glittergoods

running for the bus

There was a whole scene this morning involving me dashing out into the street to flag down the (early, but then again we were a little late) schoolbus while my son was running back down the hill to retrieve the Something-or-Other Trooper that had fallen out of his pocket (it's Sharing Day) & then me breathlessly explaining to the busdriver that her weeks-long substitute had always been late & so we must have gotten used to it, sorry, & as I was walking back home I was thinking that the bus scramble is a very apt description of my life lately, then suddenly the neighbor from around the block who also puts her kid on that bus comes flying down the street in her car, honking & frantic, trying to catch the attention of the bus which has stopped at the intersection & which may or may not have noticed her & be waiting for her child, & I think no, THAT'S my life.

Anyway due to life-as-nearly-missed-bus, I've been taking a break from all things internet lately, have you noticed?  I was flipping through my photos, looking to see what I've been doing this whole time, & apparently I have 1. not been up to all that much, & 2. taking a break from the camera, too.

Though there was that too-hot afternoon when we built a fairy porch to my girl's specifications:















(Scrap wood, twigs, white glue)















Complete with hanging lanterns.  I wanted to drape something across from the other two twigs, but she says I haven't thought of anything good enough yet.

We also had another good gocco session when it was time to make her thank you cards.



 











I try to involve my kids in their thank yous as much as possible, & this time around I drew a blank fairy for her to color in (featuring an unfinished head so she can draw whatever hairstyle she wants).  I used a dotted-line font to spell out "thank you," & her job was to trace over the letters as she finished each card.















Things to note in this picture:  she is currently favoring fairies with SERIOUS BANGS, she's got a handy reference book open in the background, & off to the right you can see that my son got in on the gocco action too (my kids LOVE that thing) & we have mighty many blank fairies around now.  For the smaller cards, I put a post-it over the "thank you" to block the ink & then let them go to town printing out a whole stack of fairies for us to add to the art box.

I have also been thinking a lot about sewing, though not to the point where I have been DOING any.  This sundress has been in heavy rotation recently, & it finally fits her perfectly (TWO YEARS LATER), so I think I might see if I still have those pattern pieces around. 

The sewing itch has to wait a minute, though, because the most exciting thing around here is that on Friday I am off for a fancy weekend in San Francisco with my husband/without my kids:  any vegetarian restaurant recommendations or shopping must-sees (including good fabric stores)?

gocco jr.

I have been meaning to post about progress & process of the auction quilt (latest pictures on flickr), but just today I learned that instead of the four or five final squares I was expecting, I actually have THIRTEEN squares to complete by the end of the week, so I sort of can't say anything articulate about the project right now.

But then, as it turns out, Valentine's Day waits for no fit of pique, so this afternoon I pulled out the gocco & set the kids to work making their valentines.  I was not at all sure that things would go well, but they LOVED it. 

I explained to my girl that we'd be making a fancy kind of stamp out of one of her drawings, & though she was a bit skeptical of the idea that we'd be putting the same picture on every valentine, she was willing to try.  She supervised the ink-mixing,  & then was a little tentative with the first few prints, but by the time her brother got home she'd pushed me out of the way & was busily printing.

Her cards had to be positioned very specifically on the grid (four down, one over), & she took that over too, with great seriousness.

And then very carefully laid the prints out to dry.

This one took to it just as quickly, though I was very amused to see that where my daughter was getting a lot of satisfaction from the creation of each individual print, he clearly saw it as an excellent means of mass-production, i.e. getting to mess around with one of my cool art tools while getting classroom valentines out of the way at the same time.

He liked the squishing part, too, though once the cards were printed he handed them off to me to deal with, assembly-line style.

Ah, efficiency.

the wedding post

I spent much of the weekend eyeball-deep in the pictures I took at my sister's wedding, putting together slideshow cds & little photo albums to send off to various family members, & so I am finally ready to write about it (I say "finally" as if it were the longest-languishing event that I have not written about, ha).

The thing about making my sister's wedding is that it was like an excellent wedding do-over, with none of the pressure of making once-in-a-lifetime choices for myself, plus 8 years more design/craft experience on my part.  My sister is not like me in many ways, & one of them is that she's not particularly visual & doesn't really fuss about the tiny details & probably thought I was just nuts (or else I was intent on making HER nuts) during a lot of the planning process, but seeing her face when she walked into her pretty, simple, whimsical reception made all the work & the fuss & the nutsiness worth it. (And don't kid yourself:  those sweet simple handmade-but-polished weddings?  Plenty of work.)

Way back in the fall, we set the tone with the save the date card:  a little drawing, a little sparkle, a little lightheartedness.

The actual invitation was very simple in the midst of the other colorful, whimsical pieces.  I know I at least posted a picture of the invites back when I was working on them, but in case I didn't mention this at the time (I see I didn't), I would like to note that the gocco ink + Paper Source Luxe paper gave me complete fits with ink bleed as the cards dried.  In the end I think it was worth it, because the whole concept was beautiful textured cream paper with black ink = beautiful textured sparkly lacy ivory dress with black ribbon (as seen on my sister), & I love the variations that handprinting brings, but I ended up having to print way more than we needed to make up for the ones that were too blurry when dried (because there's variation & then there's variation).  It may have just been me, but still, word to the wise if you're looking at goccoing small clean-lined text onto textured paper.

