Gem Faire 2011

My mom and I went to Gem Faire 2011 at the Portland Convention Center last saturday. I told myself walking in the doors that I would try to be conservative with my money, and would only splurge if I could visualize projects for what I wanted to buy. Instead, I went a little crazy…

Gem Faire is really great because you can see vendors from all over the U.S., and their goods are sold at wholesale price even though the event is open to the public. When researching about the event, I found on their website (www.gemfaire.com) that you can register for email updates and you will get a free weekend pass! Excellent, that’s seven more dollars you can spend on inventory!

(Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t charged up, so I could only take these small pics with my cell phone.)

I have always loved rocks and gemstones. I’m not even really sure why.. but to me they are so beautiful. I especially love the raw, chunky forms – many grow with facets that make them glitter, they are like olden days treasure to me! When I was a kid I used to collect rocks and agates, and bring them home to polish with a toothbrush, and lay out on a paper towel to dry in the sun. My grandma bought me a rock tumbler at a garage sale, and I distinctly remember the gritty, rumbling sound it made in the garage the whole month it was tumbling. The results were stunning! As a youngin’ I wasn’t quite sure what made the rocks so polished and shiny, it was almost like magic.

(Speaking of rock tumblers, I recently came across one and was thinking it would be really cool to make my own sea glass, by tumbling broken shards. To be continued…)

I’ve recently been inspired to make more gemstone jewelry, some pieces I already had in mind when I went to do my shopping. I’m especially drawn to light blue agates, turquoise, amethyst, and amber. Some of my ideas also included chunks of pyrite, and crystal cylinders.

I probably could have spent all day, but as my wallet got lighter so did my interest.

Here are some pictures of my loot.  I look forward to sharing my creations with these pieces!

(Click to see larger!)

many of these strands were only a dollar each. I couldn’t resist!  I especially love those on the far right, I call them “talons”, I think they will look really cool in individual necklace pendants. Those purple, pink and blue round beads perfectly match the colors in a dress I got recently.  And those skull beads on the far right, I am picturing a cool little drawstring suede bag or pouch, with some fringe, and beads.

These two I am going to take apart and make individual pieces with as well. The lightning bolt shapes are faux amber/resin, and the red and green talons are coral and (I think) either jade or moss agate.

fools gold! my hands got really dirty sifting through to find my favorite pieces, it wasn’t hard to imagine I was actually mining the pieces rather than picking them out of a tupperware bowl

One of my favorite pieces, a chunk of amethyst wrapped with silver and made into a pendant. I love how dark the color is, it looks like rock candy! And a cute little beaded ring! The more I look at this ring the easier I think it would be to reproduce.

These were my two splurge items, blue lace agate chunks and the crystals. I figure each piece will go into it’s own necklace, so I will get a lot of product, and if I make any sales it will be worth my while. I also love these amethyst chunks! raw and yet so shiny, and beautiful.

Putting Together Paper Source

Welp, I’m back from a long, and unintentional hiatus – unfortunately Buttons & Twine has fallen by the wayside these last few months, but I’m hoping to give it a kickstart with a few new projects and updates I’ve got in mind.

To make a long story short, I got a new job and got a little caught up in the whirlwind of training. I saw the posting on craigslist, and recognized the store, Paper Source, as a place I used to shop in Berkeley for all my book making needs. I was ecstatic at the thought of such a job – being surrounded by all the tools, adhesives, and papers I love and have experience using, helping customers with advice and ideas for projects, and being able to demo techniques and be creative while on the clock! I applied immediately and everything seemed to fall in place.

Since this was a new location opening up, all the employees were hired and then as part of our training we got to set up the store and do all the merchandising. It was really fun, we all felt like we were a part of building the store from the ground up. Here are some pictures of the progress:

It took us about a week to set everything up, but in the end it was worth all the stress. (The biggest problem was setting up the tables – everything has to be just so, or mountains of product come cascading down on you when you pick up one item!) Here are the fruits of our labor:

one of the jobs I was assigned to was hanging the fine papers – I had them spread out on the floor in stacks so I could colorize first! I spent a good solid 3 hours on this project. The funny part was I recognized a few papers that I used in printing projects, over 4 years ago!

“converted area” – cards and envelopes, in custom Paper Source colors, in every imaginable size!

The store has been open for about two months now, and we are coming along nicely into the holiday season. Paper Source has a lot of novelty toys and giftables, so not only are we a destination store for projects, but I anticipate a lot of window shoppers doing their holiday shopping. Bring it on, season!

