belle epoque

I have been a huge admirer of Abigail Halpin’s work for a long time now. Back in an earlier incarnation of her website, she offered sweet screen savers, and her “Tourists” screen saver was on my work computer for literally years. I’ve also been lucky enough to acquire a number of her beautiful illustrations over the years. I was dithering about what to do with them, and finally realised they belonged in the baby’s room, so she could peer at them out of her wee peepers (for the brief moments she is awake, she does a LOT of serious looking around). So I arranged three pieces in a frame together and I love it:

Abigail recently has been making lovely tiny pendants with petite portraits in them.

The moment I saw that one on her blog I knew I *had* to have it (much as I felt about Bethany’s pillow). And lucky me, I snagged it in time! She sent it beautifully wrapped, with lovely goodies:

aside: Abigail, if you want to sell me a print of the illustration on your postcard, I would snap it up but quick, so let me know
And I put it on immediately

Hooray! Do visit Abigail’s Etsy Shop and check it out if you are as in love with her charming, whimsical aesthetic as I am!

Something else thrilling came in the mail yesterday that needs a whole post to itself, so I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow!

And now I’ll sign off with the obligatory baby picture, dressed in her tres chic petunia picklebottom onesie

Ciao!

Oh my. Being not in a state to craft, I find myself all the more excited about other people’s amazing creative endeavors. And about acquiring them for myself. I’ve done some etsy shopping recently and my first score just arrived today:

A FANTASTIC pillow from Bitter Betty Industries. The embroidery on the thrifted panel is incredible– I can’t imagine how anyone could let it go! And the pillow Bethany made it into? So soft and cozy and awesome (I love the faux bois fabric frame). I knew the minute I saw it in her photostream on Flickr that I had to have it, and it is even better in person than my already feverish imaginings. I’m putting it on the bed in the craft room (aka the guest room where my mother is sleeping) to look at whenever I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing as a mom. And maybe to hug every now and then.

Bethany, sweet thing that she is, also included a beautiful gift for the wee one, which as you can see she really likes:

I snagged a few more handmade wonders that I’ll share with you as they roll in. In the meantime, do head over to Bethany’s shop– my pillow, like all of her whimsical treasures, was one of a kind, but there is PLENTY more over there to tempt you.

First I fortified myself with early morning waffles

my favorite, maple pecan, which feel healthy because they are made with whole wheat, have nuts for protein and taste wonderful without anything on them. Even so, I only ate one and froze the rest for toasting another time.
Then I dove into holiday gift-making with a vengeance:

Onesies printed with a sweet sledding silhouette using my beloved print Gocco

Totes and pouches made with the fun vintage canvas I found back in July at the flea market.

I put a few extras up in my little shop if they strike your fancy and you’re buying handmade this holiday!

Yesterday’s crafty outing was ridiculously fun. Christina, Natalie, Tricia, Susan and I hopped into my car and went here

Which was a treasure trove of vintage buttons, many from the early part of the 20th century, and a lot of mid-century wonders as well. The woman who runs it is a treasure herself. She knows every piece of stock, down to the pull-drawer where it lives, and what colors it might look best with. It was probably for the best that they only took cash and I had to be on a button budget. I ended up with

Which I plan to frame or make shadow boxes with.

Which would each make fabulous, single, banana-colored bakelite closures for sassy swing coats

Which, being crystal and older than most of the other buttons I got, broke the bank a bit, but will make a lovely pendant or button ring if I can bring myself to snip off the shank.

Since it seems to be an unspoken rule in the Bay Area crafty community, I cannot disclose the location of these wonders. But if you are really button-hungry, you can probably find it with a little internet search.

And if that wasn’t enough fun? We crashed The Sampler headquarters to visit with Marie and the gang. Man, it seems like that would be a fun place to work. I was so inspired by spending time with these awesome, creative women that I even broke my craft hiatus and started a little project when I got home (though the craft room is packed up, I allowed myself to keep out one tote bag of supplies and projects in case I got the urge). If I’m done, I’ll show you that tomorrow.

Oh! Today, two of my favorite designers will be selling their wares in the city, so be sure to visit:
Christina at Secession Art and Design
3361 Mission St at 30th, San Francisco
11-5
and
Ali at Mission Indie Mart
25th and Guerrero, San Francisco
11-6

The moving frenzy continues chez belleepoque, so I might not be able to make it myself (I’ll try to sneak out). If you go and get great stuff, I want to know about it!

The Antiques & Collectibles Faire yesterday was such fun! I got a pile of great stuff, and by no design at all, the theme of my purchases seems mostly to have been 60’s-70’s:

No sooner had I said “oh! I’d really like to find some sewing patterns”, than voila!

A dollar apiece and both my size. I am strangely attracted to the jumpsuit, and wish I had some black stretch jersey to make it *right now.* But I am trying not to buy fabric (ok, you can forgive me that huge length of incredibly cool 70’s home dec fabric in the top picture, right? the Alameda Faire only happens once a month). So I’ll have to file it away and wait for the right moment and sale fabric. I do think I have something in my stash for the flirty little mini-dress, though. I love those poufy sleeves!

I got a huge amount of ribbon for a very good price:

What will I use it for? I don’t know. If you have some good ribbony projects up your sleeve, please do share.
I also got my initials in old typewriter keys, also no idea just yet what I’ll use them for:

And some amber-colored chandelier crystals, which I have vague visions of using to make a long, dramatic necklace on a heavy gold chain:

Which I think would go very well with my imaginary black jumpsuit.

