I heart subscriptions

subscriptions are just the bees knees! I'm so excited to let you know about a new subscription being offered by one of my favorite people/zinesters/mail artists/creators - Celia Perez. oh my! her subscriptions will have original zines, paper ephemera, and surprise goodies. and I promise, her surprises (and zines, and ephemera for that matter!) are always fabulous.

There are six spots, so jump on it. The deadline is October 8 to sign up.

click here for all the tantalizing details.

a list of some things I've got going on:

+ I spent most of my day crafting with gal pals. that is heaven, right? We did some great stuff, some of which is highly classified Lovely Letterbox stuff that will be revealed before too long (not before the subscribers see it of course!)

- I love Project Runway, but I'm finding the Rachel Zoe Project tedious and just kind of boring. I guess I'm more interested in the craft, sewing, construction, design, etc. than watching someone shop and just put outfits together.

+ I'm putting the little house and tree button set on a black cardigan. I love them, and they're perfect for this lightweight, kind of floaty cardigan.

+ I could not love print gocco more. I just adore it! although I'm still figuring out stuff about it and it's not always as perfect as I'd like.

- what I've really been procrastinating: creating the "road map", kind of a manual/resource/reference book for Ladies Rock Camp. This is the biggest project I'm doing for LRC. by the way, if you haven't checked out the possibility of attending, please take a look! it's going to be really wonderful, I promise. The organizers are amazing, it's going to be an incredible experience, and this is a fundraiser for Girls Rock Camp. I need to focus some time on my work for it!

+ I watched the three part video about making resin jewelry, which is something I love and have wanted to try for so long. It still seems pretty complicated, time consuming, and difficult to me.

+ If the scheduling works out, I will hopefully be working the craft-o-rama table at the maker faire - woo! and even better, I can sell my own stuff, too. Right now I have button sets, pin cushions with tiny shrink pin toppers, needle books, strawberry pincushions, felt and ribbon covered tape measures, that sort of thing, at craft-o-rama. Any thoughts about what would work well at maker faire, i.e. craft supplies and notions, or crafty items? i.e. plushies, belts, art zines? Your feedback is most appreciated!

+ waiting on pins and needles till friday when I find out about blue genie. !! everyone cross your fingers and toes!

+ I really want these books right now:

I know that last one isn't so crafty, but the author was on the Daily Show and it looks interesting.

buttons buttons buttons!

Making and using interesting sew on buttons is one of my favorite things!

customer appreciation and sister appreciation

I wanted to share this from an etsy customer who used one of my mail art kits in a unique way - to create an art drawer! She's going to hang it on the wall. I love the use of collage in transforming a "useful" every day object, and it's so interesting to see familiar ephemera and artistamps in a different context.

Patti has a blog about buying and selling online and an etsy shop of vintage postcards.



I just have one sister. Wasn't she the cutest little thing when she was small? On the right is closer to present day, all grown up! She lives a very different life than I and it's a pretty interesting one.
Here is her blog.

the tough get crafting

I've been out of touch for awhile. I have some hard things going on in my personal life that are, well, I'll just say, those big life things that are really hard. One of them is needing to find a place to live and move there as soon as possible. Another is the worry about having the money for a place that feels safe and has enough space to create. I might only be able to afford a tiny place, but I have to remember that it's not just one of my reasons for living and my joy, I'm trying hard to make it my livelihood.

In the midst of all the life stuff, I decided to go ahead and apply to the Blue Genie Art Bazaar, despite the bad timing and short amount time to get my application materials together. I love Blue Genie, and if I was accepted it could really help my income at a time when I really need the help. I got my application in about 30 minutes before the deadline, but it's in! I don't find out until October 3. Once I got that done and did a bunch of apartment hunting, I decided to take a little time just for me and make this post.

