Happy Love Day

HAPPY LOVE DAY

Today is LOVE DAY! I hope all of you are celebrating you love with those you love, your significant other, your babies, your pet babies, your favorite teas and coffees, your plant babies, what ever you LOVE! With my lovie, we celebrate our first Love day as a married couple, which is very exciting for us! My T got me a few new Tombo pens, wrapped in my favorite brown paper (which I use for drawings). And for him, he got a cute embroidered envelope with a knitted heart in it.

(it says, "you have my heart")

*The coral in the shape of a heart is from our windowsill tribute to the ocean.

no more mud!

Mud has been a huge thing for us these past few months. We live in a tiny home who's front door opens straight down into mud! Over summer, i was able to cut down our tracking in dirt by getting a door mat, but that only covered part of our problem. In the winter, we had a lovely river flowing right in front of our door!

Due to T's fantastic job, patrolling the beaches, and the fact that the el nino storms have uncovered brick patios that have been buried under stand for over 20 year, we have collected about a hundred old, worn bricks. He spend a better part of last friday, in the drizzle, laying out our bricks in front of our door. And now... way less mud gets tracked in, and I have a BEAUTIFUL little patio!

My lovely T even arranged my plants and bean sprouts, lovingly on the bricks, out of the way of our little river. Can you spot the pumpkin that has been there since september. How it has not rotted away, I will never know.

Coffee Sack Bulletin Boards!

I've been wanting a bulletin board for quite a while now, and have been thinking of ways to use what i already have. I have a pile of coffee bean sacks from our local roasting company, and I have piles of wooden frames from my husband's collection of wood, I decided to combine the two. After looking for rolls of cork board and finding it nowhere, I realized I could use slices of cardboard as a means of backing the coffee sacks and as a cork board.

You're going to need:

Frames of your choice

Large pieces of scrap cardboard

A Coffee sack

Scissors or an exact-o knife

A marker

Step 1:

Lay out your piece of cardboard and trace around the inside.

Step 2: Cut out around your traced square. You want to cut a little wider than your trace, as you want it to sit into the frame, not pop out through the hole.

Step 3: Lay the cut piece on your coffee sack. Try to incorporate the logo or labeling to incorporate funk.

Step 4: Trace around your piece of cardboard.

Step 5: Cut out around your traced piece. Leave at least 1.5" of fabric around your trace. This needs to be there so you can wrap the edges around the cardboard.

Step 6: Staple the coffee sack to the cardboard. Start with one edge and work your way around. Make sure to fold the corners in so they don't stick out when you put the cardboard in the frame.

Step 7: Now go ahead and pop your cardboard and coffee sack into the frame. If you made it fit your frame correctly, you should have to use a little force to pop the cardboard back out once you put it back it.

There ya go! Now you have a brand new, and most likely free, bulletin board. Experiment with different frames, colors, and coffee sacks! You can make one large frame or group several small frames together. Enjoy your new bulletin board!

i don't think i need to buy any more stripes

what i bought, originally uploaded by yarnandtea.

I've been trying to branch out lately. Mostly into the realm of ink/ watercolor in an effort to add spice to my style. But I can't make myself do it! I ADORE black and white line drawings and feel that if I add color, it takes away from my style. Ideas on how to get around this? Maybe it's just a practice thing.

But I did branch out a wee bit on the above piece. I even left the pencil lines as an added bit. This little drawing pays homage to my shopping trip the other day and how grateful I am for finding such cheap and cute things that actually fit me! Yay for stripes, neutral colors and bulky $14 sweaters!

Sea tribes

Swallowtail, 2009, originally uploaded by ryantatar.

Adoring ryan tatar's photography. It's making me want to paint beautiful things.

Organica!

pre dye baths, originally uploaded by yarnandtea.

So i received all my organic cotton yarn in the mail today. Baby K and I had a good time winding it into hanks to prep for dying. I working on a line of veggie/fruit dyed organic baby toys. I'm knitting all this into little fruit and veggie toys to sell on my etsy shop. I'm so excited! I even got organic cotton stuffing to stuff them with.
As i write, once test hank is simmering in it's pre-dye bath while a pot of spinach is simmering next to it, to make green dye!
I really hope it turns out ok!

day dreaming of dem days

day dreaming of them days, originally uploaded by yarnandtea.

So it's been quite a few months since ive tasted ocean. Sadly. But with the two months being sick, then bronchitis then New Zealand, then sick again then the stormy... I have not gotten in the water this winter. Curse of being a mama to a tiny tot. My gills are dry. My skin and hair are oily and not tan or blond. I miss it.. a lot a lot.
So i've been sustaining myself on drawing, painting and balance boarding in the living room. I would watch my favorite movie, Sprout, but it was borrowed and never returned. boo.
Chin up though, soon enough I shall dip my toes in once again.