new in the shop...

...and new in my repertoire! these tiny black earrings and the techniques used to make them have taken over my life!

  i have seen many tutorials online for burned edge flowers...(i'm working on one right now) and decided i needed to try it out. now i am in love with this simple process! cut circles. hold over flame.(burn fingers)sew togetheradd something pretty in the middle. (freshwater pearls here)
more colors coming soon (chocolate brown, dark lavender and of course green are the closest to completion)
for now find the black ones here:

 yes. that's a coffee spill in the photo. coffee stains dominate my life. 
also i'm calling these earrings begonias. everyone else calls them poppies but i want to be unique! i really do think they look like begonias. or begonia hybrids.  seen here and here. thoughts?  

a quick life update

with baseball season in full swing life has been a bit crazy around here so here's a mostly pictoral update through the lens of the iphone! 

one of my latest and greatest goodwill finds. 4 cherry glasses. 99 cents each (whatever happened to the cents symbol? i liked it. someone should bring it back...ooo! html code! here it is ¢! i'm bringing you back little ¢ sign!) 99¢ each!

after the crushing defeat the warriors suffered today i felt the need to get crafty so i made these two flowers by cutting circles out of a satin-y fabric & melting them over a flame (and almost burning my hand off). big one = pin. little one = bobby pin.

our herb garden is sitting on the kitchen cart waiting to be planted outside! the frame of the garden has been built but we haven't had a chance to buy dirt (plus we've had frost this week). soon little plants. soon. 

hideously awesome green vintage bag. bowling? maybe? goodwill. $2.99. (299¢) soon to be my carry on. any ideas on how to clean weird green leather type fabric? 

inside said green bag: my current stash of candlesticks for cake stand making -- getting their own post soon! sorry that's a terrible picture.

this is monster right after eating half of a raw hamburger. my hamburger. right off the counter. she got in big trouble. she looks sad. and yet triumphant.

thrift store find! if i can trust the bag this is an unfinished quilt circa 1880ish. um...awesome. 

the stash of plates waiting to be made into awesome pillars of dessert display. 

finished cake plates #s 1 & 2. again...more detail to come.

yesterdays game was in the middle of a windstorm and i decided i couldn't wear my hair down again today. problem is my hair isn't actually long enough to wear up so i made this headband in warrior colors before i the games this morning. it's not perfect craftsmanship at ALL but it got the job done today.

 sneak peek of a new product about to hit the shop! check back soon for details!

so there's lots happening here in the sharpe house. i'm feeling a longer more contemplative post coming up soon but baseball season is here, the sun is out, it was light until almost 8 tonight and craftee-ness is in full swing- we are blessed!

a wedding season dilemma- help!

well wedding season is certainly upon us, both in life and in this year. one wedding each in march, april, may and 2 in june. it's wonderful, fun and EXPENSIVE! plane tickets, shower gifts, dresses, wedding gifts, etc. gifts i can handle- lately i've been making everything myself (more on that in an upcoming post) but what's a girl to do when she's worn the same 3 dresses to the last 2 years worth of weddings?? luckily the wedding in march was with a bunch of people who didn't know me until after i got married - so i snagged a dress from my maid of honor and wore what my bridesmaids wore! i've always loved the dress & finally got to wear it myself! 

buuuut the wedding this weekend is an important one- brandon's best friend- and i can't get away with repeating the same dress for the 4th time! brandon is in the wedding and his dad is performing the ceremony so i'm feeling like i need to step it up. i've had my eye on a dress for a few months but funds have been limited so i've just looked at it. 

since i'm down to a week til the wedding i stopped by the store on monday just to check the price. i almost died. the dress was 80% off and marked down to....are you ready? THIRTEEN DOLLARS!! that never happens. never. and if it does they certainly don't have a size 2 left (i know, i know, poor me and my search for a size 2). soooo i snatched the dress, bought it and raced home. i warned brandon on the way home that i had spent money so that he wouldn't make that face when i walked in the door with a shopping bag. he still made the face...until i tried the dress on.  it's a hit all around!

