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.

Stormy Weather at Red Bud Isle

Doesn't that sound like a great title for a cheesy mystery novel? The weather last Sunday was pretty mysterious, especially when viewed from my vantage point on Red Bud Isle. It's a gem of a little city park, at the dam where Town Lake (renamed Ladybird Lake, but I'm still not used to that) & Lake Austin meet. The island was created by large boulders that were dislodged when the old dam collapsed in a huge flood in 1900. The clouds rolling in over the dam looked rather ominous. Patrick wanted to check out the fishin' (turns out it wasn't so great that night) & I went along to read & enjoy the scenery...

Local Talent Tuesday with Samantha Hlavaty

Hello there! Hope you've all had a lovely Memorial Day weekend. I'm back in Blogland today bringing you an interview with Samantha of Nepenthe's Bathtime. Sam makes wonderful bath products from the highest quality essential oils, fragrance oils, colourants & botanicals - all vegan-friendly & not tested on animals. Read on to learn more about the inspiration behind her products (and that wacky name!). My personal favorite scent she makes is Ginger Lime - if only this blog post was in Smell-o-vision...


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

Sam: My studio is our kitchen, which is also deemed the soap lab half the time. Creating soap and bath products began about 5 years ago as a hobby and a way to diffuse after a stressful day of work, and has managed to morph over the years into a full time business, especially within the last year. Last summer I decided to put more focus on it and set up a few shows to see where it would take me. Three shows became seven, invitations to sell at Feats of Clay and show at the East Austin Studio Tours, and I was filling orders until Christmas Eve. It was an amazingly busy few months! I continue to sell my creations at shows, on Etsy, and [through] my website.


Beth: Why soap and bath products & what's with the name?

Sam: As a child, I loved to raid my mom's gardens and make little concoctions out of the flowers and herbs. Unfortunately for her, at that age I had absolutely no clue what preservatives were. To this day, I am uncertain of how many moldy jars of mush she discovered throughout our home. I’m afraid to ask! Thankfully, I’ve learned a lot over the years. In general though, I have always loved bath products, aromatherapy and botanicals. Mixing with this a passion for art, design, and colour ... it was a natural fit!


Nepenthe is actually the name of my dog who was adopted from the Town Lake Animal Shelter in 2000, and she still manages to keep me on my toes with her mischievous antics. The word “nepenthe” loosely means a Greek mythological potion which washes away pain and sorrow and creates happiness. As well as a fitting name for her, it was an appropriate name for my bath line.


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

Sam: Anywhere and everywhere... in nature, architecture, traditional art, fashion, food, music, design, and the list can go on. I love looking at the foundation of objects & colour combinations, figuring out what attracts me to them and then seeing if I can replicate that feeling or concept in soap. I continuously challenge myself to push the limit of design in my medium without compromising the products' quality.


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

Sam: I envision Nepenthe's Bathtime as a storefront cottage, filled floor to ceiling with bath products & botanicals, nestled in a cozy tourist town. I would absolutely love that! For now, my goals are to find my way into more stores, do even more custom work for showers, parties, corporate, etc, and provide private labels.

I will be teaching some soap & spa classes this summer at Marmalade Skies, which I am really excited about. I am also currently working on DIY soap & spa kits which I plan to release this Fall.

Twine-wrapped Mason Jar Vases

How cute are these?! They seem very simple to make, & they'd be perfect for some al fresco entertaining this Memorial Day weekend! Pop on over to Vickie Howell's blog for the full tutorial. She even has a knitted version, if you're so inclined.

creative genius: Cardboard Safari

Oh my goodness! These are the coolest cardboard animal "trophies" ever! Get that hunting lodge look with a hip, eco-friendly twist (they're made with recycled cardboard instead of you know, um... slaughtered defenseless animals). Check out Cardboard Safari on Etsy.

Postponement

Sorry everyone, but I am in a bit of a time crunch today & won't be able to post the interview with Samantha of Nepenthe's Bathtime. I want to do it right & not rush it, so I will save the feature for next Tuesday. Nepenthe's Bathtime's Etsy shop is currently on vacation until May 20th, so next week will be better! In the meantime though, check out their wonderful Tea Soaks. They smell amazing!

Plant Mystery Solved!

Well Samantha totally guessed it. That blurry photo was a venus flytrap in a red pot! Congratulations, Sam! Coincidentally, Sam is the soapmaker extraordinaire behind Nepenthe's Bathtime, and she's the pic of the week for Local Talent Tuesday. Be sure to check back tomorrow for her interview. {total coincidence; this contest was not rigged, I promise!}