Cool Beans!

 

New and Improved!

 

So yesterday was the first day of a new-ish venture for me.  I'm currently employed as The Assistant Costume Designer for our local high school theater!  Some of you may remember last April I was involved making costumes for the HS production of Phantom of the Opera.  It was tons of work and also tons of fun.  So now, yay, I'm official.  Since my last venture into menswear was such a hit I am tapped to make Captain Hook's coat (among other things)  I promise I'll post pics! 

Forgotten Tutorial - upcycled t-shirt

As I was uploading a bunch of photos to Flickr, I came across a set that I had done of an upcycling tutorial for a girl's fancy t-shirt.  I can't imagine why I never posted it because it came out really cute!  

So I had a few black long sleeve tees that were meant for my boys but were dubbed 'uncool' and a tank top that I'd bought on clearance the summer before that was now too small.

I took the two black tees and cut long strips of fabric to make a ruffle.  I gathered it and pinned it on diagonally.  Un-shown, I did the same with the bottom of the grey tank top and made an under ruffle. and another black ruffle for the hem of the shirt.

Then, using this tutorial from I Sew Do You some costume satin and some cool buttons that were given to me by my MIL, I made some fancy flowers.  I then made another flower out of some of the lacier part of the grey shirt and the black shirt fabrics using this tutorial from Gettin' By.  Both were really easy and quick.  Then I sewed them onto the shirt using cute buttons to fasten them.

 And here is Little Miss looking very fashionable in her new cute top.  She added black polka dot leggings and espadrilles to complete the look. 

Cat On the Hat

When we got our Halloween decor out of the attic I thought the skeleton I usually hang on the door looked a little tired.  I saw this cute craft in a magazine (I don't take credit for the idea but the design is mine) and I had an old hat that I wasn't doing anything with  (I certainly wasn't wearing it.) so I thought why not?

 

 

I painted the brim orange, painted the crown black and waited until it was dry.  Then I went back and touched up any spots I'd missed.  Since a straw hat has a lot of texture, you really have to wiggle  your brush into all of those little spaces.  When it was fully dry I painted on a cute kitty face and 'Trick or Treat'. I had to add a 2nd coat on the face details too.  As soon as that's dry it's going up on my door. 

Wordless -- is it already Wednesday again?

Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Peeps

Upside down girl, tiny punk rocker and Leonard from Big Bang Theory.

What's been going on here is that I haven't been doing much with this blog. I haven't done Paisley of the Week for almost a month. My apologies! But I have been keeping up with a person a day.

Both of these girls have have weird awkward arms. I never know what to do with the arms so they end up looking stiff and strange. Leonard from Big Bang Theory new and improved. Notice the lack of arms....

Paisley of the Week! Red Hot & Random.

Red Hot & Random, by Laura Stinson of Designed by Laura on Etsy is already as eyecatching as a coral snake, but it was the fun title that caught my attention.  I have said in the past that people who are searching on Etsy will not be looking for your art by title and while that's true, if you can fit it into your Etsy description, a catchy title is definitely worth a click in my opinion!  I was not disappointed.  Like mine, Laura's Etsy shop features more than one kind of product. You can find funny painted candy bowls, original artwork, Christmas ornaments, paisley of course! all sortsa stuff,  just like a regular store, I definitely enjoyed having a look around there, so will you!  Go like Laura on FB and visit her blog too!

So it's November 1...

The finished nailpolish costume.  It worked out pretty well!  It all came down to the hat I think.

I hope everybody had a Happy Halloween!

Halloween Wallpaper Spooky Spider

Get caught in a fun web of Halloween Spirit!  A a cute little critter for you to decorate your desktop, blog or Twitter page. 

Letter Doodles

There's an 'N' in the works too...

For those of you who might want an entire set of paisley letters.

Water Marble Nails

Nails like Good -n- Plenty!

Want super fun nails that get you noticed?  Try a water marble manicure!   You know how when you try to artistically enhance your own nails the left hand looks good but then your right will look all shakey and messed up? With a water marble mani both hands will look awesome!  For a tutorial visit  My Simple Little Pleasures blog.  Colette, its' writer, has dozens of easy to understand tutorials on how to get this cool and unique swirly look.

