Snow and Citrus

It's been snowing slush all day long and the weather is generally 'not nice'  But I got a package of fresh-from-the-trees Arizona citrus: lemons, pink grapefruit and blood oranges (my favorite).  It's hard to find decent grapefruit here.  And blood oranges are ridiculously expensive. Although we have plenty of mangoes and jackfruit all summer long!

Although I still do need a grapefruit spoon.  Thanks mom!

Buttons!

So people tend to really love the neck cowls that we make.  In all honesty, they are a very simple knitting pattern; but what makes them exciting and unique are the handmade copper and brass buttons.  I love buttons, and I am especially partial to metal  and shell buttons--perhaps it is their relative rarity in relation to plastic buttons, or maybe the natural materials just feel more substantial.  Regardless, I got really excited when I realized that I could make them myself and set about making buttons with any material I could.  We've added an handmade button section to our shop, and have been stocking it with all these cool buttons--check it out!

I stumbled upon:

This website as I was searching for letterpress information.  Briar Press is not only a great place to learn about the art of letterpress, but a veritable warehouse of files upon files of vector ornaments for personal use.  I spent hours being inspired by their images and graphics (and I downloaded some too!)

They also have listings of letterpress studios organized by state, an open forum where you can ask questions, and tons of information about the machines themselves, as well as the history of the craft.  And they also a great interactive typecase header.   I could literally spend hours here (OK-I have).

I love the ands and fancy!

Collections:

I like to collect things. Below is a collection of cocktail forks.

But the forks are only part of another, larger collection: 

I know--hoarding symptoms--but aren't they beautiful?

Some of the utensils are from my great grandparents house.  My dad has a button hook that he uses for who knows what kind of destructive tool use and I want to steal it.  It's also from my great grandparent's house (the one where the frat-boy farm is located)

Things I love: doilies

So I've been on somewhat of a crochet kick since Valentine's day and I've been making mini doilies--I don't have the patience to make them standard size (as in more than 4 inches).  But this way I get to make a lot more of them!
Most of them are just made up by me, but a couple of them are from Crocheting on the Edge, which is an amazing book.

I also learned how to make a granny square--

I haven't learned how until now, and while I never appreciated them in photos or on websites, I did see the beauty when I had it in my hand. Now I've decided to make an afghan style scarf (ha).  It's going to be something that waits for road trips and plane trips.

chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains!!!

More Rings-but these are mine this time

Three of my favorite fancy rings.  I post many photos of jewelry--but these are my very own that I get to look at every day, so I thought I'd share them.  I have more of my personal jewelry that I'll talk about at another time, but I'll start small.

I bought the one on the left from Digby & Iona at the Young Designer's Market in Soho before Christmas.  My sister has a matching one, except the stone is brass and the band is silver.  I love their jewelry--they have a wonderful take on design and I could only hope to live up to that level of sophistication one day.

The ring in the middle was one of the first pieces of jewelry I ever made.  I had decided that I was going to hammer out the ends, overlap them, and solder them together.  Needless to say, it was an inane idea and didn't work at all--but I did serendipitously discover the ring I have now.  I love the way the brass develops this satin patina over time.  I've reproduced this ring in silver here, but I still love my brass original.

And the ring on the right is utterly phenomenal.  Yes, it really is an eagle holding a salmon in it's talons.  I saw it in Mexico in a small shop in Baja California and decided I had to have it.  It's an eagle. Who just caught a salmon. And it's holding it in its talons.  I don't know who decided to make this concept into a ring, but I love it. It's just ridiculous enough to be fabulous.  Below is another photo so you can see the details.

Happy Valentines day!

I made valentines for my friends from crocheted hearts, fabric crayons, thread and canvas

silk scarves + polaroid pictures = oh my

oh wow-

Lately I've been quite interested in silk scarves and shirts.  Especially scarves with pretty images on them.  I've learned that silk is incredibly warm for its weight and wearing it feels so luxurious.  This combination of polaroids and scarves is definitely the best idea I've seen in a long time.


If you're interested, you can see more images here.  They are made by Philippe Rucou.

hearts

I promise: I dislike Valentine's day.  However, I do love crocheting tiny things, so I made a bunch of itty bitty hearts from this tutorial, which I found via craftzine.  You'll see the end result soon I promise!

Snow Trees

I got back from Arizona and it turned into a winter wonderland here. I love the snow trees.  Now it's sunny and all the snow is melting--but there are icicles everywhere! 

This is an ivy-covered tree:

Some of these trees are the same as the ones in this post. Check it out if you are so inclined.

Letterpress!

So my sister's taking a letterpress bookmaking class. This weekend while I was visiting, I crashed the studio and was able to use the proofing press to put together some cards for Lock and Spoon:

The font is Baskerville 24pt (my favorite). This weekend I learned that the term font technically refers to the actual size of a typeface. Each size had to be made separately, since they are cast individually. So each point size of a typeface is technically a different font. However, the word is very rarely used in this context anymore-font is generally interchangeable with typeface.

The letterpress studio in which she takes her class is AMAZING. It's about as large as my house and the walls are filled with font trays, along with all kinds of fancy old image plates. As you can see, I used the chairs and pretty decorative element. I could spend hours in the studio doing nothing but going through tray after tray of little elements. My favorite tray was filled with calendar plates--there were blocks of numbers from 1-31, each starting on a different day of the week. I even saw one for leap year February.

I was also playing with my mom's stamp collection. I made some pretty pages and some simple gift tags:

I know we're a bit late on this,

but Smitten XOXO included our little red riding hood cowl in her blog over the holidays. Be sure to check her out--her stuff really is beautiful!

And Finally

We've finally put together some new posts for the etsy shop. . . For some reason lately I've been obsessed with rings, so we decided to put together some ring sets for the discerning consumer. Previously, since the process of fusing the silver makes each ring unique and one of a kind, we listed each ring individually. This was time consuming and really ended up being inefficient. So, we decided to break down the rings into categories--This way, while each ring is truly unique, one can choose the style and we'll make a ring to fit. This simplifies the posting process immensely, (we don't have to photograph each individual ring 5 times and post every. single. one.) and it makes a larger size range available to the customer (you don't have to leave empty handed if we don't have yours available). It's nice to find a solution to a problem.

I'm really excited about the rings because they are so much fun to make. I just can't get the hang of soldering--you have to have a level of perfectionism (which I certainly don't) that makes me want to avoid the whole process. So I've found a solution: instead of soldering the ends of the wire together, I can melt them. This, of course, doesn't create a smooth join, but it does give me lots of opportunities for adventure. Each ring is completely unique due to the nature of this process, and when they are stacked together I like putting the little melted nugget on top; it creates a great variegated line up the rings. (I also tend to stack, like, ten on my fingers when I wear them)

These are the simple fused wire stacking rings:

I learned how to twist wire via this instructable.

Pebble rings:

And vine rings: