Happy Halloween!

I posted this photo especially for John, who requested "more kid pictures!" Here I am at age 3, obviously quite proud of my trick-or-treating bonanza and about to devour this entire mountain of candy.

Nature Lovers Unite!

Here are some images from the November issue of National Geographic, which just arrived in our mailbox yesterday. As always, it is full of the most beautiful nature photography around. These two photos are of some white mushrooms from Ecuador and a leafy seadragon (cousin of the seahorse) found in Australia.

Every time I flip through an issue of National Geographic, three things are bound to happen:
1) I will read about something that sprains my brain (someone found some 3-million year old bones and was able to deduce that the first ever human beings looked like this?!?)
2) I will come across an amazing picture of a plant or a creature that I swear is the most beautiful and strange thing I have ever seen (see above).
3) I will slam the magazine shut after stumbling across a vivid, frightening photo of a lion eating a gazelle, a seal hunting a penguin, or any number of bloody events that occur in nature everyday.
Exciting stuff!

Sugar Skulls, Phase 1

We're planning a Day of the Dead/Halloween party with our friends Doug & Carrie for this weekend, and of course there are going to be crafts galore, including sugar skull decorating! So far we've made 13 of them, and look how cool they are! I'm excited to see how they look once everyone has decorated them with sequins and icing, but I have to say I kind of like the way they look pre-decoration too. Spooky and sweet, our favorite combo. We hope to see all of you Bay Area Guild members there on Sunday!

Seal of Approval

A few months ago, we introduced Lauren's mom to the wacky world of blogs. It seems that in doing so, we've created a monster. Luckily, it's a super-creative, interesting, fun, artsy-craftsy kind of monster. So the other day I was checking out her blog, and she had a great link to a site where you can customize your own seal (see above). I've always been curious about all sorts of heraldry, crests, and official-type ornamentation. And I'm still a sucker for patches and badges. Perhaps part of me wishes I had stuck it out in the Boy Scouts. Can you imagine what an awesome collection I'd have now...

Arts & Crafts Extravaganza!

Phew! What a weekend!
We already mentioned that we opened our Shoppe, but we also managed to squeeze in some great arts & crafts in our spare time.

Arts: On Sunday we ventured out to the Headlands Center for the Arts to check out their Fall Open Studios. As always, we were in complete awe of the place. Such a gorgeous location, so peaceful, simple, and inspirational, the whole place has the look and feel of an Andrew Wyeth painting. It's 15 minutes (and a world away) from the Golden Gate Bridge. The Center offers residencies and studio space to both emerging and established artists and is located in and around a cluster of decommissioned military barracks and facilities. We were particularly excited to visit Alex Clausen, one of the artists whose work will be appearing in our next show at the Hardware Store gallery. (more about that later...)

Crafts: Then we headed over to the Craft Gym for a party celebrating the launch of Craft magazine. It was perfect for us since we've been looking forward to checking out both the Gym and the magazine. The Gym looks like a ton of fun, they've got a great space and they offer lots of cool classes for all sorts of DIY-ing. The magazine looks fantastic too. It's beautifully produced, nice and thick, and since it's from the folks who brought us MAKE, we weren't surprised to find it filled with lots of crafty, smart projects. Some of the more ambitious ones remind me of the early days of the DIY movement when "Doing It Yourself" was less about making a wallet out of duct tape, and more about laying the foundation for your house. Luckily they've got a range of projects for all interests and skill levels. We were excited to see stories about some of the fun stuffed we've obsessed over here like crocheting chaos, loco gocco-ing, and the beaded wonderlands of Liza Lou.

Boo!

Fall is here and Halloween is around the corner- for us this means carving jack-o-lanterns, eating a ton of candy and putting out our ghost salt & pepper shakers by Marcel Dzama. Oh, and hanging fake spiderwebs in the windows. And cutting bat shapes out of paper to hang all around the house.

But let's talk about Marcel Dzama for a minute! A couple years ago his art was everywhere- on the cover of Beck's last album, in a children's book by They Might Be Giants, and on products for Cerealart (including our beloved salt and pepper shakers).

Spend some time at the Royal Art Lodge website to explore more of his drawings, and those by his talented friends (many of the drawings are collaborations, and those are amazing as well) and if you have a chance, peruse one of his books, which are goldmines filled with all kinds of examples of his classic yet somewhat twisted drawings and paintings.

I love my crafty friends!

I know the pictures speak for themselves, but can I please talk about our friend Ellen's 50 States quilt for a minute?!?!?!? She finished it this weekend and we are soooooo impressed! First, by the fact that she managed to piece together all the states so perfectly. (Can you imagine adding a seam allowance onto a piece of fabric shaped like California?) Second, by the beautiful muted color palette, and third, all the incredible hand quilting! It looks so amazing, and I can't wait for the accompanying Hawaii and Alaska pillows.

Seeing other peoples' handiwork is so inspiring- I have a stack of fabric that is just sitting there waiting to be turned into a quilt, and I finally feel ready to embark on that project. Thank you Ellen for the inspiration! And congratulations on your cozy new quilt!

PS- if you're feeling inspired, check out the quilt kits we've got for sale in the shoppe. (So glad we can finally share this stuff now- it's been hard not being able to mention it the past couple weeks as we've been working to get the store open!)

Hallelujah!

Painfully Cute!

It was my birthday not that long ago, and my lovely in-laws bought me the 2nd Volume of the Wholphin DVD series put out by the fantastic folks over at McSweeney's. It's full of great short films, animated pieces, and "instructional" videos. This one called "Sour Death Balls" by Jessica Yu, is a personal favorite. Enjoy, Suckas!

