Daisy Janie

accident seen here.

Good thing I included "miscellany" in my blog header up there b/c that's certainly where this post is going.

So last night I'm thinkin' I'll do a little multi-tasking and make notebooks while watching Glee. I gather a cutting mat, papercutter, metal yardstick, rotary cutter, stapler, stack of paper and stack of designs on cardstock. I contemplate making two trips down the stairs to carry the awkward load and decide, "Nah! That's what you have two hands for lady!" I pile all this stuff from big to little, scoop it up in my arms and off I go. On the very last step (you see it up there in that pic), my sock slid a little on the carpet. I'm guessing b/c George left an extra dustbunny of dog hair right there, making it extra slick. He's that way.

At first slippage, my feet came out from underneath me and with NO hands to catch myself b/c, for crikey's sake, they're meant for carrying $hit and not for catching falls, down I went! WHOOSH and BAM! I landed on my back on the edge of one of the steps! I yowled such a loud, nonhuman sound that my husband came running & holding back his laughter! I was sitting on my a** in a hair-every-which-way stunned stupor, with all that stuff scattered about like an AC Moore tornado had hit, and I couldn't cry or laugh or talk b/c it hurt so effing bad & the wind was knocked out of me. All for a little joyful creativity to round out the evening! (My spinal column is intact (hooray), but I bruised a few ribs on my back. Today I feel like someone tried to crack me in half.)

It's not the first time I've sacrificed care for creativity:

• I broke the outside of my foot going UP these stairs 7 years ago, carrying picture framing supplies piled high like a plate of spaghetti.
• I got so comfortable on a stepladder once while working that I stepped off of it into open space, thinking I was on the ground. I had an xacto knife in my hand and, luckily, had the wherewithall to toss it across the room as I was falling through the air.
• I got my finger completely pinched & stuck in my tent pole trying to rush to pack-up after Art Star in 2006 - Mr. Indie Fixx was beside me with Jen, and he managed to pull the tent apart.
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Please share - what accidents have you had while crafting and creating? artsyville aimee, I know you have something!
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Speaking of Indie Fixx, I was honored to be interviewed by Jen for the Wed Indie Artist Fixx yesterday! Thank you Jen!!

thank you.

Today, I'm taking more than a moment to remember those who serve our country - both those who went before us and those among us now.

I am thankful for the freedom to have a job and buy this plant and grow this flower and post this flag and buy this camera and take this gorgeous picture and have this blog and share it with you on a date and time of my choosing. And certainly I'm thankful for the freedom to make myriad micro-choices in this process that are not mentioned but stand as an example of how truly lucky we are as Americans.

My husband is putting together a "For the Fallen" workout at our gym, where teams of 4 will complete the number of reps equivalent to the number of soldiers who have died in the Iraq & Afghanistan conflicts. Today, that number stands 5,130*. We'll also be sending care packages from items donated to enter the workout. Please visit the Faces of the Fallen on the Washington Post's website to see for yourself who these brave young men & women are...whether you agree with the war or not, they gave their lives doing what they were asked to. I stand humbled by their courage.

*We often do mega workouts that are about 700 reps and take an hour. 5100+ reps will take quite a while and a toll, but it's still paltry in comparison to what our soldiers have given.

how to make a pocket-sized notebook

Aren't these tiny notebooks adorable? I was cranking these out yesterday, stopping about every 5th one to stack them up and gaze admiringly like a goofball at the lot. Not even b/c they're my designs - just b/c I love stacks of neatly finished work!

These pocket-sized notebooks will be my tokens of appreciation for those who purchase my 2010 wall calendar. The underlying motivation for creating the calendar style as I did is organization. Now I don't have to scribble notes and phone numbers in the margins of our calendar b/c there's a big note-jotting section at the top of each month just for that purpose!

