pictures of my bat costume are forthcoming! have a fun halloween, everyone!

hello mail!

Two amazing packages arrived this week that have cheered me so much!

1. Celia's first subscription, halloween themed - yay! and really, really fantastic.

2. super surprise from Krissy - she picks one LJ friend a month to send some fun stuff to. It arrived at a moment when I definitely needed the postal cheer, so it was pretty great. In addition to all the wonderful stuff in the box, there was also a little regifting package where you add something to what's already in it and pass it along...

my favorites are the "you are sew great" scissor print and this beautiful book with the flying man that is made of recycled graph paper

honored with a shiny seal!

Taylor over at Parcell Press awarded a special honor to myself and the prolific and lovely comic artist JP Coovert for having the most popular items in his shop for awhile. Mine is for Last Known Address and JP's is for Adrift. It totally warms my heart to hear it, and here's the best part!

We are both awarded this shiny, fancy seal:



awesome. I want it made into a belt buckle! Thanks Taylor!!

fabric coasters tutorial

I made some fabric coasters - they were so easy, I thought I'd share the process with you all.

I decided to use my favorite IKEA fabric and plain old felt as a backing (to be gentle on my newly built IKEA coffeetable).




You can cut a template out of cardboard or just cut your square freehand. I cut the felt first because it's the size the coaster will be in the end. Then I placed the felt square over the patterned fabric, positioning it as centrally as possible. I left about 3/4" border while cutting around the felt. The top/patterned fabric will be hemmed, but the felt, of course, doesn't need hemming.

Then I pressed the 3/4" hem around the patterned fabric with the iron.

fold over the corners of the patterned fabric after pressing



line up the felt with the pressed patterned piece and pin, keeping the corners folded as you go



pinned frontside



sew it on the frontside, as close to the edge as possible



once you're done with the outside border hem, clip your threads and sew a square in the middle (to keep your coaster flat and reinforce the shape). I just did it freehand, but you could mark the outline or corners with chalk.



remove pins and press with iron to smooth out pin marks



done!



time for a tea party!

From Creative Kismet's blog, her piece for Illustration Friday - I love it! That is me right now :)
check out her blog here

lovely letterbox september

was late, due to life suddenly getting in the way, and went out in earlyish October.



print gocco of an illustration from a vintage children's book, printed on cardboard cut from cereal boxes and the like


print gocco of vintage scissors



cupcake toppers using adorable stamps from The Small Object



fall recipe cards made by Kirsten



not pictured: Liz's adorable bookmarks, pieces of IKEA fabric, and little supply kits for making more cupcake toppers. I forgot to take pictures before sending them off!

here's a picture from Krissy's journal (also shows the scissor gocco printed on fabric)

Acknowledge Me Fest is coming!

This is definitely one of the best craft fairs I've been a part of; crafts, DIY, zines, music....
mark your calendar and come out and see me! December 6 at Mohawk. woo!

Never too much of a good thing

This weekend, I'm completely immersed in awesomeness: Ladies Rock Camp, which I've been helping organize and doing print publications for, and Maker Faire! I'm pretty much at one place or the other, or if I'm home, I'm working on the roadmap (a resource/reference book) for Ladies Rock Camp, making the program for the ladies rock showcase, oh yeah, and carving some stamps to unwind. some clouds with faces, and a little halloween stamp for the Lovely Letterbox which of course will be a surprise. Hey - if you're local, please come out for the Ladies Rock Camp showcase - it will be a great show! It's tomorrow (Sunday) at the Creekside Lounge, 7pm. Free/donations.

here are some photos from ladies rock camp (taking band photos for the program)

In order to get a free pass for Maker Faire, I volunteered with Ecology Action (the great Austin/area recycling center) for the first few hours, then caught a great presentation by Kathy Cano-Murillo (aka Crafty Chica), and Rachel's (aka Average Jane Crafter) awesome demo on making plushy monsters (from Craft magazine). This is a photo borrowed from her blog she took right before her demo of the audience - look, there I am! I'm looking off somewhere, in the middle, wearing the brown and blue chainring shirt.

More Maker Faire and LRC photos forthcoming! In the meantime, here are a few on my flickr.

amurigumi peeps!

I'm so in love with this adorableness, would someone please make it for me?
It's a free pattern from the craft blog Owlishly!

I would love love love you!!

Freya from Fish or Fowl did a post about typewriters and included my buttons in it. Of course I love all things typewriter! this is a neat blog, so check it out. I love this lady with the typewriter in the bathtub!

Letterboxing: a new activity, oh my!

My friend Kristen has been doing this for awhile and last night she took me out to try it. And it's just as wonderful as it sounded!

Letterboxing is basically a treasure hunt where you follow clues (on a centralized letterboxing website) to find a box hidden somewhere, in cities, parks, wherever. In the box is a hand-carved rubber stamp, usually with an image that represents the place where it's hidden, or sometimes representing the person who made it.

In the box is also a little blank book (often handmade also) which is a record of everyone who has found the box. You stamp your own personal carved stamp in it and put the date you were there and your name. When you find the box, you get to see all these amazing stamps from all the people who have been there, with the dates they were there and their name. You take the stamp in the box and stamp it into your own little book where you collect all the stamps from the boxes you've found as your record. awesome! Kristen says letterboxing has been around since the 1800s, when they used to hand carve stamps and hide them, and clues

Then you go to the letterboxing community website and log your finds, print out clues to lead you to more, etc.

One etiquette item about letterboxing is to never show photos of the stamps you find or basically what's in the boxes you find - so as not to spoil the surprise for everyone that goes looking for it after you. So, here are photos of our adventures last night finding three boxes around central Austin. See the rest of the photos at my flickr page.

These are the stamps I brought along to stamp into the books. Some of the boxes and therefore the books are so tiny that the big Niku stamp didn't fit. I'm going to design and carve a new stamp to go along with my "trail name", Niku Sweet Tooth :) and the little book I brought to put the letterbox stamps into.

guess what?

check it out - this is a really neat community, with fun features like groups, various ways to comment and discuss, photos, forum...

postal delights, vp debates, crafting, and cupcakes, oh my!

Sugene/All This is Mine's paper ephemera subscription has been amazing! Get on her mailing list so you can be part of the next round. I have sadly failed to take pictures before but here's the one I got the other day:

my favorite thing in this package!

Last night, I hosted a viewing of the Vice Presidential debate.




see more on my flickr

Tuesday crafting (more photos will be posted after the lovely letterbox subs go out!)

Audra's tattoo (stamp from the Small Object)



crafting with Kristen at Spiderhouse



hair at Toy Joy - doesn't she look fabulous?