Warm me up!

It's that time of year again ... pull out those mittens! If you are like me, your fingers become the coldest part of your body as soon as the seasons change. I try to always keep spare gloves on me for "in case of emergency" situations aka cold weather. Check out these knitted hand warmers from knithappens on etsy.

Lovely Design

I love the products coming out of Lovely Design, probably because I am so fascinated with things that are handmade.
This address file is great . . . I feel like I am always throwing things into a book or putting up a sticky note, but to find an attractive desk companion to house such important info makes perfect sense! Too bad it's sold out (maybe I can create something of my own..hmm..)

Urban Lily

Scrapbooking is not a hobby I have ever “taken up” but sometimes I can’t keep myself from “ohhh-ing and ahhh-ing” over the scrapbooking paper that I find. Urban Lily is a company based out of Australia that makes bright and funky scrapbooking paper that I couldn’t help but look through!

OH how I love design.

The internet is my playground when it comes to finding fresh designers and “This is Swigg” just happens to be one of them. I love what’s happening in this studio: the colors, creativity, and limitless solutions. It is very inspirational to see the range of services and possibilities.

C O L O R !

I just had to share this with you real quick . . . this is the winner for Apartment Therapy's fall color contest. Makes me jealous, if only we were allowed to paint our walls..

Just in time for the Holidays...

On A Little Hut blog, there is a great solution for homemade gift tags. Made of popsicle sticks and yarn, this project is inexpensive and clever, check it out!

Photography Class

I am sad to say that my "Intro to Black & White Photography, Darkroom" class is over. It was fun while it lasted...
I love my new hobby of developing film and printing photos. It is such a rewarding process! From loading film on reels in the dark to pushing around photo paper in chemicals, it can very therapeutic.
Above are a few of the images I created and printed with my 35mm.

Lighting, Lighting, Everywhere

I'm am always on the look out for new ways to spice up a room and while browsing the home decor section of Urban Outfitters I found these great lamp shades. The patterns were so bright and fresh, and when placed in a room, I just know they can bring a little more something, something. The great thing is that they are very inexpensive!
For those of you with a little more pocket change, Anthropologie not only makes great shades, they make beautiful bases as well. A little on the pricey side, but who doesn't like to dream?

Because we live in an apartment-style, single-story home, natural light can be hard to come by considering our windows fall on the front and back sides of the house. I love natural
light and so when I felt that our dungeon of a kitchen was little on the cave side, I decided to opt for a new solution besides curtains!

Enter, window film. While shopping on Rare Device I found window film, which allows light to pass through as well as privacy! Instead of dishing out $20-$50 plus shipping, waiting, etc, etc... I decided to take matters into my own hands and create my own. From Lowe's I purchased a role of frosted window film and went to town. It took a few tries for things to start running smoothly but eventually everything worked out and I am very pleased with the results!

Overdue

I apologize for the slack posting lately; family visits, creative projects, and new books have sort of taken the forefront over the past few days.

A few updates:
I finally got the rustic polaroid camera into my hands this weekend and good news: it still had three pictures left in it from who knows when! Below are few shots I took, isn't it neat how there is a red tint on the image? The flash cover has a red hue to it, probably from age.I decided to start working on a collage Sunday afternoon (I, for some reason, always get bursts of creative energy on Sunday afternoon). I scattered through a random assortment of STUFF and started piecing together a narrative, definitely a work in progress!
My black & white photography darkroom course is progressing smoothly. I have officially developed a role of film and printed my first photograph..very exciting! Results are below. I can't wait to get back into the dark and do some more printing!

{ Le Pen }

Although a few months ago I admitted that I cannot naturally draw, when I do work in my sketchbook I only reach for one type of pen - Le Pen! I love these thin, little guys and look at all of the colors they come in. They are relatively inexpensive and produce a great fine line when put to the paper. You can generally find them at all art supply stores.

Fabric Swatches

My dear, sweet, older brother is always on the look out for me. He is fortunate enough to have connections in the furniture business and when I say furniture business, I mean fabric swatch samples! This past weekend he dropped off a load of swatches for me, it took 5-6 handfuls to get them all in! Below is just a portion of the "pile."Fabric swatches are so fun because they are perfect samplings of unique fabrics to do small craft projects with. Oh, and did I mention I get them for free (shhh!)? A few years ago, I got rather ambitious and made handbags from this type of upholstery fabric because they are already cut into perfect squares, eliminating that extra time you have to take when measuring your fabric out. I took my shop on the road and visited a couple of craft shows. It was fun and added an extra buck to my pocket, but I concluded after that adventure that the horse-power was too much to keep up with while in school.
The only pain in fabric swatches are the annoying little staples you have to dig out, oh and the fact that some swatches have unfinished edges causes a rather large mess...but if you can get past that, you are golden! Every pattern comes in an aray of colors so it is always exciting to flip through a pattern for the first time to see what color will pop out at you next!I'm trying to be more efficient with this go-round of fabric swatches. Hopefully, I can get organized to make a quilt or something along those lines (just in time for the holidays). Any suggestions on what I could do? I'm sure I will come up with something, but for now my stack of upholstery fabric sits waiting to be morphed into something beautiful!