When the Cat's away...

.. mice get out the arts and crafts!

While Beau's been away these past few weeks, I've got the house in a state of squalor that only a crafter could love! I'm also reminded of the first time that Beau went away after we moved in together. I pulled his favorite jeans from his closet for a weekend of embroidery and quietly slipped them back in his closet. Boy was he surprised to pull them out one day to find them "enhanced" so to speak.

It only dawned on me after the fact that it might have been better to ASK him if I could meddle in his stuff, but fortunately for the both of us, he loved the result!

Here are some shots of the embroidery, which is cross-stitch of course... The first initial of his name is "I" and the Lion is for England, where he was born.

Happy Birthday Pierre!

What could I possibly love more than getting a care package? --- Making them!

My wonderful brother recently moved to the Republic of South Africa, so I took his upcoming birthday as an opportunity to assemble the my very first Paris - Cape Town parcel of love! As I've got word that the parcel arrived safely, and today is his birthday, here's a peek for you all of some of the crafty things inside.

To make his birthday card, I embroidered (of course!) his name, cut a hole in the card stock, burned the edges of the holes (in efforts to make the imperfect hole look intentional!) and glued the embroidery behind.

Pierre is an outdoorsy, nature loving, x-treme sporting, diving with the sharks and hiking to the sky type of radically awesome person - so being the practical sister I am I personalized a stainless steel water bottle for him with his initials to take along on his adventures. The thing is that NOTHING sticks to stainless steel! After much research and development, trial and error, I'm happy to report to you all that nail polish does in fact stick to stainless steel... at least for now!

My brother, I'm sending you boat loads of sisterly love across the miles for your 22nd birthday! You are a stupendous man and I am REALLY looking forward to our hiking camping hanging safari adventure this summer together!

Sparkling Sampler

As you may or may not know, I've been taking a class in hand embroidery on Wednesday nights. The second semester has been dedicated to the luneville technique, which is a french technique from applying beads and sequins using a special little pointly needle-like hook called "le crochet de luneville".

The interesting thing about this technique is that you actually work on the back side of the fabric, applying the beads and sequins from underneath. Here's a little glimpse of the very first luneville project I did, a "sampler" of sorts using various beads, sequins and charms.

Full view of the sampler in progress, remember that this is the back side.

Zoom view: the tool is the crochet de luneville and the sequins that are on top are the ones being applied underneath.

Finally Finished - this is the front side

Zoom of Top Portion

Zoom of Bottom Portion

Getting By...

...with a little help from my friends!

I've got a wonderful friend named Ashley. Not only is she wonderful but she's very talented. And not only is she very talented, she's got a heart of Solid Plantimum 950...and calls me her friend also! (I've blogged about Ashley before - we've been friends since the days of Shoulder Garden...)

My beau was down at his parents one weekend to leave me to what I usually do in Paris on weekends by myself: make a HUGE arts & crafts apocalypse in the apartment... This time I enlisted the help of Ashley, moving only the location of the apocalypse to... her apartment!

I left Montmartre (chez moi) on Sunday afternoon and headed down to Invalides (chez elle) with a bag filled of DYI wedding supplies. The highlight of the afternoon was the both of us at the dining room table cutting out the fabric elements for our wedding invitations (Clarification: Beau & I, not Ashley & I), I on Bird Duty and Ashley on Tree Duty. Here are some photos of Ashley's skilled hands at work. If the fabric looks familiar, it's leftover from the pillows that I made for our apartment which happened to be the featured subject of my very first blog post! Keep checking back on the blog for the results of the assembled invitations!

And a big MERCI to Ashley for that wonderful afternoon together!You are a bijou by dear friend!