Carrying that theme over, I created these notebooks for purses and pockets - when you need a quick piece of paper to write a reminder or a number. How many times have you been reading a magazine at the doctor's office or salon - and you happen upon a website you want to remember...so you try rehearsing it 10 times, but you never remember it later? (Please don't tell me that's only me.)

To make a pocket-sized notebook, you'll need:
- 2 sheets of 8.5 x 11 plain paper or notebook paper
- 1 sheet cardstock, plain or printed with a design
- scissors or papercutter
- stapler

1. Cut paper into quarters that are 4.25" x 5.5".
Do the same with the cardstock.
2. Optional: trim corners with a round-edge papercutting tool.
3. Stack 5-6 sheets of paper together, aligning them just so. Fold in half, crease hard.
Repeat with cardstock.
4. Unfold paper & cardstock. Stack with paper on bottom & cardstock on top, with design facing up.
5. Hold stack tightly and staple on crease.
6. Refold and recrease to keep it from popping open.

The designs I used are my orginal surface designs that I had on display at Printsource last January. I have a couple hundred of these big 11 x 17 printouts! They've been gnawing at my brain lately - sell scrap packs, make notecards, gift tags, notebooks, pillow boxes...something! Let me know if you have any ideas!

(c) Daisy Janie. All rights reserved.

2010 Wall Calendar is here!

I am very happy to introduce the Daisy Janie 2010 Wall Calendar to you! It's now in-stock in my etsy shop and ready to ship.

Features:
 + big daily squares on big pages –22” tall by 17” wide.
 + big blocks for note-jotting things to buy, appts to schedule, ideas to remember, etc.
 + mod & happy patterned backgrounds in black & white.
 + totally eco-friendly printing on 100% PCW coverstock with soy ink.
 + bound with wire ring for easy paging & no plastic!

Fun Stuff:
 + Designs can be left chic in black & white or colored for a unique, original look!
 + Cute pocketsize notepad comes free with purchase so you can jot notes when you're out & about, too! (I'll show some of these tomorrow.)
 + Calendar giveway coming up at the end of this week!

seeing | intensity build

wrapping it up

Another year, another Halloween. I fear this may have been the last one we'll enjoy as parents of a kiddo who's bursting at the seams to get dressed & get out the door for trick-or-treating. And that's a very sad thought to me. He wrapped it up in style tho with 5 of his best buddies and a combo birthday/Halloween sleepover (toothpicks in my eyes today). How fortunate that his last real Hallow's Eve fell on a weekend!

As he gets older and grows out of 'little kid' games, traditions and behaviors, I cannot help but be sad at how fast his childhood has gone! Man, it's a harsh reality to recall all the times I thought, "Oh, there'll be plenty of time for that later...he's still a little sweet potato!" NO regrets by any means, but I surely would take some of those laters now. Guess this is why our parents were so anxious for grandchildren! The waiting begins. 

Audrey & Kurt: a pair of halloweenies

Audrey Hepburn and Kurt Cobain. A match made in heaven, at least for Halloween '09. Love how vacant and lost Matt tried to make himself in this pic - in full character!

Matt put together a Halloween party at our gym, with a dead celebrity costume theme. It was hilarious (and enlightening) to see what people came up with and how they pulled each one off! Jackie O & JFK, Natasha Richardson & James Dean, Amelia Earhart & Charles Lindburgh, Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungen. And my fave was Anna Nicole - my friend bought a double D bra and stuffed it with fluff from an old pillow, dressed all trashy & carried a bag of pills with her all night.

A few of the aforementioned dressed not only as their famous person, but also as the person's cause of death - it was rottenly creative & devilishly comedic!

Costume Deets for Audrey as Holly Golightly:
- false eyelashes for doe-eyed look
- tiara from girl's hair accessory pack
- dress from Good Will
- earrings & pearls from Target - I will wear these again
- gloves & cigarette holder from Halloween store

To do hair, gather hair in a high, high ponytail on top of your head. Take the end of your ponytail and flip it under & bobbypin it. Your ponytail will then fan out as shown - I sprayed the h*ll out of mine to make sure it stayed. Was much easier to do this style than the wire hangers I used to put in my braids for Pippi Longstocking!

