Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Dishtowels

Well, don't think I'm fickle. But...I'm back to dishtowels today. :) I made my first dishtowel as a gift for a friend's birthday and included some great French Milled Soaps from Trader Joe's (www.traderjoes.com). I recently posted about the Michael Miller fabrics and towel fabric by the yard that I found at my local fabric store. I picked some brown grosgrain ribbon up at another shop to accent the fabric and I like how it came out - useful and stylish. I love the blue and brown combo and the retro feel.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Rummage Sales

Well the other day I loved dish towels, but today I LOVE rummage sales. This is really my favorite thing about summer. I'm not really a great lover of the outdoors. I like being at the beach and enjoying the cool breeze, but I hate sand in my shoes and frizzy ocean hair. I don't like sticky hot heat and getting burned on my seatbelt buckle or mosquito bites, but I LOVE rummage sales. I spend all week obsessively checking Craigslist (www.craigslist.org) for new listings. I love words and phrases like "HUGE", "VINTAGE", "ESTATE SALE", "GIANT", "MOVING OVERSEAS", "EVERYTHING MUST GO", "MULTI-FAMILY", "CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP!", "FREE"! If you post it, I will come... Anyway, this long holiday weekend was a bit of a rummage sale dud as was to be expected, but I still made it home with a couple of finds including a jar of vintage buttons and an old colorful tin perfect for keeping more buttons in!

This week I'm trying to organize my studio a bit. It is really a mess and I spend more time trying to figure out where things are and what I have than actually creating anything. Then I have to move my crafting down to the dining room table because I have covered all four - yes four :) of my tables in my studio while trying to find something. I purchased a big box of plastic shoe boxes from The Container Store (www.containerstore.com) a while ago and I am slowly sorting through my stash and putting them in these containers to be labeled. Hopefully, along the way I will find those pretty labels I bought for such an occasion. I love reading magazines like Real Simple (www.realsimple.com) to find creative ways of storing my stuff but somewhere between idea and reality I get lost. :)

Friday, May 26, 2006

I'm Back

I can't believe I haven't been able to sit down and work on Simply June since December! But, I'm back and ready to create! As I have mentioned on www.simplyjune.com, my husband and I have been in the process of adopting a little boy from Russia for over a year. We took our first trip to meet our son Kolya (Nikolai) just before Christmas. In all, we took three trips to Moscow and finally brought our precious son home last month. As you can imagine, we have all been adjusting to our new life together. But, we are all doing well and Kolya is a growing, happy and healthy 22 month old! My craftiness is now fit into naptimes and evenings and I am so inspired by so many crafty Mom's out there as I read their craft blogs. Thank you for your inspiration!

I have recently been working on these magnet sets for Simply June. The magnets are made from glass and come in a variety of fun designs. The actual magnets themselves are heavy duty button magnets and work great at keeping your favorite photos and artwork on your fridge. These sets will appear on www.simplyjune.com shortly and will sell at $7.50 for a tin of six. These make a great gift to just let someone know you are thinking about them.


Here are a couple of new fabrics for a new product line I hope to create - dishtowels. I have to admit that I love dish towels. They can really add a lot of color and design to your kitchen. I especially love old retro designs and I am hoping to infuse a bit of that into this new project. I'm hoping to get a few done next week and have them up at Simply June. This fun blue and brown fabric is a design by Michael Miller called Disco Dot. The retro kitchen print is another Michael Miller design called Domestic Goddess. I have a number of other fabrics in mind for this project including some Amy Butler designs, but I need to do some searching online as my local fabric store was really low on their selection.