the printed one

When I made this little batch of shirts for Hunter, Logan was insistent that he knew exactly what needed to be printed on this one, so I did what I could to make his vision a reality. We got out my dusty gocco printer and the fabric inks, and just like that we were done. It was one of those projects that made me wonder why I don’t do it more often– it was so quick and painless and made my Logan so happy and proud.

It is a rare thing to have something so potentially messy go so smoothly, but it sure is a happy day when things work out. I think with a big brood of small people the more spontaneous projects are the ones that end the best. For me, at least, when i plan and prepare I have way too much invested in the outcome to be adequately relaxed, patient and kind about the process. Does this ring true for anyone else? I need to somehow find a happy medium between the spontaneous and the planned so that there can be more happy collaboration between the kids and I. How do you guys plan happy creative projects with your kids?

working in my studio

Printing paper for journal covers. I’m way excited about how my all over pattern repeat turned out.

…tearing journal pages…

…setting the nature girl jewelry on a shelf …

…sewing pocket journals together.

The grand reopening of the seedpod shop will be this Friday, November 14th! I’ll start getting things posted after I feed my kids lunch, so there will be postcards from the still life project, those little necklaces up there, and a whole slew of pocket journals with hand printed covers sometime Friday afternoon.

Come join my party!!

4 hours a week!!

On Mondays from 12:30 to 4:00 or so I have a babysitter to watch the kids so I can hide in my art room. Here’s what I did today:

I’ve filled up all the journals I didn’t sell last year (last year?! that long ago? yikes!), so I need a new one. I drew up a design on graph paper and used my little gocco printing press and stamp kit to print my big sheets of paper.

I’ve been thinking and thinking about how to get patterns to repeat right, how exactly I’d go about stamping designs without smearing ink, what kind of jig I’d need to get things lined up right for a long, long, time. I have printed this paper a gazillion times in my head. I used mat board strips with marks that had corresponding marks on my stamp screen, then held everything in place with pretty blue masking tape. It worked like a charm! I just barely mis-marked everything for the vertical repeats, but oh well. It’ll all be totally perfect next time I try it. And it looks hand made, right? That’s my mantra. Perfectionism is out the window.

Not bad for a days work! This certainly makes for a happy mama.

reach

“Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs
in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that
drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful
conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you will but remain
true to them, your world will at last be built.”

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision
is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy
of what you shall at last unveil.”

***”Dreams are the seedlings of realities”***

–James Allen, As a Man Thinketh