Feeling Under the Weather

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been feeling sick and am trying to get some rest. Wil be back soon!

Packaging and stuff

I have been wanting to re-design my packaging for a while now. I love the current packaging but wanted something that was more functional and still looked really nice. I came up with a couple of different looks but ultimately wasn't happy with the end result. I have finally come up with something that I am really excited about and in order to create it I had to order a Craft Robo, which is a small cutting plotter. I will hopefully be able to play with the machine this weekend and make my new labels. I have been so busy preparing for the Brooklyn Flea, which I will be selling at on May 11th, and I am dying to get the new package design completed before then. I will keep you posted on the results and hopefully will be able to reveal the new packaging on Monday. Stay Tuned!

Lotta Prints

I just got Lotta's newest book, Lotta Prints. The book is filled with beautiful and inspiring photos and wonderful, step-by-step instructions. I have gotten so many ideas from looking through this book, I can't wait to start on some of the projects. I've been eager to add some new and different things to the shop and this book has given me some great inspiration. The book shows you how to use stencils, rubber stamps, screen printing, and even potatoes to print patterns on many different surfaces. The photos are beautiful and as a bonus the book includes some stencils so you can get started right away. This book is a must have for your craft collection.

Mike and I went to see the pope this weekend. My Catholic school teachers would be so proud! At first I didn't want to go because I knew how insane it would be, but I'm glad I did. It was a pretty cool thing to see. The security was crazy intense, there were helicopters and snipers and he had one heck of a security detail on foot all around the pope-mobile as he proceeded down Fifth avenue.

King Corn

This weekend Mike and I watched a great documentary, King Corn. King Corn follows two college friends who are concerned with the fact that for the first time in decades, America's life expectancy is expected to decline. The two friends go to a university where they have their hair sampled to find out what their diet consists of and are shocked to find out that corn seems to be the main staple. Confused by this they decide to do further research and move from the East Coast to Iowa where they grow 1 acre of corn and follow it into the food system. I was amazed at what they discovered. This film has totally changed the way I look at food, especially beef. I was shocked to see that the corn they produced isn't even edible because it is made strictly to produce high fructose corn syrup. There is a hilarious scene where the two guys actually make high fructose corn syrup in their kitchen. The stuff contains battery fluid acid and some other chemical that had the words "HARMFUL" printed in large block letters on the packaging! For those interested I think this is running on PBS this week under the title: Independent Lens: King Corn. A great movie if you are interested in seeing what actually goes into the food you eat.

Amy Butler Fans

Scrolling through my design blogs and found this courtesy of Design Healing. Amy Butler for Mikasa.

Happy Friday

Nothing too exciting to discuss today, the weather is warm and beautiful and should last all weekend. Spring is definitely here! Have a great weekend everyone!

This show is, like, brilliant, or whatever...

I was a HUGE My So Called Life fan, I even wrote a letter to ABC begging them not to cancel the show...in fact, my eighth grade teacher was such a big fan, she made us all write a letter asking them not to cancel the show! For the past few years, I have waited patiently for them to re-release the DVDs and finally they did so I have been watching them via Netflix. They only aired 19 episodes so I am down to the last disk, I don't want it to end! This was, like, the best show EVER! This show perfectly captured what it was like to be a teenager.

This is one of my favorite scenes, it has to be one of the best moments in tv history, almost as good as when Ben told Felicity that "it was his turn."

The Binder(s)

Hello my name is Candice and I have a magazine addiction! I seriously can't stop! At last count I was up to 16 a month and since then I think I have added at least 5 more, not counting my new obsession with international design magazines that I grab at the newsstand near my office. I used to keep the magazines, ear marking the pages that I was interested in but that quickly became a major storage issue, so now I have binders. It started with one binder that had everything in it, recipes, design ideas, hair and makeup tips, etc. I'm now up to 6 binders and counting. We're not talking about the tiny 1 inch binders either, these are the BIG ones, the ones offices use for holding reports and accounting ledgers and stuff!

So, every month I tear out the pages I want to keep from each magazine and begin the process of clipping, and taping, and hole punching. This has turned into quite a process since I have so many to go through! I love going through my binders, they are such a great resource and source of inspiration for me. Some people have inspiration boards in their studios or work spaces, I have entire binders full of inspiration! Mike has even joined in and now clips things from his magazines to put into his own binders (I don't share!)

