The Latest!

This weekend, I went on a sewing frenzy. Francyne and I found a pattern sale at Hobby Lobby, and vowed to make four dresses between now and the end of March. Her class schedule is different this semester, so she's going to start coming over Friday afternoons and stay the night so we can craft it up the whole evening long! We started on our first dresses on Friday. I finished mine on Friday, then made a vest yesterday. I want to make something again today, but I think I'll save that project for tomorrow, so I can have something to occupy my time.

Perfect little summer dress! Similar to Binki's in the floral pattern,
but with a sweetheart halter top. <3

Floral collared vest!

Looks great with my Pajama Jeans, huh? ;)

Perhaps today I will doodle and read Harry Potterfor the rest of the day. That sounds perfect. Yes. And so it shall be.

Xoxo,
K

Holly Days.

I can't believe I haven't blogged in so long! I've been spending so much time with my family who came to OK from California and Florida. I've hardly finished anything but Christmas presents over the past two weeks. But making presents gave me a bunch of great ideas for things to make for the spring. I'm so excited to keep making things! My goal for the spring is to make short-alls...

some more skirts...

and some dresses like Binki's...

Binki Shapiro from Little Joy <3

I know I'm being ambitious considering I only have 97 days before I leave for Basic, but I don't care. I'm gonna do it. I can't wait to get started! I can hear my fabric calling my name, and I must answer her beaconing call. 

Ta ta to all!

Love,

Kristen

Shoot shoot! Bang! Bang!

I just finished a photo shoot with my wonderful friend Teri, and got a bunch of great photos. I just posted some pictures that I got with my digital camera on Facebook!  We went to a barn down the street from my house. That's the great thing about Oklahoma. There's metropolis all over, and sporadicly placed barns and fields. So romantic. Once I get my film, I'll post those pictures from today. For now, here are some of my favorites that I got with my Nikon. 

Handmade scarf, skirt, and sunflower broach

Handmade TOMS bag

Handmade scarf, handband and skirt

My sweet friend, Teri. Thanks for joining me on this adventure!
 It wouldn't have happened without you.

For Alli: Custom Purple gauges

So I finally finished Alli's gauges! I have two swirly options. I personally love both of them. A lot. Which is rare, because I don't typically like how my gauges turn out but these ones are super fab. They're size 14 gauges, they're lightweight, and really durable ( I know because I already dropped one of them and it didn't break!).

Here's what the S swirls look like on. 

S swirl profile

Here are the Eye Swirls on.

I named them Eye Swirls for a reason. XD

Let me know what you think, Alli!

xoxo, K

Conditions

The past few days have had their highs and lows. Some of the highlights have been from working with Jack. I love him so much, and fort building has become a daily activity for us now. Last week, I built him a tiny fort and he asked me to join him for a picnic inside of it. I crawled in and told him I felt like Alice in Wonderland when she eats the cake that makes her grow in the rabbit's house. He asked me "You mean like the mushroom she eats that makes her grow reeeally really tall?" and I said yes. So now he refers to his fort as his Mush Room. I drew him a picture of his Mush Room last week, but he wanted me to draw another one today. So I did and we collaborated on the coloring job. So very fun.

Jack Jack's Mush Room

Jack Jack (he helped me color)

Another highlight would be that I sold two scarves yesterday to my friend's mom and she said she'll probably buy more for Christmas presents! My scarves aren't the fastest thing to make, but I thoroughly enjoy making them. I can crank out two scarves in one afternoon while watching a baking show on TLC or Dexter on Netflix. It's what I love to do, so why not solicit what I'm good at (not to mention in love with)?

 I read an article this afternoon about young entrepreneurs that was posted on Yahoo!. It was really interesting to read precisely what I've been theorizing as to why it's easier nowadays to start an at-home (or online) business than it is to get a job for people with a college education. The obvious first influence is the economy. It sucks. So competition is fierce in the job market, and turn-over is lower than it's ever been. But now you have to figure in the experience your fellow competitors have (The Baby Boomers) in your work field. This also happens to be the age of information, so a Bachelor's degree doesn't mean what it did twenty years ago. It's not that college got easier, it's that our resources have expended exponentially from the Dewey Decimal System and card catalogs in your public library to Google, Wikipedia, .org and .edu websites. I feel old when I think about the fact that I did the majority of my reports growing up in school using the World Encyclopedia set that my mom purchased when she started homeschooling us kids.

