Weekend spent in the woods. My boot came along. Obviously I have a thing for trees. I made that quilt thirteen years ago, in college. Good night, moon.

Last week I discovered that I have a fibular stress fracture, probably due to running-induced tendonitis. (The tendons get so tight that they pull on the bone and cause a fracture.) Fun, right? After a week-plus of hobbling around on crutches waiting to get everything straightened out with X-rays and bone scans and doctor appointments, I finally have a walking boot and am getting back to “normal.” (My running/racing are unfortunately on hold for a least a couple of months, though.) The boot is not convenient, no, but after crutches it is incredibly freeing. We sure take our legs for granted!

The kids are home from school for the summer now, which has made this time a little more challenging. To keep them busy the other day, we drew on paper with white crayon and then painted watercolor over it. It’s a simple resist technique that can be lots of fun. I decided to then put a drawing on top of my painting, and this is what came about. She may be pointing me to a chair and requesting that I sit down and rest the leg a bit….

Have a good weekend!

I realized we’ve been living in this house for a year now, and I haven’t yet shown much of my creative space, so here are some glimpses of it. All the shelving/drawers are modular and have been collected over the last sixteen years, and with each reinvention of my space, I move it around like puzzle pieces until I find a setup that works for me. (I’ve written about other configurations here and here.) The table and chairs in the center were given to me by a family member and work perfectly for me to collaborate with the kids or as a large space for cutting fabrics. Across the room is my beautiful hundred-year-old piano.

I know I am very lucky to have a whole space that is all about my favorite things and to be able to share it with my favorite little artists. Hopefully I’ll be back to post again soon, having done some actual creating in this space, too!

It’s time for end-of-school-year teacher gifts. I needed to keep it simple and budget-friendly, so once again I turned to my felt stash (which is finally beginning to diminish). Inspired by several ideas on Pinterest, I created a series of jumbo paperclip bookmarks with embroidered felt toppers. For presentation I printed a Jane Austen quote on card stock holders. (I got the idea from here.) Simple and sweet … and I think I’m finally done with the crafty to-do list for a little while. Have a good weekend!

Last week, in anticipation of an impending wave of birthday parties, I made five felt-covered nature journals to go along with the foraging bags from the last post. Once again I was able to make these entirely with materials I had on hand, always a plus!

I pretty much replicated my design from years ago, found here. Each journal cover has a different color for the butterflies and ribbon detail. This was important because four of the five little girls spend a lot of time together, and I wanted each of them to have similar but unique gifts.

You can tell the yellow one was my prototype. After putting it together I made a few changes to make the construction easier and the design more attractive.

You can’t see it in the photos, but the right side of the covers is folded in toward the center and sewn down to create a pocket for holding a sketchbook. I included a printed card with some ideas for the journaling and also made two sample journal pages for them to use as templates for the other pages.

These are very quick to make up. A little appliqué, some stitching to divide the top pocket, and sew the pieces together. No need to press, fiddle with the pocket edges, or turn inside- or right-side-out, because the edges are raw. Felt is wonderfully forgiving! Even the wavy edging was done quickly with a rotary blade. (Pro tip for anyone who is considering making these: The ribbon along the pocket tops is essential; it keeps the felt from stretching out of shape with use.)

So far these have been a real hit, and we have a few more to hand out this weekend. It will be fun to see what ends up being written on the pages!

Once again I must beg you to forgive my terrible photos. The camera troubles continue. But anyway.

We have a mad rush of birthday parties right now, so I spent a day last week sewing five little girls’ foraging bags. These are especially for carrying along on nature walks to collect flowers or leaves or other important items. Of course, they can be used for anything, really. That’s just what I had in mind when I started them.

Each is lined with a different fun fabric, which also makes an appearance as a wonky little patch on the front and at the bottoms of the straps. I am liking the freestyle stitching look right now, so I embraced that for the patches. I consider that a win-win, as it made the sewing go faster (no need for precision) and also looks cute. I was able to make the bags entirely using materials I had on hand, which always makes me happy.

The design is simple—no pattern, just the way I prefer it. After putting together the first bag to ensure there were no flaws in the design in my head (highly recommended when winging it), I finished the rest assembly-line style. There were amazingly few mishaps as I went. I kept thinking, “Something must be terribly wrong that I haven’t realized yet.” This is usually the case, but this time it went along perfectly.

Utter relief that they went together quickly and successfully. Next time I’ll show you what we put into the bags.

So now they’re done. To quote Lauren Purje, for an artist “a moment of bliss can turn into crippling self-doubt in a matter of seconds.” That’s me, exactly, and especially with this project. Having had some time away from them, and having received the approval of the friend who commissioned these, I am beginning to be content with them. Sometimes that’s all you can really ask with your own artwork, I think.

Have a good weekend!

This dress. Oh, this dress. It’s been done for a while now, but I haven’t posted about it because we needed some space, this dress and I.

You may remember that it was meant to be a whimsical interpretation of the original. At the same time, I still wanted it to closely resemble the original, and I found that wasn’t so easy with this particular dress due to its subtle textures and coloring. Even when I would have been satisfied with the painting by itself, I still had to use some digital manipulations to get it just right for the final project.

The original and my interpretation side-by-side

I hope I’ve at least captured the essence of it. I like that, just as with the original ceramic, the painting looks different depending on the lighting and the angle from which you view it.

I think I’ve made my peace with this project and am ready to move on to other things. Yesterday some new ideas started bubbling to the surface, and I’m hopeful that they will result in actual productivity for a change. How about you? What projects have kept you stalled lately?

You’ve seen this picture before. After our Wonderland party, we printed it onto card stock to make thank you cards for our guests. If you want your own Alice cards (or iPhone covers or laptop skins or tote bags, etc.) you can find them here.

Also, pssst! For a limited time only, you can use code TENDOLLARPRINTS to get june at noon prints for only $10!

“Clean cup, clean cup. Move down.”

To finish off our Wonderland party, our guests moved past the Royal Croquet Court and the Caucus Race Rock to the Mad Hatter’s table. I was going for a bright, colorful, slightly topsy-turvy look.

(My only regret is that I didn’t have the time to come up with more cool wooden—or even upholstered!—chairs to use around the table. I think it would have been really gorgeous with more variety and more interesting seats.)

I found some pretty teacups at the local thrift store and placed bright silk flowers in glass jars with matching ribbon tied around them. To represent the singing flowers, I stuck wiggle eyes on some of the flowers. A stuffed Minnie Mouse stood in as our Dormouse.

We kept the food simple and slightly unhealthy, just as you should for a party. (Right?) Peanut-butter-and-jelly and ham-and-cheese sandwiches were cut down to bite size. Colorful bowls were filled with popcorn and cheese curls.

I attached little card stock signs to wooden dowels to go with the bowls, and for drinks I found cases of fruit drink bottles at the dollar store and tied tags around them with string. We pretended to grow and shrink as we ate.

My cousin provided the cake, whose design was based on a number of pictures that the birthday girl liked via Google images. (She made this one too.)

(Cake photos courtesy of my uncle.)

I don’t think I need to say any more about the cake, do I? You can see how fantastic it was.

As our guests were leaving, the exhausted but satisfied Alice presented them with favor bags. We included seed packets, wax drink bottles, bubbles, playing cards, and flavored sandwich cookies. We tied them up in clear plastic bags with black ribbon and a red rose.

And that was that!

The best part of this party for me was the delight on my Alice’s face. She was thrilled with each small detail that I included. She raced her guests around the yard showing them everything, her face lit up with excitement, and that made it all absolutely worth it.

“Do you think I’ve gone round the bend?”

“I’m afraid so. You’re mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”