Today's inspiration brought to you by the letter Z

I pulled our Andrea Zittel book off the shelf the other day and have been feeling so inspired by it. Everything from the environments to the furniture to the uniforms she creates are so amazing. I love her aesthetic, which is so clean and industrial, but also handcrafted. I love that her art is both practical and beautiful at the same time. And I love that she lives and works in Joshua Tree, which is on my short list of places to visit. (Can't believe I've never been there!)

A short Google search later, I was on her website, (zittel.org) which is really worth checking out, and lo and behold, she has a new blog! So far the postings are about driving through the desert and creating art installations there. Such a romantic life! A list of upcoming shows is posted in the "now" section of the site, and I was happy to see that her "Critical Space" show is coming to LA in the Spring, since we missed seeing it in New York before we moved.

Anyone want to plan a road trip to LA and Joshua Tree with me next year?

Best Gift Ever

We were doing some research on how to make a hollow book the other day, and it reminded me of the amazing gift Derek gave me for Christmas last year. It's a "French New Wave" kit, complete with false eyelashes, Chanel makeup and Lucky Strike cigarettes. Accompanied by a book about François Truffaut and the "Band of Outsiders" DVD. How cute and crafty is that? And it's such a great gift idea! It seems like people are already thinking about the holidays, though they're over 2 months away. Time to start planning our holiday crafts, I guess! Maybe I can come up with a good theme for D and make one for him this year.

(Side note: I never expected that my husband would be the one to introduce me to a favorite new makeup product, but I am in love with and highly recommend the Chanel liquid eyeliner pen, the only item from the kit that I permitted myself to use. I wanted to keep it exactly how it was when I received it!)

Curiosity Guild Etching Workshop!

We had a ton of fun at yesterday's Curiosity Guild workshop "Itchin' To Get Etchin'". Thanks to all who participated! Everyone totally blew my socks off with their beautifully designed pieces, and I'm so glad noone took my advice to keep it simple! I wish we had more pictures to share, but as usual, we were too busy "ooh-ing" and "aah-ing" over everyone's crafty creations.
I would like to thank the anonymous vandal whose old tag on CG HQ inadvertently provided us with a very appropriate window treatment, as well as a good example of the many different uses of etching cream. Thanks Dude!

Grey Card Mysteries Revealed

We are in the throes of getting everything ready to launch our online store (which will hopefully be open any day now!) and we are learning sooooo much. It wouldn't be like us if we didn't try to do every last thing ourselves, so right now we are acting as webmasters, photographers, writers, designers- you name it!

While we were shooting our products, we had to experiment with lots of different lighting set ups and try to get our little point and shoot camera to do all kinds of crazy things that it didn't want to do. Enter the grey card, an 18% grey piece of tag board that is a handy tool for balancing colors. When I read this tutorial it finally started to make sense! I won't go into the details here, but if you're interested in product photography, you should definitely check out the link. It also explains how to use the levels feature in Photoshop, which helps a ton with color correction. How could I have overlooked this handy tool before? As I said before, there is something new to learn everyday!

This is the last of it, I swear!

I know, I know... enough with the posts about knitted and crocheted food! (and plants and animals!) But I can't stop noticing them and when I see something cute I just have to share it. Here are the knitted donuts in the window of Noe Knit that I mentioned earlier. Aren't they perfect?

Check It!

It's so nice to have a magazine so perfectly tailored to your particular interests and tastes, whatever those may be... We've found that in ReadyMade, our crafty friends across the bay. Check out this month's nifty issue for a fun and easy project by yours truly (pg. 34).

The Knitted Garden

Another example of knitting gone wild! (I love that my friends forward me stories about all things knitted and crocheted- thanks Matt!) A woman in England had the idea to create an entire knitted garden, so she and 300 contributors got to work creating all kinds of knitted garden sculptures, from a pond to a picnic to these cute little critters. I've done some crocheted sculptures, but nothing knitted yet- and this makes me want to give it a try! Our local yarn store has a great window display right now of knitted donuts and other sweets, complete with colored sprinkles done in beads. I'll try to snap a picture of it sometime in the next couple days.

Girard show coming to SF MOMA!

We are super excited about the Alexander Girard show that is coming to SF MOMA next month, called "Alexander Girard, Vibrant Modern". He's our favorite! (Thanks Mom for the tip!)

Aprons Galore

This is the perfect project for someone like me, who is (still!) learning to sew. Aprons can be as simple or as ornate as you want, and since they're small and basically one-size-fits-all, they're pretty hard to screw up.

Tie One On is a website/blog that is entirely dedicated to aprons. They come up with a monthly theme, and people make aprons and send in their pictures to be posted on a flickr gallery. Brilliant! I don't think I can motivate to make one before the October 1st deadline, (the theme is pinafores) but hopefully I'll be able to participate in the next one. Check out the pic- someone's submission from June's theme, which was "the musical". Can you guess which musical this one represents?

Red Sweaters Deployed!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out last Friday to the opening reception of The Red Sweaters Deployment Project! It was a fantastic evening full of great art, friends (old and new), and family (mostly old-HAHA!). We had a huge turnout and everyone seemed genuinely excited and moved by the installation. It was such a pleasure to put together, and we encourage everyone to come see it over and over and over (2400+ sweaters, and no 2 are alike). It will be up until October 28th, so please come visit. We also had a great bunch of knitters and crocheters who added around 10 new sweaters to the project. We're still a couple of hundred behind, so keep those sweaters coming! For updates on the project keep checking in with redsweaters.org, as well as the Hardware Store's website.

Crafty Cacti

Thanks to Lara for sending us these photos of amazing crocheted cacti! What will really sprain your brain about these forms is that they are actually visual representations of hyperbolic space. Huh? Read more at the Institute for Figuring website.

They also reminded me of this photo I saw on craftster awhile back- you know how much I love a handcrafted pincushion!