girls can “rock-it!” too!!!

the best part is Arlin got to send a little love in this work of art…I hemmed his baseball uniform t-shirt couple weeks ago and it afforded me the snazzy dark purple for the rocket…..never throw away those scrap bits of fabric! When it comes to designs I upload to the webstore I have to commit to a fair amount of yardage in all colors I work with allowing me to fullfill multiple orders. However, all custom “one off” applique designs I make- I try and make it a point to utilize seconds, because I believe it’s the green thing to do. Funny, now that I’m having such fun designing with solid jersey/interlock knits I find myself thumbing through our laundry, especially Arlin’s clothes….nothing is safe around my imagination!

Stay tuned…a new applique design was born yesterday while I was sewing!

an adorable adjustable collar made for a doggie named Thor that I sewed using a mens silk tie that the husband gave me to work with…

Hope all you Mama’s out there had an amazing Mothers Day!!!

]]> http://www.babyluxdesign.com/babyblog/?feed=rss2&p=5521 0 http://www.babyluxdesign.com/babyblog/?p=5513 http://www.babyluxdesign.com/babyblog/?p=5513#comments Thu, 10 May 2012 20:42:51 +0000 Tyler http://www.babyluxdesign.com/babyblog/?p=5513 Tinkering around this morning I made this quilted patchwork camera strap.  It’s an easy slide on and off cover for my Canon, which works well because I like to change my strap every couple months…I’m thinking I might have to make a small collection for the Baby Lux webstore…

It puts great use to some of my smaller scrap fabrics which seem to be growing out of control lately!

What do you think? And price?

Her online boutique features one-of-a-kind clothing and accessories.

The inspiration for Tyler Larsen’s line of baby clothing and accessories began before she had any children of her own. She was running a successful interior design business, but she seemed to be making baby items on a regular basis.

She says, “I had always hand crafted my own baby shower gifts for friends and family over the years and by doing that I always seemed to have a running order from a friend of a friend.”

After the birth of her son, she left the design world in order to stay at home. But she couldn’t stop thinking about all those orders for baby items she used to get.

“I just knew I had to do something creative or I’d go stir crazy! So, I bugged the ‘hub’ to whip me up a website. A place where I could share ALL my fun creations with the rest of the world.” Her old design business was called Lux Interior Design. By changing one word she came up with Baby Lux Design and was soon selling items online and in a local bricks-and-mortar store.

Tyler says that her mother made a significant contribution to her business when she gave her a Memory Craft 6600 Professional sewing machine.

“I am so thankful for my Janome,” she says. “It’s been an important part in my creative growth. I always say . . . ‘If I can draw it, I can sew it on my Janome!’ Its precision never ceases to amaze me.”

See Tyler’s creations on BabyLuxDesign.com. And if you want to find out more about her machine, you can try it for yourself at your local Janome dealer.

I actually got two pairs like the ones above, the other pair is a fun copper-ish color

these red one’s are too cute…little slip on ballet flats with bright colored embroidery on the toes

and these beautiful leather slippers, the colors remind me of a peacock…

AND there were a few total unexpected surprises…

a hand carved wood pendant necklace...i love this!

and a handmade paper mache’  ornament…cause the hub knows I have a penchant for collecting ornaments.

Signing off one fun weekend…I got some serious sewing finished Saturday just in time to hang with the girls for a “girls ( or I should say Mom’s ) night out”  where we enjoyed some yummy Thai food and drinks before we scooted over to a local tavern for some live music. And today was all about soaking in the sunshine working in our yard…I’m pretty happy it’s spring time, everything is blooming, even the veggie seed starts Arlin and I planted. Hope you all had a great weekend too!

This new design will be in the webstore today!

And that “fun news” I was to share last week….I’m tickled pink Janome.com (as in Janome sewing machines) contacted me for an interview in which I’ll be featured as a “Powered by Janome” business on Janome.com this Thursday! (update: I’ll be on Janome.com Monday May 7th)*Squeal*

one for a big sister size 4T

And one for a little brother….size 12-18 months.

And of course I had to make Gwennie the little skirt above out of the left over fabric…

because…well, she’s just the cutest darn model around town!!

And I’m thinking I might just know the perfect little model for the test run kimono I made last week *wink*wink.

I’ve got some fun news to share later this week stay tuned!

Elizabeth bought a Scrabble board game when we were on our thrift store expedition, she really only wanted the wood scrabble letter tiles for art-ing. So she left us the remnants of the game to use or toss.

 Arlin’s put the game board to creative use…he says it’s the “chamber of doom” and each color square means something “spooky”… don’t ask, it’s a Lego thing. I think? Just about every Lego guy he has is stacked up on top of the board.

AND I found a use for the scrabble tile holders!

added a little paint…

I had originally glued picture frame hangers on the backside with E6000 but I didn’t like how far off the wall it made the scrabble tile rack lean. So, with pliars I plucked em’ off and figured a long strip of 2 way foam tape would surely do the trick considering how light weight the rack is and the pictures I was mounting…it worked perfectly.

this gallery is in the hubs office upstairs…it’s slowly growing…the photo of the Lake Union up top was a gift from my n’ laws when they came to visit us last year. They saw the hub and I ooing and ahhing it and to our surprise they spoiled us! It’s a beautiful photo done by a local landscape photographer. In the middle is our 2006 marriage certificate. The silhouettes on the right are of Arlin and I, also done by a local artist. Silver frame is a photo of Miss Stella, the hub and I at a charity event. And the other two black frames are of  me pregnant with Arlin on a trip to New Orleans and a 3D photo of Arlin in my belly from an ultra sound recording we did at about 7 months- such an awesome experience.

