So, in the news… Erica is due at the end of July with (odds are) baby girl number 2.

This is exciting, as it will:

1. Give Autumn a moving toy to play with for the foreseeable future.

2. Fulfill replacement value reproduction

3. Reward the parents with a tax break

4. Be another cute child

5. Give the grandparents something new to talk about

This is less exciting because it will require:

1. The purchase of Diapers for a few more years

2. Another baby seat, filling the car completely

3. Tolerance of house being a disaster for additional years

4. More of Mommies time, leaving less for Daddy

5. And will reduce the number of hours that Daddy can sleep

Generally, blacksmith shops are not considered very baby friendly environments. Carpentry shops are almost as bad. And Blade smith shops the worst of both worlds, plus some sharp edges.

I don’t know why, but people seem concerned about mixing a child (or children) with limited hand to eye coordination with a scattered and disorganized pile of blades you could shave with. Go figure.

I don’t think that I have ever seen Autumn hold a knife the wrong way, and she knew what they were and what they were called before she was 2.

I keep her out of the shop mostly because I don’t have protective gear small enough and she doesn’t like to wear it when it falls off like that. Also because she makes it more likely that I will hurt myself due to the distraction.

At least she can’t really open the door to the shop while I am working yet. But I can’t imagine that day is too far away. Sigh.

And here are some recent pictures of Autumn, since I was talking about her...

With her brand new big girl skates!

And again...

and just waking up from a nap...

Adventures in T-shirt land:New Packaging

First off, here are some pictures of autumn in her Halloween costume.

If you ask her what she was for Halloween she says "pumpkin face"

And every morning since halloween she wakes up and the first thing she says is "Halloween?"

So, this would usually be my workshop post, but I don't have many good "in progress"pictures. I am working on some new things, that aren't ready to be photographed, and then there are the same projects I have been working on, but the details are not very interesting, and there are a few graphic design things I am working on... which has been a little daunting. Sometimes I wish GIMP were a little more like photoshop, I am trained in photoshop- but alas, gimp is free.

One thing I am working on that I can show you is my packaging. I am trying to come up with a new way to package my items because I have discovered that what I am doing becomes very time consuming when I am mailing several packages a day.

Right now I am wrapping most of my orders in tissue, tying a ribbon around them

and putting a label on the back. My pillows don't fit in tissue, and I do something extra special for bearing necklaces. I use solid tissue most of the time, but I have not restocked since I am trying to come up with something new.

Since I usually feel like I am fighting time in the morning when I am getting my packages ready to ship, I am trying to come up with a professional looking way to package my items that takes much less time. I am pretty sure I have settled on shipping in brown paper bags with either my logo or any of my other designs screen printed on them, and then sealing with a thank you label.

how do you package your items to ship?

I got an email from the owner of stilo lifestyle today and I will be getting my first consignment check this week! WOOO. I also need to replenish some items, so that is awesome !

I hope everyone is having a lovely week!

xoxo!

♥Erica

We had a fun and busy weekend around here, which is usual. I was hoping to have pictures of autumn in her costume to share with you all, but, I dont. The only pictures we took were on Adams new fancy smart phone. I played in the duke city derby championship bout on Saturday. My team lost but I felt like I played really well and I had a lot of fun.

On Sunday I fit the last girl for the damas dresses I am making. She was about a half an hour late, after not showing up at all for the scheduled fitting. I am not annoyed with the girl of corse, it is not her fault, it was her mother that caused her to be late and also to not show up for the scheduled fitting but it really bothers me that she wasted my time like that. I am already offering these girls a STEAL as a gift for my old co-workers daughter, so I am annoyed that she was so disrespectful of my time. After that we took Autumn trick or treating and that was soooo much fun! she was so cute! I will get some pictures soon!

Autumns birthday is coming up, here are some great handmade items that are inspired by autumns birthday:

• 

  Sweet Vanilla and Confetti...

