Deck the Halls! Part 2

So for the second installment of this series I'll talk about the star shaped ornaments that inspired my trip to Michael's in the first place.

Again, these were inspired by a pin (this is a trend you'll see carry out for the rest of the Christmas crafts). I loved the look of these piñata-esque star ornaments so I decided to try to make some. I started out with 6 paper mache stars and painted them all a pearl white that I found in the craft closet.

After the base coats were all dry I set out cutting and fringing strips of paper in 5 different colors. I chose gold, silver, and blue mylar with white and blue tissue. Once I had the paper cut and fringed I covered each facet of each star. These ornaments were substantially more time consuming, which is why halfway through I decided three was probably enough. I love the look of the finished product but in the future I'll probably stick with just tissue paper on a project like this. The mylar did not want to cooperate with being glued down to the star base. So if you take on something like this, just keep that in mind.







After hours and hours of fringing paper, I wanted to do something easy with the last three stars. I was really happy with how the pearl white came out, so I decided to glitter the lines and leave it at that. Some of them ended up a little sloppier than others, but they're going to look dazzling on the tree and that's all that matters.




Part three coming soon! Catch up on part one here.

<3

Deck the Halls! Part 1

I'm going to be honest with you guys, I've been bit by the Christmas bug. I mean right now you're probably thinking that I'm a little early but not unreasonably early, but I've honestly been planning Christmas crafts since September. The last weeks of October and first few days of November I was making ornaments like a fiend. And that brings me around to the point of this post! I'm going to do a series of posts on the ornaments/general decorations I've been making for my house this holiday season.

First I'm just going to say that in my excitement to try out a lot of different techniques I had seen floating around the web, I forgot to think about the cohesion of all of the different elements. As such, I have no idea how these will all look together on the tree/in the house, but I had fun making them and that's all that matters. Right? Right.

My main inspiration was this image from Pinterest. I really don't know if it comes across at all in what I actually made but it's what I kept coming back to in my mind.

I went to Michael's for star shaped paper mache ornaments, but two other shapes caught my eye. I'm pretty determined to bring holiday decorations into my room this year, and I'm really drawn to the idea of a tiny tree in my room. Since I don't know how expensive tiny trees are though, I figured I could always grab some sticks at a park or something and still hang some ornaments in my room. So with that in mind I made these guys.





There's not really any kind of technique involved; I glittered the diamond shape with a fine grain gold glitter and forgot to take any pictures of the process.

The other one I painted black and glittered every other section with my multi color glitter.





I love the way these turned out! They were both incredibly easy, definitely something you could finish in the span of one tv episode. (As I did)

Part two will be coming soon!

<3

FUN in LA: Sleigh Bells

For a long time I was confusing Sleigh Bells with Best Coast. It wasn't until I saw the trailer for Bling Ring and I fell in love with "Crown on the Ground" that I realized my mistake.

So when my friend asked if I wanted to see Sleigh Bells with her a few weeks ago I didn't hesitate to say yes. (Full disclosure: I hesitated a little bit because my work schedule can be unpredictable, but when I knew I didn't have to work I was all in.) 

We ended up missing the opening act but we got to the venue in time to see Sleigh Bells and it was SUCH a good show. Alexis Krauss is my new hero, she's so badass. She backed onstage in the robe she wears in the Bitter Rivals video, with one fist in the air and it made me want a leopard and satin robe so I can enter every room the way she did. It was a small venue to begin with, and we ended up right at the edge of the stage so we had a perfect view.



If you get a chance to see Sleigh Bells live, definitely take it. In the meantime, check out their new album.

Have you been to any good shows lately?

<3

Gallery Wall Updates

My favorite thing about my room is still my gallery wall.

I realized that I've never gone over all the prints and pictures I have up!

I added a new column to it and I think it feels more balanced now. The white frame is from Ikea, and it has a silhouette that me and my mom had cut when we went to Disneyland this summer. The picture underneath is just stuck on with washi tape. It's of me, Ali, and Estrella on my 22nd birthday. I was planning on getting a frame for it but I kind of like the way the wall looks with not every picture framed. The black and white picture under that is one that JT took of me for one of her classes our junior year.

