Thursday, June 24, 2010

it all starts with the magic ring...

i've been busy with the 'F' hook and cotton

[top pic is side one, bottom is side two]

1. i made the cozy for a recycled glass jar... perfect for pencils, paintbrushes, etc
2. the granny square potholder i decided to do off-center
3. the round potholder is your standard increasing circle
4. the circle to square pattern i found on Lion Brand Yarn
5. the scalloped potholder is a design by Priscilla Hewitt


have you been hooking lately? ;)

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

etsy treasury...

... titled Sweet Soft Sage Green, curated by SweetAnneVintage
 

mail call...

...wonderful fabric has been arriving at my doorstep
1.  The top set is a super cute set of screen printed fabric panels from June Craft. Kayanna is super-talented and has wonderful things in her shop and a really cool blog [oh, and she lives in Iowa]! I've been saving up for these beauties and am so glad they are in my possession since she is only doing a limited run.
2. When I saw this flying squirrel fabric, my first reaction was to giggle. It is sooo cute and is the creation of my recent Feeling Stitchy button swap partner, Rose of Crafty McGee. She also sent me a pretty sewn and embroidered badge, which I also love!
3. I have a couple of vintage wood chairs that I need to recover and I ordered this beautiful upholstery weight cotton from Swanky Swell in a dark- almost red- orange called 'mandarin'. Unfortunately, the pieces weren't quite big enough for chair cushion covers but, no worries, the fabric will get used!
4. This is a stack of fabric I purchased from SewMamaSew during one of their 15% off sales recently... it's a mix of prints and yardage. No definite plans for any of it yet, but I'm sure it won't take long to figure out :D 
Have you been stash building or busting?

Oh, and one last item that came in the mail a while back...
 ...this fantastic 'Hyperactivityopgraphy From A to Z' book made the blog rounds about a month ago [I found it via How About Orange- like everything else, it seems] and I decided to order two. The book was sold out the next day! Wasn't I lucky?! But why did I get two, you might ask... you'll find out soon [heehee]!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

flickr favorites...

... inspired by the Flickr group 'This is Iowa' administered by Chrissy (from Domestica), I decided to pick a few of my favorite b&w pics out of the group. These pictures give only a small glimpse into what defines my fabulous home state of Iowa...

Stop over to ArtMind and play along with Flickr Favorites...

Monday, June 21, 2010

vintage finds...

...from a garage sale I stopped at last week (I had sworn off garage/estate sales and auctions for a while, but I just couldn't resist!).
The spice rack [$0.25] has two drawers at the bottom, the Tupperware [$2.00] has never been used and the Corning shakers [$0.25] are super cute!
I'm definitely pleased with my 1970s finds! What goodies have you 'found' lately?

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

2010 summer trade guide...

...at oh, hello friend is a great list of Etsy shops that participate in trading. The guide is beautifully laid out and has been broken down into sections like jewelry, stationery, artwork, photography, and vintage (thanks for including my store, Danni!). If you have an Etsy shop and love to trade, you really need to check out the 2010 Summer Trade Guide! And if you've never been to oh, hello friend stop in and say 'hi!'... I promise you won't be sorry!


Thursday, June 10, 2010

putting my name on paper...

... I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I was participating in the May Market Day [more on that later in a separate post, but it was better than expected!]. You know, I don't think I ever truly appreciated how much work goes into getting show-ready! Whew!

My first order of business was to create business cards and a table banner:

It took a while for me to figure out what I wanted my 'brand' to look like. But here's how I created the final results... 

First, I downloaded the vintage looking Matchbook font [found via How About Orange], formatted my business cards and large banner letters in MS Word and then printed them on paper... Avery linen textured for the business cards [I love the feel of these cards!] and card stock for the banner letters. 

The backs of the cards and backgrounds for the banner are printed with colors and patterns I created at tartanmaker.com [alos found via How About Orange]. The common color on all of the tartans is gray and then the accent colors are based on colors of washi tape I had previously purchased from Tinted Mint

The tape was used to hold the letters on the backgrounds for the banner and to put a stripe on the left side of the cards. [Oh and I also used the tape to attach price tags to my items- I love this tape for being low-tack but sticking when it really needs to!] For the banner I then crocheted a white rope and attached the letters with small silver clips. 

So, what do you think? Do they work for both vintage and handmade? Do they look like something a third grader would make in art class? Any feedback would be much appreciated!

Monday, June 7, 2010

crochet love...



Originally uploaded by sarah london textiles
...for this beautiful lamp shade made by the the fabulous Sarah London! do i have any spare drum lamp shades in my house?

Saturday, June 5, 2010

vintage swap: summer 2010

Yesterday the sign-ups for the Summer Vintage Swap began!
If you're interested in joining in, please stop by Vintage Swap blog and get your name in quick... there is a max of 100 people and it filled up really fast for the winter edition.