  BiscottiQuee...

  $8.49 USD

• 

  BIRTHDAY PRINCESS RIBBON

  Joosycardco

  $5.00 USD

• 

  Swing high, in the sky. 4...

  ibitelikeamo...

  $14.99 USD

• 

  Ballet Baby Booties Amy Bu...

  BriannaBeans...

  $18.00 USD

ok, hopefully I will have something good to write about later this week!

take care!

♥Erica

Adventures in T-shirt land:from the workbench

This was supposed to be a Wednseday post, but I am a day late and a dollar short, as usual.

This is the project that has been consuming most of this week. It is a wedding dress for a friend of mine, and I want to fit it this weekend . I usually like to fit things much earlier but I couldnt even attatch the skirt until the whole inside bodice was created... so... I hope it fits.

All of the leopard print was screenprinted by hand... and took FOREVER, but I think it looks pretty awesome.

The front has a hook and eye colosure, but it is a fake and is backed with black satin. After I fit the dress I still need to put big grommets in the back because it laces up, and the same big grommets in the front because it is supposed to be a halter. I have not done much with grommets so I am HOPING I do not have any problems with that.

Last week I mentioned an experiment. It worked. I can create my designs on shirts in burnout.

umm... awesome. Like I mentioned, I have seen lots of burnout shirts with random splotches burned out all over it, but nothing like this. I am REALLY excited about it. It has been suggested that I patent the application, but I do not know if it is different enough from other uses of these chemicals to make a patent feasible, although, I did think about the possibility before someone else mentioned it to me.

Whatever. I am REALLY excited to have discovered this awesome new technique.

and here is my shirt deisgn for the week, actually printed on a shirt. I think it is kinda cute. :)

I also mentioned on Friday that I liked that shirt from dark cycle clothing... and I bought it. I love it. I cant say it is my favorite type of tee shirt, it is a little thick and boxy for my taste, but the print is adorable and I am sure I will wear it all of the time.

And the pictures of autumn:

Adventures in T-shirt land: Thoughts from the workbench

SO,

One thing I have learned about my two year old, is that it is usually easier to let her make a mess and clean it up later than try to distract her with her own toys, which would also make a mess if she was interested, but she usually isn't interested in her own toys.

This was the case today . I received a package with some fabric in it and she really took to a fabric with anchors on it and ran around the house in her diaper playing with it. I got some striped fabric from www.etsy.com/shop/christiecottage that I think will look awesome with it. I also took down my tub of buttons and let her play with that... which she really enjoyed, and I am not looking forward to cleaning later.

speaking of Autumn, I got to make some cute things for her as well this week.

It started with a package of onesies that was marked 18 months but actually had 24 month onesies in it. So, someone ordered an 18 month onesie, I made a 24 month onesie, and was lucky enough to catch it before shipping the wrong size. Autumn is almost 2 and can wear a 24 month onesie, but I prefer onesies so I cut off the bottom and surged the edge to make a tee shirt. Way cute. I liked it so much that I made another one.

Autumn has food on her forehead, and moments after this photo it was all over her shirt, too... and I am not sure if you noticed, but that was the screen from the picture I put up yesterday, and of course, here is my first shirt with that screen:

Which is available now in my shop.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/59508212/wind-up-bird-tee-hand-dyed-and-printed

Now for something exciting! I just ordered a chemical. What it does is remove natural materials when you put it on your fabric and heat set it. I have been having a very difficult time finding burnout fabric like I use for my featherweight scarves, so difficult that I have actually removed many of them from my store because I wont be able to make them if someone orders them. This chemical removes natural materials from fabric and leaves the man made materials, so ideally, with a cotton poly blend fabric I will be able to make my own burnout material. I also realized that I can probably screen print my designs with this stuff... and that means I can burnout my designs instead of only printing them with ink... and that is pretty cool...

See you all later!

