Stripes

Just playing around with acrylic paints and a stick I found in the park.

Pouches

I had some leftover cotton canvas from another project, and decided to make some makeup/travel pouches. I didn't have any cloth dye on hand so I coloured the fabric using acrylic paints and lots of water. My favourite part is the brass zippers!

Wedding Dress

I know it's been quiet around here lately - but that doesn't mean I haven't been very busy! Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on a wedding dress for a dear friend. But I can't show you pictures of the dress until August. It's an ambitious project, as I am not a seamstress, and I have no experience making clothes - a wedding dress is a crazy place to start, especially working with raw silk - but so far it's coming along well and I am really excited to show it to you when it's done! For now, a few photos of the lace I will be incorporating into the dress, and some charming nautical brass buttons.

Freedom Clothing - Spring Video Lookbook

I made this video lookbook for Freedom Clothing's spring collection, featuring clothes, accessories and toys from tons of local Canadian designers. Check it out!

amandine in the garden

I don't normally write about other people's work on this blog, but how could I resist posting about this beautiful work that is going on under my very own roof? Meet Amandine Rufin, the talented mixed-media artist who is also my roommate. She works with paint and bits and pieces of fabric, paper, old postcards, newspaper, metal and dried flowers. She was kind enough to let me into her workshop to photograph some of her beautiful pieces.

Her work is delicate, dreamy and textural, and I tried to capture that in these photos. If you are interested in seeing her work in person, she will be participating in this upcoming One of a Kind Show starting March 28. I'd say her work alone is well worth the price of admission!

imaginary landscapes - in watercolour

Archival ink and watercolour on paper vellum illustration board. These are small: 2.5"x3.5, click on image to zoom in for more detail!

into the wild

just for fun, some sketches of woodland creatures, can't get enough of staedtler fineliner pens...

Antlers and a Squirrel

New antler pendant designs and a little squirrel to add to the collection.

and another one

imaginary map sketches

crystal landscapes...

imaginary cities

In love with staedtler fineliner pens...

New Friends

Jack rabbit, gazelle, red fox and an ocelot.

Teardrop Necklace

I made this gold-dipped teardrop pendant our of polymer clay and painted it with metallic gold acrylic. It is available in my etsy shop, and there is a copper one too!

Leather+Felt Bag

I've been seeing the use of industrial felt for accessories trend popping up in shops and on blogs, and fell a little bit in love with the pairing of grey felt with brown leather. I've been coveting one of these bags for a while, but since every one I came across was out of my price range, I decided to make one for myself.

Never having made a purse before, and not having much experience working with leather, it was a bit of an adventure. From learning how to install rivets to figuring out how to create the lining - which is made out of a beautiful cotton canvas - the entire bag was sewn by hand, without a pattern.

And I must say I am very pleased with how it turned out!

Metallic Antler Pendants

helping my littlest sister with a figure of Hamlet for a diorama she is making for school using some scraps of felt from another project...

...and new copper and gold antler pendants!

Handmade Tea

I just finished making some handmade tea as christmas presents for a whole bunch of people. I bought a whole bunch of loose leaf tea from the health food store and found some heat-sealable tea bags. I mixed up a bunch of different combinations of tea and sealed the bags with a hair straightener. The great thing is you can make any possible combination of herbs and spices you can think of - you could even try adding cinnamon, cloves or cocoa powder to make the perfect holiday treat!

Christmas Presents!

I'm almost finished wrapping christmas presents. This year, I designed my own wrapping paper by drawing simple white patterns onto kraft paper. This little guy is going into one of those packages too - I'm definitely going to have to make more baby penguins and put them up for sale in the new year - he's way too cute!

Alleyway Find

I found this wooden crate in an alleyway. It was in pretty rough shape, filthy and mostly come apart. But I picked it up anyway, washed it, pulled out the rusty nails, hammered it back together and sanded it down to reveal some beautiful wood only micrometres below the surface. From now on, I'm traveling the city exclusively through alleyways!

Necklaces

Preparing for a handmade christmas is A LOT of work. But fun, sparkly work. These are a bunch of necklaces and bracelets I made as gifts for my sisters and friends. Mostly out of polymer clay painted with gold and silver metallics (or left white, like the rose). The added elements are bits and pieces of some of old found jewelry which I took apart; a few wooden beads, some fake pearls and little pieces of metal.

(This post is top secret, I made my family swear not to check my blog before christmas, not that I think they check it very often)

Branch Hooks

I made these branch hooks out of a scrap piece of wood and a bunch of collected twigs. I carved off the bark and flattened the backs of each twig with a knife and glued the bare branches to the board. They can't support a whole ton of weight, but they are perfect for hanging jewelry and other light things.

Markings

taking pleasure in simple black and white - pen and ink markings.

Geometric Pendants

I am thrilled to post about this new collection of geometric beads I have been working on. They are carved out of polymer clay. The colours are all hand-mixed acrylic paint, so each colour combination is completely unique and one-of-a-kind.

It's been a while since I worked with so much colour, so I am really excited with how these turned out. They are for sale in my shop.

Clay Bird Mobile

Peas in a Pod + Notebook

A pair of sugar snap peas in pods - for sale in my shop.

And a new notebook I bound - this time just for myself! Made out of over 20 different kinds of paper using a coptic binding stitch so that the spine lays nice and flat when open.

silver geometric beads

experiments with polymer clay and silver acrylic paint...