Hoaning my editing skills!

Practice makes perfect, so whenever I seen an opportunity I try to take it! My old friend Jason posted this photo of his to Facebook:

Such a beautiful vintage photo!!! Add some gradient, adjust the color balance, dodge and burn details, and there you have it!

I've been busy in Illustrator creating my logo as well. There just aren't enough hours in the day to make and design all the things that I want!!

I love editing. . .

For anyone asking what I do in my free time, THIS is it. I'm that girl that takes 50 pictures of the same thing. Then I pick the best shot, pose, composition, etc. Once I have that, I get into my editing software and just get lost!! The possibilities are endless, and I love it :)

Personalized Makeup Pouch

Finally getting back into the groove! My sewing machine is no longer collecting dust. Made this makeup pouch to hold some lipsticks for a beautiful friend in Minnesota. Friend, if you are reading this, its in the mail!! SURPRISE!!! 

I did some free hand embroidery on the Brother. I went over it several times with the accent thread. Who doesn't like Neon Orange!?!

Embroidered my signature inside, its cute and wee :)

Can you believe my photo box is still alive after all this time? Had to dust that off as well, but it still makes a great backdrop. All in all this is an adorable pattern from A Lemon Squeezy Home via UCreate. I will be using this one again!

Gift for Teacher!

Today is Brody's last day of Kindergarten!!! This was his teacher's first year, fresh out of college, and she was ah-mazing. I volunteered every week through this last half of the year and was able to experience her methods in class. She kept the children engaged and made everything fun, she has a long successful career ahead of her! So, I made a little something special for her, a Mini iPad Case from a pattern I purchased on Etsy. The Teacher's name is embroidered on the front and I gave Brody fabric crayons to sign his name on the inside flap. Hope she likes it!!

Feels good to be creative again! I think my sewing machine missed me :)

Feather Bag, Purse Contest 2011

Today is the last day to enter the A Lemon Squeezy Home Purse Contest! I put a lot of time and effort into my design and was able to finish the bag last night. I used this pattern by Lula Louise as a template and made several alterations. The La Jolla Sling from Lucky Brand, available here was also inspirational for me.

I purchased Dyer’s Fabric and used a potato stamp to print the diamond design for the body of the bag. Perusing the style magazines and blogs this last month, I noticed that Native print is in style this fall (see Billabong Fall 2011 and Hurley 2010). So I went with a native theme, after all - I am Native. I rounded the arm hole out more on the pattern and added the following: fusible fleece with extra strong interfacing on the bottom, cell phone pocket, pen pocket, swivel key ring, and a magnetic closure. The interior is a simple red with white polka-dot fabric. I used my Brother SE-350 to embroider my name inside, as I do on all my projects. I made the pockets freehand you could say, but they are similar to the pockets Amy Butler used in her Modern Diaper Bag (from her book Little Stitches for Little Ones) which was an earlier project I completed that you can see here.

The embellishments on the exterior were probably inspired by the 50+ blogs I follow. I have seen a lot of tutorials on how to make a tassel or braiding fabric necklaces and bracelets. I took some of my scrap materials from the bag and just started tying them on, gluing in feathers here and there. Overall, the bag turned out a little bigger than I really needed, but it’s nice to be able to carry my lunch! As you all know, Nola’s diaper bag can carry the kitchen sink. So this is a good medium size bag for shorter trips.

I will lovingly refer to my new bag as the Feather Bag. Try as I might to give it an interesting Salish name, there’s no way anyone will ever be able to pronounce those words. Check out this guide to Salish Pronunciation, our language is very guttural.

New Blog Header in Honor of Halloween!

Halloween is upon us! The ghostly ghoulish night is my absolute favorite holiday, hands down! Fittingly, I updated my header for the season. I wonder, do you guys know how to make a header? Do you have a publishing software to play with?

I took Graphic Arts 101 my 2nd year of college. Its unbelievable how much really cool stuff you can make and edit in something like Photoshop CS3. I've often thought of offering Photo Retouching for people as a part-time business. It's time consuming, but I enjoy that type of work.

So, if I become a Homemaker in the near future, I will be a part-time Graphics Artist/Seamstress/Tailor/Crafter.

By the way - Ghost Adventures is one of my favorite shows. We sit down as a family and watch it religiously!

Wedding Flower Hairpiece

I finished this flower hairpiece for my bestie Nichelle tonight. This flower will be worn in her wedding, so I put LOTS of love into it with hand stitching. I have never singed fabric for manipulation effects before, so it took lots of practice and one seriously burnt thumb to get it right. I got the idea from a tutorial here http://mrspriss.com/tag/fabric-flowers/.

Nichelle, i hope you love it sister!!!