Becoming

It's a fuzzy pic but a little preview of something I'm working on. Cool, right?
Also, these are some random shots I took one morning on a bike ride recently. Such beautiful clouds! That middle one is what they looked like right above me.
Not bad for an iPhone anyway...

Freak Nature Out

You all know I love Halloween and amid the busy month we have had, I am still trying to accomplish some projects. One of which was this, that I began last year. Shocker.
Do you recall the vintage makeover I did with these bottle brush trees for Christmas?
Well, it's no surpise I've wanted to twist this technique into Halloween, so here is how I 'hauntified' a batch. It was really easy and they look great all tucked around my bookcases.
Take a bag-o-trees (they are cheapest at Home Depot) and bleach them (these instructions are more specific in the Christmas version, here). Btw: Those little flecks of happy snow clinging on the branches will be gone when you dye. Bwaah-ha-haaaa.

Dip them in yellow, orange and black dye. They only need to sit in there for 2-4 minutes, depending on how strong you concentrate it. I did it pretty concentrated.
Also, I played around with blending the color on the trees so keep that in mind before you start dunking. Most of them were yellow so I could then blend the tops or bottoms in orange or black.

And wowza. You'll have your very own haunted forest of unnatural trees.

If you want, you can play with the glitter after (again, like the Christmas trees).
I did it to a couple of them here and put them in front of this marvy haunted house that I made with some gal pals.

If you feel like trying this, it was super fun and done in around 2 hours. Much cheaper (and cooler, imo) than many of the store bought Haunted Houses. Get these paper mache houses here. It's $20 for three! The other two are smaller and nest inside this one. Those are being saved for a Christmas makeover.
Hopefully this year. :)

Inspired

I was in Laguna a couple of weeks ago with some friends and among our shopping I snapped a few things I wanted to remember.
This was the floor in a thrift store on PCH. The ENTIRE floor was covered in old magazine images. I know it's not novel, but it befitted the setting.

In another thrift shop, I looked up and saw some string art! Tacky? Sure, but after playing with this, I didn't want to forget the technique here of sectioned color, intentional shapes and the outlined lettering. Hm.....gets me thinking....

And Jonathan Adler never fails to move me. I so love his stores. He always offers great design and this simple pillow of the states makes me think I could try some needlepoint and not get bored. Maybe.

Lately

Um... Happy October! I've had a few projects in the works, most of which are a bit boring to share and involve more sewing. My mother-in-law has been loaning me her serger off and on, so I keep trying to get some things made in the time I have it.
One was this skirt I made for Elliet. I confess I think she is starting to get a little old for 'skirts made by Mom', but until she protests, I'll keep trying. I bought this fabric probably a year ago. Ugh- so me to get it done that much later. Anyway....what I experimented with was trying to hide as many seams as possible to make it really clean inside. Turns out I hid every inseam! I didn't need the serger afterall.

And onto bigger fish. My friend and I bought this pattern on Etsy and made these in a weekend. It was a great pattern and super easy. I found this great teal fabric remnant for about $20! Not bad for a test run. Project Runway is getting into my head!

More traffic to come here. The holidays are approaching and I want to make some gifts. Plus, Girl Next Door is on this year- so I have to start creating pronto!