living on love

Cat.erday!

The other day I was taking photos for etsy when kitten little decided she wanted her picture taken & I happily obliged.

See that little dirty white ball in the 3rd picture? That is her favorite toy in the whole world... a wool ball she stole from me. She loves loves loves it. She chases it all over the house. Sometimes so much so that when she takes a little break she is panting. Have you ever seen a cat pant? It's hilarious.

Happy Saturday Caterday!

Upcoming card class.

I am teaching another class this Thursday at The Lazy Hummingbird. We will be making 5 cards for $15... all supplies included. I will have a variety of different sentiments & patterned papers to choose from. Please feel free to byob or wine.

Find out more information & see pictures of all the cards on the upcoming workshops page.

Works in progress.

I have been working on my matryoshka set...

& Ran has been working on this mixed media canvas...

 

collections: random vintage ads.

a few of the magazines i have in my collage box are some rolling stones from the 80's. hilarious. i can always count of them to supply with some good collaging material & after countless times of browsing them i have unknowingly started a little collection of vintage ads.

these are a few of my favorites...

i love the "haullywood" part. so funny.

the "messages" section in the back of the magazines almost always has at least one message asking someone to call home.

these all make me laugh... especially the the "fads" ad.

& finally these awesome ads with andy warhol.

see my other collections.

diy: dream catchers with lace & tulle.

im still loving dream catchers... & finding new ways to interpret them. ive been making some of these for the pop.up shop & wanted to share the diy for all you crafty people out there. you can also make a more traditional dream catcher following this tutorial.

supplies needed:

metal ring... usually found near the leather working supplies at the craft store.

hot glue gun.

a piece lace or tulle that is bigger than the ring

strips of fabric

needle & thread

beads

1. lay out the lace on a flat surface & put the ring on top of it. if there is a certain design in the lace that you want in the center, arrange it now. apply hot glue on the "top" of the circle & wrap the lace around so it sticks in the glue. do the same thing on the "bottom" of the circle, then do the "sides", etc. always glue one side then the opposite to keep an even pull on the lace.

2. tear a strip of fabric the long enough so it will go around the entire metal ring & about 1" wide. fold the fabric around the outside edge of the ring & start stitching, securing the fabric. continue to fold the fabric & stitch all the way around.

3. cut a few more strips of fabric, about 1/2" wide & 12" long. string on beads, tie knots, tie on other scraps of fabric... whatever you wish. sew these onto the bottom of the ring. then cut another piece of fabric to sew onto the top of the ring for a hanger, or you can use a piece of string, twine, etc.

4. decorate the middle of your dreamcatcher. for this one i stitched the word "dream" into the tulle. you could also stitch on beads like i did on the one in the very first picture.

conscious playground.

last week we had the great honor to be included in the soft opening of conscious playground, a gathering of people who appreciate & support slow food, local farms, local music, art, & performance. we met david, from green truck & also one of the creators of conscious playground, at the farmers market & he invited us to set up our shop for the evening. i was only able to make it for about an hour since it was also on a night i was teaching class, but ran was super awesome & manned the table for me. the hour that i was there for was simply a magical experience. all sorts of people coming together with a common bond of enlightenment & consciousness... dancing, meeting new friends, great music. there was an amazing energy in the air that followed us home & led to hours of great conversation into the early morning hours. i feel so blessed to have been a part of it.

i wanted to share the band that played that night, locura. i listened to this song before the event & was pretty excited to hear them live... they were amazing! seriously, i loved the latin & reggae fusion.

enjoy...

