Mini Accordian Book Photo Tutorial

Ruth Bleakley created this sweet tutorial of a Mini Accordian Book recently and was kind enough to share it here with our readers.  Ruth has started making tutorials on her blog as of late, and also sells her handbound books and journals on her etsy shop, here.

Materials:
• Scraps of thin decorative paper for covers,
• filler paper (this can be regular computer paper or sketch paper)
• thin cardboard for the covers (the kind on the back of a sketchpad will work fine)
• glue (I use PVA but any white glue would work fine)

1. Cut cardboard covers slightly larger than the size of your accordion, folded up. I made these strips of paper as wide as printer paper (8.5″) and about 2″ tall, then made the cardboard covers overhang by about 1/8″. I folded the paper first, then measured the folded size to determine the cover. I cut the cardboard with a utility knife and metal ruler.
2. Cut decorative cover paper for the cardboard so that it overhangs all sides by 1/4″ and trim off the corners so they’re mitered (at a 45 degree angle) that way there’s less bulk in the corners when you glue them them. Apply glue and fold opposite sides together. So long sides first, then top and bottom.
3. Gluing the inside is the trickiest – fold up your accordion inside, and put glue on the facing side of the last sheet, then adhere it to the first cover. For the second cover, put glue on the sheet facing you and then lay the cover on top like you’re putting together a sandwich.
4. Viola! If you like, cut a short piece of ribbon and glue it to the back of the book for a tie. Make sure there’s no glue sticking the pages of your book together before you tie it and leave it to dry.

Mini Autumn-y DIY Round-Up

Fall leaves garland by A Beautiful Mess

An easy mason jar lantern DIY with a touch of autumn from Stylizimo

Lino stamp fabric printing tutorial by BlueBerry Ash

via craftgawker

Video: How to Make a Liberty Print Oven Mitt

The folks over at Liberty London have gotten a little crafty over on their blog today creating this super-cute Liberty print oven mitt video tutorial using one of their beautiful fabrics. After you watch the video you can even download the mitt pattern here.

my make believe collection :: 13 :: andrea higgins

Contributor post by Lisa Solomon
 

Laura, 2001, oil on canvas, 52" x 52"

in my mind some of the best art is created via some form of obsessiveness. andrea higgins' work is a perfect example of this. i first saw her work in 2003 at sfmoma's SECA exhibition and was immediately hooked.

detail of Laura

in my mind some of the best art is created via some form of obsessiveness. andrea higgins' work is a perfect example of this. i first saw her work in 2003 at sfmoma's SECA exhibition and was immediately hooked.

Portrait of My Grandmother #2, 2000, oil on canvas, 52" x 40"

detail of above

she started out meticulously painting textiles as portraits of people she knew - or fabrics she remembered/where in her life. the above is a depiction of her grandmother via a familiar houndstooth plaid. i love the simplicity and depth of this idea. we all know that what we wear says a lot about us. it can make or break an impression, it can begin to tell people who and what we are and what we believe in.

Jackie (Mexico), 2002, oil on canvas, 24.5" x 21"

detail of above

she then moved onto outfits from president's wives. brilliant really. they are so scrutinized for their apparel. almost too much hinges on what they wear: how they wear it, who designed it, what color it was, whether or not it was appropriate for the occasion. i love how "familiar" these feel. you recognize them as fabric, but then realize they are painted. by hand - lines and dots repeated until they form an abstract whole. i love that they are not in the shape of clothes. that they are literally rectangles. reinforcing their "painting-ness". of course jackie o get's more than one rendition:

Jackie (Bogota), 2002, oil on canvas, 24.5" x 21"

detail of above

currently she is working on portraits of characters from literature. there's a great explanation of some of her work and some passages of text that correspond on her dealer's blog. she shows with todd hosfelt in san francisco.

Dorian, 2008, oil on canvas and panel, 28" x 36"

i adore the conceptual nature of her work. but ultimately i also love that these end up being very meditative and luscious paintings. they are in a way paintings for painting's sake - the texture and strokes so evident. i was a costume designer in another life, so thinking about pattern and form and what clothing conveys is also something that interests me, so i get a good dose of that in these as well.

andrea painting

 you can view a KQED piece on "the president's wives" series..... and which piece do i want for me? i thought at first one of the jackie o pieces, but then ultimately? it has to be this one:

Lady Bird, 2003, oil on canvas, 60" x 38.5"

detail of above

i love the lemon yellow. i love that i can almost picture what this 1960's dress would look like from this small snippet - textured sateen maybe? empire waist? her hair perfectly coiffed. yes. this one is for me.

thanks for playing along with me as my collection grows. you can follow it on pinterest. till next time. happy almost fall !