Costume Deets on Kurt Cobain:
- shoulder-length blonde wig, tinted with paint to look like dark roots
- eyeliner on bottom lid
- not clean shaven
- nonsense white tee & gray cardigan from Good Will
- ripped up jeans

preview | new organic fabric collection - Geo Grand

Geo: geometric, shapes, lines, basics, elements.
Grand: large, big, magnificent, impressive, splendid.

Put the two together, and you have Geo Grand, my debut organic fabric collection for wholesale!

Geo Grand features six large-scale, bold, sleek & dynamic designs, presented in a rich palette of espresso brown, smoky aqua, sky blue and a sweet apple chartreuse. The designs will be printed on soft and supple GOTS-certified organic cotton (which is being woven as we speak). Available in stores and on-line in late Feb 2010. 

If you are a store/on-line shop owner and you'd like more info, please email me. I expect to have details on my wholesale page in the next few weeks.
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The scale of the large motifs is a challenge to capture in a thumbnail. The inset images in the upper-right corners below are still only 70% of full-scale. How fun will these be to work into home decor projects, personal accessories, clothing and gorgeous quilts?! I can't wait to sew with it!!

This is one of those posts where I wanted to gush and chat and go crazy with exclamation points, but I figured I'd let the designs do that for me. Enjoy!

seeing | geometric inspiration

These lovely angles, lines and textures are stolen from an Art Deco-inspired buffet in our dining room. My personal taste in design runs from about early 20s to early 70s, with an emphasis on anything in there that has a modern, clean vibe to it. Yesterday, I was taking pics to share here, and the geometric symmetry captured in each image reminded me so much of the designs in my new organic fabric collection (big preview coming tomorrow!) - so I grabbed some of my paper printouts and held them up to share a sneak peek with you.

Scroll down...you'll see them!

That's all I can share for now! Come back tomorrow for a better look-see.

behold. flower applique vase.

look at all the pretty flower appliques dancing around the top of this vase. the artist calls it "florapalooza" - and i do believe that name fits like a glove! makes my heart smile.

hand-thrown, smooth white stoneware.

$92.

from red hot pottery.

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new heart-to-heart post is up on scoutie girl! go see where i was hopping!

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with any luck at all, i will have a teaser post later today with a sliver of a sneak peek of my new organic cotton collection! yowsa - teaser, sliver and sneak all in the same sentence!! it's not every tuesday i start off being so foxy and covert! well, foxy yes. covert, no. mwa ha ha ha ha.

** look for a full reveal / unveiling of the collection tomorrow!!!

sketchpad morphs

Sometimes, when I don't feel like sketching a design for 'fabric' per se or getting out paintbrushes to exercise my imagination, but I still feel the need to move my hand in a creative way, I doodle whatever comes out. When I'm stressed, this actually relieves some of my anxiety b/c it's just play, and there isn't any pressure for my creativity to "be" something or "do" something. 

I colored in college as a stress reliever - seriously. I colored my entire standard-issue dorm dresser in rainbow colors one year, using the wood grain as my guide. (And shaved it all off with a straight razor at the end of the year, which was pretty fun, too!) I'm sure that's what all the Marketing majors were doing that year! :)

What's your stress buster?

This is a pretty typical 'whatever' above. Free-flowing, folding, bending, blending, swirling, whirling. Very feminine, very improv. It always feels good to get these moments out on paper. I don't often take inspiration directly from my surroundings; abstractions of geometric, organic shapes is my preference...again, no pressure.

Taking this a step further, I always take pictures of the pages in my sketchbook and keep them in a file for quick reference. I pull my sketches into Illustrator and use live trace to vectorize the image.

