My Latest Favorite Etsy Purchases

I have just straight-up sucked at blogging here lately! First it was getting slammed with orders in the etsy shop (which was awesome!!), then I took a wonderful five-day vacation to Philadelphia (which was even MORE awesome), and now I'm just trying to catch up with everything.

I promise that in my next post, I'll bring you an actual project, but for now, I've got a few etsy purchases I'm really excited to share with you.

I know I said in my last post that I'm obsessed with jewelry, but I might be equally obsessed with buying art. Here are my latest buys:


This print is called "Trapped" by Rheea, who happens to be one of my favorite etsy sellers.

She lives in Singapore, and her line-work is just beautiful.

The print quality is amazing and the details are insane. It's also a plus that she has free shipping and is wonderful about communicating with her buyers when an item has shipped and when to expect it.

"Trapped" is my second Rheea purchase, as the first one I got months ago is hanging in my sitting room:
I am bummed to see that her etsy shop is on vacation until December, so you'll have to go check her out when she comes back. :)

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Hooray, more art from Yellena James! Remember when I got one of her prints from 20x200 a while back?
Well I lucked out by finding her etsy shop at a time when she had a buy 2 get 1 free sale, so I jumped on that and chose these three:
I plan to mat and frame them and, using the one I already have, create a square of prints above my bed in my master bedroom. I'm on the lookout for frames and hope to be bringing you that finished project soon!!

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Third purchase is from a wonderful, lovely etsy seller named LeiLiLaLoo. She's located in Amsterdam, and this was shipped out to me insanely fast and the art was well protected, which is always appreciated.

The print quality is awesome, and the rest of her shop is ridiculously cute. She was so easy to work with so I highly recommend you go check her out.

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Back to my jewelry obsession, please. :)
I get so many compliments on these earrings it's not even funny. I purchased them from seller RedFaerieBeads, who has been nothing but over-the-top awesome.

These earrings are the perfect size and go with everything, and the customer service provided was unparalleled.

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Can you handle one more piece of jewelry? This necklace comes from seller louloudo, who is located in the UK. I also get so many compliments on this necklace, and have been wearing it a TON lately. Funny story: I had the triangles flipped last week so that the backside, the black side, was showing, and the airport security ID-checker lady said she first thought it was a tattoo across my chest - nice. :) This piece is really light-weight and goes with so many things. AND the piece arrived (from the freaking UK) in THREE DAYS. Simply amazing. :)

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Last, but certainly not least, I bring to you this ADORABLE pink stretchy headband with detachable flower clip from LittleLilyBelle. Got this for my cousin who just had a baby girl, and not gonna lie, it fueled my baby fever by... a lot.

I almost cannot stand the cuteness. :)


Have you noticed how I purchased things from the Netherlands, Singapore, the UK and all over the U.S.? It's pretty phenomenal to me how Etsy allows for this global exchange of amazing creations. It is quite wonderful to be a part of the community, and I'm so happy to support and promote each of these shops. So, go check them out and happy shopping!!

Jewelry Organizing

I have never really been a clothes-obsessed person. Nor do I really freak out over shoes. Or purses. But jewelry? Now that's my thing.

The necklaces that I wear the most, I had been hanging on two fun little Ikea hooks on my bedroom wall. Shorter necklaces went on the single hook up top, longer necklaces on bottom.
After a serious tangle incident last week, I finally came to my senses and pursued something different at my local Goodwill. I forgot to take a before picture, but I purchased these wooden hook things for a dollar a piece, and spray painted them Oregano green.

You all know I'm not exactly a meticulous measurer, so I just eye-balled these and nailed them to the wall.
Rehung shorter ones on top....

Longer ones back on the bottom.
This is SO much better and leads to far less tangling. Plus I can actually see every necklace that I wear. There were ones in the pile that I forgot I even owned!


Now I need to tackle some kind of project for all of my earrings. It's getting out of control on top of my dresser.

I've been looking at projects like this or this or this, but I'm not sure what to do just yet. Any ideas? Have you done your own earring holder? I'd love to hear about more ideas for inspiration. :)

A Sheeted Window No More

There are a handful of reasons that I should not have used a giant gray sheet as a curtain in my dining room for the past year. Here are just a few:
- I live in an actual home, not a dorm, or a frat house.
- I have a full-time job and could have afforded curtains at any time.
- I have mis-matched sheets on my bed.
.... it goes on.

Literally for a year, we had this queen-sized sheet draped in front of our three dining room windows.

Last night I was in Target, and I finally took the plunge. I bought two packs of 84" long double panels (for $17.99/each) in crisp white cotton. The look is SO much better than the bed sheet!
Still wrinkly out of the packaging, but you get the idea.