♥Erica

Thursday Thoughts

Autumn can say her first AND her last name now when asked. And she can count to 11... sometimes 12.

SO, day four of working exclusively from home... well, that is except tomorrow because my former co worker has an appointment and I agreed to go in, so not only am I working at my day job tomorrow, but I am working at my day job ALL day instead of my usual 12-5 shift. Cest La Vie... as I am pretty sure I mentioned earlier it is actually like a break to go in to my old job.

I made some sandwiches.

Here is a random picture of Autumn.

I am making a sign for my spot in the consignment shop, and there are some easy ways to do it, like finding a local printer to do it, or painting the font I use onto something, or maybe even printing that font onto transparencies and then attaching that to something. I have an idea that is really awesome, and really ... kinda hard... and I have my heart totally set on it. We got a scroll saw not long ago that has been used pretty minimally. I REALLY WANT MY SIGN MADE OUT OF WOOD LETTERS...

Like this... of course my obsession with this time consuming sign may be slightly higher because Adam is the woodworker in the family, not I . I went out with him to see how to do it, tried to do it myself, and got mad because the scroll saw cuts too slow. UGH. Maybe I should do an alchemy request on etsy. Probably not. I dont think I can afford that request.

I also finally made a first print of the drawing I digitally colored and posted on Monday. was that Monday?? Anyway, I like it. A lot.

I also am sending a donation to Australia for a breast cancer benefit. I hope they raise a lot of money. This is what I sent.

Anyway, back to it being my 4th day working from home... I feel STRESSED! I am not sure if I am just not getting enough done or if I am being unrealistic with my goals but I almost always don't get done nearly as much as I wanted to get done. Even my daily goals are hard to maintain, which is why I am sitting here writing this blog entry at 10:20 PM.

Ok guys! have a great one!

♥Erica

Some Thoughts and Sketches and someone else's cute baby.

As I mentioned I had some plans for variations on the dress I posted on Tuesday. Here are some very simple sketches of a few of my ideas.

This is a wedding gown, it has the same pleating detail at the french darts, but I removed the collar.

This has the same collar, but the fabric on the halter between the top of the dress and the neck would be sheer in this. It also does not have the pleating on the french darts. This one is also intended to be a wedding dress.

This is like the one above, but it is has a pencil skirt instead of a circle skirt, and it does still have the French dart detail. I dont really know about the red, I was just playing with some new markers. It would look really cute in a swiss dot. I should have rotated the picture before I cropped it, she looks like the leaning tower of endless skinny legs.

This is a circle skirt, no haler, same dart detailing. This could be a pretty tea length wedding dress, or it could be something more casual, and of course I can do it as both.

I have more sketches to draw, but I haven't had the chance yet.

What else? Well my friend Jon, or Jonny Rocketpants, sent me this picture:

Yes, it is another CAUSTIC SIGHTING. Awesome. This is Jon's niece wearing a special onesie I made. Jon and a friend programmed a game called Quarry so I made a few screens. You can download the game for only $1. I still need to make an adult sized shirt for Jon. Isn't his niece ADORABLE?

I also finally got around to looking through the Paris section of vouge collections and I was NOT impressed. All that stood out to me was how BAD everything was. I dont remember the runway shows looking so horrid when I watched them on you tube several months back. I Karl Lagerfeld designed a terrible collection for Channel, and I was equally unimpressed with his own collection. I generally consider him and John Galliano to be the real greats right now. I liked the general aesthetic of Galliano's Dior collection, but I didn't like many of the pieces, and I was much more disappointed with his own collection.

I asked a friend of mine to model for me , so I am looking forward to getting some things done and taking some great pictures to post made to order dresses and other clothing. I think I can charge enough for the dresses that one the first few purchases can help me purchase a the dress forms I need, but I am still going to be on the lookout for a good deal on a used one.

Well, I'll be back this evening for my treasury of the day.

Take care!

Xoxo

Erica

Oh yeah, That's my baby!

