I saw this on CNN today

David Wiesener won the Caldecott for the third time for Flotsom. The Caldecott, for those unaware, is like the Oscar for children's book illustration.

He posted his creative process for Tuesday (one of my favorite books EVER). I love when artist's do this.

I greatly admire his ability to tell stories without words.

Emergency Finger Puppet Link.

Can't breath...too..cute..

Moxie's Needle Felted Monster Finger Puppets

Tutorial

I am so totally going to try this.

Thanks K!

Embroidery love

We recently upgraded our normal cable box to the fancy DVR kind, and I do not know how I have managed to survive this long without it. I can record a bunch of HGTV and DIY shows that I normally miss. All I have to do is play the first part of the episode to see if it's worth watching, and if it isn't, I nuke it.

One of the shows I have been recording and (sometimes) watching is Uncommon Threads. The guest on yesterday's show was Melinda Barta, the talented artist who wrote one of my favorite embroidery books, Hip to Stitch.

One of my favorite things about the show is that they invite stiching groups (aka real people) on the show to share their knowledge and tips. I always learn something new.

I have recently become distracted and stary-eyed by Tambour embroidery/beading. It's not as easy as it looks. I bought the special hook and a new fancy clamp-on swiveling hoop which I am compeltely in love with and want to marry. I have been practicing on a scrap of linen I had to scrounge to find in a hope that if I am diligent and practice I will be able to whip-up something like this lovely lady:

Hair Angst

Early this past summer I switched hairstylists. I felt like the old one was just rushing through and didn't pay as much attention to what she was doing as she did the first time I saw her. Buh-bye. I found a new stylist and I got fancy highlights and a haircut and all was well. I went back every 6 weeks or so like a good girl to get "maintained". I have inherited the early grey gene from my father and I read in a magazine that highlights (I have dark brown hair) hide greys the best.

There are so many things that stylists don't tell you. Did you know that if you have well water (which I do) your highlights will get a reddish tinge to them as opposed to city water which will tint them green (because of the chlorine). They make these fancy color depositing shampoos now that can counteract the effects of your water and she did not tell me this the first time so my hair started to turn a lovely orangey brassy color. Nice. Top this off with another round of lighter highlights which kept their blondiness thanks in part to my brand new purple shampoo and I bet you can imagine the mess I was sporting.

I have not paid as much attention to grooming myself as I did say when I was fourteen, mostly because I work from home and I am not one of those women who is going to put on mascara just to get milk. So even though I read a bevy of beauty mags, they mainly push products and are somewhat light on technique and practical knowledge. For example, I have never used a straightening iron. I told this to my new stylist and she was shocked- SHOCKED! She was so shocked (and a little appalled) that I felt a little embarrassed and decidedly unhip.

So here we are, weeks later. I am sporting a funky combo of grown-out orange and blonde streaks with dark brown roots and am in dire need of a trim. Yesterday I experimented with my straightening iron and later that day Jeffery told me I had homeless-man hair. "You know those dirty homeless men you see that are sorta thinning on top but have long hair on the sides that's really wispy and floaty and sorta bounces when they mutter on past?"

Yes, thank you. I have a vivid image. I have decided the straightening iron sucks and I am going to stick with my air dried waves, augmented with a curling iron which I somewhat know how to use and liked better anyway. But the color...oy.

I went in this morning WITH A PICTURE and said that I wanted to go back to the brown. No orange, no highlights, no grey. Brown. She brought out this gigantic hair book and she matched my natural color and we decided on a lovely chocolate brown. "Rich" is how she described it. "Burgundy" is the word I would use. I am disappointed, and I have come to the conclusion that the lighting in the salon really sucks. I walked out of the dim-lit salon happy actually, and when I got into my car and went to admire myself in the natural light of the rear view mirror it was a bit of a shock. I am going to go back and see what she can do to de-purple me, but in the mean time it's going to be a lot of shampooing with Prell and hot oil treatments (both of which are supposed to strip color, fyi). The most disturbing thing is the color difference between my eyebrows and my hair. In dim light they look okay, but as soon as the light hits my head I seem to fluoresce a little and my eyebrows look almost green. So not cool.

