belle epoque

Wow! Guess I took an extended summer vacation, huh? The main, rather exciting reason I didn’t get around to blogging is that HMB will be getting a new little sister for Christmas (well, a week or so beforehand, depending on how accurate the due date is)! For the first few months, I found being pregnant and running around after a super-busy toddler so tiring that I spent what was formerly craft/blogging time napping. But now that I’m heading into trimester 3, I’m realising I’d better get in my crafting and blogging before there’s another newborn around here!

Anyway, I have been working on a few projects lately, mostly small and handworky. I am going to try to blog more frequently, and since I have a backlog of things to show you I’ll probably be back again this week.

More often than not I make things for HMB, but before our 3-week trip back East to visit family in August, I made a little something for myself. I find that I don’t really need to carry around a diaper bag full of gear for a toddler for walks or trips to the park (I never liked carrying one anyway–they are always so huge and unwieldy!), but I can’t leave my valuables in the stroller to dash after little miss busy when she’s on the loose. The solution? A slim shoulder bag for just the essentials– wallet, phone, keys, sunscreen stick, lip gloss and tiny organic hand sanitizer.

I had a lot of fun making it- I used some Echino fabric I had been hoarding, and two super-fun zippers in purple and bright orange.

The outer zipper pocket is for the stuff HMB would love to get into, like my lip gloss. The webbing strap is long enough that I can sling the bag across my chest and forget about it until I need it.

I miss sewing for myself! I’m looking forward to being my normal size again someday (2012?) so I can sew something other than pajamas and accessories! In the meantime, HMB is getting lots of little pants and appliqued tops, which I’ll show you in another post… to come soon, I promise, lovely blog friends!

Whoo! We had a surprise broken bone and some surgery chez belleepoque in the past ten days. Thank goodness the invalid is pretty much fine now, but it sure put a wrench in the delicate works of keeping up with NaNoWriMo, crafting, blogging and a ridiculously mobile almost-9-month-old (man, that kid is into EVERYTHING). Anyhow, I’m not here to complain. I’m here to tell you about TWO EXCITING THINGS
1. I am participating in the Cotton Spice Last Minute Gift Countdown again this year, so on the 23rd look for a pattern and tutorial for this guy posted here and over there

2. I am also honored to participate in the San Francisco Bazaar Bizarre again this year! On November 30 at 3:00 pmI’ll be teaching a demo on making this guy

If you are in the Bay Area and want to come, please head over to the site to find registration information. The demo costs $7 but includes a kit with everything you need to make two penguins, and even turn them into tree ornaments if you like! If there are leftover kits I will put them in my etsy shop for those of you who aren’t local but want to make one anyway.

I can’t believe it is almost December. Where the heck did 2008 go?! Ok, back to catching up on my NaNo wordcount while HMB is taking a nap. This kid doesn’t like to sleep so I have to make the most of every second!

Another reason to be happy about returning to San Francisco? Being here for the opening of Jamie’s new store and craft studio, Urban Fauna Studio. You can get a sneak peek at the glory and goodness that will be there by clicking the photo below

photo courtesy of Jamie
If you live in the Bay Area, it will be more than worth your while to be at the opening:
Urban Fauna Studio
Fiber Boutique & Craft Studio
Grand Opening: Saturday, August 30
1311 16th Avenue (between Irving and Judah)
San Francisco, CA 94122
Ph. 415-664-1267 Store Hours. Friday – Monday 10-6:30 PM and by appointment
And the goodies? Major:
Demos for Needle Felting, Weaving on Mini Looms, Spinning and Pom Pom Making.
Goodie bags filled with samples and treats for the first 75 customers who spend $10 or more–donors include: Interweave Press, Sublime Stitching, Vermont Organic Yarn Company, Monkey Sock Monkey, Red Sheep (an exclusive knit pattern written for UFS!), Fishcakes, Artgirlz, Girl On The Rocks and more!
A Gift Basket Raffle!
Free cupcakes and treats for our visitors!
Free 15% off coupon to all our mailing list subscribers.

