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Yesterday Brookadelphia’s Amber hand-delivered the bespoke laser-cut acrylic necklace I ordered at Renegade, and it’s everything I dreamed it would be. I am officially giddy.
I decided on the “sweet and cute” Baily font over the “Swiss-hardcore” font because the h/d and H/D choices just worked better as a nameplate. (Sorry, Fulton Mall jewelers.) I chose to go with the lowercase letters, which look so good because they’re symmetrical and therefore nearly a mirror image of each other. Amber suggested using the letter’s loops instead of jumprings to attach the chain.
The results are very high-def. You know, HD.
That title was to invoke the hit single “The Final Countdown” by Europe. If you read it without mid-80’s Swedish hard rock band overtones, your reading of this blog entry might be less fun than intended. I don’t mean to lecture, but I hope you’ve learned a lesson here. Swedish rock makes everything that much better.
I’ve pulled together the raw materials for the wedding cake topper that will adorn a cake to be decimated July 14. The cake decimation date is of course Wedding Day for Amy and David.
Gear pictured includes: Seed, glass and crystal beads, lametta, vintage chenille stems, ribbons, tulle, lace, tiny nosegays of blue flowers, vintage mercury glass beads, vintage and new glitter, vintage silver leaves and bells. Tiny square sequins and the most wee buttons ever. Realistic-looking faux berries, white leaves and silver cording.
Construction has begun…I expect to have significant progress made by this weekend, and will post photos.
I forgot to have someone take my picture at Renegade Craft Fair last weekend, and have been casing Flickr to see if I ended up in the background of anyone else’s photos. Success! There I am, on the far right. It’s hard to see my outfit, a woodgrain cotton skirt and red-and-white gingham shirt, a combo which gave off a hallucinogenic picnic vibe. Anyway, I think it’s pretty funny how everyone around me is relaxed and enjoying themselves and I’m studying the hell out of something. This was close to 11 AM on Saturday, so the fair had been open for about 5 minutes and wasn’t crowded yet.
The booth in the foreground features My Paper Crane felt food products. Anthropomorph-y!
Photo credit: Sweetie Pie Press
I have a sweet view of Soho and lower Manhattan out my work window. The skyline’s water towers of all shapes and sizes inspired this one of felt and pipe cleaners (or “chenille stems” as they’re known to the fancy crafters).
I made the water tower very small and stuck it inside a salt shaker, just shy of 4″ tall and 1 1/2″ wide.
Run of the mill ships-in-bottles are now starting to feel self-conscious.
This one-of-a-kind piece is available on etsy.
This summer’s Brooklyn Renegade Craft Fair was long on the Crafty but short on the Cold. It was very, very uncold, in fact. After four hours of intensive scouting and unearthing, I was flagging. It was close to 90° and I was so physically exhausted from the sun and heat that I was losing interest in the event due to heat-induced dementia. I did what I could, dear reader! Above is the collection of cards and the v. fun etsy bandana and poster they were giving away.
Observations and picks: Woodgrain was a running theme. Julie Dunbar had woodgrain bags; My Imaginary Boyfriend had a hand painted woodgrain clutch. I was wearing a woodgrain skirt that literally got 25 compliments. (Note to self: find fabric and make woodgrain skirts.)
Hoibo had some great cartoonish chainsaw stud earrings. Somehow, chainsaw earrings were not a running theme.
Jezebel had fantastic papercut silhouette notecards and t-shirts. I was going to buy a shirt with a design called “henry and gertrude, criminal lovers “ that had a Victorian-inspired Hansel and Gretel vibe, but the sizing on the shirts was screwy, so the women’s L was too small and the guys S was too large. Grr.
Laser-cut acrylic necklaces popped up at a few booths, but I think Brookadelphia’s were the most rad because they had glass “nameplates” including “radish” and “cheese”. I think I’m going to order one with “hd”, but I have to decide on the font first. Do I want sweet and cute or the Swiss-hardcore font?
Apparently Marie Kare, creator of The Sampler was there, but she had slipped away from the booth she was sharing when I reached it. I just heard about her great promotional tool for crafters on a CraftSanity podcast I listened to a couple of weeks ago.
Lotta Jansdotter was there in person with her beautiful textiles and new book, Simple Sewing: Patterns and How-To for 24 Fresh and Easy Projects. I bought a copy and had her sign it. It cost a lot more than if I bought it on Amazon, but this way, the artist probably gets a bigger cut. Plus, who doesn’t love being able to flip through a book to see if it suits them, then buying it on the spot?
The folks from Adorn got sponsors to pony up some righteous swag, above, which was raffled away in cute pink bags. We were given tickets and asked to return to the Adorn booth at 2PM on Saturday. A lot of people took tickets and were therefore entered in the raffle, but they failed to show up. So, for every three tickets they read, it felt like only one prize was given out. Lucky for me, I got to enjoy the spoils!
These ornaments are made from wire and glass beads. I really love the beads used for “Collin”–they’re matte seed beads from Tropic Jewel in Madison, Wisconsin. I haven’t run across them at any store since. (The lesson learned? It’s okay to hoard craft supplies.) These were done on commission for my friend Abby, erm, Abigail Doan, the very talented enviro-artist.
In other craft news, today my v. cute friend Amy asked if I would make a custom wedding cake topper for her impending nuptuals! I am honored and stoked. I think the design and composition of the the topper will be a little mini-series for this blog. I will capture the progress and make posts as I have updates to report. The wedding is July 14.