I remember reading a couple of years ago Anna from absolutely-vile (now Door Sixteen) mentioned that after numerous experiments, the only dark brown hair color she found that would not fade into a brassy mess (that's me paraphrasing) is Revlon High Dimension #40 - Dark Brown. I have used this hair color several times and she was right. I have decided that I will definitely go to a salon for highlights, but if I am in an all brown mood, I am just going to do that myself and save the cash. At least the orange is gone. And the hair cut was good.

Office mess

I got the very expensive plaster pieces for my Analysis of Form class yesterday. They are quite large and I am not sure where they are going to live. The guy is very creepy. He has a ponytail. Why? I quite like the lady, however, she has a very serene look about her and I can imagine keeping her after the class is over. I am trying to clean and reorganize my office in preparation to paint the walls and shelves and I am finding it to be a bit overwhelming.



I have been reorganizing my books and trying to really get rid of crap I don't need or use in an effort to figure out what kind of storage I really need. I have this fantastic set of shelves along one of the walls, as you can see in the picture and I want to create a desk type set-up that will run along the wall under the shelves. I want to create two, or three, dedicated areas for my computer, someplace to paint, and someplace to sew. In a perfect world, I would like to be able to keep my sewing machine and painting stuff out all of time without having to drag it all out every time I want to use something and put them all away again. I know that's being somewhat lazy, but I really believe it's important to have the things you use frequently to be easily accessible, the theory then being you will use them even more. That dark brown desk-ish thing you see under the shelving is pretty much useless and it is BOLTED to the wall or the floor, or something. I am going to have to get in there with a crowbar and rip it out!

I want to use the color scheme from this Pottery Barn room: red and ivory (and black). I think painting the shelves ivory will brighten them up so much, and I have always wanted to have a red room. I already have the curtains, which I bought last year for the living room, which are ivory and black. (They are actually the curtain version of this Waverly bedding at Target)

It looks as though I am going to have a bunch of space left on my shelves and I want to have some sort of box solution to hide all of my crap. The problem is that the shelf cubbies are such odd sizes I can't find boxes that fit. I was thrilled when I saw fabric boxes in Amy Butler's In Stitches ( a MUST HAVE book in my opinion) . So! Now the plan is to make custom boxes to hide my junk. I also have a closet that is crammed with yarn and fabric that is going to have to be dealt with, but the great thing about closets is that they have doors, and those doors can be shut. Out of sight, out of mind.

On a completely unrelated topic, I am SERIOUSLY starting to HATE blogger and am considering going back to doing it all by hand.

Happy New Year!

This year is already starting off pretty good.

I have been asked to illustrate Big Girl Knits 2! Yay! The first one turned out so lovely. I am thrilled the ladies invited me back to participate.

I am starting my two classes at the Academy of Art University this month. I am going to finish my degree and get a B.F.A in Illustration. It will probably take me five years and a million dollars at the pace I am moving, but that's okay.

Fran Bigelow from Fran's Chocolates is coming to the Bayview School of Cooking in a few weeks and I get to be one of the assistants!! Yee-haw! I had heard so much about her, but had never tried her chocolates until Megan very kindly introduced me to some of her famous salted caramels. They were SO good. Needless to say I am very excited/nervous about it.

I love making resolutions. I am not so good at keeping them, but I absolutely love making them.

1. Eat healthier - no more Tim's Chips! They are crack!
2. Exercise more - we are going elliptical shopping this weekend, and there is a Bikram yoga studio a few blocks from here I might check out
3. Work on the house - first task is to paint the hallway/entry area
4. Make more money - ugh
5. Spend less money - ugh
6. Send out illustration promos - this is starting to become a resolution list veteran, lame Erica!
7. Nurture friendships - there are a bunch of ladies up in Seattle I need to visit this year which leads to:
8. Get over fear of driving in Seattle
8. Plant a garden - the seed catalog has been ordered
9. Sew more - the Joanns on this side of town closed last month and they were liquidating EVERYTHING at super low prices and I got about 30+ sewing patterns over the course of two days for about a buck a piece. Major score!
10. Craft more - Lots of projects are in the queue
11. Blog more - not everyday, but I think more than just once a week

I am sure there are more, but I don't want to get too ambitious!