hello, i hope you had a good weekend! i made a really wonderful thai shrimp curry for some fabulous friends. i plan to repeat this recipe many more times.
i’m slowly putting things in place now that the remodel project is done. a new favorite piece: hope SEEDS by heather smith jones. ikea frame.
happy weekend!
last saturday night, i hosted a small pARTy. we each made a stash of greeting cards: i provided the basic cardstock/envelope combinations, and a little inspiration, and then encouraged everyone to cut and paste using recycled materials. i think anna’s cards (above) had some of us thinking “why didn’t we think of that?!”. update: close-ups are posted on anna’s blog.
we decorated cards with pages from old art history books, with paper samples, with photos, with tea bag packets, with packaging materials… the paper was flying! we made great cards! unfortunately, i did not do a very good job with the photography.
lisa’s fabulous stash of cards
i wish that these photos had sharper focus so you could see how great they are. all detail was lost when trying to document kathryn and jackie’s amazing work. but maybe the lack of focus gives the photos a certain mystique?
it’s the detail of jenn’s cards that really makes them cool, which you cannot see at all. update: she’s got some on her blog.
(nope. no mystique here — i need to learn how to shoot better with my new toy.)
i finally treated myself to my tomato soup over the weekend. and yes, i could taste fresh tomatoes and feel a summer breeze on my face.
(the moaning and groaning that go along with canning were worth it.)
i have to say i am so in love with my sx70 that some days i want to marry it.
just kidding.
but i love having control over depth of field. maybe a tshirt in honor of my love is in order. like this sx70 camera tshirt from film monsters.
hello, and welcome to february!
i’ve decided that february is instant film month here at painted fish studio. for the next four weeks, my posts will be about or photographed with instant film. i’ve got lots of ideas, and think i can pull it off, despite a full-time job and limited access to daylight hours. but i will try!
purchased for a rainy day: hand made modern and kid made modern.
the grown up version of the book is a little too hipster/dyi for me, but just sitting silently paging through helps generate new ideas. i’ll probably make more from the kid version…
happy weekend!
when i left work yesterday, the sun hadn’t completely set yet.
it’s so wonderful to see the days getting longer. i can handle single digit temperatures, but the short days are so hard…
a little valentine for my etsy shop: the xoxo album. i normally don’t do holiday-specific goods, but when placing an order for to restock some of my most-used bookcloth, i could not resist the bright red…
found via design*sponge, and i couldn’t resist: three tiny terrariums from tortoise loves donkey. they’re easy, small, low maintenance… and i can use the green since we’re still months away from seeing it in nature. my little guys arrived last week and they’re sitting on my windowsill, hoping for sun.
when i travel, i save all of the ephemera i collect: receipts, ticket stubs, transportation passes, museum guides… i bring it all home. i usually don’t do much with it, but i recently made a few trip journals with ephemera that i brought home from my trips to new york and seattle.
keep reading, and i’ll show you how to turn this:
into this:
i recently stumbled upon a box of books that i made a long time ago. the albums above were one of the first “lines” i produced, well before etsy was around. i remember making them — it was summer, and i had no idea where i would sell them, but that didn’t stop me from making a gazillion. they’re a tiny bit banged up, so i’ve put them in the shop for $4 a piece.
these were made a year or two after the albums. they’re hardbound journals, and completely handmade! but they need a better home than a box in my closet. so they’re on sale, super-cheap, in my etsy shop!
happy weekend!
i met jenn for lunch on monday at cupcake. i had a greek salad with dressing on the side and a cup of green tea and no cupcake. being healthy is boring.
but the conversation was lively: we talked about her recent trip to a warm locale, we looked at sewing books and talked about projects, and we talked more about manhattan meetup in may. yesterday we booked our flights. if you want to join us in new york city in 4 months, leave me a comment!
when anna posted about the neck gator she knit for her husband, my neck had serious gator envy. i needed one for myself. over the weekend i abandoned my to-do list and i opened a bottle of cheap red wine, popped buffy the vampire slayer into the dvd player, and knit.
and now my neck is toasty warm.
anna found the pattern on christina’s icewerks blog. i used fleece artist’s slubby blue yarn instead of malabrigo — thanks for helping me pick it out, jess!
it’s winter and dry dry dry. just when i think i’ve adequately moisturized every inch of my body, i’ll find a little patch of scaly skin, like behind my elbow. i just wanna dive into this jar of rosebutter ultra thick body creme from portland general store.
before the holidays i made a folder for my friend kim. actually, it was for her husband: i had offered to make something he could carry a resume in. but then it morphed into a little more, and i was ready for a challenge.
it holds a tablet, a pen, a few business cards, and a few pieces of paper. i used a magnetic snap to keep it closed.
it was far from perfect, but i did make notes as i went along in the event i want to make a second — and better — folder thingy.
over the holiday break i stumbled upon patterned file folders at target. i couldn’t resist and i picked up 2 packs: each with 3 different colors/patterns. i decided to make simple pamphlet stitch books to send to friends as thank yous for the wonderful things they gave/made me for christmas. the fold was already there, so i cut one of each color/pattern to create a 3×4 inch cover, then cut some office paper to size, and stitched. and i still have lots of fun folders left over… maybe i should bring them to work to give all that work-stuff-documentation some life…
happy weekend!
on my last day in seattle, i met evalynn for coffee. she handed me a package. and within: a collage she created just for me. it has circles, the color orange, a fish, shredded office paper, and a message about happiness, which sometimes eludes me. i was floored — it could not be more perfect. i hung it immediately when i got home.
thank you, e, you are a rockstar!
i finally finished knitting my pillow cover! i think i started some time in october. i just knit a long rectangle in stockinette, bungled some button holes for the wonderful handmade buttons marian (florcita) sent me from the netherlands, and lastly, sewed up the sides. since i didn’t want tight little stitches i knew the pillow within would show through the larger stitches, so i bought some rit dye in tangerine and brushed the pillow with it so it’s orange underneath. all in all, it’s pretty amateurish and full of imperfections, but it’s done, and it’s exactly how i hoped it would turn out. and that’s all that matters.
i get such a kick out of the title of this print from matte stephens: charles eames as a log. there’s also the abernathy family was happy yet a little surprised that humbert the rare red sweater wearing elephant was out for viewing. eeeeeee! and the prints are as wonderful as their titles. set aside some time for browsing today…
