Tag Archives: painting

Day 1: Six Favorite Small Businesses

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31dayblogchallengeWelcome to day one of the 31 days blog challenge. This challenge is Cheryl Sleboda’s idea and I’m glad to be a part of it. I’ll be blogging every day from now until the end of this year.

Yesterday was Cyber Monday, which wrapped up the Thanksgiving holiday weekend shopping specials. The 30% off moving sale is still happening in my etsy shop. You know, ’cause I’m still moving and want to have less stuff to shlep. Anyway, I highlighted a few of my favorite small businesses this weekend on the quiltartbymegan Facebook page. Here they are in one spot. Check ’em out!

6favbusinesses

Alex Cook is the artist behind the Multi Mural Project. Community art at its finest, messages like “You Are Loved” are painted on places like school walls, city streets, and inside prisons. It’s led and organized by Alex and the community come in and help paint within his outline with colors he’s chosen. Here’s Alex’s website which includes the murals as well as his musical and written art.

Fed By Threads is a clothing store (in Tucson and online) with American-made organic clothing. It’s body-positive and built to pay everyone from designers to sewists living wages. This is in stark contrast to most clothing companies which use sweatshops overseas to manufacture most of their products. Facebook ’em here and check out their website and shop here.

Katwise makes whimsical coats out of old wool sweaters. Watch her Facebook page for announcements on when the next sale will be. You’ll want to be waiting at her etsy shop when it goes live because they sell out in minutes. No kidding. She also has patterns if you want to try your hand at it. I’ve made a bunch of arm-warmers from her tutorial.

Gregory Patrick of Mad Man Knitting is a blogger, author, and pattern designer. He knit teddy bears and worked his way out of homelessness with this small business. His story is inspiring and his stuff is super-cute. Here’s his website and Facebook page.

X-bility has experiential learning courses that have enhanced how I view myself, my relationships, and the world around me. They’re well worth flying into St. Louis for. Check out their website and Facebook page.

Carol Carter is a watercolor painter. Check out her website here: and find her on Facebook here. She’s great at posting photos of her paintings on Facebook so you’ll want to follow her page. Carol does commissions as well as buy-now paintings. She also teaches.

See you tomorrow.

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Artist. Not just a quilt artist.

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I remember my purple bedroom with the hollowed-out-closet turned art studio. It was AWESOME! At five, this was waaaay better than a trip to Disney. I sat in there for hours at my little desk coloring, drawing, stamping, creating. I had to get permission for messy stuff like glue, paint, and clay but my parents made sure that I got to use them sometimes too.

My husband and I are getting an art studio ready for me in this house. It’s a bedroom that was a storage room. The things that were in there have sorted, organized, and put in their proper places so now it’s empty and ready for sprucing up. Yes, the row of shelving stays. I get to fill it up with fabric!

studio before 1We got rid of the smelly carpet, threadbare curtains, and popcorn ceiling treatment. The weird shape on the window is from the brown packaging tape holding it together. It’ll need to be replaced. We got rid of the 7The first things accomplished getting rid of the carpet, tossing the curtains, and scraping the popcorn treatment off the ceiling.

my studio minus carpet curtains and popcorn ceilingI had a circus party in the closet studio house. The invitations were tickets I made. I painted our windows (half dish soap, and half paint) with balloons, clowns, and animals. We made a train down to the basement playroom. Hands on the shoulders of the kid in front of you. No pushing! There was a face-painting station and a cake with a train on it. Such fun!

At 31, I can still taste being five years old. So I’ve decided to play! I’m joining a meet-up for art journalling in my area. My first meeting is this Friday morning. I’m hoping to make friends and to play. Not to make anything specific or become a world-famous collage maker or painter, but to play with other artists.

cupcakes and lollipops journal pageHere’s the first page of my art journal. I stamped the background with bubble wrap, painted with cherry syrup, glued ribbon, brushed glitter nail polish on, and added the lettering. Who says you can’t create without art supplies? I knew what I wanted to say and made do with what I had. 🙂 I will be picking up a tray of kids’ watercolors from the dollar store before my meeting though. 🙂

 

Linking up to Val’s sewing room link party. Check it out if you want some ideas for your studio.

 

Prep Work

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I painted my toenails just to stuff my feet into sneakers. I put lipstick on to sew in my pajamas. I do my hair up nicely to watch TV with my husband. I put a dirty fork on the counter so the sink can be empty. Aaand I cut up perfectly good fabric just to sew it back together.

These things may be a little nutty but they make me feel good. What are little things that make you feel good? I challenge you to do one of those things today.

Speaking of cut up fabric that’s sewn back together, I showed a sample of my letter pillows in this post. Well, the time has come to reveal the etsy listing. Get ’em while the getting’s hot!

J Pillow

Here are the options on the pillow covers. I’ll be adding more sizes and colors as we go. They’re envelope-backed. And yes, as part of my prep work for launching these pillows, I made sure they actually fit into the pillow form. Who’da thunk?!

  • Four background colors to choose from: Black, Beige, Grey, and Teal.
  • Buy just the 12×12 inch pillow case, or add-on a pillow form to save you a trip to the store.
  • I can do any letter, uppercase or lowercase. For now, it’s one letter per pillow.

I used Sam Hunter’s time-tracking method to help determine pricing. These pillow covers are only $35 plus shipping! What a deal.

Prices increase on custom orders beginning tomorrow, February 1st. Everything that’s already listed as a completed item in my shop will stay the same price. New items and custom orders increase by 10% tomorrow.

Where’ve You Been?

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I’ve been neglecting to write for a few weeks now. What have I been up to? Well, aside from spending a lot of time getting un-sick (yuck) and with my kiddos at work (so cute) I’ve been working on the house. Here are a few new skills I’ve learned.

1) Replacing window screens. When I expressed amazement that my husband could do it, he showed me how. Now I’ve volunteered to do the rest of the screens in the house, starting with the back screen door, which has been attacked by vines.

2) Mudding drywall. Filling in holes, covering low spots, etc before we paint.

3) Using a paint sprayer. I’m pretty handy with a brush and roller, but the spraying bit was new to me. We’re rolling colors, but it’s very handy for white ceilings and hard-to-reach areas  like under the water heater in the garage.

4) Cutting and installing carpet. Okay, so we didn’t completely install it with tacks on the side, but throw-rug-style is just fine for the master bedroom for now.

5) Scraping popcorn ceilings down. It’s easy! Just wet it down and scrape. It flops right off and you sweep the gunk off the floor.

bedroom4

Oh, and I’m excellent at sorting through items. Initially, they’re in three categories: save, sell, and donate. Goodwill’s having a good donation year in my town.

I have not been quilting, but am excited to do some paper-piecing with friends tomorrow. I’ll post s’more about that soon. Promise.