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2 of my most wonderful friends have recently been joined in harmonious marriage. Their ceremony was small, filled with their closest family. So my sweetie and I threw a “friends” party to congratulate them.
This party was the only party I have ever really spent a great deal of time and resources on, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.
I’ve seen these types of banners before, so I was really excited to try my had at it for the occasion. I used some cute floral fabric cut into triangles (cut with pinking shears, edges left raw), spelled out my message with iron-on letters from the craft store, and then affixed the little flags to a long length of ribbon. Voila! Though you can’t really see in this picture, I also added little butterfly pins in a few spots. Cute!
I also made a huge center-piece with long branches of curly willow (I had been eyeing it for weeks), cat tails (my sweetie’s idea!) and dried “money plant” branches (little silvery-papery coins). The vase was weighted down with tumbled stones and filled up with dried moss. This was also adorned with sweet little butterfly pins.
Top it all off with good friends and good food (including these delectable dark chocolate cupcakes made Anna), and we all had a lovely time. Thank you everyone who helped celebrate!
This evening I stumbled upon a miracle! Tiny leaves had begun to sprout in my hanging fruit/veggie basket. A lonely little potato has been waiting so long to be transformed into dinner, that it began to imagine its own new beginning:
How spectacular! I’ve never seen such a glorious potato in my own kitchen. It’s bright purple stalks and veiny leaves are such a sight to behold.
Look how brightly the purple veins contrast against the green leaf. I just love it. How incredible that this little fellow, impatiently sitting in my kitchen, was so sick of sitting still, he decided to sprout a forest of purple and green.
The flowers I bought at the farmer’s market last weekend might be dead, but who needs them when I have this little guy?
The money tree out side of my apartment is beginning to sprout some new leaves:
Hooray! The sweetest signs of spring….
For quite some time, my studio has been strangely distributed around too many places. But this weekend, I rearranged, re organized, and revamp my shared studio space and have renewed my dedication to my workbench:
I installed shelves, arranged my tools and hooked up my torch. Such happiness!
I was also super happy to find this adorable, and perfectly sized, tiny crock pot for my pickling solution.
I was also super excited to have found one of these magnetic strips to install. It’s the kind usually used for kitchen knives, but it’s so perfect for tools.
I can’t wait to get working on all the ideas running through my head. I’ll have plenty of new things to share in the coming weeks!
I know I just talked about it, but it’s finally complete. The color is everything I wanted it to be:
This is one of my brother’s illustrations. I just love them! Check them out here!
I also recently got this set of postcards from etsy seller Lilly and Coco. You can choose the colors from an array she has available. They’re repro’s from a WWI poster. I love the intense contrast in color.
My apartment is finally coming together. It’s such a slow process, but I don’t mind taking my time while I’m crafting my home. To day I was also working on curtains for my bedroom. Here’s a sneak peek of the fabric, but I’ll have to wait for day light to take a finished picture:
I don’t usually do much. This is primarily due to the fact that I work just about all the time. I have my 9 to 5 job, and then my jewelry business. So really, I’m not exaggerating when I say I work all the time. Last night however, I had a flash of art-school-like ambition to work on many projects I’ve been dreaming of and staying up late to play, drink beer and listen to loud music. Perfect.
So first I painted by bathroom. This took a lot longer than I thought it would. It’s such a small room, I figured I’d bust it out in no time at all. In actuality, my roller didn’t fit around all the towl bars and light fixtures that I appearently forgot to recognize in my time estimate.
It’s a bad-ass paint color, don’t you think? I had been carrying around a swatch of baby-boy-blue for almost 2 months. I’m so glad Linz and I made a bold choice instead. The rest of the apartment is painted with pretty quite, mellow colors, so I’m super happy with the punch in the loo.
Also really exciting? My lady got a new tattoo on thursday:
Four hours tattoo time and I think it’s beautiful. I also made plans while we were there (Black and Blue Tattoo) for a my own tattoo (it will be my second). Yeah! And by the way, I totally recommend this place.
I’ve never done this before, but I really feel the need to share about how cute my cats are:
Thats Harold on the left and Maude on the right. Cutest things you ever seen, right?
I’ve been living in my new apartment for about 2 months now. It feels like home, though there is still much work to do- lots of art to finally hang, the bathroom to paint, and a new curtain idea for the bedroom… not to mention a load of other projects I’m dying to make for the place!
Along the same lines, my friend Tay emailed this link to me a while ago, and i really love the idea:
(before)
(after)
I love how all those old (and yucky?) plates have been transformed into a study of pattern, color and composition (art nerd?). I think one of my favorite things about the arrangement is how each plate is different- some with scalloped egdes, some with no frilly details at all. I love when large pieces (or in this case, installations) have small moments within itself that allow you savor all the details and differences.
(This project came from Apartment Therapy.)
I’ve been on a serious magazine kick lately (my favorites have been ReadyMade and Domino). These are mostly diy, crafty (ReadyMade) or home decor (Domino) sort of magazines, and since I’m still trying to figure out how to make my new apartment my home, I’m totally excited about decorating and making stuff. Anyways, I found this adorable candle holder (i guess?) on the Domino website (yes. i read the magazine and then check their website too). It’s from urban outfitters, which i usually find to be too expensive for my current budget, but amazingly, it’s only $10! At that price you wouldn’t have to feel bad about spray painting it some other fabulous color. I’m totally in love.
These are some new pictures of my new home. Mostly the bedroom…
The new bed spread i’m in love with:
2 prints i recently framed, above the bed:
some jewelry display on my dresser:
updated jewelry shadow box:
i’ve shared this jewelry shadow box before, but i finished painting it and added the sweet little glass birds to the arrangement (i’ve got 2 more blue glass birds to find homes for too).
the apartment is feeling more like home every day. our living room has lots of work waiting to happen. i’ve been envisioning a large empty wall that will house a sort of collage of old family photos with small shadow boxes of old family objects. my lady and i have many relics that belonged to relatives. they are so cherished and we really want to give them space to celebrate our families and our histories.
my mind has been overwhelmed with little art projects this past week. i’ve had a lot of things on my plate in terms of gearing up for some new jewelry business ventures, and i’m really excited about it! also, since my lady and i moved into our new home in berkeley, i’ve been doing nothing but decorate and sketch and cut paper and paint. here’s what i spent part of this past week / weekend working on:
it’s what i’m calling a jewelry shadow box. all you need to do is cut some cork to size, glue the cork in to the bottom of a shallow wooden box, and paint as desired. i chose a lavender color to coordinate with my room colors. i think i’m going to paint the outer sides and the front lip a dark brown to better match the picture frames this box is currently paired with:
the fun thing about this jewelry shadow box is that there are just push-pins to hold the jewelry in place, so you can change up the arrangements and groupings of jewelry whenever you feel like it. i’ve been trying to experiment with new jewelry display/storage for my own personal collection. i’ve always had a big ugly wooden box that was cumbersome and a total eye sore. i had a lot of fun working on this project and totally recommend it as an easy and fast way to celebrate great jewelry.
