fern animal glow in the dark

Cuteness...!
fro Ashley's blog: "

This project is a collaboration between Fern Animals and Velle Magazine. We have all been working this for months now, and I am so excited to finally be releasing it!

This exclusive glowing Fern Animal is completely hand embroidered with glow in the dark thread, and comes in a hand made glowing carrying case produced by Velle.

The animal is made from recycled linen that was pulled from the back of an Audubon print (I have a book conservation friend!) and is stuffed with 100% Natural Organic Cotton.

The carry case is hand made from natural wool felt, clear vinyl and polymer, and is also stitched with glow in the dark thread.

This is the first in a very small edition of only six glowing animals!

The auction begins tonight, March 20th at 10pm EST, and will be up for five days, ending Monday March 24th at 10 pm EST." Link.

-Jamie

happy easter

Steven Darden...our wire hero

who will so happen to be teaching a class here! I met Steven about two months ago and he was selling a few of his wire figure at a charity auction and they absolutely blew me away. These spiders here are made from paper clips, copper and steel wire and stuff that he found on the streets around his neighbor. link.


He will be teaching a class on how to make the wired spider on Saturday April 26th at the UCC. link.

-Jamie

Moxie has out done herself....she is the felting queen!

I am definitely a needle felting aficionado but Made by Moxie just....tops the cake with this. Holy smokes....I can't even imagine how long that took her to do....she must of used her monster 18 needle felting tool that she made herself. Playfully interpretation of Little Big Dog. :)
[via]. Link.

-Jamie

Needle Felted Easter Goodness!

I saw Miss. Potter recently and enjoyed it very much. It is about Beatrix Potter, the creator behind the Peter Rabbit story series. I am very inspired by her- the Beatrix Potters and J.K. Rowlings out there who can find success through their visions- devising complete little worlds. A goal of mine is to write and illustrate a children's book someday...

I found these adorable needle felted Peter Rabbit bunnies here, just in time for Easter.

-Carolyn

Finished sewing projects! And they're reversible!

I'm sure that I'm not alone here, but I love taking the 'U' out of 'UFO' and making a Finished Object (from an Un-Finished Object).

-Carolyn

Repurposed Western shirt/skirt - from Candi Cancel's class.

It's reversible! I arranged for pockets on both sides.

My shopping tote.
I stitched the straps together at the top, so maybe this project would be more accurately described as semi-reversible.

World Famous Crochet Museum

The World Famous Crochet Museum- does anybody know about this place? It's right outside of Joshua Tree, CA.

I was just in Joshua Tree on Monday, but didn't read about this place till yesterday!

This darling little desert gem was written about in the same issue of Craftzine as yesterday's blog posting.

-Carolyn

Mark this up on your 'to do' list- after visiting the world's largest ball of yarn- and don't miss the 'poodle wing.'

TOO MUCH! Again!!!

Oh my goodness, I can't breath, I am hyperventilating, this is really TOO MUCH!

You have to check out this site. It is in Japanese, but just scroll around and click on things and you'll get the tour. There's a particularly cute miniature doll house. I came across it looking back to an old Craftzine blog entry from November, 2006.

Again, nature-derived...everything is made out of nutshells...which means...everything is mini!

We love mini-sized things here, and of course things nature-derived, and well, nuts too!

-Carolyn

Speaking of thinking outside of the box...

...I came across these nature-derived jewelry pieces by Terhi Tolvanen on one of my favorite blogs (Found Object) - and they are just gorgeous!

I do love it when Mixed-Media really works - it looks purposeful and as natural as the objects themselves.

-Carolyn

glass, silk, pressed wood

gold, tourmaline, wood, textile

tourmaline, glass, silk, wood

Speaking of Quilts...

...I like quilts that think outside of the box:

-Carolyn

found here:

found here:

found here:

found here:

Tutorial-how to sew a double-sided strap

This is a wonderful tutorial courtesy of Fat Orange Cat. Easy, clear and clean instructions....my favorite! [via] link.

-Jamie

Story Boards

I was looking around at the myriad of blogs out there, as per usual, and came across this wonderful little Peruvian quilt here.

It reminded me of this old story board I had as a kid which depicted all of the main fairy tales compiled onto one large panel. It hung across the wall above my bed and each night my parents would tell me a different bedtime story using it as a reference. One night it would be Cinderella arriving at the ball in her pumpkin carriage, follow the same road down a bit and there would be The Three Little Pigs inside their houses of varying sturdiness. Travel further along said road and you might happen upon The Muffin Man selling his Hot Cross Buns....

Which then reminded me...

...remember the old felt boards you had as a child? They were great- and they forced you to use your imagination in a similar way...but then went even further by being interactive.

-Carolyn

(aw, Goodnight Moon, my favorite!)

Goldilocks And The Three Bears

Show & Tell kit

Old felt board

...and who remembers Colorforms?

(I personally don't remember these, but thought them apt. Apparently, my boyfriend had the one for Happy Days....).

Our fabric from the Pomona Quilt Show

What fun we had yesterday! Here's a sampling of some of the goodies we got:
(click to enlarge)

-Carolyn

Leftovers....

I hate wasting...really...almost to a fault. After our paper making experiment (pssttt...something in the air tells me that we might offer it as a class soon)....we had some leftover paper mulch so let's see what happens to these little guys over the next few days....


-Jamie

At the Quilt Show in Pomona

Yesterday we went to the Quilt Show in Pomona and it was a shopping frenzy! We got there shortly after the show opened in the morning and there was a line snaking around to outside the gate....there must have been over 200 people in front of us eager to get in. Once we got in, we saw a herd of people in front of the booths in front of us and the shopping frenzy began....







After about three hours of that and bumping and fighting through crowds of people, we headed home to the studio, inspired by all the different quilts, vendors, patterns and interesting new things/crafts the different vendors created. (Also saw an embroidery sewing machine for the first time...omg...it was $5,000+). New classes will definitely be coming from all the different fabrics and things we bought.... :)

-Jamie

Our collection

......and here is a sampling of our button collection:

-Carolyn

Repurposing vintage buttons

These old buttons have been repurposed into elegant, contemporary earrings. You can find them here:

1920's ruby glass buttons

1880's jet black shoe buttons

We have a nice collection of vintage-y 1950's-ish buttons here at The UCC.....

-Carolyn

Superfine Felt

The first image makes me think landscape....and depending the size of the bottom figure, it could be a ring that fits on your finger.

I found these great felted pieces here:

-Carolyn

artist: Emily Barletta

artist: hisano takei

Recycling paper...literally

We made these sheets of paper the other day from our recycling bin.

-Carolyn

Homemade Goods

Eugenia came in and made this beautiful batch of soap. Excellent work!

While I was teaching her about soap-making from scratch she taught me how to jar my my own jam. Now I need to put all that useful information to practice. First up - strawberry jam.

Funnily, the topic came up due to her reservations about working with lye, compared to my fear of botulism in home canned food.

Thanks, Eugenia!

-Carolyn