West Coast Crafty

Sorry for the short notice but if you haven’t heard, today’s the last day of Jennifer’s Administrative Professionals Week sale, and she’s even sweetened the deal: You need to shake a tail feather if you want to take advantage of our super duper, holy macramé are you serious, secretaries day sale going on at Naughty Secretary Club. Today is the very last day that you can enter the word SECRETARY into the voucher field and receive 30% off your order. That’s right, I said 30% we upped the ante for the last 3 days of the sale because we are crazy like that!

So of course I had to celebrate my Capricorn-ness with a fancy little necklace and bracelet set! I can’t wait to wear these two out on the town…

Everything on the site is on sale, and you can get free shipping in the US as well. Such a deal — thanks, Jennifer!

ps: if you haven’t heard, she also has an awesome new jewelry-making book coming out — details are here and you can pre-order on Amazon over here. Can’t wait to get my copy!

It’s a fairly unexciting day here weather-wise, but with the longer, brighter spring days approaching, and daffodils and even some little azalea buds peeking out already in our yard, I have just fallen in love with these gorgeous spring-y crafty things my friends Jessica and Christina are making!

I have two of Jessica’s chocolate bunnies and they are the cutest things ever. I love all the great color combinations she’s made this year, along with the rest of her amazing stuff!

And Christina’s jewelry is so lovely… the new bird earrings she’s been making are especially charming.

I could just look at those super cute photos all day — I think I’m particularly starved for pretty things since I’m down to stretchy clothes only and there’s a total lack of vintage and handmade cuteness in my current wardrobe. I’ve been wearing totinette earrings and Charcoal Designs necklaces to counterbalance the plainness, since bright, pretty colors and interesting shapes just look so good after the unrelenting stretchy t-shirt/sweater + maternity pants/skirt combination day after day. Oh well, only five weeks or so to go, and then I get to have fun with baby clothes! They’re considerably more exciting than late maternity options, to say the least…

This weekend has plenty of crafty stuff going on here in Portland — first up, the second annual vintage sale at one of my favorite stores, Office, starts today and goes through Sunday.

Just stop by during store hours for your chance to browse the finds — I have always coveted a vintage typewriter and maybe this will be my chance! They’ll also have file boxes, metal lunchboxes, and lots of other midcentury treasures.

Then on Saturday, Lindsey Ross of Urban Craft Uprising is hosting the grand opening of her new craft store, Yarnia.

The concept is amazing: choose exactly the fibers, colors, and amount that you want and Lindsey will custom-spin you the yarn of your dreams, right onto a spindle, and charge you by the pound. Now that I can walk to an ultra-customized yarn store, I’m just not sure that Portland can get much better!

If you go:

Office PDX vintage sale
2204 NE Alberta Street in Portland
888 355 SHOP
Friday 11-6, Saturday 11-5, Sunday 11-4

Yarnia grand opening
4183 SE Division Street in Portland
503.488.0022
Saturday 10-6

We woke up to a nice little coat of fresh snow on the ground, so it’s been a bit more tough than usual to buckle down and get all my chores, I mean freelance work, done today. And I’m really looking forward to Andrew’s lecture tonight, but I have a decent-sized to-do list to conquer first… and I really should get back to it.

But in the meantime, I wanted to wish my friend Quentin’s fantastic T-shirt company Monsieur T. a very happy 4th birthday! To celebrate four years of t-shirt bliss, he is offering an excellent four-day sale (now through midnight, 1/31) with 30-50% off regular prices.

He has tons of styles for both women and men, including artist collaborations with Ryan Berkley, Bwana Spoons, and Fernando Elvira. Andrew is an official Team Member so he is a loyal Monsieur T. wearer, and of course I love his women’s stuff too.

Quentin’s other half is the super-talented Torie of Totinette, also known as the co-organizer of Crafty Wonderland. So while you’re browsing t-shirts, be sure to take a peek at her Etsy shop if you’re looking for just the thing in the sparkles department!

p.s. Did anyone else watch that unbelievable Blazers game yesterday? What a crazy fourth quarter! Brandon Roy was absolutely spectacular when they needed him most, but the Hawks were so tough — my compliments to my fellow UNC-er Marvin Williams who had an awesome game, too. I’m still asking myself how we pulled that one off.

Cathy of California has just listed some of her magnificent vintage flower loom kits in her etsy shop! I snapped this one up (on the right) at Felt Club and it’s a prize possession, to say the least.

She has several styles up for grabs, including one with four different looms — don’t miss them! And once you get yours be sure to join her flickr group of finished vintage flower projects…

I just posted about a few things that caught my eye this week over at the Adorn blog:

-ReproDepot is having a great sale on all their Marimekko fabrics through January 15 — don’t miss it!

-And Khadija has organized a Sew Giving baby blanket drive: she’s gathering and hand-delivering handmade baby blankets to expectant mothers in West Africa next month. Here’s Diane’s contribution-in-progress!

Just check out the Adorn post for more on these and a couple of other cool crafty things.

I am a big fan of Seaplane, and sold my jewelry and skirts there for many years, so I’m excited about their holiday sale coming up this weekend!

