Sunday, November 11, 2007

branding: viridian products

I don't post worklife stuff very often - but wanted to share the tea cannisters and candles for Viridian Day Spa. We had a photo shoot recently and will be launching the spa's site soon...
The tea is great and the candles smell divine (spearmint fern). lovely

cheers,
a

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Play Dough

The girls and I made some homemade playing dough today. I remember making this as a kid (the recipe was in my Bluebird Handbook). They had fun getting their hands all gooey and shaping it up.

Here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of flour
1/4 cup of salt
1/8 cup water
food coloring
Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Add desired food coloring to the water and then work it into the flour/salt mixture (this will take a lot of hand kneading - get messy!). You may need to add a bit more water - but be careful or it will get sticky.
*for marbled colors, add the food coloring directly to the mix

f l a s h b a c k

here is Lucy playing with homemade dough in July of 2003

Thursday, November 8, 2007

grocery bags

NO MORE PLASTIC! :-D I'm so tired of the piles of plastic grocery bags that we get from the grocer. I tried some square, long-handled totes but they were difficult to stuff at the store.
Made these two last night - thanx to Mary Beth of supa fine for the great tutorial!
They are modeled after plastic grocery bags.
I picked up a remnant of lightweight denim the other day. It's softer than the denim I used in the tote earlier and perfect for these. They're really sturdy and can handle the heavy groceries.

I've never done applique work before, so figured these would be good to try it on... not bad!

Going to make more of these for sure. cheers, a

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Love this tote!


Finished making this tote the other night. Love Love Love it. I really like this pattern. Not the best photo of it... I stuck a travel mug in the bottle/thermos pocket for the shot and used my quicky cam.

It's my first project out of the Simple Sewing book by Lotta Jansdotter. This is a holiday gift for my niece. She's a teacher so I think she'll get some good use out of it. When holidays are over - I am definitely making one for myself.
There are other patterns out of that book that I plan to make for gifts this year. Really good book. cheers, a.

Monday, November 5, 2007

The Fair: It doesn't get much better than this!

Saturday we headed over to the fairgrounds for the last day of the Coastal Carolina Fair. The weather was perfect - around 65 - and we got there just when it opened for the day. After getting all-you-can-ride passes for the girls and a few tickets for Edward and I - we headed to the big wheel. The four of us rode together and got a view of the place...Then the Sky Lift - it was great! and kept getting better.

There were plenty of goats, goats and pigs to see and pet. Rabbits, roosters, horses...

Lucy and Mabel rode so many rides. One of the first was the Cup-and-Saucer. The smiles on their faces and their laughter made my day. They had so much fun making their pink teacup spin and spin and spin...

and of course - cotton candy...

Definitely a day to remember.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

BOO!

Was a scary good time last night! The girls' pumpkin buckets were filled to the brim with sweets!

Mabel was a trooper in her "OX" costume. A few people said "hey! look at Gumby!" Oh well ;-) Too bad they've missed out on Ugly Dolls.

Lucy's ghost costume came out great. All along the way, the gauze dangling from her costume was picking up dead leaves and twigs. At times, she looked like she was coming up out of the ground to scare the living. (as a bonus: the black lipstick was a hit - she loved to be able to wear makeup!)

While I was a pretty good girl in getting the OX and ghost costumes ready in advance of the day-o-scary, I was not so good in prepping little Lucy for her costume for school. The kids aren't allowed to wear halloween costumes on Halloween day to school. Not sure if it's a southern beware-the-occult thing or not. Instead, they have "Career Day" and students dress up as what they'd like to be when they grow up. Lucy wants to be a dentist. At the last minute (read till 2am the night before) - i sewed up some pink scrubs and a stuffed felt tooth to wear around her neck. Stuck a toothbrush in the pocket and - poof! - dentist.

I imagine there were a lot of doctors and firefighters in school that day - maybe some policemen and nurses. Wonder how many kids dressed up as graphic designers?