The Roscoe Mitchell poster is my favorite print. Roscoe is a music professor at Mills, and I got to see him play at Cafe Oto when I was in London.  The painting under that is another piece made by JT, that was a gift for my 19th birthday.

In the last column I have a print of Shakespeare as a calavera holding a skull like Hamlet that I got at Renegade Craft Fair. To the right of that is a picture of me and my mom at Disneyland when I was a toddler. The yellow frame was given to me by a friend, it's painted to look beveled but the frame itself is flat, and inside it I have a poem I bought at the poem store. To the right of that is a photobooth picture of me and my mom when I was a baby that my mom had enlarged for me. The bird print I bought at a silent auction for the Vagina Monologues my first year at Mills.

I think I'll keep the frames where they are, but I have a few other pictures/prints I want to display so I'll probably switch up the contents in a few months.

<3

FUN in LA: The Brewery Art Walk

The Brewery is an art colony in LA, and if you live here you've probably seen the smokestack from the freeway. When it was built in the early 1900s the building was a steam power plant; it later became a Pabst Blue Ribbon factory which eventually got converted into artist lofts. Twice a year the colony has an art walk that opens the space up to the public to walk through the studios and see the artist's work.

I absolutely love open studios. One of my favorite Mills events is at the end of each semester when the Studio Art MFAs have an open studio. I love seeing how each artist interacts with the space they're given almost as much as seeing the art itself. The Brewery's art walk adds a whole other element to the studio, because so many of them are live/work spaces. So not only was it like walking in an art museum, it was also like walking into 100 different houses. Being the naturally inquisitive (nosy) person that I am, it was right up my alley. 

Since there was a big crowd at the art walk a lot of the artists were busy talking with other people, and quite a few were not friendly at all, but we did get to talk to a couple that were incredibly nice. One of them was the artist behind these trees.

They're so beautiful! He talked with us for a while about where he gets the bonsai from and what he does before he starts building in them. He said he worked on this piece for almost 10 years, which is incredible. 

The other person we talked to was the girlfriend of one of the artists. Their loft was one of the most beautiful spaces I saw at the Brewery, and being able to talk to her about it is probably what made me appreciate it more. She told us that when her boyfriend moved in the room was literally a blank square, but the finished product looked like it could have come out of a magazine. Most of their living area was roped off upstairs but the kitchen was downstairs and it was just gorgeous. Their oven is the same model as the oven in Bewitched! And the rest of the downstairs was their workspace. I gushed about how in love with her kitchen I was, and I told her that it was nice to be able to see the studios because the space itself becomes an art piece in a way. 

Basically I left the art walk desperately wanting a studio. It was a very good day. 

Aside from the studios themselves, the art was amazing. There was such a wide range of so many different aesthetics and styles. If you live in the LA area you should definitely check out the Brewery's website for info on the next art walk. 

<3

Minka

I'm a little bit of a crazy cat lady, not gonna lie. Minka's just so adorable! I can't help it! Any time I get out the camera to take a picture of something I end up snapping a few of her too. On this particular day she was more okay with it than normal, so I got a few good shots.



It's hard to believe she's technically a senior cat! I love her to pieces.

<3

Knitting

Last winter I was eyeing a few oversize scarves on etsy, but I couldn't justify spending so much money on something I could make. When I was cleaning out my closet a few weeks ago I found this pink yarn and decided to put it to use. I went with a simple stitch because I knew I wanted it to be wide so I thought I'd simplify the project where I could. The downside was that I only had two rolls of this yarn so it ended up being a few inches shy of the size I wanted (this is also why it has the world's saddest fringe), but I can wrap it around my neck so I'm calling it a success.

I kind of rushed this for no reason, because LA doesn't have seasons so it's not really like I needed this to protect me from the cold, but a girl can dream. I think next time I'll pick a thicker yarn and possibly larger needles. Also I think I'll add some variations in texture to my next scarf, I got kind of bored of just knitting the same stitch over and over.


It's nice to be knitting again!

<3