While I Waited

 I do believe the process of tea staining requires more patience than I can muster. So while the "soups" simmered I decided to venture on into another aspect of my little project. This time, however, it involved a bit of deconstruction.

 

 You see I wanted to inside scoop on how book pages stayed together.

Can you believe they are sewn?!!!

 

 Yup, one little section at a time is stitch to another little section until you have a book. Of course by the time I was done figuring this out I had no more book left....

 

 ....so I made my first attempts at a new teeny tiny one!

 

 Oh and one final word on tea staining...I'm done with it!

The green wool had a slight change after 3 days but not so much as to really make a difference.

 

And the red velvet....four days in and just as bright as ever!

 



Soup of the Day

Minted Wool Consomme

 

 

Hoping to have better luck with this than I seem to be having with the velvet. All results will be posted soon! 

A Stressful Situation

  I decided my red velvet tuffet needed some distressing. Not a lot, just enough to make it look as if it had a history to it. So with tuffet in one hand and gruff sandpaper in the other I plopped myself down in front of the telly to catch up on BBC's Sherlock. In the time it took Watson and Sherlock to reunite, solve the mystery, and save London I discovered sandpaper had little to no effect on velvet.

Go figure!

 

 No fear, I'd recently acquired a tiny dremel set that came with an assortment of attachments to file and sand with. The telly went off, the power switch went on, and.....

 

 ....the distressing got a bit out of control!

Worn is one thing, moth eaten something else entirely.

 

 Some of the tying threads even became casualties in the process. Not good.

 

But now, several days later, I have a new best friend in the distressing department.

Can you see his work in progress here? Maybe just a bit? I'm finding it difficult to take close ups of the work. Whether it's the velvet of the vibrant red I'm not sure. I just know it looks a whole lot better in person and I'm hoping you'll take my word for it!

 



 

Anyway, meet Mr. Razor Blade. He's quite the handy fellow.

 



Maybe you can see the results of his employment a tad better here.

Hope so!

 



Worn velvet achieved I'm on to my next case...aging the color.

Logically I guessing fading it in the sunlight would be the best bet but since the sun is currently hidden with falling snow I might as well explore some other routes in the meantime.

First up...a tea bath.

 



The kids saw it this morning and thought I was back to making my strange Polish fare.

"Yep," I said "It's Velvet Soup!"

 

Beads or Blossoms?

 Quiet time during our most recent snowstorm was used to sketch a bit with needle and thread. I knew I wanted a slight crazy quilt appeal for the red velvet and thought some seed beads would be a fun addition.

 

 Turned out they weren't.

My overall impression was blah and the process....NOT VERY FUN!

Those little things were more than frustrating to work with.

 

So good old embroidery work it will be!

 



Palette Play

 I fell in love with these pages from a magazine recently.

The color combinations were so exciting to me that I decided to use them as inspiration for the little project I've got going on. 

 

Today I set out to establish a palette of sorts based on it. Even though I don't anticipate using much embroidery floss along the way I still dug into my stash to play with the colors a bit. I find it handy to have a little assortment of skeins around to help me select just the right paint, fabric, ribbon, beads, or whatever else fun pops up in the process.

 

I will, however, be in need of some green floss coming up here very soon. It was a big debate for awhile here but I'm seriously leaning towards the brighter one in the middle.

Much more exciting don't you think?

Woodworking Weekend

 A wee bit of drilling....

 

...and a couple cuts.

 



A Tisket, A Tasket.....

 A basket full of...

 

 ...BELLS!!!

 

 Lots of bells.

 

Lots and lots of bells.

 

 Ok, 166 bells to be exact.

 



But...

considering they were on clearance for 5 cents a piece

there's no reason to sound the alarm!

 

 



I Heart Austin Kleon!

Let me start by saying my new project "Something Small, Every Day" is going very well. For all of January and now almost a week into February I have devoted at least 30 minutes a day to the pursuit of an endeavor I've wanted to try for a very, very long time now. Previously I had thought it "too hard," "too time consuming," and yes "too beyond my capabilities." The inspiration to even have a go at the first 30 minute stint on my endeavor came from none other than my favorite creative guru guy Austin Kleon. The post that convinced me can be found HERE....I highly suggest you read it.

 

I really wasn't going to say much about this new project...you know just in case it bombed out on me or something. I does however seem to be doable and actually quite fun. Supplies I thought would be difficult to source practically fell in my lap, tools I didn't know existed magically appeared, and the ideas wouldn't stop coming. While I'm still not prepared to reveal all the nitty gritty details, I have been inspired to share some tidbits. And the source of this new inspiration to share....why Austin Kleon of course! Today he had this NEW POST about the upcoming March 6th release of his book, "Show Your Work!" I was so excited!

 

 I've known about this book coming out for some time now, but today's offer to pre-order a book and have it signed by him was too good to be true. Not just his name mind you, but with your name to. Wow! Austin Kleon would write "to natalie jo" inside a book just for me. I was a millisecond away from submitting my order when I realized it would take up to a week longer to have my book delivered. Hmmm...the book in my hands on the 6th or my name in the book, what was I to do? I sat there staring at the cover of the book on my computer screen for several minutes waiting for my gut instinct to kick in.

 

Eventually it did...but not in the way I expected!

Suddenly I forgot all about the physical book and focused instead on the message of the book,

SHOW YOUR WORK!

 

And so that's what I'm going to do. For the next month I'll post snippets of my work in progress. A little here and a little there. And then, on March 6th, I'll have a reveal of sorts to coincide with Kleon's release. That's right, whether I bomb out or not I will show where I'm at in full.

But for today....you'll only get a peek at some red velvet, which by the way is oh so soft to work with!