Spotted at Market!

Did you happen to attend International Spring Quilt Market in Portland, Oregon this last weekend?

I wasn’t able to make it but my latest collection for Timeless Treasures was busy showing itself off to all the people who were in attendance.

I love seeing all the photos posted online during the event and squealed with delight when I spotted this picture.

Um, how cute is this dress? Modeled by Hayden at the Timeless Treasures booth, it’s such a fun way to use my cursive handwriting design. 

Love it! Want it! Need it! 

Yay, Hayden! Yay, Spring Market!

SK Website Redesign is DONE!

Well, that pretty much took F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get from the back burner to the front and to actually complete…

What am I talking about, you ask?

Without further ado, please say hello to the sorely-overdue redesign of my main website!

Ta-daa!!

Out with the old (flash) and in with the new (smart device-friendly)!

If you’ve ever taken on the task of creating a website or redesigning one, it can be a hideous beast that just refuses to do anything nicey-nicey. It can go on and on and on and on, like the ramblings of a small deliriously tired child who just won’t quite go to sleep after an exhaustingly long day.

Full disclosure: my husband is the real star here as he’s the Patient Programming Wizard behind the site. I’m the Micromanaging & Overly-Dramatic Art Director who wants her inner vision to just upchuck itself out of her cranium and transform instantaneously into functioning HTML jibba jabba.

Anyway, it’s done. Phew! Just in time for the weekend.

Go check it out here. I hope you like it!

Happy Monday!

Got the Monday blues?

How ‘bout now?

Awwwww, yeeee-ahhhhh!

*I looked for the creator’s name all over the internetz to give proper credit but found nothing. :( If you know who made it, let me know! In the meantime, well done, anonymous pattern dancer maker, well done. 

DIY Subway Wall Art

A year or so ago, after Spoonflower unveiled a custom decal printing option, I made up an entire alphabet based on the same look the NYC MTA subway system has. Why? Uh, hello, because my children love trains and love the subway, of course.

Knowing we would eventually move, I stuck them up temporarily in The Bub’s room with donuts of scotch tape.

Now that we’ve moved and the kiddos are sharing a room, I brought the decals back out as I had a new master plan for these unsuspecting circles.

A few months ago, I had spotted these fun DIY ways to decorate rooms with washi tape. Really cute stuff. But I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to spend the extra money on trendy washi tape if I could find brightly colored masking tape that would give the same effect I was after. There. I said it.

I searched around online and did find one multicolored pack that would give me the most colors for my buck and the lower price point made it easy to commit to. After all, it’s paper tape that’s just gonna be crumpled up and thrown out eventually, so why waste good quality college-fund pennies on something so transient?

I bought two packs and I’m glad I did. 

I mean, they *look* pretty substantial, right?

Bwhahahaha, S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E!!!!! They’re totally Liliputian-sized rolls of masking tape!

Almost criminally small, but I chose to ignore that and plow ahead with My Big Idea, making double-widths of every color.

So, I taped and taped…

And taped and taped some more…

It was incredibly fun to do, I might add. Removable defacement of property. Freestyle drawing with tape. Going hog wild. I highly recommend it!

Anywho…

Are you still with me? I hope so, because it’s payoff reveal time!

Behold, good people!

Ta-daa! Presenting my loose rendition of the MTA subway map.

Sure, I could have reproduced the lines more accurately to their real-life counterparts, but the fun of this was morphing that idea to fit these peculiar wall angles and have it all come together in a neat way that the kids would enjoy.

It was really fun to do (I know, I said that already. I mean it that much) and I, personally, would have called it complete at this point.

But then the kids entered the room…

…and excitedly offered their help.

First, The Bub showed off his masterful sticking skills…

…then Mister Baby Pants lent his keen artistic eye to the project.

They added more and more and more of what I would have deemed *leftover* decals.

But hey, it’s their room and what’s more fun than putting sanctioned stickers all over the place? I’ll just ignore them being wonky and off-kilter and focus on the spirit of collaboration.

Must. Resist. Compulsive. Desire. To. Straighten. Everything.

They added every last decal until the box I had them in was completely empty.

Part of The Bub’s design vision included thoughtfully pairing up “the babies with their mamas,” as it were.

The time flew by and after all that peeling and sticking and sticking and peeling, our new DIY room decoration was complete!

Subway wall art, ah-yesssss! Job well done and we love it!

Customer Appreciation: Project Round-Up

Sometimes I like to float about the internetz checking out what people are making with my fabric. Here are three fun things I spotted late last night when I really should have been brushing my teeth and heading to bed.

I have my priorities.

Check it!

I mean really, excuse me, but how outrageously CUTE is this!?!?

What a wonderful way to use my Writing fabric. I love how fan-folding this particular fabric makes the bow tie look paper-like. Score one for All Things Clever!

Head over to Toma’s Tutus & Things to see more cool creations like this cursive cuteness.

Hello, most awesome geekiest wallet! This will go smashingly with my pocket protector! You heard me right. 