Portland Zine Symposium 2011

The 2011 Portland Zine Symposium was wildly successful! This was the first year in a new location, which was really great! We had a lot more light, and separate rooms for tables, so it felt more split up and not quite so overwhelming to walk into. As usual, every single table was overflowing with great new projects.

I sat next to this really great doorway arch of bamboo and paper cranes!

Here’s day one. I took a bit different approach to my table display this year, I borrowed some really great acrylic book holders from work that allowed me to stand up all my zines, and have a lot more table space than previous years. I decided to bring my typewriter for the display partially because of the extra space, but also because I talk about it in my two newest zines, so I thought it’d be a cool edition, and it goes along with my whole aesthetic.

You can see my two newest projects – on the second book display from the left, in the front pocket, with the typewriters image on the front, is my zine called How I Became A Connoisseur of STUFF. It is a zine about the fine, almost microscopic line, between collecting and hoarding. The other new zine is laying out in front of the typewriter. It’s called Carriage Return*, and it’s a zine of typewriter drawings I did. I’ll make another post soon with more info/details on these zines, and how you can get them!

Day two. Notice the blue paper note in place of HIBACoS… I sold out! I made a little note so that people could leave their email address, and I’d let them know when the second round of copying was finished and it was in my Etsy page. The zine was really popular, much to my surprise and glee! The Multnomah County Library bought 6, and it will soon be in circulation, joining my zine The Left Handed Knitter. So exciting!!!

Here’s Nichole’s side, my trusty tabling mate. I love how our things look together!

All in all it was a great weekend, I did some awesome trades, bought some intriguing zines, and bumped into some old friends. And this year, surprisingly enough, I actually made a little money. I’m never in it to make a buck, but it’s always a great surprise to come home with more than I left the house with. It’s also always a huge compliment that people consider my publications worth a few singles. I had one lady spent $16 at my table alone! She bought several things for a friend, and one or two zines she bought two of. A lot of times people will go right by my table, especially the guys, because my aesthetic is pretty specific and it just doesn’t appeal to everyone. That’s totally okay with me, we all have our tastes. And it usually means that the people who are interested in my stuff really love it, because the style appeals to them so much. I always come home feeling so inspired from the weekend, it’s really a fantastic feeling.  I’m already developing ideas for next year!

Here’s the view from my side of things.

Reusable Shopping Bag

I made this reusable shopping bag out of decorative canvas for my mom’s birthday. I’m pretty proud of how it turned out actually, considering that it was one of my first solo sewing projects, and I didn’t use a pattern.  I used a brown bag as a template, and cut out my pieces with a rotary cutter. Then I just sort of… figured out in what order to sew it in that would make it easiest to put together!

I folded the straps over a few times to make them nice and sturdy, and used a zig zag stitch to seal them in. I used the same plastic grommets as the shower curtain I made a few months ago, I love them! They are so easy to use and add a great dash of color and accent wherever you use them. I handsewed this little star to attach the straps them themselves through the grommets. While the grommets are a little spendy (10.99 a pack, but I always use a coupon) the cool thing is that if you buy them with the intention of making a bag, you get 8 per pack so each will yield two bags. If you use a half off coupon, it makes it worthwhile for two bags, especially if you are selling and expecting a small profit.

I’m also pretty proud of these pockets that I “made up.” I somehow managed to hide all the seams, partially with some more zig-zagging, but I also made a little tab for it to fit in under the top rim of the bag, which not only hid the pockets beginning but also acted to reinforce where the grommets went in. Genius! If I do say so myself

Repurposed Vintage and “Inspired” Findings

 A new interest lately has been creating adjustable rings using vintage clip-on earrings and other jewelry findings.  I always love the super gaudy, huge beaded and rhinestoned vintage clip on earrings, but not only do I have pierced ears, I also have really tiny lobes and those things tend to look gargantuan on me.  So I found another way to use them!  I’m much more of a cocktail ring type of girl myself, I think most of the time larger jewelry looks better on fingers than it does on ears.  I have more of the vintage earring rings I haven’t photographed yet, I’ll post them as soon as I do.

I also came into these really great disc brooches with beads and velvet, that had come apart from their backings. with a little imagination, I was able to turn them into some pretty fabulous cocktail rings! I really love these,  and it’s going to be hard to part with them, but I’ve just listed a few of them on etsy if you’d like to take a look at some more pictures.

The Sexy Librarian Fanclub

click to view larger!

Some of my most coveted collected items belong in my vintage glasses frames collection. I started this stash a few years ago, but have always been completely obsessed with vintage frames. I can spend literally hours looking at frames online. After much lamenting and google searching, I bought my first pair of black lenses from a website* called Allyn Scura around 2004 or 2005. Those trusty “female Buddy Holly”s lasted me up until a few months ago.   I recently became eligible for eye-care insurance again, and came into a little money after receiving a settlement from my car accident, so I treated myself to three new pairs of frames from Hollywood Vintage in SE Portland and took them to my eyedoc to get filled.  The process is surprisingly simple!

