 50lbs and the screws were all but impossible to get in, so we had to rig up this system to perch it up against the ceiling and screw it in (mind you I was like super prego during this project and basically no help). You might be able to see in the pic, but we used a bunch of craft books to get the right height, haha!The other lights are an LED strand of lights from Ikea that I added the little balls on. I got the colored balls from Thailand when we were on our trip and hadn't figured out a use til now. I had to hot glue them onto the strand and they ended up working perfectly.

Down in the corner there you can see the octopus chair I designed for Babystyle when I worked there in 2006, a family friend had it as a hand-me-down and was so generous to give it to us!

And lastly, I sewed up these little owls from a kit I bought at the Tate Modern in London when I was there last year, they're puppets!

Viva Venice Handmade - A Photo Essay of Sorts

Ok...so this post is long overdue, but better late than never, right?

Last year my travels took me to Venice where I found a kindred spirit...in the handmade kind of way. Meet Mauro Vianello of Glass Handmade. Mauro makes incredible handmade glass figurines.

Immediately upon entering the shop we were impressed and excited by the level of detail and artistry of Mauro's amazing creations.

Rated one of the top attractions by Trip Advisor, Mauro's quaint little shop sits outside the regular touristy part of the city and is well worth the short trip to find.

Mauro made us feel as though we were old friends. He told us about his craft, his passion for handmade, and even gave us a little demonstration asking us what we wanted him to make for us. We told him to surprise us, which turned out to be a great move (apparently people always ask for cats and dogs :)). See if you can figure out what he made for us.

Figured it out yet? :)

Yep! It's a swan...who very soon after was dubbed "Swanie". Welcome to the world, Swanie!

Swanie needed a little time to cool down...which of course gave us a little time to shop.

There was no way we were going to go home with only one new friend from this amazing collection, especially since my friend and I were already having custody disputes over Swanie.

So here's the part where I admit, it wasn't me that found this little gem, but my friend and travel partner. It was thanks to his insistence (yes it's hard to believe, but I resisted at first) that I got to have this wonderful experience. I gave up custody of Swanie and it was a difficult choice, but we ended up taking home just three new friends and making a fourth in Mauro. If you are ever in Venice, don't miss out on visiting Mauro! Of course no matter where you are you can visit his website.

Fabric Flowers Inspired by Roesen Painting

Severin Roesen (1815 or 1816—after 1872)
Still Life of Flowers and Fruit with a River Landscape in the Distance, 1867
oil on canvas; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Earlier this week Beth A & our fab new assistant, Marley, came over for a make day in preparation of our upcoming demo at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. We were invited to present a few handmade projects inspired by works in the museum's collection as part of their Crafting from the Collection series. We'll be road-tripping up to Ft. Worth for this funtastic event on February 3!

At the Carter Museum, we'll be demonstrating how to make pretty flowers from upcycled t-shirts, as inspired by the abundance of flowers in this gorgeous painting from the collection. We'll have 3 different types to show the museum guests who want to get crafty with us.




One type is made from stacking layers of clover-shaped fabric, resulting in a sweet flower with big, floppy petals. Marley models one she made, showing how cute it would be as an embellishment on her beret.

Another, slightly more involved, type is a really full flower made from circles of fabric that are first folded into wedges & strung together, then fluffed & sewn in place & fluffed some more until you get it just right.
 



The last type of flower we made was a super-simple rolled one. It works great with the hem of a shirt, especially if it has some fancy trim or stitching.



Here's all of our finished little pretties ready to be placed in an arrangement. I'll be attaching them to stems of some sort & arranging in a vase for their big debut in Ft. Worth.

We have two more art-inspired project examples we'll be taking with us to Ft. Worth as well. Stay tuned to see those in future posts!

My very crafty Baby Shower!

A couple weeks ago I had a baby shower out in California at my parents house in Thousand Oaks. It was hosted by my mom & her best friend Patric Dodson & my best friend and crafty pal Jesyka D'Itri Mares. Who also made me the cutest invites ever! Check out her blog and etsy.


We'd planned a few crafty projects which were loads of fun, so I thought I'd share some pics of everyone getting into it. We decorated onesies with flocking, markers, iron-on applique & embroidery. They all turned out totally cute and unique! My little guy will have tons of stuff to wear.








We also had guests write messages to baby on a fitted crib sheet, which turned out so sweet and sentimental, something I'll keep forever!

My sister-in-law took all these amazing pics and crocheted the baby this awesome blanket! Check out her etsy shop: Crazystars