I’ve been a big fan of Jamie’s since I met her before Maker Faire 2007. She is an incredibly talented person who caps it all off by being super productive as well! Not only does she make beautiful hand-dyed roving and divine yarns, she’s the mastermind behind Bizarre Bazaar San Francisco and Indie Craft Gossip, not to mention an incredibly nice person. I’m looking forward to supporting her creativity and incentive by shopping at Urban Fauna Studio, and I hope to see you there too!

Ok, *so* exciting. My contributor copies of Bead Simple arrived in the mail just a few days ago, and goodness, this book is gorgeous

My mom (who just left yesterday, wahhh!) was also blown away and kept thumbing through it saying “Oh! This book is so beautiful!”

I was so honored to be a contributor, and it is such fun to see the amazing photos they took of my version of Susan’s Duo Earrings

I had so much fun making them, and all of the other projects in the book are so inspiring too!

The beauty of the book is that all of the different takes on each project show you how to use whatever materials you have to make something wonderful. To celebrate the release of the book on March 25th, I made yet another version of the duo earring that I’d like to give away! I’m almost all out of beachy charms, so these ones are made with antique glass leaf and flower pendants that I got in Venice many years ago

Just leave a comment on this post and I’ll pick a winner on the book’s release date, March 25th. In the meantime, you can preorder the book at Taunton, Amazon or your favorite bookstore! And if you’re in the Portland, OR area, be sure to mark your calendar for Susan’s reading at downtown Powell’s on April 7th at 7:30pm!

I got to spend a super-fun morning with Natalie and Lulu yesterday, filming today’s CRAFT:Video Pattern Podcast. In it I demonstrate a super easy and quick zipper pouch made out of the leg of an old pair of jeans, based on a project in my book Jeaneology! I know many of you are advanced seamsters, but please go check it out (if nothing else, you might get a laugh from my goofy facial expressions), and perhaps send it along to a sewing novice you think might enjoy it! If you’ve come here from CRAFT:, welcome and thank you so much for visiting!

Without further ado, I’d like to announce that the winner of the Bead Simple Giveaway is Cindy! Cindy, I don’t think you have a blog (you didn’t enter one in your comment), but I’ve e-mailed you to get your mailing address. If you happen to check back here today, congratulations! And please e-mail me your address at belleepoquewhimsy [!at!] gmail [!dot!] com (omitting the brackets etc).

And because you are all so fun for playing, I also pulled a runner up who will get some other little goodies– congratulations Stacey! I’ve e-mailed you for an address too, but if you see this first, please drop me a line and tell me where to mail your goodies.

Thank you all so much for entering! In my opinion you are ALL winners, who, not too long from now will have Susan’s book in your hands and get to enjoy pages and pages of stylish bead inspiration.

p.s. To make the clean-out of my studio more fun, I’ll be doing a few more giveaways in the coming weeks(fabric, paper, etc) so stay tuned.

I hope you’ve already heard that the divine Susan Beal has a book coming out in March. It is called Bead Simple, and it is chock full of original, creative projects. Susan designed all of the pieces and then got a ton of cool crafty people to do their own spin on each one (full disclosure: I was absolutely tickled to try my hand at one of them too, and it is in there).

I got a sneak peek at the book in person recently and people, it is BEAUTIFUL. It is encyclopedic in scope, and artistic in presentation. I’ve seen a lot of beading books and I have to say, this one blows them all out of the water. Click on the image above to go to the Bead Simple site for more details and serious eye candy.

Now that we’ve established that you need this book (really, you do), I’m going to attempt to make it even sweeter. I’ve been doing a major de-stash of my crafty space, and I have a passel of beads to pass on to a fellow crafter. Pop over to Amazon or Taunton and pre-order Bead Simple, then come back here and comment, and one week from today I shall randomly pick a name from the comments and send her (or him!) this grab-bag assortment of beads, all packed into a priority mail box (’cause these babies are heavy!):

You don’t get my glass jar of lavender or my cake stand, just the assortment of beads (which will arrive in the boxes and cylinders you see them in). They are mostly seed beads, but there are some findings and other surprises in there too. I might even tuck a bit of other handmade goodness into the box if there’s room.