WE have two cats, who have been generally uncomfortable with the presence of an new, little, person-like creature running around tormenting them and depriving them of a large percentage of the attention they once got. We were very excited when this photo-op arose and Twilight sat nicely while Autumn pet him.

Autumn never hesitates to put herself in someone elses shoes.


And she and Adam both have EXCELLENT table manners!

Xoxo

♥Erica

From the Workbench

I am not sure if it is really clear what is going on in these pictures but...

This dress is on my form right now. I am not sure what I want to do with it now. I usually design on paper so designing directly on my form instead of starting with a sketch and then transferring the idea to my form was a pretty new experience for me. It was fun though, because it was a much more free way to design. Usually by the time I get to my form I already know exactly what I want to make, and any tweaking is made only to make the dress function properly.


What I am running in to at this point is that I don't know where to go from here. I started without any ideas and I like what I came up with, but now I am stuck! I cant decide what I want to use for fabric, or if I want to go with a print or a solid. I know I want a stiff fabric that will hold it's shape, but that could be anything. I thought a polka dot would be adorable, but then an ochre or pink silk dupioni would be beautiful too.

Other than that, I am designing my logo for caustic threads. I know exactly what I want it to look like but so far my sketches have not turned out the way I want. I want a heart dripping on to a hand like in the corrosive symbol:
:

So, it would only be the hand, and instead of the test tube it would be a dripping heart. The hand I am drawing keeps looking too much like a sketch and not graphic enough.



Also, Autumn is starting to talk! She said "cookie" when we walked past the pastries during our last trip to the grocery store, so I decided that she really SHOULD have a cookie. Adam said she didn't need a cookie, which is true, but I am a sucker for her cute face and gave in. We picked a shortbread cookie that had a mound of neon green frosting on it.



Autumn REALLY enjoyed it.

And now I have several pictures that look like my beautiful baby ate Shreck. Priceless.

Friday Update

Hi!

It is Friday again, and I am so EXCITED for the upcoming weekend! My lovely daughter is turning 1 on Saturday! We are having a party, probably a fairly small party because it seems like no one is in town. I spent last night making 4 different types of cupcakes. We will have "funfetti" cupcakes, chocolate fudge cupcakes with chocolate frosting, yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting and marble cupcakes. I also made 2 pans of chicken enchiladas and one pan of cheese enchiladas, a pan of rice and a pan of mac n cheese which are in the freezer until Saturday. We will also have black beans, fried popcorn chicken, brown sugar veggies, salad, guacamole, salsa, chips... and we will pick up some soda and beer tomorrow. Since we are a derby household it will probably be PBR.

Last weekend I ran my first munecas practice as co-captain/captain, and I would say it went really well. People seemed to feel like it was a good practice, and for the first time in a long time I was sore after practice, and I think that is mostly due to the awesome off skates things Muffin showed us.

WFTDA (woman's flat track derby association) nationals are this weekend. They will surely be on at autumns party and we will be watching games after practice on Sunday.

In other news... I have been itching for some AWESOME, unique, beautiful fabric. I have scoured etsy and the web, but I just am not sure what I want, and am still really spoiled from my time in LA. It is hard for me to spend a lot of money on fabric after being able to buy it wholesale in the fashion district.

Also, early next week I will be sharing a product review of some new prismacolor markers that I was lucky enough to get some samples of. I will also be featuring etsy stores next week that I bought autumn birthday gifts from.

Have a great weekend everyone :)

xoxo

-Erica

I probably should not encourage this:



Or this:



and most definitely not this:



BUT SHE IS SOOOOO CUTE I CAN'T HELP IT! (and yes that is a girl even though she is wearing blue) I guess I should stop wondering how she became so spoiled!


Also, Adam finally got the Lathe he ordered, and he is very excited about that.


And I made this dress for Autumns birthday. It also has matching bloomers. I am selling them in my store, too.