Snuggle Herd at Blues on the Green!

sweetwolf, devil girl designs, leah duncan and debbie carroll designs
Originally uploaded by Trixie SweetWolf

Come out & see members of EtsyAustin, some of the hippest, craftiest gals in town, at Blues on the Green. Live music, great food, great shopping, & It's free! What more could you ask for? It happens every other Wednesday throughout the summer, and I'll be at this one on July 1st & the next one on July 15th. Stop by & say hi!

more info at http://www.kgsr.com/Other/blues/index.html

The Most Beautiful Blog in the World

Cannelle et Vanille is light & airy perfection, featuring the most stunning photos of scrumptious-looking desserts. Aran Goyoaga, the pastry chef/food stylist/photographer/writer behind all of this loveliness, even shares her recipes on the blog. If you're like me & have a weakness for beautiful photos of beautiful food, you have to take a look!

P.s.
I found Cannelle et Vanille on unruly things, another lovely blog you should peek at.

Clue #2

just a little logo I designed recently...

Something New & Exciting in the Works!

Something a little different for Local Talent Tuesday today... This is another "in case you were wondering" post. In case you were wondering *why* I did the western shirt revamp, it was for this photo shoot. The photo shoot was for promotional materials for the new crafty venture I'm working on with some of my fabulously talented friends (pictured left to right): Kim of Broken Ear Productions, {me}, Jen of Lucy Blue Studio, & Beth of Paired Hearts. More info about what we're up to coming soon! Pictures taken at the fabulously quirky South Austin Museum of Popular Culture.

Something New & Exciting in the Works!

Something a little different for Local Talent Tuesday today... This is another "in case you were wondering" post. In case you were wondering *why* I did the western shirt revamp, it was for this photo shoot. The photo shoot was for promotional materials for the new crafty venture I'm working on with some of my fabulously talented friends (pictured left to right): Kim of Broken Ear Productions, {me}, Jen of Lucy Blue Studio, & Beth of Paired Hearts. More info about what we're up to coming soon! Pictures taken at the delightfully quirky South Austin Museum of Popular Culture.

Grosgrain: 20 Minute Simple Skirt Tutorial AND GIVEAWAY!!!!

This is the cutest & EASIEST skirt technique I've ever seen! I'm definitely going to make some of these. No really. I am. Just wait.

From Kathleen of Grosgrain. Grosgrain: 20 Minute Simple Skirt Tutorial AND GIVEAWAY!!!!

Cute Stuffie Finds from Living Cozy

Increase the coziness in your life! That sounds lovely, right? It's part of the concept behind LivingCozy.com, a cute blogzine about crafting, cooking, gardening & more. Laura, the writer behind Living Cozy, kindly featured my Ginny the Giraffe in an article called "A Touch of Softness." I hope you'll head over to her site & check it out - lots of fun stuff to see!

Drawer Turned Coat Hook/Rack/Display

So loving this idea of taking an old drawer & creating a coat hook out of it. You can put stuff in it, on it, and hanging from it - unbeatable! This particular one is for sale in Reclaimed Home's Etsy shop. Found via their Etsy Storque article on upcycling. Look at how they've repurposed springs as extra hooks! Yay for upcycling!

Western Shirt, Boring No More!

For those of you who've been wondering what I did with the boring western shirt...

Two Awesome Finds from CRAFT

Found in a Craft Magazine email last week:

an embroidered notebook paper love note from Katie Cupcake

and

a felted snail in a found shell from das_kaninchen

Boring Western Shirt + Cute Embellishments = ?

Weekend Goodness & Talented Friends

We went to Silhouette Saturday night for sushi & karaoke with 2 new friends & had a blast! It's a downtown hideaway with private karaoke rooms upstairs that are posh & comfortable, especially if you're used to the stinky, secondhand couch variety of karaoke rooms like we were.


I'll spare you most of the pictures of the karaoke madness, but just wanted to share a couple of faves. Patrick really enjoyed the light-up tambourine.



And I have to brag about our friend Kim. She's an amazing singer, shown here belting out some "Phantom of the Opera" like it's nothin.' And she's also a fabulous jewelry artist! Check out her website, Broken Ear Productions.