1 out of 2 aint bad!

I had another bad batch of soap last night. Honestly, I don't know what is happening. This one is usable, it's just cosmetic but this is the third batch where this same thing has happened. Fellow soapers if you can offer any advice I will gladly take it...basically, I pour the soap into the mold I cover it and put it aside and then I start cleaning up. Within about five minutes the soap starts to expand up and over the mold, pouring out the sides, making a HUGE mess! It then starts to go back down and kind of collapses on itself making the top of the soap concave. It's purely a cosmetic issue, the soap works fine but I can't figure out why this is happening and there was nothing to be found online when I did a search for "soap expanding in mold," or "psychotic soap" I thought maybe the temp was too high but last night I poured it when the lye and oils were at exactly 120 degrees which I have processed soap at before without a problem. I was so happy when last weeks batch came out perfect and now I am back to square one...this has never happened before and I have made A LOT of soap. I'm starting to wonder if I got a bad batch of lye or something.

Success....I think!

I haven't cut into the bars yet but I think I may have successfully made a batch of soap last night! It's not the Lavender Cream which had been giving me so many problems but I was using a fragrance oil I have never worked with before and since I have been having such bad luck with batches lately I was really scared of what might happen to this one. After I poured it into the mold I kept glancing at it every few minutes, half expecting it to grow legs and walk out of the apartment (this is not a far stretch if you had seen what my last two batches did!) I'm still too scared to make the Lavender Cream, I might try to tackle it this weekend after I get my confidence back with a few simple batches. I am preparing for Brooklyn Flea next month so I am building up my inventory with a lot of fun new scents, which means I will be making soap every night for the next few weeks! I am also excited about some new products I will be adding to the shop next month, including some things not bath and body related which I am really excited about! Stay tuned for updates!

I'm off to grab lunch, I've been told it is absolutely beautiful outside today, something like 60 degrees...spring is here, finally!

Pillows

Here are the completed pillows...


Of course PeeWee has to get in every photo!

Pita and pillows

Mike made some yummy pita bread this weekend. It was delicious and fairly easy to make. He got the recipe here. He switched a portion of the all purpose flour for whole wheat. Much better than the store bought stuff! While he made pita I made some pillows for the couch. I picked up the fabric last weekend when Melissa was here. It's from Amy Butler's new line, Midwest Modern. I worked on them for a few hours and then got really frustrated because I had to re-do one and I could not get the slip stitch right. I had three of my sewing books laid out, all of which had slightly different instructions for how to do a slip stitch and none of them made any sense! I went back to it last night and finished them, I think I finally got the hang of how to properly sew a slip stitch and they turned out really well. It was dark when I finished so I wasn't able to get a photo but here are some pics of the fabric. My next project is pot holders and an oven mitt.

Spring Fever

Saturday was absolutely beautiful so we took PeeWee to the farmers market. He has been having a bit of spring fever which has interpreted into coming home every day to find something shredded to pieces, something he hasn't done since he was a puppy. Luckily it's just been the bathroom garbage or the recycling bin he has gotten into but we figured it was time to get him out for some good exercise before we came home to find our couch completely shredded. I love the farmers market at this time of year, it was full of spring flowers. We picked up some herb plants for our windowsill since we get such great light in this apartment. I have been looking online all day for some really great planters to transfer them into. I found these at Smith and Hawken but they don't ship until 7/12/08! I can't wait that long!



I looked on Etsy too, hoping to find something really cute and unique but no luck there either :( Now that I found those red pots I am kind of dead set on that color so I guess I will just have to keep looking until I find something.

I've been bad...

I went on a little shopping spree today at Delias. I am in need of some cute summer clothes, even though I know there is a ton of super cute stuff waiting for me in my storage unit (which I am going to free next weekend!) I am obsessed with flats right now, I can't get enough of them so I bought these



and these, which aren't really flats but close enough!



Speaking of fashion, I stumbled upon this great blog today about the fashion of The Babysitters Club. I used to love those books when I was a kid, I think I had almost every one in the series and there were A LOT! I wonder if they are still in my mom's garage....I remember the first one I ever read was #8 Boy-Crazy Stacey.

Anthro love

I am so loving this couch from Anthropologie. If I had a craft studio I would definitely have this couch in it!

This is no April Fools Joke...

Free shipping on everything in my shop for the entire month of April!! What are you waiting for?! Start shopping!