I thought I'd take you through this particular sketchpad morph to show you how patterns and shapes often begin to emerge as real potential for a simple or complex design - when I'm not even trying. Having done this a zillion times, I remind myself that I'm doing this exercise for fun - no second-guessing...just go with instincts...crop here, flip there, color here, color there....much like the original doodle, whatever comes out is what comes out!

It's kinda fun to see the morph in a sequential pictorial like this, even for me.

I ghosted the design & used my bamboo tablet to highlight a few shapes/patterns.

Recolored, recropped, reblended. Still messin'.

In the end, I really loved that simple finial shape in the center above, along with the 2 leaf shapes above and below it. I pulled them out and put them in a quick repeat. I love the way this looks! Will def be keeping for future reference!

not a day goes by...

...that I don't thank my lucky stars for this one.

Happy Birthday Peanutman!

new guest posting stint on scoutie girl

After a 3-month hiatus, I'm back at Scoutie Girl as a weekly guest poster! (There's so much about that sentence that trips me up...or trips me out. Kinda both actually.)

Scoutie Girl Editor Extraordinaire Tara was gracious enough to lend some of Scoutie Girl's real estate to me for a new weekly feature called "heart-to-heart." I will be leaving a trail of hearts for you to follow as I hop from one etsy seller's favorites to another  - progressively adding to the meandering path each week. I am so excited about this as I tried to work in a progressive 'pay it forward' feature on Scoutie Girl last year - loved the idea, but the details were iffy. No matter - this feature is even better!!

When I described it to Tara, she said it was kinda like 6 degrees of separation - totally!! Hop on over to today's post to see how I got from organic linen napkins by natsumi to a metalsmithed necklace by 3squares.

seeing | poise under pressure

max costume, circa 1999

Almost 10 years ago to the day, I was finishing the final touches on this Max costume ("Where the Wild Things Are") for Peanutman. We read that book 9 thousand-cajillion times, along with every other book we could get our hands on. " 'gen, mommy! 'gen, 'gen! read mores!" I'd like to see the movie, but I'm fearful it will tarnish those sweet, delicious moments still so vivid in my mind. Oh, I would go back to those days with him in a second! That bugger will be 12 years old this week, and it seems significantly more monumental to me than my own 40th birthday coming up in December. It's very much a take-stock-of-your-life time for me. Reflection. Awareness. Action. There's always room for better!

With this costume, I used a basic Simplicity toddler animal costume for the body and hood; it's made from white fleece (tail is white faux fur). All the details, like the ears, tail, buttons, mitten/paws, feet/paws, were improvised based on images from the book. The ears were a little heavy and flopped to the side, so I used monofilament thread & sewed them to each other to hold them up. Can you see it in the image above?

The sides of Max's boat & sail were cut from cardboard & painted. The sides were attached with rope & tape. The sail was attached to a shower curtain rod, for which my husband made a cardboard holster that's attached to the back of the wagon.

While I don't have the costume handy to show you the details, here are the gloves that have lived in a nearby 'save no matter what' drawer for 10 years.

To make the paws, I made a template for the paw pieces and the mitten pieces from posterboard. I cut 4 paws from white felt and 4 mittens from white fleece...remember to flip your template if you have a right side and a wrong side to your fabric.  

I used a thin, double-sided, fusible interfacing to attach 2 pieces of the felt paws to each other - much more sturdy than a floppy, single piece of felt. I sewed the mitten pieces together and added 2 pieces of 1/2" elastic to the wrist.

Using the mitten template, I cut 2 pieces of double-sided, fusible interfacing. I placed these on these on the tops of the mittens & fused the paws to the mittens this way. Above: I tried to pull away part of the mitten to show you where it was fused to the paw.

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This year, Peanutman wants to be a WWII - 82nd Airborne Ranger. My how the times have changed! I'll be attempting an Audrey Hepburn for a dead celebrity party we're going to. Can't wait!!

Are you making a costume for you or your kiddos this year? What are you making? Please share.