Xbox Soap! for real.

Wow. Look at this very realistic soap. Great gift for a geeky dad! The best part: "Scented with Mountain Dew fragrance oil, a gamer's best scent."

You can find it (& many other geek-chic soaps) in the Digitalsoaps Etsy shop.

Local Talent Tuesday with Hollie Jenkins

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I have an interview with Hollie Jenkins of rePresent today. Hollie happens to be an old friend of mine from our days at Waller High School, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Austin. Now, by a stroke of total luck & coincidence, we live in the same neighborhood here in Austin. So we frequently go on walks with her adorable daughter (pictured here) & their dog, discussing our crafty adventures.

Hollie makes the cutest, reversible baby bibs from thrifted fabrics and remnants that people give her, and also shares her bib scraps with me. The pieces Hollie cuts out for neck holes make perfect little ears for my elephant toys. Proof that one woman's scraps are indeed another woman's treasure!


Beth: First, please give us a little background on your studio.

Hollie: At first I just made bibs for gifts for my friends, but after my daughter was born, I started focusing on making and selling my bibs as a business.


I work at home. I’ve been a SAHM (stay at home mom) for over a year. Basically, my bib business is a part-time job, because taking care of my daughter is my full-time job. I work on my bibs while my daughter sleeps, when she is on play dates, and in the evenings. I’ve created my own work area in our study, but I also do a lot of cutting in the evenings in our family room.




I’ve been selling my bibs for over a year. I started by selling them to friends, but now they are sold at Terra Toys/Dragonsnaps, Parts & Labour, and Austin Baby.


Beth: Where do you find the inspiration &/or motivation for your creative work?

Hollie: I get most of my fabrics from relatives and thrift stores. Lots of times, a relative will give me a big box of fabric she has leftover from quilts and clothes. People hold onto fabric remnants for decades because they don’t like to waste things. When they find out I’m making bibs, they’re glad to finally put their old fabric to use.

I never know what I’m going to get, so it’s exciting. I get most of my inspiration from these fabrics. Certain patterns lend themselves to specific themes. For example, a floral pattern makes me think of gardens and birds. My mother-in-law recently gave me [some] adorable fabric with horseshoes printed on it, so I’ve been stitching a lot of horses.


Beth: Describe how a really productive day of making art goes for you.

Hollie: My ideal productive day would start the night before. I would cut out several bibs while watching TV with my husband. The next day, when my daughter takes her nap, I would sew the bibs together. After she wakes up, I would turn the sewn bibs right side out and press them while she eats lunch and plays. Ideally, she would sleep for two hours and enjoy playing by herself. (I think I can hear other moms laughing at the chances of this happening, but this is my ideal productive day, right?) In the afternoon, my daughter would go to her daily playdate at her friend’s house for two hours. During that time, I would finish and embellish the bibs.


Beth: What are your big-picture goals for yourself as an artist & your art-related business?

Hollie: I’ve really been surprised at how making my little bibs has helped me feel so fulfilled. It’s important to have a creative outlet. I want to continue making and selling my bibs even after I start working outside of the home again. I’ve been considering branching out into other products that keep you neat, like napkins and craft aprons. Even if I don’t sell them, I want to keep creating new things.

Pretty Pics: stacks and stacks of 45's

On a recent road trip with friends to Victoria (about 2.5 hours southeast of Austin), we stopped in to the Salvation Army. [editor's note: just accidentally typed "Salavation Army" - anyone need a quirky-clever name for a new bakery?] There was a table set up with stacks & stacks & stacks of dusty old 45's, all of which appeared to be Tejano music (maybe not Tejano, but they were all in Spanish).



It was beautiful, yet I found it a bit sad for some reason. Someone had spent a long time acquiring this collection of records, and why were they now giving them all away? It was like a visual declaration of someone's decades-long passion for music. The first thing I thought of was that this person had died, and so his or her family gave all of the albums to the S. A.


Maybe it was much less somber than that; maybe it was the collection of a former DJ who just transferred them all to digital files & no longer needs the vinyl because he doesn't do the wiggy-scratch anymore. yeah, that's what i'm going to choose to believe.