further north

I went up to Seattle this weekend to visit with family thus the radio silence. It was beautiful, perfect weather, but more than anything it was so excellent to be in a house full of my family. Here's a few snaps I took while I was there, but mostly I was out enjoying it!

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on being productive

I had a very productive sewing weekend (which resulted in my floor looking like the photo below) and was able to make a few new things to wear, which is always exciting. Of course the strange gray but muggy SF weather isn't necessarily cooperating with my wishes, but I was mostly sewing for a beach vacation I've got coming up. It all started when I realized that my fabric drawers no longer closed, and were, in fact, a tripping hazard to my clumsy self, and therefore I  NEEDED to sew something to fix the problem. I finished up a few things in fun printed cottons (and have several more cut out that just need to be sewn together) as well as experimenting with a few new patterns in some fun and super colorful jersey knits I've had lying around for a while. These are just a couple of pictures I remembered to take throughout the whirlwind that was the last few days.

more lettering

I've been in a stash-busting mood recently. When I went from one giant drawer full of fabric and such to two, well I was able to shrug it off. But when the drawers no longer closed all the way, I knew it was time to get something done. I spent a lot of my weekend sewing some new summery clothes out of stuff I've been hoarding forever, but earlier in the week I tackled an idea I had for a felt project.

This is what my desk looked like when I was considering a few different color combinations and letter options....

...and this is what I ended up with. Please forgive that it is slightly crooked (I actually think that makes it look more exuberant) as this is like a full color doodle of sorts. It was so much fun and has made me smile every time I walk by, which seems about right!

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Someones birthday at the office, again. Seems to be a lot this summer. This time we had ice cream sundaes instead of cake which made me very happy!

tone on tone

I've been playing around with white on white three dimensional "work" for lack of a better descriptor recently. I feel like my bedroom is really just a big white studio/gallery that happens to have my bed in it. And I try to organize and style it as such. When I took down the paper chains I made for the Christmas holiday that have been hanging on the mirror in the living room, I didn't want to throw them away, or just leave them on a pile, so I pinned them up into the corner to the right of my bed. I like the way they looked like a waterfall.

Then I was doodling around at my desk with the very last of my heavy printmaking paper from my school days stash and I started cutting out branch/antler shapes. Then this happened...

I created a wire armature and adhered the branches, then I started making a bunch of folded leaves and adding them as well. The circle is still growing, I figure I will continue it until I run out of paper or perhaps beyond. It seems like the perfect bedroom/gallery artwork. Simple, subtle (rare for me) but also very fun to look at. It's also super wonderful to photograph, the shadows are superb.

And I thought I'd throw in some more pictures of the paper chains which started it all as well!

the hunt party

I helped out with a pretty spectacular birthday party this weekend. My best friend planned a scavenger hunt in which she was competing against her boyfriend who has his birthday just a week away from hers. We spent weeks (possibly months) leading up to the date, discussing and strategizing and developing the rules. We met up at my house at the start, to go over the rules and pick teams (schoolyard rules) and get ready to head out. I did some quick day of decorations so it looked more festive than my average everyday living room. I made the banner out of tissue and construction paper I had in my party box, and he balloons were a bunch of random colors but i liked the way they looked stuck to the big mirror on the wall.

I've been desperately wanting to try out all of these citrus jello shots I've been seeing around the blogs, so I used this as an excuse to make some lemon drop jello shots. You know, for vitamin C, while people were waiting. Making these shots turned out to be way more time consuming that I had anticipated, but also totally worth it as they tasted amazing and were so cute. I will totally be doing these again in the future. Maybe for the start of a dinner party? Classy jello shots, who knew....

I also went a bit crazy making swag for the hunt participants. My friend made laminated scavenger hunt lists, and I created team crests for each of them. There were two large full color flags for putting in photos (we had to take photos of the items on the list with the team flag to prove we were really there) as well as many smaller ones for sneakier photo taking. I also made these tiny shield toothpicks for the jello shots, and team pins so that players could identify which team they were on. It was tons of fun and we all got incredibly competative and I think this was one of the most creative party ideas I've ever had the pleasure of working on. Happy birthday and cheers!

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I stumbled across a bunch of odd small end cuts from my old heavyweight printmaking paper when I was cleaning out a drawer of supplies. I ordered this paper in bulk in school and I guess these pieces never got used after because they were too slender (most were under 3" wide) probably just trimmings from cutting down larger pieces. I decided to make something out of them and so I started cutting out shapes. This is what started forming. It has gotten much bigger now. I'm sort of obsessed.

having too much fun to take pictures

A busy holiday weekend means I just might get to the end and realize I hardly took any pictures. How do I prove I was having fun? Hopefully the memories are enough to tide me over but I did find a few quick shots from my phone, hopefully the iphone quality isn't too offensive.

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a year in one place.

I have been in my apartment for a little over a year. I just realized this a recently, and it got me to thinking about what the place was like when I moved in. It was beautiful and spacious, but also a little worse for the wear. Unfortunate color choices and terribly worn trim everywhere. I have been slowly fixing it up as I could and I thought it would be fun to look back at the few before pictures that I have.
The bedroom was a strange yellow color which I changed to white before I even brought in boxes. I also redid all the trim and doors.





I also painted the closet from mossy green to pink and added some shelves and a new light fixture.


The kitchen was dark and crowded, with an ill advised red accent wall. I repainted, changed the accent wall to yellow, and moved things around to create more work space.




The living room was practically empty. I took down all the strange hardware, painted (an then updated by repainting the trim a second time) and found some new furniture.




The hallway has actually undergone two big changes. It went from white with cream trim, to orange, and then back to white when I decided that it was just too bright.



The bathroom was my most recent project. I did a temporary fix back when I moved in with electrical tape decals, and a new shower curtain. But last month I decided to be more thorough and I repainted, re-caulked and fixed up the floor.




And, not so shockingly, looking back at old posts and all these pictures, is making me realize that I really have made this progress. It may not be the magazine perfect space, but I love my apartment and I think I've done an excellent job of making it into a clean and pretty home. I haven't lived in one place for this long since I was in my family home and it's exciting to see what can be accomplished if I have a little more time. Here's to another year!