And the scrabble tile racks are displaying all my art cards from our dear friend Kirk!

Not the only one with the idea of re-purposing scrabble tile racks…surfing the net I saw you can buy 50 of them on ebay for $3.25…..now that would be a serious gallery wall!

Let me preface this post by announcing I know this style of art is not for everyone but it’s good to keep an open mind *wink* wink*

The supply list read:

• Gaudy old frames (probably nothing larger than 8”x10”, but really that is up to you) IMPORTANT: Needs to have some sort of backing! It can’t just be a hollow frame we need it to have a backing to build our relief on.

• Animal toys, doll parts, toy figurines, various body parts from models. The figures on trophies work really well too.
• Variety of found objects: Items that correspond with the size of the frame. These will be used on the frame as well as around the interior portrait. Could literally be anything. Bits of ephemera, text, and other paper images.

See, a supply list like this gets me all rallied up….You mean I have a mission when I go to the thrift store?!? With the best partner in crime- evar! (Elizabeth)!? Oh this was going to be (and was) so FUN!!! We managed to hit every single thrift store within a 20 minute radius of Seattle. We scavenged every toy section, housewares, knick knacks, vintage books, frames and games, etc…We even hit up some dollar stores too! Elizabeth took deMeng’s class the day after me so any ephemera or left over doll/animal parts she could use….this kinda gave us a hall pass to get a little crazy on our scavenger hunt. I still have a bag of doll heads and legs sitting in my studio

I hauled way too much stuff with me to class…but I had no clue what I what type of creature was going to emerge until I started dremmel sawing doll heads and toy parts. Here’s a look at my table in the beginning of the workshop, glad you can’t see the bags overflowing under my feet!:

I got a little creative with thrift store finds, instead of using a frame with a flat backing…I bought two frames an 8×10 and a 5×7 and an old brownie pan, I was hoping to get some depth and a little extra dimension with the stacked frames. I had no clue again how I was going to get it all to stick together…but I had tools….and metal and e6000 and apoxy 2 part clay which can just about make anything possible!

the dragon on the bottom left was my thrift store toy in tow and it went under a massive deconstructive surgery…which I learned after class was the dragon from 1959 film Sleeping Beauty (kind of ironic considering what I made with it) I took off all limbs with a screw driver, cut off the tail, the horns, the tongue and the wings…I knew I wanted the wings in my creation for sure…but they were really big and I wasn’t sure how this creature was going to fit  my whole brownie pan idea….but I figured I was game to find out and deMeng recommend I commit to my idea with the frames and pan and start with assembling those and the creature would follow…so I did just that…

I used a piece of balsa wood I grabbed at the art store in Port Townsend for a dollar, it was thin enough I could snap it in half and use a piece at the top and bottom to wedge the pan in by it’s lip and then I cut a soup can lid into four triangle pieces and hammered them into the outside frames routed groove where the normal frame backing normally goes. Then I caulked the tiny gaps on each side of the pan and top frame to seal it up.

Then the fun stuff started….the creature came to life…a winged serpent mermaid of sorts…

wait, wait…I know, she’s creepy….it’s ok. she’s not hanging in your house….don’t fret. Although I might send her to you for Christmas (gosh, I could just see my Mom’s face if I were to do that! love you Mom and no, I won’t do that!) The doll and torso were actually a vintage cake topper I found at an antique store in Port Townsend, right at the waist it was just a plastic stick, so I snapped it off then I had to dremmel a bit off to make her shorter, it literally melted when I cut it…and her poor hair…it wasn’t really that long I had to rip it off the back of her head then wire it into buns to make it look like she had more hair than she did. Her crown is piece I cut off a broken bracelet charm.

her tail is the very end of the dragons tail…I sawed it down quite a bit to fit then sculpted the cut doll bodice and tail together with apoxy clay…while the apoxy clay was still malleable I cut little bits of soup can lids as fast as I could and used jewelry pliers to stick em’ into the clay one by one before it dried all the way…the wings at this point just weren’t going to fit they were way to wide to get into the pan…so I just went for it cutting the whole top and bottom sections off and they just barely fit…the wing on her hip is from the dragons head and her chest piece are found metal bits..

The frames were the easiest part (or maybe the fact I ran out of time…but I added a layer of caulk on the inner frame and smudged it a bunch with my fingers to give it valleys for the paints to seep in…the outside frame is just painted blackish brown…the inside of the pan was an experiment…a mistake turned out to be really cool in the end…half way through trying to get the paint off the pan by soaking it in water so I could start over it was time for class critiques but and as deMeng got around to mine we both agreed it actually looked kinda cool in the half way stage…mistake well done.

I thoroughly enjoyed deMengs workshop. He is by far one of the best instructors I’ve experienced at Artfest. I bought his custom palette paint fan to learn some of his tricks….the guy is a genius when it comes to color mixing and antiquing things. Just in regards to paint I feel like I learned a ton from him. If art like this doesn’t send you running you should definitely see more of his work or better yet take a workshop!

big thanks to Kate (on the right) for all these awesome photos…

you can tell we were hardly having any fun…

none…

on days like today…when I’m knee deep in sewing and being a mama solo (’cause the hub’s working in India)….I love looking at these pictures and remembering all the funny stories and good laughs we had!

I have one last artfest workshop recap…swear! then it’s on to custom order sharing….sew, sew,sew!

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