Anyway, vintage frames have always been on my radar at antique stores/expo, junk shops, and garage sales.  All of the frames pictured above came in some form of second hand, with the exception of the ones I have prescription lenses in.  (In general the frames that I collect are used/have someone else’s magnifiers installed, while the ones I wear are NOS, or New Old Stock. This means they are vintage, but technically “new”, as they’ve never been used. Such a label comes with a much higher price point, and less stranger’s face grease.)  I kept my old frames in a cigar box, and brought them out to show friends, but the box started to get beat up and soon I had too many frames to keep it closed. Displaying collections (see: my take on the Wunderkammer) is something that is really intriguing to me, and I think is often what defines the thin line between collecting and hoarding.

I had the idea for this elaborate glasses display for quite some time – it took a bit of reworking my ideas, but the end result I think is pretty damn rad. This was a project I ruminated on for a while, and then went to my dad with my ideas. My dad is the kind of guy you can ask to construct anything, and in 10 minutes he will come back with an intricately designed plan. He is also a huge inspiration in the sense that he can make something out of literally anything – or nothing.

This case actually started out life as a somewhat unfortunate looking display box for “trinkets” that I bought at Goodwill, and used for a while to store “random crap I’ve crocheted”:

The frame and top shelf have this awesome bevelled edge, which was the main reason I thought this would be the perfect body for a glasses display. The weirdly shaped-and-spaced guts were added in later I believe, specifically to fit someone’s collection.

I didn’t take any production pictures, but over the course of a few weekends, we worked on the box. Dad cut a new back piece that was thicker than the original plywood, and we covered it with a thin piece of foam plus purple velvet.  It took us a while to figure out what kind of hangers to use for the glasses so that they would be evenly spaced and float away from the back of the frame to get dimension, but that wouldn’t distract from the display. Eventually we decided to use electricians wire, which is copper and coated with a thin plastic covering. I wrapped each peg in purple yarn, and added a dot of purple hot glue to cover up the end, so that they all matched the backing. The electricians wire was also a pretty genius choice because I can bend it to meet the specific needs of each pair of glasses – some need to hang higher, or have their pegs wider apart, and this allows me total freedom with that.

We ended up keeping in the top shelf, partly to help stabilize the frame, and partly because I loved that edge and didn’t want to get rid of it. I am thinking about adding a little mirror to the top, because now that the frames are displayed they just beg you to try them on and fluff up your bouffant. I also want to use the shelf to display vintage glasses accessories like the little rhinestoned pin you see in the first pic, or glasses that won’t hang up. I wanted to display my bespectacled spaghetti poodle (1st piece of a new collection???????) on top, but the shelf turned out to be too narrow so she’ll just have to be satisfied with chilling close-by.

you can’t tell, but she’s winking!

*                    *                    *                    *

Another website I absolutely love to browse is Vintage 50s Eyewear on Etsy, which gets updated once a week and each frame is more fabulous than the next.

Click here to view my favorites on Etsy – unfortunately I can’t sort them to only show my favorite frames, but if you flip back through the most recent 10 or so pages you will see a ton of frames that I couldn’t stop drooling over. Most of them are now sold, but I like to keep them in my favorites to admire back on, and swoon over, every few months.

*I’m not necessarily a huge advocate for buying online, as vintage frames are often quite eccentric – and a good fit (both size-wise, and shape) is important, but I was able to pick a relatively simple style for my first pair and my optometrist helped me to choose from the two measurements available on the site. It helps that they have a decent exchange policy, which is something I would definitely recommend checking out before buying anything of the sort online.  But keep in mind, trying on a TON of different styles and knowing you have many great, fitting choices is half the fun of getting new glasses!

The Relentless Urge To Create

Photo © Earl Joseph Martell. Click the image to be taken to his blog.

This is a really wonderful article I found during one of my lengthier perusals of craftstylish.com. I find the interview to be really inspiring, and have stopped back to read it every so often. This is such a wonderful example of creativity working itself into every person’s reality and daily life. I love this man’s ability to see beauty in something someone else wouldn’t even take a second glance at, and his urge to capture the beauty in that last fleeting moment, before it becomes something else entirely.

Q: I always ask people whether they believe the urge to create—to make something beautiful or useful—is something that is inate in people (or in some people) or whether they think it’s something that can be acquired or developed. Which side of the question do you come down on?

