Welcome Baby Mahaut!!

A little bit late with posting this as little Mahaut was born this summer, but the welcome is none less enthusiastic!

Here's to wishing Mauhaut a wonderful first year in Paris and to keeping toasty in the calins of the most wonderful Maman and Papa!

Under Wraps!

Things have been quiet around the blog for a long time - and not for lack of crafting but for a surplus of it!!!

80% of my most recent crafting has been wedding related and of that 80% about half of my crafting time has been taken up by the making of my wedding dress. Believe me I am sitting on my hands to not blog about crafting this dress! But there is some little shred of a traditional bride still left in me that thinks that the dress will have a better impact if it's seen for the first time on the actual wedding day, so for right now it's still under wraps.

And since yesterday I've made a garment bag for it - it actually is: under wraps! My wonderful friend Ashley (featured in my post about making the wedding invites) kindly gave me a Posh Roberto Cavalli Gown Bag which I was intending to use, but as my dress took shape I began to realize that it wasn't going to work, due to the fact that I am a bit of a freak of nature. I am six foot two inches tall. One meter eighty seven of crafting craftiness. My dress has a very slight train on it making it over 7 feet long. I needed to make a custom garment bag to take this little monster on the airplane without totally crushing it. Give me a reason to make an heirloom quality ANYTHING and I welcome it with open arms - including garment bags!

This took only 3 hours to make, from start to finish. I bought the fabric for very cheap at the Marche St Pierre in my neighborhood. All of the sales are going on right now at the clothing and home furnishing shops all around Paris and so it's that time of year again when the fabric stores bring out their "coupons" or remnants in English. I folded the fabric in half, traced an Ikea garment bag onto it and then cut that puppy out. The zipper is attached with a piece of bias binding so there wasn't even any fancy zipper mounting to do and I used a little bit of bias binding to sew it together around the edges so there wasn't even any seam trimming to do. It's that easy.

...and then I embroidered my first initial on the front of the bag because

I

J U S T

C O U L D N ' T

R E S I S T

!!!

(This is only the SECOND time in my entire LIFE that I've ever cross stitched anything for MYSELF! You know that this is a big day!!!) The colors that I used on this embroidery as well as the silver thread allude to the dress inside but that's all I'm saying for now! Check back on the blog in about a couple of months for the crafty details of the actual gown. Until then, feast your eyes on this garment bag!

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!

Welcome Baby Noé!

A few weeks ago, I had the enormous gift of being invited to meet Claire's new son. Since this is a little parisian bebe, I decided to make a little french cadeau! I wish la maman my most heartfelt felicitations and le fils a lifetime of discovery! xxN