Linda, from Linda’s Creative World, calculated everything just right and took my Math fabric to new level of spectacular.  Looks like it’s got just about all the compartments you need to hold all your most valuable personal effects.

Too bad I’m just too darn lazy to google-translate Linda’s post and glean exactly how it all transpired. I know. Sad. However, taking a page out of Mister Baby Pants’ book, who needs words when you can be just as pleased by all the pretty pictures!

And for our last bit of today’s cuteness, here’s a darling dress donned by its darling little owner, Noa.

I think somebody’s H-A-P-P-Y!!! <——makes me happy seeing it too!

Featured over at Pink Chalk Studio, there are even more great photos of this stellar peasant dress, using my Wildlife fabric.

Shoot, now I want one! Grandma Becky? Are you reading this? Grandma? *is this thing on?*

Thanks to Toma, Linda and Pink Chalk Studio for showing off some really fun projects! I love seeing what you guys come up with! Woot!

Happy weekend everyone. Get to makin’ something!

Ahoy! A New Pattern!

In the land of SK Plate-Spinning, I got *one* (only one?!?! grrrr) new thing done.

Behold, good people…

A sailing-inspired fabric design! It’s called ‘Mariner’s Melody’ and you can see it in all its salt-watery glory here.

I entered it in this week’s Spoonflower design challenge and you can go place your votes here!

Happy Thursday!

—————-

04.02.13 Edit: Hey mateys! I got 3rd place in the challenge. YAY!
http://www.spoonflower.com/contests/188

Didn’t Everyone Have a PJ Bear?

Am I the only one who randomly assumes everyone else grew up with the same things I did? Maybe so.

It’s a bit mad on my part as my childhood was such a tapestry of different things, but hey, you never know and I’ve often been surprised.

Here’s something I was specifically wondering about…

While going through a box of childhood toys recently, I came across these two seemingly straight-forward bears.

The red one, as I recall, was my brother’s, and the caramel one was mine. I think because it had my favorite green-colored eyes and bow, I claimed ownership of it the moment they were presented to us.   

If memory serves me, we received them from either an English or Australian family friend. I can’t recall whom exactly, but being a huge teddybear lover, I loved ‘em right away.

Innocuous enough, but these bears do something special…

Their bodies are stuffed except for their tummies and when you flip them over, they have zipper-openings in which you are meant to fold up and put your pajamas into. 

As I remember this was the perfect incentive to get me to make my bed, culminating with this final step of stuffing my pjs inside the bear and placing him on my newly-made bed…and I loved that part.

A very effective tidying tool, indeed. Well played, SK Parents, well played.

So when I rediscovered them the other day, I immediately bequeathed them to my kids and showed The Bub how they work. Sure, maybe I am hoping for a similar newfound passion for proper bed-making. ;)

Unstuffed tummy > Stuffed with PJs tummy = Tadaa!

He was quite impressed, which made Mama happy.

Growing up, I always thought every other kid had a pajama teddybear on their bed too, but on closer inspection all these years later, I see that these bears were actually handmade especially for us, so maybe they were truly one-of-a-kinds. They’re beautifully made, I might add. Also, thanks to my mom’s masterful archiving skills, they look brand new all these decades later. Shoot, they look better than I do.

So while I still wonder if anyone else on the planet had something similar, it also occurred to me that this old idea could easily become new again with a resurgence of DIY pajama teddybears. Or if you truly can’t resist the ever-present owl craze, pajama owls.

How cute would those be? I’m onto something, methinks.

Come on. Just look at him. Kinda makes you want to make one for yourself, no?

Hmmm, maybe I also need to make myself a more sophisticated version so I can fall in love with my daily bed-making ritual again.

Bwhahahaha. Hang on. Who am I kidding.

Spring Drawing

I have a stack of on-going drawings that I need to complete, but more times than not, the allure of starting a fresh new illustration often takes over. 

Here’s a case in point. But I’m setting my foot down, and mark my words, I will finish what I’ve already started. Seems like a good task to tackle with the onset of spring, right? A creative spring cleaning, if you will and I’m determined to catch up. Um, wish me luck, okay? 

Happy springtime and spring cleaning!

Happy Happy!

Whatever you’re celebrating this week….

Easter, Passover, Spring Break, scrambled eggs or the amazing spectacle of feather-plumed chickens…have a happy time! And happy weekend!

There’s DIY and Then There’s DIY

No, this post really has nothing to do with anything other than sharing a fascinatingly handcrafted item I spotted when I was out and about yesterday.

I happened to glance over from my car and saw this sight…

Simply hilarious. 

Three Nerf Noodles, a gob of plastic zip ties and plastic twine all lashed intricately together and topped off with some sort of fluorescent strips. 

I mean, that’s a whole lot of effort for something that has negligible effectiveness, don’tcha think?

There’s DIY and then there’s DIY. I love ingenuity but I’m pretty sure I would have stopped shy of actually executing this and then attempting to use it.

A for effort, though!

It did get me thinking…a nicely padded hand-quilted version of a bumper guard, on the other hand…now that might be something worth exploring.

Hahaha.