paint cut paste

this is just a little quickie i figured i should share… almost 2 years ago i posted the photo below on the wall of my facebook page of my non-tangled iphone cord, all dolled up in raspberry yarn.

january 2010

i just wanted to share this idea again, on the blog proper, as i have just  created a new set. while the other wrapping actually stood the test of time, the rubber on the ear pieces did not. so i’m cozy-ing up my new buds like this:

select a type of yarn that you’re okay living with and looking at for quite some time.

can you tell i couldn't choose a color? i went with variegated rainbow yarn.

tie a knot around the bottom of the earbud wire, and begin to knot your way down the wire, friendship-bracelet style. (tip: i secure my friendship bracelets and earbuds with a clipboard while i’m working on them.) when you get to the fork in the road (where the wire splits for two ears,) select one path and continue to knot to where the ear bud is. then go back and do the other segment with a new strand of yarn.

then be super happy that your phone cord won’t be a knotted mess when you try to answer a call, and it’s all stylie now!

oh how i love a good ombre!

i know you’ll get lots of comments and compliments — i’ve serioulsy taught a number of fellow whole foods shoppers how to do this while grocery shopping over the past coupla years. enjoy!

*consider purchasing new earbuds for friends and family and create these as custom holiday gifts, too!

N is making a lot of sweet new friends in waldorf kindergarten – friends who are great at handicrafts! a couple weeks ago, N received this adorable felt gnome gift from a friend in her class who sewed it just for her.

N was so impressed that her friend made this herself that she immediately asked me if she could learn how to sew, too. so, of course, i went to the waldorf school store to buy a couple pretty squares of felted wool (any felt will do for this.) i already had embroidery thread (thick enough to easily see,) a darning needle (blunt enough not to stab her,) and wool roving (fills without being poly-gross) at home, so i figured we had what we needed to create this gnome. the woman working in the school store asked me what my daughter would be sewing. when i mentioned the gnome to her, she said, “let me help you out with this pattern for that gnome.” ahhhh, awesome! i was (somewhat) prepared to totally wing it, but now i didn’t have to. and neither do you – i’ve scanned it below. (click to enlarge it to actual size.)

the bottom text was cut off on the original, but you get the idea...

at home, N chose to make the largest gnome, so i traced and cut that pattern out onto posterboard. i pinned it to the her chosen purple felt color and cut around it.

N decided to use green embroidery thread (from the basket of newly-wound embroidery threads – they’re like candy, i’m telling you!)

i demonstrated how to thread the needle. she tried until she got it on her own.

we pinned the felt together into the conical gnome shape, and the first stitches were sewn!

she was sooo psyched that this worked and that she was able to do it herself. i helped out when she got into a knotted jam or if she looped the thread around the gnomes head somehow. soon she was halfway there!

then she finished up stitching the front of the body.

next we tore off about a 7″ loaf of natural wool roving, and tied a knot in it. this knot serves as the rounded, harder part of the gnome face that peeks through the cloak. N stuffed it inside. then she set out to work on sewing the circle onto the bottom of the gnome, to hold the wool inside. at this point, she was a little tired and asked me to help with some of these stitches.

in the end, she had her own little hand sewn gnome, too! i am seeing more of these in our future… but i know that soon this particular little lady will figure out how to create animals!

do you ever pin like 3,000 things and wonder when you’ll ever get around to them? welcome to my pinteresting world! i was kinda psyched that i finally implemented two inventive and artful tips last week that i had pinned. both were great ideas so i wanted to share. i’m usually in this mode when i’m on pinterest:

(this is from a pin, too)

the first one i undertook was simple. i finally bought a date stamp (yep, like old school libraries used. it was about $7 at a mom & pop office supply store) and i am using it to stamp the date on art work. it’s great for me since N produces zillllllions of pieces and i get so overwhelmed by this task each week. (this idea was originally featured in the now-defunct cookie magazine. who else out there misses cookie?)