but now i have a dilemma. i'm feeling like the dress might be a little too white to wear to a wedding (it's definitely ivory- but still). i have 3 days to decide what to do and a little voice inside of me says "dye it! dye it!". that can't be smart, but sounds so exciting.i'm not even really sure how that would work. i've dyed things before, but never something like this and beyond rit dye and my washing machine i have no clue what to do. the crazy girl inside me says try it and then if its a miserable failure go buy another $13 dress. should i do it? if so what color? (i'm leaning green of course)

opinions would be GREATLY appreciated!

still covered in glue

last night i suddenly realized that easter is in two weeks and my house is not one bit decorated! so i dug out last year's crazy ridiculous glitter eggs (which fueled my hatred for martha) and displayed them happily in their bird cage. i continued to shake my fist at martha as glitter fell everywhere and then decided they weren't quite enough decor.

my mother in law recently suggested i try decorating some eggs and add them to my shop. i'm obviously much too late for this easter but hopefully by next easter i'll have perfected a technique or two and be able to list some eggs!

i had eggs left from last year as well as some plastic eggs & a bag of tiny paper mache eggs that i bought this year so i pulled out the mod podge, some paper, fabric and assorted other madness  i have a few dictionary pages (ok...hundreds...maybe thousands?) left from the crazy book project as well as the innards of some freshly chopped up books that will soon become purses and i thought some book page eggs would be fun! 

a few hours, lots of mod podge and many ripped up pieces of paper later we have a fun little bowl of eggs:

 i have determined a few things about this project and i will share them with you. 

first: the little plastic eggs that split open should only be used with a thick covering. see the green polka dot egg? that one was mod podged fabric (so fun) but you can see the line. so for fabric and thin paper only use paper mache eggs. 

second: if using a rectangle of some sort (paper, fabric, book) to cove the egg the measurements will frustrate you. going around the egg is easy but accounting for the tapered top and bottom was more difficult. i cut slits so that i could fold the pieces in - instead of mashing them down and promising bubbles. this worked well except then there was too much paper/fabric at the tip of the egg. i kept going back and forth between not covering the tip and creating a point with too much material. perhaps the solution is to cut every other strip a bit shorter. we shall see.

last: the wrapped eggs were the most fun to make because i didn't have to think them as much, but they're time consuming. i did a tiny one with hemp i use for jewelry, a large one with some pretty substantial jute and the two green ones are strips of fabric. one is folder to give it a nice edge, the other is just frayed madness. 

one more note: all paper eggs were done with matte mod podge, as were the fabric eggs. for the hemp and jute i used good ol' aleene's tacky glue. 

sorry for the lack of pictures- one is the best i could do while covered in glue at midnight! i'll be trying more of these soon so stay tuned!

oh martha

martha stewart and i have a love hate relationship. okay. really we have no relationship at all, BUT half the time i love her and half the time i just can't stand her. i am a subscriber and loyal reader of martha stewart living but i can't stand watching her show. i find her ideas brilliant, but her demeanor offputting (to say the least). i think she is a creative genius, but incredibly rude to guests on her show. all that to say she is coming out with a new book on March 30th and i want it!!

 

how fabulous will that be? 400 pages of fabric and sewing inspiration! 150+ projects! listen to me...i'm a regular martha advertiser!

i'm still coveting the book that came out last year  

 

and now i want them both!

my craft library would be since i've just gotten back into sewing (or attempted to- update on that soon) i have been gathering up every sewing resource i could find. my newest book is amy butler's in stitches 

and as soon as the sewing machine is back in working order i'll be making some fabulous wide leg lounge pants. for now though i'll have to be content with longing for the new martha books and hoping my sewing machine gets fixed very soon!

sneak peek

i doodle on everything. and when i do the pattern often turns out like this:

recently i've been thinking of ways to incorporate that pattern into some of what i make and i realized i already had.

i used it on the prize winning pottery pumpkin (say that 3 times fast):

 

and i used it again on the coasters i painted after Christmas: 

so this last week i doodled a bit on some linen and i've been embroidering away ever since. 

not sure what it will be or if it will end up in the shop but i think it's almost finished and i LOVE it.

love

a purse? 

a tote?

pillows? 

not sure yet, but i looooove this fabric