I wanted to share with you some of the pieces I made as samples to apply to Blue Genie.
I will probably start posting some of the houses for sale on etsy soon, but if you're interested in any of the pieces, please get in touch. If I can't give you the particular one, I'd love to make something just for you!
As always, I would love to hear your comments and feedback as I continue with my creative journey (a little corny, but I think that's what it is).
thanks for being here - I take so much solace in my lovely crafty friends!!

I love how the houses look on the painted plaques!

One of my favorite of the houses (although I love how they look all clumped together on the wall!) Click here to see more of the houses on flickr



bird house from the art show at the Morgan Lane Gallery, Oct. 2007
(now lives with Johanna)



mixed media collage


mixed media collage

new zines!

two new zines finally in the etsy shop

crafty birthday time

It's a special day for one of my very favorite crafty ladies!

visit her crafty goodness

art show

I've been meaning to post about the art show currently on view at the starbucks where I work. Because almost half of the staff are crafters and artists or people who like to make stuff, my manager had the idea to do an art show of just work by employees, instead of all work by one artist and I agreed to coordinate it.

We had an opening reception a couple weeks ago, and I finally got around to taking some pictures of the art when there weren't people around and the light was ok. To see more photos of the opening reception and bigger versions of the photos below, visit my flickr

from left to right: 1. Liz's installation/sculpture 2. Kirsten's aprons 3. my mixed media/quilted piece 4. Kirsten's drawing 5. my mixed media houses 6. Chandra's two paintings

what the heck is the Lovely Letterbox?

I've mentioned the Lovely Letterbox here and there in a few places and wanted to let you all know exactly what it is, especially because it is one of my very favorite projects!

The Lovely Letterbox is basically a subscription service. I adore subscriptions, because I love mail, and love knowing I'm going to be getting mail. The idea of being able to send a package out each month containing whatever I was inspired to create or share that month really appealed to me. There are 11 participants in the first round who receive something in the mail at least once a month for 6 months. When I started it, I only knew that participants would receive original zines, zines from my personal collection (which is kind of monstrous and I'm trying to cut it down), crafts made by me, samples from new things I'm trying out, and craft/mail/ephemera supplies from my always growing collection of supplies.

We are two months in and even after two installments, I still can't say what all the future ones will include. I can share with you what I've done so far. I wanted to make this a special exclusive opportunity for the people who signed up, so I'm creating zines especially for it that won't be available until after their subscription is over, possibly offered in a pack or something like that.

I already know I'm going to continue this project when this round is finished because it has been a great success, which to me means that the participants have given me lots of positive feedback about being part of it. So if you would like to be on a waiting list for the next round, e-mail me and I'll get in touch a month or two before this round ends and the new one begins and give you the chance to sign up before I post about it here and open it up to first come first serve sign ups.

Three of my lovely participants have great craft blogs and have each done posts about Lovely Letterbox and you should check out their wonderful blogs anyway:
Average Jane Crafter, Craftypod, and PonyBoy Press

July was the first month and I made quilted fabric postcards for the very first piece of mail. I was already working on the goodies for the packages and carved stamps for everyone in the shape of the state they live in with a little envelope in the middle. I stamped this on each of their postcards as a little intrigue.

For the first package, I made a stencil and spray painted it onto their envelopes. In the package was: the hand carved stamps, a few zines each from my collection, a full color collage zine that I made at the Austin Book Workers book fair, some note paper that I stamped with various other stamps I've carved, some cute japanese note papers, and little punched out shapes I punched from patterned paper with a postage stamp shape punch and a scalloped circle punch.

For the August installment, I was really into the idea of a kit of some kind. I made kits for little plush teeth (my favorite plushy to make) with a tiny how-to zine in it, copies of the zine I made for the 24 Hour Zine challenge, pieces of this great screen normally used for screen doors/window screens that I used to make a mixed media collage piece in an art show, a letter about what inspired me in this installment and things going on in my life, some cool fibers, little sewn collage houses from the previously mentioned art show, and sets of sew on buttons.