Now, my ultimate goal is to get some black on these curtains, but not by way of dirt or kitten paw prints (the likelier things to happen). Either free-handing a design myself using fabric paint, or some kind of printing method, I really want to eventually get a black design on the lower part of these. I feel inspired by patterns like these:



Yea yea yea, we'll see about that one. For now, I'm just enjoying the sophistication of actual real curtains. :)

(And I'm determined now, more than ever, to replace that ugly country ceiling fan above my table! I think then the dining room will feel complete. For now...)

Purple Post

Tonight, I bring you two projects involving the fabulous color PURPLE.

Numero uno: a fabric scraps pillow. :)
First I gathered my gray and lavender fabrics:
And cut out circles and leaf shapes, pinning them to a solid purple 12x12 square for my pillow front.
Once again, I sewed my shapes down using my free-motion foot and then followed the exact same pillow-cover-tutorial as in my last post.

Back again as a model, I present to you.... Lily and the finished pillow!

Here is what the back looks like:
Nice.


And project #2 is an artwork/frame revamp.
I purchased this oval frame from a church rummage sale for $5. That's more than what I would normally pay for a used frame, but the shape was really unique and the frame spoke to me, so I had to get it.

It came with this creepy little boy print:

The details of the frame are pretty fabulous though:
So I pried off the back, yanked out some staples, trashed the little boy art, and drew my very own original ink pen drawing to fit inside. I also spray painted the frame a VIVID, beautiful plum color:
And used this AWESOME scrapbook paper as the backing to the frame, too:
The finished product:
So, I've stepped out of my black-and-white obsession, into a little purple. I like it!

I Made My First Pillow Cover. Lily Found Her Calling.

I love black and white. This is no secret.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that I have accumulated a metric-crap-ton of b/w fabric. Using all of my favorite patterns, I decided to make a pillow cover....
I first purchased a 12x16 pillow form from Hancock Fabric, and therefore cut my pillow front background at 12.5x16.5 to allow plenty of edge.

Sorry for the blurry pic, but here you can see that I cut out circles and leaf shapes and pinned them to the black background, knowing I could sew in white flower stems later.

Instead of typing out all the steps myself, I'll refer you to this fabulous tutorial, which I followed to a T and it did not fail me! (Actually, no - they use a 14x14 pillow and I modified the measurements to fit my 12x16 pillow, but the rest was the same.)

I wanna say from start to finish, this took me about 2, 3 hours? I used my free-motion foot to stitch the shapes on and so there are lots of raw fabric edges here - I love the look when it frays.

And I do love how it turned out.

The front:

The back:

Lily is clearly loving life as a pillow model. She just gets to sit there and look cute.


Hmm... maybe it's harder than it seems.
Lily, wake up , can you try to at least look A LITTLE interested??

Anyway, I'll be doing MANY more sewing projects in the future, because I'm selling my pieces at a local store!! That's right - drawings are going to etsy, and some jewelry and sewing pieces (and even some prints, too) to the store. If you're curious, don't worry - I'll post very very soon about this amazing opportunity with pictures and details... so stay tuned!!!

A Warzone? No. It's Just My Studio.

This is some shameful shit I'm about to show you.
Life is so busy around my house... I've been drawing, printing, cutting, sewing, and even sleeping here and there.
As a result of my auto-pilot-etsying, I've allowed our office/studio/spare bedroom/space-that-accumulates-all-extra-crap room to become nightmarishly cluttered and unorganized:

The black folding table serves as my sewing table... the daybed just attracts random STUFF, the desk is where I sometimes draw and do other things, and the floor is obviously where I cut all my prints, as evident in the numerous paper cutters, cutting mat, roller blade.... and there's a stapler in there for good measure (cause that's safe, right?).

This is officially THE most inefficient room in the house. I need to come up with a better system. The most obvious solution would be more work space, like another long table, and LOTS more storage to hide my endless amounts of crap and supplies.

Do you have any inexpensive tips for organizing a home office or studio/craft space??

I need more room. And thus, I'm considering moving this all down to the basement. The creepy basement with murder rooms. Because when Kevin and I have our first child (no worries, there are no buns currently cooking up in any ovens around here), this room will become the nursery anyway, so all the shit will need to go eventually....

Maybe this is my next project. Making a corner of the basement a nice lovely little work space.

So, if you have any lovely ideas for storage, decorating or table space - let's hear it! Or any inspiration photos to share? I'd love to see them.

And I shall leave you with some crafting spaces that leave me swooning:

[Image from Craft and Creativity.]

[Image from Apartment Therapy.]

[Image from Super_Ziper.]

[Image from Everything Etsy.]

[Image from If Sew.]

And I know, I've been terrible with the updating lately - I hope to find something fabulous to transform soon.