March 30, 2007

Wardrobe Refashion

There's a wonderful blog dedicated to upcycling/repurposing clothing instead of buying it new called Wardrobe Refashion. The blog invites those willing to dedicate themselves to several months of abstaining from mass-market clothing shopping to contribute their clothing projects, and after a couple of months of lurking, I've taken the pledge.

"The Pledge: I pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoated, recylcled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftyness brings!"

Patchwork

Wow, long time no blog - mostly because there's been too much life in the last few weeks. Also, because patchwork? Takes for-e-ver!

In any case, Lara's room has kind of been a blank since we moved to this apartment - mostly because she just never really used to spend any time in there, and also because her early toys seemed very overwhelming to me and I didn't want to crowd the plate. But now she is 17 (!) months old, and we are slowly trying to add to her room. I'll post pictures as I work on it, but here are a few tidbits so far.

A patchwork pillow, made out of some of her old clothes that I couldn't bare to part with. Can you see the little pockets on two of the squares? I tried to make room for small treasures in the future. The back is just linen with stippled buttons.

Patchwork pillow for Lara's room

Pillow back

Also, a patchwork wall. The letters are gifts from Anthropologie from two dear friends, and the hanger is from there as well. Misha painted the watercolor pig on the top right, and his sister Alexis painted the little elephant on the left and printed the turquoise Piglet at the bottom.

Lara's name wall

March 22, 2007

Softie Awards Finalist!

Yay! Happy yellow Gertrude and Clementine have been chosen as one of the top five finalists for the "Wildcard" category of the Softie Awards!

Please vote for me in the contest - while the finalists are chosen by judges, the final winner is voted on by anyone and everyone. Vote here: http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB226AHFC3FNV.

March 9, 2007

Asymmetry

Stenciled Frame

The resulting stencil frame. I played with the placement of Lara on the wood until I realized that if it were off-center I would be able to a) get a bigger version of the stencil on there and b) juxtapose her incredibly symmetrical face.

To make the stencil, I used to just print it out on regular printer paper and cut it out slowly and painstakingly with an exacto knife. Recently, though, I saw a great suggestion to first cover the stencil on the paper with clear tape - a brilliant idea which makes the paper not nearly as fragile and the tiny bridges to any islands far more preservable.

I wish I could say I also figured out some equally effective way to not spend forty-five minutes cutting out the nooks and crannies, but, alas, that remains for the OCD set.

March 8, 2007

Symmetry

I made a stencil out of an amazing photograph Misha took of Lara's face. How symmetrical are her features? I mean, she's a doll, right? It's unreal! I love how well this came out, and I really keep still being surprised at how much I love the stencils. This one is going on a gift to someone. Someone who sometimes reads this blog. We'll say no more :)

March 6, 2007

Leather, Pearls, and Jade

Misha's grandparents brought me back a plain leather strap bracelet from their trip to Spain. I added jade and pearl beads strung on nearly invisible TigerTail, and then experimented with taking more exciting pictures. I like the effect of the blurred clasp in the background - created by focusing the camera on one of the foreground beads while in "micro" mode.

Also, I just realized that by sizing the photos on this blog in percents, I've been inadvertantly flooding the screen of the RSS reader version, so I'm going to try to work with pixels from now on.

March 1, 2007

Wheee!

Two maternity skirts into one post-maternity dress. The dress can be worn with either side facing forward. I think I'm leaning towards the square neck side.

Reversible Green and Brown Jersey Dress Reversible Green and Brown Jersey Dress

And it twirls! Wheee!

Wheee!