Dolls!

The other day I stumbled across Aimee Ray's littledear Etsy site and was inspired by photos of her adorable hand made clothes for Blythe dolls. I didn't even know what Blythe dolls were, but I really liked the images and immediately thought of the doll clothes my grandmother had made for me when I was little. While I don't intend to make and sell doll clothes, I really love emphasizing bright colors in photography. So this morning, while visiting my folks, my mother and I dug into the hope chest and found the 1970's Barbie.

Above are shots taken before and after de-tangling her sticky hair. I have to admit, I had a lot of fun reliving my childhood today.

Here are a few more Barbie images. She's always been so versitile, that Barbie.
More exciting - we also found the Miss Revlon dolls that my mom played with in the 1950's. Sadly, I had pretty much destroyed them by writing on them and cutting up their clothes as a child. But even with all of the wear and tear, I really liked the way they photographed today. Now I'm thinking I might try to restore them (not for resale, just for photographs) and replace some of the clothes and accessories.

iPod case

I love love love the new iPod Touch that Dick gave me for Christmas but I didn't have a case for it yet. I decided to make one.

Emdeko Up Close

Here are some examples of the shots that Dick took of the sewing machine. Cool huh?

Crafty? Really?

This Christmas I came to the realization that perhaps I'm a crafty person. While this may not be much of a surprise to people who know me, I've never thought of myself as crafty before. Perhaps this is because the word "crafty" has held a bit of a stigma for me. In my mind it conjures up thoughts of old ladies with hot glue, fake flowers, and baskets. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with these things, but I've never been particularly interested in them myself.

Through photography, Photoshop, home-made greeting cards made from shredded origami, crocheting, painting & drawing, I'd always hoped to be perceived as being "artsy" rather than "crafty". But as Dick has so eloquently expressed "I think you're over-thinking it." Hmmm... perhaps he's right. There are enough people out there debating the differences between arts and crafts. I'll let them duke it out. In the meantime, here's why I'm finally embracing the whole craft concept.

Knitting
On the way home from Amsterdam, one of the airline attendants noticed my crocheting and talked about the fact that she had been knitting. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to knit. So the very next weekend, my mom and I added a knitting-lesson to our regular visit over coffee. I love it! Christmas rolled around and Santa brought all sorts of knitting-related goodies, as well as other crafty items.

work-in-progress using needles and yarn from Mom

Embroidery & Cross-Stitch
Also in Amsterdam, when we went to the de Afstap yarn shop, Christina and I both picked up small cross-stitching projects. I haven't started mine, but I will soon. Add to that a few embroidery patterns found under the Christmas tree this year, and I can now say needlework is on my growing list of crafty hobbies.

Craft Magazine
Dick got me a subscription for Christmas. There's really not much more to say about that one, except that I love the ideas in the magazine and can hardly wait to get started.













Sewing
After just a little page flipping of Craft Magazine, it became clear to me that in order to do many of these projects, I'd probably need a sewing machine. No problem - I have two. Both very old... when I looked the models up online I think the word used was "relics". One needs a belt replaced. But the other actually works - and it's gorgeous. Dick took a bunch of photos of it the other day. I plan to post those shortly.

Dick photographs the "relic"

Okay fine. So I'm crafty. Big deal.

Now that I've added these new activities to my list of crafty hobbies, and have faced up to the fact that I enjoy crafting, I'm ready to get started. But first I have to get a little organized. We've got this armoire. Once upon a time, before Dick and I lived together, this cabinet held a television. However, the television was far too small for Dick's taste and a larger one wouldn't fit, so I would need to come up with another use for the armoire. This is when it became the "boozoire" (in case you didn't get that - we made a bar out of it). The boozoire survived a few good parties, and it looked pretty darn cool, but really wasn't all that practical. Having it there unnecessarily increased the odds of spilling in the living room when the kitchen was so close by.

Dick took this on his film camera 12/31/04

I started taking art classes a few years ago, and this is when the "boozoire" turned into the "artoire". Art supplies and finished projects were stuffed in here, as well as anything that I thought might contribute to a cool art project in the future, like colorful candy wrappers... okay okay, basically it was filled with art supplies... and trash. Last weekend I decided that if I really want to start these craft projects, I would need to clean out the "artoire". And I did! And I love it!

the "artiore" before and after

Finally! Craft projects in mind, art cabinet organized, and I'm ready for the next step: stocking up on more supplies. So I took a trip to Michales, walked past the hot glue, fake flowers and baskets, and picked up supplies that I would need to create all the cool, crafty things that have made me decide that it's okay to be "crafty" after all.

I'm thinking 2009 is going to be a very creative year.

Christmas Decorations

Before taking it all down, I took a few shots of our holiday decor this year, just because it was so bright and cheery.




Paper chains (yes, Dick helped) and paper snowflakes were inspired by the movie "Elf". These evening shots were taken shortly before people arrived for a holiday party.

happy holiday gift tags

Fun with Photoshop

Nicholas is an aspiring actor who had these promotional photos taken at a studio near where he lives in Florida. His dad Rich (a close friend of the family) asked if we could spice them up a bit. Even though I didn't take the original shots I thought it'd be fun to post a few of the before and afters.



Oh, and just in case you were concerned, we have a release from the studio saying we can modify and post the photos.

She's crafty...

Yesterday my friend Christina and I were feeling inspired by a little hut and decided to create our own versions of cut-paper art. Here's mine.




While I don't think it's terrible for a first try, it's so similar to the original. I'm thinking next time I might try something a little different - perhaps a different subject matter, or even something abstract, using the same technique.