since this little artist cranks out about 30 pieces per day (and i’d say at least half are “keepers”) now i just need to figure out if i should stick with the large 3-ring binder method i began last year to hold these works or if i should just start a bin (with monthly separated tabs, maybe.) what do you do?

the other pin-tip i undertook was to wind my embroidery floss around clothes pins. (on pinterest this links back to heather’s life blog, but in her entry, she sites finding the idea on pinterest. the wheel keeps on turning and turning and turning…)

anyway, the idea is simple, cheap, and helps keep it from knotting up. i marked the clothes pin with the number of the DMC floss, to keep track of what i’m using for a project (since that paper tab will be tossed.)

it’s also colorful and cute.

and extremely satisfying to look at when finished.

what clever pins have you tried out in your home?

happy fall, y’all! (ooo, my quasi-southern roots are showing.) today is the first day of autumn, even though the sf bay area seems to just be getting the summer started. regardless, in my body and spirit, it feels like it’s time to bust out the chet baker and a scarf. to celebrate the season, i gifted my little one with a basket of autumn goodies today…

among the treasures was a strand of mala beads i strung just for her. i’ve always intended to make N one of her own (as she covets mine) and i was inspired by this one i saw on little. lovely. i just used 108 (in the buddhist tradition) blonde wooden beads i had on hand and some stretchy cord.

after they were strung, i looped embroidery thread around my fingers, snipped it at one end, then laid it over the cord. i tied another piece of thread around that to keep it in place. this made for a cute tassel.

i also included two wonderful autumn books in N’s fall basket — i just love both of these seasonal series. one is autumn, an alphabet acrostic by steven schnur and the other is by the light of the harvest moon by harriet ziefert. we have the other seasons from both authors, but somehow didn’t yet have these autumn treasures.

additionally, i found a sweet little melissa & doug wooden kazoo, some pomegranates (N’s favorite fruit – she takes after her momma!) and one a replica of one of my childhood memories… a weather telling owl kinda like this one! when i was a kid, i had a ceramic owl exactly like this on my windowsill. he has little clear salt-sized crystals on his head that change color to tell the weather (or so i thought when i was a kid???) when one of these owls came up randomly on my etsy homepage this summer, my heard did a little flip flop of recognition, and i knew i had to buy it!

another fun thing about today is that we got to use the autumn side of our handmade placemats – ah, refreshing change! i can’t wait to have some fun with fall art projects now…

first day of autumn breakfast

happy autumn to all! did your family do anything special to celebrate autumn’s arrival?

they’re baaaa-aaack! remember making these as a kid? well, as you can tell, they’ve made a comeback.

i used to love making these as a kid, so i got excited! when i was eleven years old, one of my best friends and i made special coded ones for a “secret club” we had, which i still have tied into a notebook somewhere. oh the possibilities!

somehow i had this random friendship bracelet book on my bookshelf, and i finally opened for the first time. it’s cool because it shows different patterns i’ve never made (but plan to someday…) i brought N to joann fabrics to pick out whatever colors of embroidery floss she wanted. as you can see from the pic below, she’s a rainbow lover so we had to get every single color in several shades! good thing the embroidery floss was on special for 33 cents each.

i brought the thread and a clipboard with us on vacation (thus the sand dollar above) to get busy making bracelets. i quickly realized that N’s role in these (at the age of 4.5) would be the palette picker, and i would be the knotter. for the first bracelet, she wanted it to be in various shades of her favorite color.

to make the simple diagonal “candy stripe” pattern, just cut a long (40-60″ depending on wrist) length of embroidery thread in each color you want. choose at least four colors. fold the thread in half and tie it in a knot to make a loop at the top like you see below.

find a nice work space. a clipboard has always been my workspace of choice for friendship bracelets, but some people prefer to safety pin the thread to their own pants in their lap or to a pillow in their lap. next, lay the colors out in the order you want them, in a repeating pattern (like A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D.) pick up the A thread and knot it twice around B, then C, then D, etc… working your way left to right. (there are so many good video tutorials online of this, so i won’t attempt to describe it further in writing.) it should look like this as you work.