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lisa solomon is a mixed media artist who lives in oakland, CA with her husband, young daughter, a one eyed pit bull, a french bulldog, a cross-eyed cat, a 3 legged cat, and many many spools of thread. she moonlights as a college professor, a graphic designer, and is a partner in MODify/d a crafty biz that up/cycles and re/purposes discards from the fashion industry.

Shopping Lessons from Southeast Asia With @rena_tom

Contributor post by Rena Tom

I got back from a whirlwind trip to Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong this past weekend. It was a family vacation, but I couldn’t help doing a little shopping in between the trips to zoos and swimming pools with my toddler.




I found that in Asia, at least, everyone goes to the mall. Malls are air-conditioned and in a near-equatorial climate, we found ourselves in a mall for at least a few minutes every day. They are very different creatures than the ones I grew up with - opulent and multi-storied, with excellent and lavish food courts, children’s playgrounds, supermarkets and aquatic parks and oh yeah - every luxury brand you can think of.

For the most part, though, that’s not how I shop, and even though I was in the land of the big mall, I was always looking for the smaller retailers on the quiet side streets. They were not easy to find in these megacities, but they were worth the effort.

[Images: Two very different shopping experiences - (below) an outdoor bazaar celebrating Hari Raya Puasa (end of Ramadan) in Singapore, and (top) a Tokidoki sculpture as part of an art and design festival sponsored by a Hong Kong mall.]

What did I learn while shopping as a tourist in other countries? This trip reinforced my beliefs about rallying the community behind you and collaborating with like-minded store owners. In Singapore, you can join other creative business owners through an organization called Creme, which supports local brands and boutiques and holds events to promote and sell. There was a pop-up flea market the week I was there.

Making it easy for shoppers to know if something is locally made is key as well. Definitely talk about where you are located and where you came from in your packaging. I tried to purchase from local designers wherever I went, and having that info on a display card or the packaging itself makes this hunt a lot easier when there are potential language barriers. For example, I picked up this wallet after reading that the designers are Harvard-trained architects but design and produce in Shanghai.

What else did I learn? There is a time and place for large retailers, and I admit to succumbing to the siren call of Muji and Uniqlo. Savvy smaller retailers (with cash behind them) can get a space at the mall too, positioning themselves in front of shoppers with ready money, such as the street fashion brand Sugarman, now with six boutiques in Hong Kong. This may not be the way for every store, but cannot be ignored as a path for those who want to catch a shopper who is looking for unique designs and a little local street cred.

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Rena Tom is a retail strategist for creative business owners. She previously owned Rare Device, a boutique and art gallery with locations in New York and San Francisco that was renowned for its carefully edited collection of design objects, books, housewares and accessories, and for supporting small, innovative designers and artists whose work was not easily found in stores. Rena blogs about personal projects as well as retail trends and small business tips at renatom.net. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and baby boy in an apartment filled with too many laptops, Sprecher root beer, half-finished craft projects and overdue library books.

Cape Fridge Magnets

Following the interest his embroidered cape chairs received designer, Michael Chandler thought he'd use the found blue and white china shards in a far more domestic way. Inspired by an invitation that a friend had sent him to a design and art launch, he decided to make fridge magnets out of blue and white porcelain shards that he had found in and around Cape Town. As Michel says, "The result is a wonderful play between then and now, domesticity and dirty resting places, broken and whole. Yesteryear’s kitchen mishap, is today’s kitchen Gem. (Via Kickcan & Conkers).

(Related:  My post today at Babble features some of cutest magnets ever!  Click here to read).

hello shiso!

Mimi Tsang, the designer behind hello shiso, understood from an early age that accessories can make an outfit. hello shiso is a small design studio and workshop based in Berkeley, CA making accessories for boys and girls and sometimes their parents. They love creating well-made, modern designs with fun details and suspect that grown-ups secretly buy their goods for themselves! Visit them at their shop or at their blog, where they rock the weekends with Fashion Show Sunday!  Also we are lucky enough to have them with us this month at Poppytalk Handmade!

 

shop: http://www.helloshiso.com

website: http://shisomama.wordpress.com

poppytalk handmade:  http://poppytalkhandmade.com/table16