To make it even more exciting, Susan has generously offered to send the winner a beautiful Bead Simple Vintagesque Necklace Kit

AND some fantastic vintage lucite beads too!

So, let’s re-cap: you preorder the amazing Bead Simple, you comment here by February 6th, and you get the chance to win all the loot you see above. And really, you win no matter what, ’cause you’ll be one of the first people to enjoy Susan’s awesome book as soon as it is released! Yay!

*Misc Details: In case you’re wondering, I am not currently an Amazon affiliate and do not receive a penny if you click over there from here and order the book- it is just a convenient place to send you! I will not ask to see your e-receipt for the pre-order if you win, but please do play fair and order the book before entering. And I’m sorry to say I can only send within the U.S. Because of how heavy the beads are I’m afraid the shipping would be egregious to send them elsewhere! Any questions? Leave ‘em in the comments and I’ll update this post with the answers.

First the pig:

Despite everything else I have to do before Friday, I just *had* to make one of these pigs on wheels from the lovely free pattern over at Wee Wonderfuls . As a child, one of my favorite Christmas ornaments was a wheeled cow, so it seems appropriate we have a wheeled farm animal for our tree too.

And now for the publicity!
1. The wonderful Susan, wrote up a very kind review and mini-interview about my book on the Adorn blog. My very nice publisher has sent Adorn copies to give away to five commenters, so if you’d like to be in the running for one, pop over there and comment. If you’re coming from there, welcome and thanks for visiting! Thanks also to the CRAFT blog for mentioning the post too!

2. I will be teaching a sewing demo at Bazaar Bizarre San Francisco this Saturday!
Saturday, December 15
12:30-1:30
Click here for more information and to reserve a spot (no stress about that, though–as there aren’t materials involved, really as long as you can fit in the room you can come). I hope to see you there!

p.s. If you can’t make it, I’ll be posting a pattern and tutorial here early next week so don’t worry.

How did it get to be November? I had so many grand plans for handmade holiday gifts, and maybe even making a few items to put up in my (gasp! empty!) etsy shop, but how is Christmas less than two months away already?! Thankfully, there are some super-organized crafty types who’ve got my back (and yours if you’re in the same predicament). The lovely folks at both Cotton Spice and Sew,Mama, Sew have put together round-ups of handmade holiday gift tutorials for nearly every day of November.

At Cotton Spice’s Last Minute Gift Countdown a brand new design by a different crafter will be featured every day. Mine will be up on November 14th. I don’t want to spoil the surprise but I can tell you it is super quick (no need to bust out the sewing machine) and costs less than $10 to make.

At Sew, Mama, Sew they have compiled Handmade Holidays: 30 Days of Gifts to Sew featuring a different item, or category of items, each day and providing links to favorite tutorials for those items. I’m very honored that they’ve chosen to link to my Bias Tape Bag tutorial. I think on November 17th for the purse category (but it could possibly be in the tote category tomorrow– we’ll see!).

Even more than being excited and flattered to be included, I’m thrilled about the masses of inspiration provided by the fabulous tutorials they’ve compiled. Surely I can find something to make for every person on my list. The next mission is finding the time and organizational energy to make them all! Especially because November also means NaNoWriMo, and this year marks the third time I’ll be participating in the writing madness! Which also explains the lack of spanking new crafty images in this post, though I promise that will not become a habit.

The CRAFT Magazine Last Minute Halloween Costumes for Kids segment ran on the CBS Early Show this morning and it was just great! You can find pictures and detailed costume how-tos here And I’m not sure how long the link will work, but you can find a video of the segment here. Voila my niece in the pirate costume that I made:

There was also an awesome monkey by Susan Beal, a super-cool bee by Cathy Callahan (I’m thinking this might be the perfect costume-in a larger size, of course-for my pregnant belly, which is very bumble-appropriate), and neat lego and sushi costumes by Diana Eng.

The tiny models, as styled by Jenny, were adorable (go Serena!), and Natalie was poised and fabulous on camera. I am so proud to have been a part of this project. Thank you to Natalie, Jenny and CRAFT for including me!