 

 

 

over the weekend.

 it was overcast, a little chilly, & we both took turns not feeling very well so we spent most of our weekend in the house napping, having a weeds marathon, & making stuff.

i started painting a blank set of matryoshka dolls. i stumbled upon two sets a couple years ago, but have never been inspired to do anything with them until this weekend. i still have a couple more coats of white paint to apply along with some sanding & then i can start decorating all 9 little dolls.

i carved a new linoblock, then started another one.

we managed to leave the house for a little bit to go to the 75% off sale at the thrift store & scored so pretty awesome stuff like a tamborine for the band we are going to start someday, a vintage photo album, a camera tri.pod, & a single babushka. ran has been talking for a while about how he needed a tri.pod so he was thrilled to find this all metal spring loaded one. we googled it when we got home & it retails for about $60! he still has it sitting in the living room so he can admire it.

i started working on an art journal class i am teaching in a month. im also working on turning it into a summer art journal kit... so many ideas flying around right now!

 

mochi ice cream.

a few weeks ago ran brought home some mochi ice cream from work for a treat. i had never heard of it, but he assured me i would like it..."its like ice cream wrapped in gummy candy."

he was right. it was delicious.

(image found here... follow the link to a recipe as well)

have you ever tried it? if not, you really should :)

shop changes.

a couple of months ago i felt like i was having a bit of an indentity crisis in the pop.up / etsy shop realm of my life. after many late night discussions with randy there are some ch.ch.cha.changes taking place!

first, high street boutique is now the yellow trunk! named after my beloved yellow suitcases that hold all my goods. a new name also means a new email address, paypal account, & a new facebook page.

second, & most scary, is i am stopping the ob farmers market... i think. eeep. even as i type it i cringe a little. i really really want to do it & feel like i need to do it, but not for any other reason than i feel like i should. does that make any sense? i love the community of vendors, chatting with people, hanging outside in the sunshine for four hours, but the money side of the market is not meeting my goals. the majority of my products are less than $10, so i have to sell quite a bit to make the $40 entry fee then sell enough to cover my costs from the $40 of product i just sold, & then hopefully sell even more so i can make a profit. i keep thinking it will get better, that i just need to be patient, that it will all pay off, but then i think about the opportunities i havent taken advantage of because i have been putting all my time & energy into the market. no matter how much i enjoy doing it, from a business perspective, its not working out the way i hoped. with that being said, i learned so much, met so many great connections, & its because of the market i have the opportunity to branch out a little. so it was definitely not a waste of time, but its just not the right thing for my little business at this moment & im okay with that. im even excited about my new plan...

my poor little etsy shop suffered so much since i started doing the market as all my energy was put into that instead of photographing & listing new items. of course, sales on etsy went down, but i was still doing better sales wise online, so it makes sense to focus on what is being more successful.

im going to continue teaching classes every other thursday at the lazy hummingbird coffee & tea house. you can take a peek at the upcoming classes on my workshop page & please spread the word to all your san diego friends. the classes are super laid back, work at your own pace, have good conversation & connect with other people types of classes. plus, you can byob or wine & snacks or they have delicious drinks & snacks there... my favorite are the cravory cookies. yum.

instead of doing the farmers market every week i am going to do just a couple craft shows per month. one pro of doing this is you have an audience who specifically came for the crafty nature of the event, as opposed to the farmers market where the main draw, generally speaking, is all the delicious farm fresh produce & then the art is just cool browse around. another pro is longer selling hours... a couple of shows per month equals the same amount or more hours than doing the market 4 times in a month.

in addition to etsy, classes, & selected shows i opened up my first wholesale account in march & really would like to expand on that & i have also been given some great consignment opportunities. im pretty excited for this upcoming season... expanding my connection of indie business friends, experiencing new avenues of selling, & just creating pretty things!

p.s. you can like my new facebook page here.

 

over the weekend.

This past week we got a new to us couch from Randy's cousin which left us needing to get rid of our couch, but for the time we put it on its end & pushed it into the kitchen. kitten little has now staked it out as new new perch from which she can rule the house... she watches me cook, she naps,  & she watches the cars drive by.

We made some homemade cheese pizza. Yum Yum. I think we are having a repeat tonight... maybe this time I will had some veggies.

I worked on a tutorial that is coming later this week.

I spent most of my weekend focusing on re.stocking my etsy shop, mainly re.listing items, but I did add a few new things as well.

What kinds of things did you spend time doing over the weekend?