Madness&Mayhem, and Harvest Moon

I was inspired to do two major ribbon sets for Halloween. The third happened by accident, but a very happy accident as I believe it will lead to even more in the future. Harvest Moon is an altered seam binding ribbon set, with colors reminiscent of ghosts, pumpkins, golden moons, and eerie black nights. This particular set I will continue to make through the season.

Madness is entirely black and white, with hand painted velvets and laces, marbled silk and semi-striped seam binding.

Mayhem uses the most basic of Halloween pallettes, with two striped seam bindings, a bicolored marbled silk, a dipped black-edged ruffle ribbon, and a velvet ricrac dyed to look like orange tarantula legs.

Madness & Mayhem will be very limited. I will list these when I have a chance, but the shoppe will be closed a few days next week for vacation, so it may not be til after that. Bonjour!

The Amazing Litabells

My sweet friend Melita really has some blog action going on, with part of her latest being scrapbook sketches. I loved her first sketch, this one gets even slow scrappers (me) motivated.

Here's what I did with it. I used the latest Jenni Bowlin monthly kit to save me the effort of coordinating. I snuck an extra photo in, but didn't want to mat them both completely, as I wanted more of the black circle background to show, so I kind of made a "fake" frame.

But I'm not getting away from ribbons entirely. I have THREE new sets coming soon, although they may have to wait til after my vacation next week before I post (we'll see how much I get done). Here's a sneak of one of the sets:

I'm also trying to work on a set inspired by everyone's favorite Vampire book. Anything you'd like to see?

Sleepy Hollow Botanical Gardens

Before Ichabod Crane lost his head, he was known to spend his Sunday afternoons roaming Sleepy Hollows Botanical Gardens. He liked to observe some of the more rare specimens created by the Gardens caretaker...

Some of the experiments were collected and labeled for preservation...

Rumor has it Alice Cullen used Sleepy Hollow Botanical Gardens for a certain special event...

(These beautiful specimens were adapted from Eileen and Star at Stars Fault, who shared their fabulous tutorial here)

Little Charlottes

Wow, two posts in one day, after such a dry spell. Hope you aren't fainting. This post is mostly just for pretty pictures...

... Little Charlottes will make their way soon to the shoppe!

Inspiration (Un)Board

I'm so excited that Jenni Bowlin's Re-Purpose, Re-Think, Re-Invent Class has started over at Big Picture Scrapbooking
One of the first things she sent us off doing is creating an Inspiration Board. Now, I am in the process of creating a True Inspiration Board, but it set me off thinking as to how I do surround my work area with my favorite and inspiring objects. Little bits and bobs of texture, color, designs, and simple whimsy fill nooks and crannies in my studio space. Notice many of my favorite etsy artists creations peeking out at you? The little banner (by CariKraft) reads "follow your bliss" (egads I am so disorganized, I promise my kitchen looks a little better)

See all that inspiration couldn't possible fit into ONE inspiration board.

Gotta love those craft cubes. Wonder how many more I can get in the room. You should see the other side of the set. Stuff, um, I mean, Inspiration ALL over the floor.

Currently the paint is drying on my real board. Hope to show it off soon!

Summer UnVacation

Now that the royal heirs to our throne are celebrating their freedom from all things scholastic, the King and Queen (dearest husband and myself) have been finding ourselves dropping into bed almost the same time of the late evening as they do. (Cause those dishes don't wash themselves). Which, of course, does not leave much time for creating. Still, I'll try to keep a few things new things in the shoppe, and share pictures when I can. I did order some pretty new ribbons and laces to dye, and some new types of dyes that may be more colorfast. Also experimenting with ribbons flowers I hope to show off soon.

I did enjoy dyeing a few silks and velvets for the shoppe- hope to make these a permanent fixture in my creativity. Actually, I will dunk anything that is not moving into a dye bath just to experiment lately. Will show off what I find out!

Riot of Ribbons

It is so much fun photographing the new silk ribbons, they take to the camera more easily than the seam bindings. I really tried to experiment with color mixing for Pears, Raspberries, and Bluebirds set. The aqua is a single color, but the green and pink required two colors, and the yellow was dyed then partially re-dipped into brown to give that just ripe pear color. I didn't twist them because I think they may set the wrinkles more quickly than the rayons. And though I didn't intend it, the colors match surprisingly well with Basic Grey's Urban Prairie line. Hmm, maybe I should save myself a set.

I also wanted to do a deeper colored Patriotic set, below is the new Betsy Ross set, also silk.

This photo snuck out of order....

Lastly, wanted to share a photo of a custom order I did for a dear who wanted aqua/light blues. Near the front are silks, in back are a few seam bindings.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.