Show and Tell!

It's show and tell time! :) I took some much needed time away from my computer over the holidays and spent a few days crafting, sewing and organizing my studio. (I just re-read this post and I got very long winded! Sorry folks!)

First for the crafting! I was itching to make something using Modern Whimsy that would be a quick-ish project and would be something I could hang on the wall in my office. A month or so ago, I was prowling one of our vintage markets and I stumbled upon this old flour sack from Fant Milling (and it's from Texas!) so I snapped it up. My sweet friend Megan Van Sipe of the Lilac Saloon gave me the idea for the sequin and beading embellishment and with that I was off to the races. Thanks Megan! You creative thing you...

I am now officially in love with reverse applique too. Seemed like a great way to incorporate Modern Whimsy and give the project some great color. I also found some fabulous lemon yellow sequins and added them to a few words along with some green fabric pen so they would pop. Using fabric paint, I painted in the gladiola flowers and the leaves and added some little blue seed beads around the flower edges to give the flowers some more definition. They flowers had really faded over time but there was just enough detail left that I had something to work with. And for the bottom leaves I added some embroidery just to give it some more texture. So I got to play with a bunch of techniques which was really fun!

So after crafting, it was on to cleaning and working on my studio. For me, there is something so fabulous about getting organized. Since I work from home, there are 2 rooms that I spend a lion's share of my time in and I really work to keep them tidy so I don't feel too overwhelmed with clutter. The first space is my office (where my computer is) and then there's my sewing studio (where all the pretty stuff lives). For my office, I hung some shelves and cleaned off my desk. Love my shelves! Yea Ikea! I thought about adding some more cork tiles above my desk, but realized that I'm so short that I couldn't reach another row at the top to even pin anything. So the crowded pin board lives on. Ha! (Would have been nice if I had emptied the overflowing trash and recycle bins beneath my desk before I snapped this shot though!)

Since jumping off of the corporate hamster wheel and working on building my licensing business, I've been living by this mantra: Do not overestimate what you can accomplish in a single year...And do not underestimate what you can do in five. I'm still working, working, working to expand my designs into other categories but it never moves as quickly as I would like. So these are my words to live by and I moved this piece directly over my desk so it's close at hand. I worked with the very talented Grace Hester who created the beautiful typography for me. She has an Etsy store here and takes custom work if you're interested in having her make something special for you too.

And last, but certainly not least, is the studio. The wire racks that I use to organize my fabric were on sale at Lowe's so I snapped up another one. Ready and waiting for all the fabric that RK is releasing this coming year.

And I had some great wall space over my cutting table, so I painted a simple peg board green, added some pegs for my rulers, hung some Ikea (again yea Ikea!) white buckets for scissors and little rulers and added a few simple shelves. Used some of my washi tape to cover the edges of the shelves. (Oh, don't get me started on the beauty of Japanese masking/washi tape...I got mine here). And viola. I love, love, love how it turned out. (Project note: If you do this project, make sure you install some 2x2s behind the board so you have spacers which allow you to add hooks and stuff...Loads of holes in the wall back there, but that sucker isn't going anywhere!)

Finally, I found some large Ball Mason jars at the grocery and organized all my little scraps by color (see them at the top of the shelf there?) I saw that brilliant idea somewhere on Flickr (wish I could remember where so I could give credit to the idea but I'm coming up blank..). Whoever you are, thank you! Its a gorgeous way to sort scraps and is absolutely perfect for the projects I would love to try from the book Scrap Republic by Emily Cier.

Ta-da. And that's what I did over the holiday break!