Scissor Love

I've been working on embroidering even more scissors (hair stylist, more vintage embroidery, diagram, etc.) and have hung up two more in the show still up at Starbucks. I will post the newest additions soon.

In the meantime, two scissor-related crafts that tickled me pink today.

Lauren Levy's show currently at D. Berman Gallery here in Austin, wonderful use of buttons! I just found out about this today and since it ends in a couple days, plan to check it out tomorrow.


And I love this demo display Rachel / Average Jane Crafter made for her embroidery classes and demos she's doing at Maker Faire San Francisco this weekend:

sweet!

new delights for your loveliness

I've spent the evening adding more sew on buttons and necklaces to my etsy shop.

And eating pina colada flavored licorice.

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!

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.