A: I say, realize what you’ve got, what you’ve been given, what’s in front of you, and either embrace it and move forward or settle into something less than your truly authentic life.*

Read the entire article and see some great captures at the Craft Stylish website, or visit Earl Joseph Martell’s blog.

There’s A New Baby In Town

As my satisfaction has gradually dwindled away over the cuteness level of my last doxie crochet project, I decided to up the ante when I found these mini-tiny dog noses at Knittn’ Kitten.  I designed a little pattern for them, and since it’s a fairly quick project, I want to make a bunch and sell them on my etsy. I may even sell the pattern, which is something I have seen on etsy quite a bit but haven’t designed anything worth writing up all fancy like, before this. My attitude towards patterns is usually just to “wing it”, and I tend not to keep track of what I’ve done, as long as it turns out as I want it to in the end.

made sure to make the ears x-tra large, and borderline *comedic*

fun sized, yet still cuddly!

Terrifyingly, Zowie thinks this is one of her toys. I have found it on the floor more than once. Thank god she hasn’t chewed out the nose and eyes yet, which seem to taunt her with glee. She somehow knows this lil baby doxie is too cute and helpless to terrorize in such a horrific way.

Knittn’ Kitten, and Other Recycle Shops

Knittn’ Kitten
7530 NE Glisan St.
Portland, OR 97213
www.knittnkitten.com

Knittn’ Kitten is a really great craft supply thriftstore on NE Glisan, in Portland. My friend Nichole took me there a couple years ago, and I’m hooked. They always have a really great supply of buttons and beads, fabrics, sewing notions, yarn, and knitting needles at really amazing prices, often mere cents. A lot of the fabric, buttons, and notions are vintage. I always come out of the store with a whole bag of stuff, and never spend more than $15.  The last time I went in, they had a ton of little animal noses, and I had been wanting to make some little crochet dogs so I bought them out.  The store is always extremely clean and organized, small things are bagged up and labeled, and fabric is always measured out and wrapped up. The store is run by a mother daughter team who are both friendly and helpful!  I also just feel really great not only supporting a small business, but recycling craft supplies too!

During my last trip I also came out with this really great bias tape, that I am still pondering how to use. I was thinking a guitar strap for my SG would be super cool. What do you think?

East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse
4695 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland, CA 94609
www.eastbaydepot.org

When I lived in the east bay, there was this other amazing store called the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. (This is an old pic, they have since moved locations. But whenever I think of it, this is the store front I see.)  They always had a huge mish mash of potential craft and art project supplies – huge drums of old vacation slides from the 70′s, mountains of fabric samples, pallettes of little corked bottles, old binders, paper, a whole section of old magazines and national geographics… the store was usually crowded and things were thrown around but it kind of added to the atmosphere. I went in there many a weekend with friends, and a lot of the things I bought went into projects for school or boredom-sucker projects. The guys that worked there probably thought I was a crazy hoarder, (well, let’s be honest, I kind of am) but it seemed like everytime I went up to the cashier, whatever I had was always $3. Always. How could I resist making routine weekend trips?

SCRAP!
(School & Community Reuse Action Project)
2915 NE Martin Luther King, JR Blvd
Portland, OR 97212

I’ve only been to SCRAP in Portland once, and it was long ago before they moved to MLK, but I am always hearing great things about them, and I had a great time there back in the day.  I think the only reason I haven’t visited more often is because my craft hoarding has sort of gained a tunnel vision away from paper and odds and ends, and prefers yarn and sewing supplies like at KK.

SCRAP (Scrounger’s Center for Reusable Art Parts)
801 Toland St
San Francisco, CA 94124
http://www.scrap-sf.org/

There is another SCRAP in San Francisco, which I have heard equally great things about, but never had the pleasure to stop by.  It’s probably better, as I’m running out of craft storage space as it is…

If you ever stop by any of these stores, leave a comment or pics with your awesome finds! I’m also interested to hear about any other shops in the area similar to this!

SushiBooties on the Martha Stewart Show!!!

My friend Della was on the Martha Stewart Show!!!!

Della was one of five finalists in the show’s “ReMarthable” contest, to find the crafter who best embodied the style of Martha herself.  She got airtime last friday, to show Martha her Fortune Cookie baby booties. See the clip here! I’m so incredibly excited for her, and needless to say, am living vicariously through her. This kind of prize is pretty much the ultimate reward to any craft enthusiast.  While she didn’t win the grand prize from Martha (a customized bmw) she won the people’s choice award, determined by online votes. I may be biased, but I think she should have won everything.

You can also check out Sushibooties on Etsy!