Craft-y Inspiration

I really like the idea of sharing with you all my favorite sites for Craft-y Inspiration, so here's another blog I check every day: Craft: Blog or Craftzine.com Blog. This blog is kept up in conjunction with a fabulous magazine called CRAFT that you must check out, lots of great ideas and fun projects and gorgeous pics! The blog is constantly updating with craft project tutorials and ideas found online, and often sends me to unexpected places for inspiration!

For example, today I came across a really beautiful cable sweater pattern that I am going to flag for future use. It's a gorgeous cable pull over that would be very light for Southern weather yet has a really sophistacated look with three quarter length bell sleeves. See here for pic. The pattern made its way from the Lime & Violet blog (also one of my favorites for another day) and Lime & Violet found the pattern from artist Hinke Schreuders! What a tangled web we weave! I love that Craftzine pulls so many great ideas together in one site! Thank you Craftzine!

Chain Links

Like all good nights of craft inspiration, I'd been concocting some earrings in my head all week and finally last night sat down and made two pairs. I'd been thinking about these silver links in circles and ovals that I had and accenting them with dangling chains and earthy colors. These are the two that I came up with. I have a few more ideas to come but I ran out of the fine sterling silver chain that I like, so maybe I'll make a run to Michael's this afternoon to pick up some more. I don't think the pictures do justice to the oval pair, the freshwater pearls have a gorgeous iridescence to them that changes the color from dark forest green to almost copper colored.

I've been Tagged

I'm really excited to have been tagged! On all the blogs that I read I see the bloggers playing little games with each other, but never thought my little blog would draw anyone's attention! This tag asks for 6 random things about me!

1) I'm caffeine intolerant, but that doesn't stop me from eating chocolate or drinking the occasional sweet tea.

2) I own snowshoes and cross country skiis and a plethora of hats and scarves but I live in a town that gets less than an inch of snow every ten years or so.

3) I have a 6-7 month old kitten but I'm allergic to cats so she has to sleep in a separate bedroom.

4) I like to go to the beach all year round, like even when I'm in Maine at Christmas and it's 20 degrees outside, just to hear the waves and smell the salt air.

5) I'm missing the bottom part of my right knee cap from an incident involving a school bus and a bee when I was in middle school.

6) I sleep on one of those foam contour pillows for my back, nothing makes you feel like an old lady like taking you contour pillow to a sleep over! Oh well!

The rules:
* Mention the rules on your blog.*
Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.
* Tag six others*
Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that lets them know they are tagged.

Favorite Site for Sewing Ideas

I know that many of my readers like to dabble in the craft-i-ness, just like moi, so I thought I would blog a little about some of my favorite sites to visit, etsy shops, and blogs I read! My absolute must read every-day blog is the Sew Mama Sew Blog. Sew Mama Sew is a fabric store that also runs an amazing website for sews to learn from and inspire each other. There are forums for discussion and links to photos of others' projects. Its really a great stop for sewing inspiration. I got turned on to Sew Mama Sew last year when they were running special Handmade Holiday blogs, every day for the month of November there was a post suggesting handmade, mostly sewn, gift giving ideas, complete with tutorials on how to make these great gifts! It was an inspiration to me and really opened my eyes to the online world of sewing tutorials! I'm excited that they are doing it again this year and encourage you all to go check out the November blogs for Handmade Holiday suggestions (Here's the direct link to the Handmade Holiday 2008 Archives!)! With this years excessively perilous economy, wouldn't it be nice to spend more time and less money on gift giving?

New Earrings

Just a quick post to show off the new things I've posted this week now that my camera is up and running!

Foyer Table

Last weekend when my mother was in town, I had a whole list of things I was hoping to do to the apt. many of those things did not get accomplished unfortunately, there is only so much time in a weekend and we filled every minute with shopping and enjoying each others' company. The one thing on the list that we got done was to find a foyer table for the entry to the apt and to hang the very heavy iron mirror above it. We found the table at World Market and it was a little more than I hoped to spend but still within budget and I love the carved design below the table top. As you can see, it is also just the right size, perfect fit! And yesterday I found the perfect vase to go on top. I wanted something tall with a punch of color. I'm not sure the pics do this vase justice, it was difficult to capture the color, its a very dark maroon with a handful of red prints of flowers and asian symbols. Definitely warms up the space! Now if only I could find an armour to hide the TV and end tables and lamps to fix the lighting in the living room...

Fabric Stash and Sewing Projects

So this afternoon my friend Nikki and I went fabric shopping! Dangerous stuff, I know, but I was on a mission. I want to make some Christmas presents and needed to pick up some patterns, but I didn't end up working on any of those projects tonight. Of course, fabric shopping and talking about sewing projects with Nikki got the creative juices flowing and after sending her the tutorial that I used to make my plastic bag dispenser a few weeks ago (http://www.dioramarama.com/2006/12/grocery_bag_dispense.html) , I was inspired to whip up another one. This one will be a Christmas present, receiver will remain unnamed until further notice for gift giving privacy concerns, but if you know me, you can probably guess by the print :)



I also did a serious combing through my stash (picture above) looking for other inspiration (and just because sometimes you really need a reminder of what you have in that bag!) and I found a small fragment of vibrantly hued pink butterfly fabric, that I just know my niece would love. So I whipped up a drawstring backpack for her.




It's a perfect addition to her birthday package that I've been putting together (which will be a smidge late since today is her birthday, oops, bad Auntie!)