You can learn almost anything you want to now just by getting online. There's e-courses in everything from blogging to healthy relationships, cooking to financial investment. There's a Youtube tutorial video for absolutely everything. You can earn a Bachelors degree online, for goodness' sake! If you have the internet, a credit card, and ambition, you're on your way to learning about and doing exactly what it is you want to do with the rest of your life. 

This is the point I am at. I have the internet and some college education, plenty of ambition, time on my hands, and a little bit of money to lay down as an investment. It honestly does not feel like a real job though. I wish I could set normal business hours for myself, but I don't know how I would do that. I'm creative at all hours of the day, so the flexibility I have of doing this at home all the time is phenomenal. It gives me the opportunity to make sure my product is up to my standard of excellence. I'm not going to put my name on something that looks like crap or is poorly constructed. If I was buying something handmade from someone, I would expect near-perfection.

If You Give a Kristen a Debit Card...

I have a bag of Chex Mix sitting six inches away from my left hand as I type. If it weren't so conveniently placed, I probably wouldn't have eaten anything except my morning peanut butter toast. I am so ecstatic about For the Time Being Ltd. and Christmas right now that I cannot contain myself. I just spent more money on fabric, tools, and supplies than I have in my entire life (in one craft store trip, anyway). But Broadcloth was on sale, which meant I needed to buy elastic to make some gorgey vintage floral-patterned skirts for spring! I found some precious, tiny corked glass containers, which meant I had to get some chains and jump hoops to make some wish necklaces. And the binge continues as such. Me shopping in Hobby Lobby is like reading "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" because one thing leads to another. Before you know it, I'm signing a contract as the new franchise owner of the freaking store (which I'm telling you will happen one of these days). I was chatting with the fabric tech at Hob Lob about how much I love that store. We agreed that investing in stock would not be a bad idea for moi.

Sculpey: soon to be gauges

Thread, elastic and fabric background: soon to be skirts!

Chains, jump hoops and teeny glass bottles:
soon to be necklaces!

Bamboo yarn: soon to be cowl scarves!

Here is a list (because I lurve lists!) of the items soon to come on my store:

• Wish Necklaces
• Floral knee-length skirts
• Black and cream stacked cowl scarves
• Felt broaches
• Floral felt coasters (Nonna's genius idea)

That is all that I can think of for now, but I assure you, you will see all these things come to pass.

I love you! Thanks for reading my bloggity blog! It means soooo much to me that you care to read my babblings.

xoxo,

K

Busy Bee

Today was a super productive day. I started ironing, pinning, and sewing the flag bags before I checked my Facebook, made coffee and peanut butter toast OR went pee. That. Never. Happens. But it paid off because I'm almost done with all of the bags. I just have to sew up the sides of the outside, attach the handles and the lining, and do a final press. And bam! I'll be done. I can't wait! I pressed, pinned and sewed non-stop from 9 this morning until 5 this evening. I felt like I was going to go crazy because I was so dead set on finishing today, but I got as far as I could before having to leave to watch Jack jack and Titus. I'm pretty sure I'm getting a callous on my right index finger from using my fabric shears so much. Did you even know that was possible? Because I didn't.
Tomorrow's objectives are

• make and bake another batch of opaque swan gauges (with a few pair of swirly purple ones for Alli)
• Finish construction of Flag Bags and post on Etsy (for $30 each)
• Work on Up-cycled Teesh Rasta scarves (currently in the process of making two)

I never realized precisely how time-consuming it is to make all of these things by hand and with care. I am a very detail-oriented person, and I hate to do sloppy work. I detest sloppiness so much that I would rather give up on a project than complete it and it turn out looking carelessly incomplete. I have always loved painting, crocheting, sculpting, drawing, writing and sewing, but it never dawned on me how quickly they eat up time because I've always done them in my free time. So, now that I am trying to be productive and intentional with each day, it's a bit difficult to not feel like I'm not meeting my own personal expectations. This is a process though, and I have to keep reminding myself that real, lovingly completed art is not completed instantaneously. And I know people appreciate that, which is why I already have so many supporters wanting to purchase my bags, scarves and gauges.
If you are reading this, I cannot fully express my gratitude for you reading all the way to the bottom of this blog. I'm writing this at an indecent hour, and the fact that you've trudged through this writing with me means so much. Thanks for caring. :)


Con Mucho Amor,
K