when you are finished knotting, divide the threads in half, then make two braids. knot them at the ends. these will serve as a way to tie a bow or knot around the loop at the other end to fasten the bracelet to your friend’s wrist. N loved hers and put it on right away!

of course, she began to draw seconds after putting it on

as we were flying home on the plane, she asked me to make one for her daddy, and chose some colors for him.

i got busy knotting it up, as she pretended (to dad) that i was making the bracelet for her (so it would be a surprise to him.)

hooray for bulkhead seats!

while i can’t get behind the resurgence of all parts of 80s fashion, this is one friendly trend i don’t mind a bit.

i recently chanced upon this inspirational photo of these lovely sticks by an artist named ginette lapalme.

ginette's sticks

we had some sticks and driftwood hanging around our backyard, just waiting to become art materials… and i’d been thinking on it for a few days. i’m also reading a book on the shamanic tradition of holding council, which involves a talking piece – usually a stick. i’ve been dreaming about finding and embellishing a talking stick for my family and also for my work with clients. then blamo! – this picture finds me. the internet is so cool like that – providing serendipitous encounters and answers. anyway, the fire was lit under me, so i showed N the photo to share the fire, and we gathered up our things: sticks, acrylics, brushes, palette, water jar, rag.

perhaps sticks we had won’t necessarily become future talking sticks, but i set out without that intention – just wanting to enjoy art for art’s sake and the fun of painting whimsical stripes and such on a natural canvas. while i worked on a big stick, N had so much fun with the smaller ones.

she talked all the while about how she’d never done this before, and how she loves all of the new art ideas i come up with for us to do — how sweet to hear! (incidentally, she told me i am the best artist in alaska… which was flattering and all, but we’ve never even been there. ) it was a playful art-making session.

N's "ocean sparkle" stick

when working with natural materials, i like to (and this may get too woo-woo for some of you, but bear with me) have a dialog with the stick, rock, shell, etc. about what it would like to become. i feel like nature’s form really can dictate the lines, shapes, and colors, if we mindfully engage with it, observe, listen, and trust our instincts about the artistic choice we are making. i did this as i worked on painting my sticks, and i introduced this concept to N as we painted. children are such absolute naturals when it comes to creating such a dialog, storyline, conversation – they are not self-conscious and are so genuinely connected to nature, so it comes easily. as adults, we have often lost that ability, and work to reclaim it.

the collection (sticks and stones)

besides having tons of fun together, the visual results were magical.

my "heart chakra" driftwood

the most magical aftermath of all…

our artist hands

on memorial day weekend, our family just had a little stay-cation here in northern california. one of the days, we drove along highway 1 to check out some sights along the coast. we rolled the windows down and cranked the alexi murdoch, and set out over the coastal range and through the redwoods to the beach…

when we arrived at the beach, we realized that it was a good 26 degrees cooler on the shore than it was 36 miles away at our house, so we threw on our jackets and scarves and enjoyed the sand anyway! whenever i go to the beach, i barely see the vistas, as i keep my head in the sand.

that is, i am an avid sheller! and i think it is hereditary, as i got it from my mom and i gave it to my daughter.

we gathered some lovely little shells that day…

we spent the afternoon having a lovely organic lunch at davenport roadhouse and visiting the lighthouse at pillar point. (yes, i’m getting to the art part, but i have to share these lovely views with you all!)

back at home, we looked through our beach booty once it was washed. many of the shells along that stretch of sand were like white Os, which begged to be strung.

("O shells" in bottom right section)

sure we made a necklace (for a friend’s bday)…

(and i was tempted to make 100 more)

but then N chose some seafoam green embroidery thread, and we began to tie the “O shells” to it about 2 inches apart.

voila – lovely garland for N’s bedroom as a reminder of her day at the beach.

i think we’ll make a strand with a new color of thread for each local beach trip this summer, and perhaps hang them vertically and curtain-like (hey, i’m a child of the 70s) in her room by labor day. but for now, this garland above N’s bed is sure to invite some beachy dreams…

(p.s. my first sewing project since 1987 is over there on the left)