FRIDAY SATURDAY AND SUNDAY DEC. 7-9

15% off storewide
-including a new shipment of prairie underground and “collections” fashion show pieces
20% off all jewelry
- favorites by demimonde, small things, and in god we trust.
a big selection of stocking stuffers $8-$44
15-40% off selected fall clothing
complimentary hot cider and treats!!

please support your local designers

827 nw 23rd, portland or 97210
11-7pm

I also just heard via UltraPDX that the Ace Hotel is offering a pretty sweet “Portland Has No Sales Tax” deal for visitors, so if you’re planning to come to town soon, definitely check that out.

from the site:

This holiday season, the Ace has hooked up with a number of Portland shops to do even better than no sales tax. Book a room at the Ace and get 10% off your room as well as 10% off at Portland shops like Compound, Grass Hut, Hive, Local35, OFFICE, Sameunderneath, The English Dept., and Upper Playground just by showing your room key.

To get the deal, ring 503 228 2277 and mention the “Portland has no sales tax” special.

I had such a great time in Los Angeles the week before Thanksgiving — and of course one of the biggest highlights was teaching, shopping, and hanging out at the magnificent Felt Club Holiday XL event! The night before, I helped tireless organizer Jenny stuff goodie bags for the first 250 shoppers (everyone got a copy of Adorn, and there were also lovely giveaways from Chronicle Books, Sublime Stitching, and Bossa Nova Baby, among many others).

Alexis and I got there bright and early to help with goodie bag detail, and I got a chance to walk around early, before the crowds poured in at 11. I snapped pictures for my upcoming indie fashion article for BurdaStyle, and got to see lots of friends and some of my favorite crafty vendors from near and far.

I got to meet Monica of White Peacock Designs and see one of her lovely tiaras in person — hi Monica!

And here are a few dozen of Cathy of California’s beautiful mushroom pincushions — some of my all-time favorite crafts. I love mine (it’s hot pink like the beauty in the front row!).

My Bead Simple demo started at 1:00, and it turned out to be amazing. It had filled up well in advance and then another 20 or so people showed up as well! I wrote up a recap over at Bead Simple with more photos in case you’re interested… here are my little handmade necklace and earrings kits and some photos of me with my fabulous students, modeling their new earrings (bottom left) and necklaces (bottom right). Thank you so much to everyone who came to the class!

Once the class was over and I was a free woman again, I got to walk around to check out Maker Square and shop. I won’t post photos of the gifts I found, but here are some of the non-surprises I can show off:

I love Cathy of California’s work — it is so amazing. I found two bundles of vintage fabric (from her mother’s collection) and this fantastic ribbon straw flower kit with loom. I also got one of her handmade ribbon straw brooches and wore it all day (as you can see on me above).

I also found some super fun Christmas ornaments — the gingerbread boy is from My Paper Crane and the tree is from Cathy.

I picked up two adorable whale notebooks from Rock Scissor Paper and a set of awesome cards from biggerKrissy…

…and this sweet sock monkey card case from Textile Fetish, and the vintage scissor-print sunglasses case from Jekbot. I also got several packages of her lavender shortbread but those vanished long before I had a chance to photograph them!

I also picked out this stunning carnelian necklace from Hannahmade. I absolutely love carnelians and I thought this piece was gorgeous!

I was about to pass out by the time we left, but it was an amazing day! Thank you again to Jenny for inviting me to teach and I can’t wait until my next visit to Los Angeles.

I love books from Chronicle — I always do so much of my Christmas shopping with them and I love that 30% off + free shipping package.

LA has been great so far — the ReForm School party was amazing and I got to hang out and walk around the neighborhood all day in between working on my laptop. Tomorrow, MOCA and crafty shopping downtown!

Tomorrow night (Wednesday 11/14) is the fantastic DIY Lounge/Collage opening party! It sounds awesome. Jen promises there will be raffles, prizes, in-store discounts, tasty refreshments and music by DJ Richard Rockstar!

The only thing I don’t like about all the cool stuff going on on Alberta, like Amy’s book party last week, is what a PITA it is to get over there from Southeast — I feel like I know all the tricks and twists of eastside Tri-Met like the back of my hand and I have not gotten the most efficient Division-to-Alberta route down, especially at night. (If anyone at Tri-Met is reading this, please consider adding a north-south route somewhere between MLK and 39th, thanks.) Oh well, it’s well worth reserving the car for!

If you go:
DIY Lounge/Collage party
Wednesday, Nov. 14 from 6-9 pm
1639 NE Alberta St., Portland

On another Portland note, I ordered one of Alicia’s super lovely Santa Lucia doll kits today — I’m so excited about it!

thanks to Alicia for the beautiful photos…

She has put together everything to make these five lovelies (see the wonderfully exhaustive list below) — all you’ll need is pinking shears, needle and thread, scissors, and paintbrushes and you too will have a set of pretty little dolls to celebrate with next month.

Each kit contains:

5 doll pins
5 doll-pin stands
5 doll head beads
(5) 8″ square pieces of calico (for dresses)
5 pieces white pipecleaner (for arms)
3 pieces silver pipecleaner (for candles)
1 piece green pipecleaner (for crown)
Yarn bobbin (for sashes)
Custom acrylic paint set
Varnish and glitter pots
Full-color instruction cards
Dress pattern

I am secretly very excited that Andrew and I are staying in Oregon for the first time ever this Christmas — I’ll be sad to miss everyone on the East Coast, but I’ll be back for a visit in January so that will be cool. Work has been so crazy for both of us that a chance to relax over the holiday with no flights involved sounds fantastic. I bought a little light-up tree for us at Fred Meyer today and I’m planning to make (and swap for) some fun little ornaments, and with these pretty dolls and some candles and the felt stockings I want to sew, I think it will be a nice, low-key Christmas up on Mt. Hood!