Of course the best thing about the day was the company. Natalie brought the coolest little rolling bag so we could carry our purchases in comfort and style, and Camilla got some very cool stuff (which she’ll likely blog about herself!). And several other very fun non-blogging buddies were there as well. It was beautiful, hot, and crowded with a very cool mix of people. There was so much to see that we had to cry uncle before we even reached the end of the fairgrounds. Maybe next time we’ll go earlier and try to make it all the way!

Thank you all so much for your very kind, helpful and encouraging comments on my little fit-pitching peevish project post yesterday! I feel much better now, about the dress and the fabric, and I’m sure that is due to you.

I’m heading out of town for a baby shower this weekend, so my crafty time today was spent making and embellishing wee tiny baby clothes.  I say this with no conceit at all– they are SO cute.  It isn’t me that made them cute, it is their teeny weensy babyness that did it.  Miniatures are just that way– I mean, don’t you find most of the stuff in the travel size section of the drug store cute?  I do, even the deodorant.  Anyway, I took pictures which I’ll share when I get back, since I don’t want to chance the mother-to-be seeing them here and ruining the surprise before she gets to open them.

But I did make a little something I can show you, from a dollar store flower (there were more than one to the dollar) and a pin.

I completely stole the idea from my friend Nancy, who tacked up papers on her cube wall with bright, cheery daisy pins made just this way. I actually don’t have a cork board, so what you see is a trivet I called into service for the photo.

I also have to show you this

from my Posiescrap bag. I don’t think I need go into how obvious it is that Alicia Paulsonis amazing (you’re reading a craft blog here, so clearly you already know), but people, did you know she also has *magical powers*? It’s true. I own exactly zero real vintage patterns, because the ones I like are never my size. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever come into actual physical (or internet) contact with one that was my size at all, whether I liked it or not. It could be that I’m not looking hard enough, but guess what? The vintage pattern thrown in with my scrap bag? EXACTLY my size, and absolutely something I would wear, and every piece complete and apparently never even used before. Alicia doesn’t know me personally, or my size, or anything, so it was either luck (faugh, who believes in that?) or magical powers (clearly) that led her to pack up this exact scrap bag just for me. Yep. Magic. And of course it came along with a cheery pile of charming scraps and vintage bits and pieces, many of which are not in the picture above because I’ve hoarded them away for various secret purposes.

Hmmm, that’s about all for the moment. I hope you have a lovely weekend, and I’ll be back with cute wee tiny clothing pictures on Sunday.

We were at the beach for the beginning of the weekend, where I played with roving and felting needles, resulting in this little fellow

Still not sure if he’s felted together enough, but I find him so cute I can hardly stand it. I just want to put him in my pocket and take him everywhere, but I’m afraid I might start talking to him in public and become a crazy felt mouse lady. So he’ll just stay on my desk to keep me company.

The weather was rather grim at the beach so we headed home in time for me to go to the Capsule Design Festival today with Camilla, Brian and Meghan.  What an overwhelming amount of seriously cool and creative independent design! There was so much to take in that I was unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds. A few highlights include Donna Lou’s feminine, flirty dresses and tops, Random Nicole’s whimsical screen-printed and appliqued tees and sweats, and Vivi Dot’s sweet button accessories. As an added bonus, I got the chance to chat with the always-charming Nicole of Queen Puff Puff, and meet Deborah of Chic Cosas!

See how cute they are? And can you tell how cold it is?

Meghan and I wandered our way up to Doe after the festival, and oohed and ahhed over all the pretty cleverness there, and now I’m home, making the Chicken Tikka Masala that Alicia talked about the other day. It is my favorite Indian Restaurant dish, so I’m super excited to have a recipe I can try at home! I’ll let you know how it goes…

Just popping in to tell you that my Dorothy Skirt is one of the featured skirts over on the Sew Mama Sew blog. Thanks so much to Beth for including me in such illustrious company, I’m flattered!  Sew Mama Sew is responsible for the super-fun skirt month group on Flickr, and a source for lovely fabrics and other sewing goodies, so give them a look-in. 

Also, you probably already heard about this, but in case you missed it, Alicia will be putting up book bags and what look like very exciting scrap bags (aka passementerie packs!) in her shop today at 12:00 PDT.  If you want some original Posie goodness, go over there quick as you can when it starts, because everything goes in a blink when she updates!

Now back to cutting up and putting together bits and pieces for my sewing workshops this weekend- I’m getting nervous!

I couldn’t wait until Monday! I decided to update my etsy shop with the Summer Picnic mini-collection today. Do go and check it out!

I had so much fun making everything with a theme in mind. Any ideas for the next one? I’m thinking something beachy…

We’ve been invited to dinner by some of our friends tonight and they’ve asked me to bring dessert (well, I kind of begged to make something, so they’re really letting me bring dessert). Even though some kind of warm crumble-type sweet would be more appropriate for the weather (foggy, chilly), summer picnic-on-the-brain inspired me to make lime pie:

I love lime in almost any permutation, so it was very hard for me to just put this in the freezer without touching it. I can’t wait for dessert!

Hope you all have something sweet to look forward to tonight!