Houses in the woods

I was walking in Nathan Tufts Park (which is beautiful) and came across this little habitation

I wanted to share it because I love seeing that other people have the same desire to build with twigs. Every time I see one of these I take a photo; it would be great to collect them all some day...

Purple Paper Bead Necklace

This was fun to make - the design is more traditional and simple than the other ones I made, but strangely enough it actually took more time to make. I kept being unhappy with the sequence of beads and redoing it.

I just posted this on my Etsy store as well - check it out here!

Floral Designs

I made five arrangements as part of a floral tryout last week, and thought I'd share them on here.

Yes, those are poppy seedpods!

I really liked the seedpods and the sedum. Pretty unusual things to be using.

Etsy

I thought I'd share some good news. I started an Etsy shop! It only has one item at the moment, because that's all I brought with me, but I will be making more when I have time. Please check back for more updates. Most likely everything that ends up there will be shown here first, so it may not be a surprise, but hopefully it will be a way for people to take home things they enjoyed seeing on this blog.

Visit: www.keepcreating.etsy.com

Moving

I'm pleased that I've been able to post pretty much every day recently, but things may get shaken up because I've just started moving into my new apartment in Somerville! I will certainly keep creating, though, so new backgrounds for the photographs could end up being the only change :)

Contact me if you want my new address!

Emily

Knit Bag

I started this project so long ago, and it waited around for handles for a very long time. I'm glad that I've been able to finish it finally! The body is a knit rectangle with cabling, and the bottom is crocheted.

Museuming

I had two missions today: to see the exhibit on the roof of the Met, and the show of collected junk at the MoMA.

Roxy Paine's installation on the roof was pretty great. It had been described to me as "twigs", but when I saw it it seemed more chaotic than that.

I also wandered through the new American wing, and was surprised on stumbling upon the Charles Engelhard court:
I also loved the show at MoMA of things the artist's mother collected and kept in her home in China. There were so many things it would not have occurred to me to keep.

I really loved these: empty tubes of toothpaste, fruit wrappers and especially the tons of plastic bags carefully folded into little triangles.
The view from the second floor was also wonderful:

Wallet Project

Before I left school I tried sewing a wallet. It was a project I thought could be neat, but I ended up with too many unsolved problems, like the thickness of the seam allowance that ends up inside the wallet, and the general floppiness, and accidentally sewing over the business card holders, and making them too small... I would have to figure out a better standard size for wallets. But they could be a fun embroidery project.

NY Gift Show II

I returned to the Javits Center today to check out the parts that hadn't been open on Saturday. I did another circuit of the downstairs handmade section and also took the shuttle over to Pier 94, which had some interesting home furnishings.

Some things that interested me this time:

Teresa Goodall - I especially liked a necklace with strings of leather hanging down from the beads. Recently I've been into the idea of tying fibers to strung necklaces to give them more form.

Flying Anvil - I love the way she uses everyday black stones in her jewelry. It reminds me of an artist I saw in Somerville who had a necklace with beads of rock and twisted metal, like the votive contents of a child's pocket made elegant.

Elements, Jill Schwartz - jewelry and accessories with an eclectic antique look. I especially like her rings.

Colleen Toland - The color combinations in her beaded accessories are really inspiring. I have no idea how she comes up with them, but they must be fun!

Tesoros Trading - more recycled objects, with a message of empowering third-world artisans. This recycled paper piece reminds me so much of my tape coasters! I wonder how it was made.

Acacia Creations - Ethically-produced, surprisingly soft-toned recycled paper beads. The images on the website didn't load for me, unfortunately.

Architects & Heroes - They make wonderful "pulley" lamps, which descend using pulleys and ropes when you pull them. I couldn't even figure out how the mechanism worked, but it was very clean and smooth. I was reminded very much of similar lamps we saw recently in a historic plantation house in North Carolina, where such technology was used to replenish the oil-burning light.

Groundwork - I especially liked a "sedum table", which had plantings surrounding four brick placemats. I wish I could find a picture to demonstrate it; it looked so wild and natural.

It was really interesting to see more paper jewelry. It's a really great thing that it's mostly being done to bring better lives to artisans in other countries, but I'm surprised that I've generally seen only one type of design. It's inspiring me to perfect my method, keep being creative and start promoting my pieces!

New Projects

I'm working on beading with the paper beads as accents. I'm not hugely satisfied with the red project - the colors didn't end up being as elegant together as I'd hoped. I'm more excited about the beige and metals project, but I ended up not having enough beads to go through with it at the moment...