She decided to have cupcakes instead of a cake, so I designed these to go on top.  The little paper airplane first showed up above, on the response cards, & since her husband is a pilot, it seemed appropriate to bring it back here & there.

I did not bake these (though I did end up bringing 3 dozen vegan cupcakes along to the reception, which possibly is a sign of that nutsiness I mentioned earlier), but I was very happy with the way the cupcake maker kept things homemade-looking.

The groom's cupcakes, made from a very particular recipe of my brother-in-law's late grandmother.  He was a little worried that they wouldn't be right because his grandmother never made cupcakes; I think, in the end, he was a little too busy being freshly married to notice any difference.

Favor, program, flag.  The program cover swiveled to the side on that little purple dot (tiny snap) to reveal the ceremony info printed on chartreuse card stock.  I really like the clean look of the snap, but when using those babies, give yourself enough time that you're not running all over town at the last minute looking for a tool that works without ruining that smooth little dot.  Ahem.  Anyway, I think that they came up with a genius idea for favors, which was to get cases of customized Jones Soda.  We went with the cream soda (the groom was a little disappointed that we didn't go with bright blue, but it didn't match) & tied a little favor tag around each one with ribbon in the various wedding colors.

One of my sister's friends spent a long time trying to get the bottles lined up just so.  Better her than me.

The escort cards have the name handwritten on the front, table number printed on the back.  I made the board from an acoustic ceiling tile:  cut it to size with a box knife, stapled linen-blend fabric & some ribbon around it, then hot-glued a piece of felt to the back to cover the staples.  I got the fabric on big sale at Joann, so I think all told I spent less than $10 on the board.  It won't hold up as well as -- I assume -- homosote would (ours was broken by the end of the weekend), but it will do the job for table cards & has a much more substantial look than something like foamcore.

I was pretty amused by the tissue paper pom pom blog mini-craze that happened a little while ago, since at the same time we were again considering making puffs for the wedding reception (having already been through at least one cycle of consider/reject/examine-the-budget before slinking back around to the idea).  I made a sample, & we got a lot more excited about it than we thought we would, plus, our budget loved the idea.  We followed Martha's directions, but our largest size came from a 20"x15" sheet of paper, & the smaller was approximately half that size -- the 20"x30" we tried just looked too sloppy -- & we curved the ends for a more floral look.

It was a lot of tissue paper trimming (my mom = tissue puff hero) & fluffing but we were delighted with the finished look -- though, to be fair, it's hard to go wrong when you're having a sweet little summertime wedding reception in a room with charming white ceiling beams, hm?

All in all, I think I showed enormous restraint, only putting glitter on the save the dates (&, really, just the tiniest speck) & on the table numbers.  You may recognize these as being near kin to my glitter letters, though I added floral wire to the bottom so they could stand up in the table arrangements.

The very beautiful arrangements by Anne Fordham, who came through with the exact right flowers for the event.

The lighting in my pictures could be better, I know, but really, the room looked terrific. 

They look like they liked it, don't they?  Happy wedding, little sister.

snip

My husband gave me a gocco PG-11 for my birthday last month, & I have been rushing past the box while casting wistful glances over my shoulder ever since.  No more!  I finally managed to get my fingers inky this afternoon.

I've gotten perfectly fine registration from my PG-5 with only minor hassle, but I'm not going to say no to a paper guide & adjustable print bed, believe me.  Result:  ode to my Fiskars, in three screens.

all my snacks should be so happy

My daughter loves the clothespin dolls, which is gratifying because what if I decided to give them up & she thought they were boring?  She plays with them in her wooden doll house, unlike her beloved (plastic) playmobil, which she will only play with in her old (plastic) Little People house -- there's a purity of concept there that deeply appeals to me.  Somewhat unexpectedly, my son instantly requested one of his own, so:

I need to work out the whole short hair thing a bit more (& I see now that my son is right, the arms are too long), but I had fun painting the details on this one, especially the robot shirt.  I realized, while working on this, that one of the things that appeals to me about the clothespins is the sweet little challenge posed by the limitation of form.  Not to get too philosophical about clothespin dolls or anything.

Look at that popcorn!  I'd been seeing around the blogs that Alexander Henry fabric is showing up at JoAnn stores, so I set off in search the other morning.  I did indeed get my hands on a couple of AH prints, plus the usual half-yard or two from the calico wall, & THEN I found this ridiculously irresistable flannel.

I think that it's excellent of my sister to be giving me the chance to do a set of wedding invites, since I didn't own my gocco when I did my own wedding junk.  The invites themselves are very simple, on cream textured paper, but the other pieces are more playful & today I'm going to try my hand at a little two-color printing.  I'm in love with screenprinting as an art form lately (look at this great print I found on etsy), so of course I am jumping at the chance to play around a little.  (I am also jumping at the chance to go wedding cake tasting with her this week, hurrah.)

in the mail

The amazing thing about this sweet little gocco print is that the artist, Julie West, used nine screens to make it.  I found her work while wandering through flickr in search of print examples that would prove to me that I could do reasonably fine lines with the gocco, & instantly hunted up her online shop (love the giclee prints, am keeping an eye out for larger screenprints to appear) to get myself a print.  I'm putting a closeup on flickr so you can see the amazing delicate detail in the print.  Nine screens!

She also sent along these postcards -- I love the thick & thin lines that manage to be whimsical + angular at the same time, & her great use of color, even if they didn't use nine screens.