i thought i’d pop in and show off a couple of fun things that i’ve been working on:

buzzy bee—hand-sewn from felt and awesome

lumpy elephant—hand-sewn from a thrifted pair of pants.
they make a much better elephant than fashion statement.

i’m also working on a huge new refashion project, for which i may leak pictures sometime soon.  i decided to get back to my artistic roots and started sketching out a spring/summer capsule wardrobe.  i’m working on creating the first piece now…it’s kicking my butt, but i’m loving the challenge!

so, as most of you guys know—gosh, i hope by now that you’ve caught on!—my brother is marrying the most amazing, lovely lady in may.  there’s pretty much no way to over-exaggerate how much we all adore erica.  she’s sweet, funny, strong, and (best of all) she makes my brother a happy guy.  hooray!  yesterday was her first wedding shower, held out at the enoree river vineyards, and it was too much fun!

again, for the sake of time and space and energy, i’m just going to post a handful of the pictures.  but i will say: 

1)  erica’s mom made her cry.  moms are good like that when it comes to wedding stuff. 
2)  the shower was awesome—the vineyard was a great venue choice!
3)  i did not speak of ferris wheels to my mother and grandmother.  but that doesn’t mean i didn’t think about it

enjoy the snapshots!

1)        2)

3)       4)

5)      6)

1)  nit and mom take a second to grin for me  2)  check out those stacks of gifts!
3)  erica opening a gift from aunt b  4)  one of the platters from erica’s dinnerware
5)  cute tote erica’s mom had made up for their towels  6)  mother daughter tears & hugs

erica and me, yay!

rather than write a massive description of the awesomeness that was our show, how about a heap of pictures?

i was the assistant director and audrey II movement specialist.  i actually came up with the concept for using people to create portions of the audrey II, which you’ll see in the form of pod#3 (half pod/half person, thanks to the lovely and talented sammie!) and pod#4 (one part giant pod, five parts greenman suits full of awesome actors playing vines!)

             

thanks to my ever-present desires to recycle any piece of trash i see, i save loads of junk.  after making my herb cans, i decided to plant some herbs for the cats.  we’d had cat grass out for them last year, and they were all over it!  so, i decided to use these cute, squatty little cans to plant some grass and nip for them.  i thought maybe the stature of these cans would lend itself to sitting in a windowsill for the cats to enjoy while they watch the birds…i believe it will also lead to messy floors, but if the kittehs are happy, it’ll be worth it

anyway, here’s the tutorial—quick, simple, and fun!

time needed:  about an hour and a half

materials:

• paint brush
• colored pencils or permanent markers
• scrapbook paper
• 2 aluminum cans
• tacky glue
• scissors or paper cutter

 

  1)  first, gather all your supplies. since i knew i wanted to do two types of herbs, i chose a color
       scheme for each that would still coordinate with my base paper.

 

 

 

  2)  if there’s paper on the outside of your cans, as there was with mine, go ahead and peel that
       paper off. no need to worry if there’s any glue residue, since your paper will cover that.

 

 

 

  3)    measure your can height. then measure that same length on your paper, and cut a strip of
         paper that is long enough to wrap around your can.
         in this case, my can was about 2.5″ tall, and i was using a 12″ x 12″ piece of paper to start
         with, so my strip was about 2.5″ tall by 12″ long.
         and there’s bijoux, checking out my progress.

 

  4)  i wrapped my base paper around the can to make sure that it would fit alright. it had a
       little bit of overlap, but i didn’t mind that. if you like, you can always trim the ends to meet 
       up exactly.

 

 

  5)  next, i poured a glob of glue onto the can and used an old paint brush to spread it evenly
       over the whole can. the glue that i used is a fast-grab kind, so i had to work really quickly. 
       the benefit to that, though, is that when i put my paper on the can, it stuck instantly and
       didn’t budge.

 

 

  6)  once the glue was spread across the entire surface of my can, i placed my paper and pressed
       it down by rolling the can gently back and forth in my hands. employing that technique 
      (plus the use of a nice, thick glue) helps keep the air bubbles out when working with paper
       on cans.

 

 

  7)  here you can see the color combo of papers that i chose for my catnip can. i used to 
       scrapbook like crazy, so i have tons of scraps and leftovers that come in handy for quick
       projects like this.

 

 

  8)  i measured my white paper first, because i had a good idea of the size i wanted for my
       labels. this white strip measured 3 cm. i then measured my other two colors: the gold at 3.5
       cm and the dark orange at 4 cm.

 

 

  9)  here are the two color combos i chose, with the strips cut to the right size to make my labels.

 

 

 

  10)  i drew out my labels in some fun letters and colored them in with colored pencils. i wanted
         to make the letters stand out a little more, so i went around them with black permanent
         marker.

 

and that’s that!  plant something fabulous and fun for your fluffy friend and enjoy!

hi everyone–i know, i know, i’ve been rudely neglectful of the site again.  my apologies.  between making it through the last few weeks leading up to this weekend’s wildly successful opening of little shop of horrors and struggling to kick a nasty, nasty little cold bug, i’ve been pretty busy.  thankfully, things should start to get back to normal around here soon! 

i found a little bit of time to post some of my newest projects over on cut out + keep.  links, if you’d like to check ‘em out:

          

i also just finished some plant tags for my herb pots…so i’ll know what’s in them!  thanks to heaps of scrapbook paper scraps that i’ve hung on to, a little simple hand-lettering, and a handful of bamboo toothpick/fork hybrids lex had, here they are:

yes, i realize that mixed flowers and sweet peas (the flower, not the veggie) are not herbs.
but the pictures on the packages looked so pretty that i couldn’t resist!

i need to snap some pictures of the plants, too—they’re doing so well already!

that’s the best, brief little bit i can do for now—but i’m going to try my best to come around and do another update soon.  unfortunately, it’ll probably be after little shop closes…but i’ll be back.  i promise!