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Friday, February 26, 2010

Displaying Little People's Art....

Having a very active two and a half year old girl means constantly coming up with activities to keep her little hands busy. The one easy go-to craft we tend to love doing together is painting with watercolors and finger paints. As of right now, we display her works of art clothes-pinned on a line that spans the wall of the playroom/office. It looked really great at first, but now it is overloaded with art that I can't bring myself to put away just yet.
In looking for other ways to display her art, I came across this post on Odeedoh about a really clever way to display your childs art. I love the idea of taking many pieces of art and making one large piece out of it, while still showing the individual works themselves. In this picture they used teeny copies of artwork and hand matted them in one large board, but I was thinking of scanning each piece of art (before storing them in an archival box) and creating a large poster in a program like Photoshop, that I would then have printed at a place like Kinko's and frame like the one below.
Another idea I had, but one that would be a bit more expensive, would be to buy 9 frames with mats that correlate to the size paper she usually paints on, and have a rotating wall of art. I love this idea and think it would be really stunning, but the initial investment is a bit high and I haven't found the right wall in my home for a large collection like this. Maybe when I redecorate my hubbie and I's bedroom. hmmm....

Friday, February 12, 2010

Wrapping Paper Fun...

I tried to silkscreen wrapping paper for the holidays, and although I wasn't too happy with the results, I have been having fun using the first-attempts to wrap presents for all the toddler birthday parties we have been attending recently. Having a 2 year old means attending a birthday party at least once a month it seems!
Here are a couple of presents wrapped with the trial runs of my "chipboard animals" repeated on white paper. I love wrapping with recycled items such as newspaper,  brown bags, and magazines, and hope to figure out a way to use recycled items with my prints to make wrapping paper for the shop.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Vignettes (In my home)

I have decided to do a weekly post about a snapshot of a space in my home, and the art or pieces that fill that space. I'm calling them "Vignettes". 

This week I am focusing on one of my most favorite art pieces, that I feel so lucky to have in my collection.  The piece is called "Passionfruit"  and it's by Sheila Metcalf Tobin. The work is mixed media collage on paper, that was custom framed by the artist. It came into my life when I was lucky enough to curate a show of Sheila's work  for the Erica Tanov store in Berkeley.  It hangs above the mantle of the white brick fireplace in my living room, with an ever changing array of items from my collection of random findings surrounding it. I have loosely centered the color scheme of my living room off of this painting, and was so in love with the orange in it that I used it as an accent color that is revisited throughout my decor. 
Here are a few of Sheila's newer pieces, images are from her website sheilametcalftobin.com
Her work is ethereal and has such great visual depth. Her use of layering with different opacity's of paper and/or color to create her compositions enlivens each work with a sense of three-dimensionality. 
The "Sketches of Spring" series of cards I'm working on is very inspired by Sheila's work, especially the one below which hangs in Bar Tartine in San Francisco (one of my favorite mission district spots for gourmet faire and excellent wine). 


Friday, February 5, 2010

Because I'm obsessed!



It's been featured by so many magazines and on many great design blogs, but I couldn't help featuring it here. I wish my decorating budget allowed for me to buy a custom made Mega-Doily for my sweet-toddler-girl ClaraBelle's room, which is a bit Boho, a bit Shabby-Chic, and a bit Modern Pop (I'm in the process of doing some wall paper art and finishing touches in it, which I plan to share with you here when all is said and done). Alas, it does not, but I have heard via one of my favorite blogs "Oh Joy"  that this rug (and DIY instructions) will be part of a new book, Crafting a Meaningful Home by Meg Mateo Ilasco, coming out this fall and published by STC Craft. 
I guess I better get moving on all my other in-the-works-but-moving-very-slowly house projects so I can start making my own Mega-Doily rug when the book comes out! Yay!!!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

SpringBoard...

  I am working on a line of nature inspired cards so I'm trying to channel spring, and all it's loveliness (which in Savannah, is particularly lovely with perfect weather and colorful blossoms abounding).  A rather hard task given the gloomy weather we've had for the last few weeks.  I thought I would put together a mood board, a spring-board if you will, to gather the images and items that have been driving my creative process through these dark and cold winter days.
1&2)Megan Park's spring/summer 2010 collection for women and girls.
3)The lovely Oaks that line the streets and fill the parks in my neighborhood in Savannah, Ga.  
4,5&6)The printed pieces by textile designer Virginia Johnson that I love to wear and fill my house with!
7&8) The imagery and homewares from Anthropologie's February catalogue. 
9&10) Photos by the great Deborah Mclinton for the Erica Tanov spring/summer 2006 catalogue, one of my favorite seasons for Erica's designs, and my favorite ET catalogue of all times - that I still look to for inspiration! 
11) The Chie Mihara flat's I'm coveting for spring! oh they make me weak in the knees, and there never was a more comfortable shoe maker ever - in my past life (pre-baby when my career involved dressing well every day) I could wear there 3 inch heels all day long without any soreness (and my job was not one in which I got to sit often).

Below are a  few of the sketches I've done with the help of my inspiration board. The scanned images of the drawings are always a bit lackluster to me, but the images come alive when I silkscreen the pigments on the paper - a reason I love my process, something about the way the pigment sits atop the paper and transforms a design into this brightly saturated image with a life of it's own. I will post images of the complete line when they are in there final form.
1)Savannah Oaks     2)Spring Flowers            3) Marsh Grasses