Some things to keep in mind:

While this type of manicure is not difficult to do, it does take a while and it is messy so give yourself about an hour of uninterrupted time plus drying time. 

If you're doing your nails for a special occaision, I recommend that you do them a day beforehand.  Like I said, marbling can be messy; there's always some nailpolish on your fingers and it's easier to get it completely off of your hands when it's totally dry.  You can use nailpolish remover but it may mess up your marbling if you slip up so I found that it's just better to wait.

Pick colors that contrast with eachother.  If your colors are too close together (like pink, red, orange) the swirly effect doesn't show up quite as well.

Paint all of your nails with white (or another light color) first. It gives the other colors a backdrop like a little canvas for your 10 mini-masterpieces!

Start of Summer

Is the End of the school year.  At the beginning of the year, my 10 year old asked me to design a binder cover for him.  Now it's June and summer has officially gotten underway and the doodle has held up pretty well.   This summer I have a lot of things I want to do.  Silkscreening and tye-dying to name a few.  Not to mention finishing up sewing projects that I've started.  How about you?  What are your summer project plans?

Finished it Thursday

Pink -n- Black -n- White always look tasty!

Sunday Squiggle

Two-Fer Thursday

Wordless Thursday was a wash anyway because I had to go blabbing there at the end of my post. It's rare that I post twice in a day so what's the occaision? Well, I'm a bit of a yesterday's newshound but I just discovered that one of my dearest wishes came true (last month.) Blogger has added a feature that allows us to upload our OWN pictures and papers to use as backgrounds. YAY! I've only wanted them to do that since 4-Eva! So to celebrate I am sharing three new lovely background designs with you. Use them for your blog ('cause now you can!) MySpace, Twitter or Desktop. Designs will tile.
You may not reproduce or redistribute to sell my designs, personal use only, please!

 Enjoy these sweet flavors!  Top to bottom: Paisley's Candydish Black, Paisley's Candydish Orange, Paisley's Candydish Pink.

Still not too early... I think.

Making Mockups is almost as fun as sewing real clothes.  Wouldn't you love to have a party dress like this for your daughter?  I would too.  I just can't decide which one  I like best. 

Robots on my Mind

This week has been a week for robots.  My almost 12 year old son was attending a camp all this week where they learned to build robots that could navigate a maze.  The robots were made out of Legos and used Mindstorms software to make it move. 

 I also finished a collection based on one of my favorite drawings.  It's one of my favorites because I used shapes I ordinarily don't use, colors I ordinarily don't prefer and subject matter rather than abstraction and it came out really cool. 

The way I like to design is to take pieces and parts of a picture and make a new design from it.  Like this:

Or this:

See if you can spot which bits I used.  And if you are burning with curiosity you can check out the whole collection of Robots and Rectangles.

Hmmmmm....

This one I am sure of.

This one, not so sure.  What actually goes with mauve? It hasn't been around for so long that I forgot.  It might be peach or it might not.  What do you think?

Paisley of the Week! Henna Tatoo

 This week's Paisley of the Week! is something very special.  Jaewalker is an artist that I've met on deviantart and I was hard pressed to choose just ONE of her fantastic works as Paisley of the Week!  Like me, she doodles and draws paisley as  a form of meditation.  Unlike me, her doodles are on skin instead of paper.  Henna tatoos are semi-permanent, which means that they'll come off but not right away.  This paisley palm is Jaewalker's own, which seems to be her favored canvas.  Look at the details!  If you get a chance to take a look at her gallery, please do!

About my Glorious design...

When I posted this last week it was an experiment to see if  any of my blog readers would notice--seeing as it was Easter and all. Nobody said one way or the other so I'll just hope you did. 'Glorious' is an abstract design but it's made up of Christian symbols.  For those of you who like search and find-y things, in the design are:

fish

lillies

turbulent water

doves

The Trinity

a cross

the letters 'J' and 'C'

I started off with the fish and worked the other elements into it.  As you know, the fish was a secret symbol for Christians to identify eachother. In today's society, being a Christian is somewhat 'uncool' for the mainstream--unless you're Miley Cyrus.  Or for some Christians, like me, faith is something more private.