Seattle Square Market! And Shrinky Dink process

The Seattle Square Market starts tomorrow night! A craft-flea-vintage-food-extravaganza that will be happening throughout the summer on every non-first Thursday. I’ll be there tomorrow, from 4-9pm, at my booth with octopus-girl necklaces and greeting cards. Also make sure to see Ania’s beautiful work, as she will be there as well.

As I’ve been doing so much shrinky-dinking, I thought I’d post some process pictures:

First, pencil sketch: notice it’s on a full sheet of 8.5×11″ paper – the largest I can go with the shrinkable sheets that I have!

Next, it is traced directly onto the plastic sheet with sharpie:

Here’s the finished cut out piece, ready for the oven:

…And mid-bake, warping like crazy:

And the finished product!

shrinky dink jewelry – girls of the sea

It’s shrinky-dink time! I’ve been busy crafting jewelry for the San Diego Comicon that’s fast approaching! This means sharpies, x-acto-ing, baking and little jewelry pliers! I’ve been trying to make larger pendants, which means making drawings that measure around 5″x8″ to start, before the massive shrinking that occurs in the oven.

Of papercutting

It’s about time I elaborate on an artist who’s been one of my biggest inspirations lately: another Seattle based artist, Ania of PaperCutWorks creates beautiful, intricate and personalized papercut works, in both of her two shops: First, her papercutting and art shop, PaperCutWorks: her papercut hearts are crafted out of outdated, vintage, repurposed and otherwise lonely maps, dictionaries, sheet music turned-wonderful, heart (fist)-sized personal works of art.

I especially enjoy her overlapping pieces, veins running through (up till now) as many as three separate hearts:

I also love the way she lovingly photographs her weapon of choice:

She also does hand-pulled block prints: one of which I hang proudly in my studio!

Her jewelry shop, Baltica, is full of these incredibly delicate and precious pieces featuring her mad blade-weilding skills:

Heart Secret Locket Papercut Necklace

In another vein, Ania also creates these awesome Writer’s spear. vintage pen nib. one-of-a-kind reclaimed necklaces. I wear jewelry so rarely, but I would proudly hang one of these around my neck, probably every day, if I ever get my hands on one.

For more of her work and process details, be sure to check out her blog: http://papercuthearts.wordpress.com/

And Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrzaszcz/

Currently lusting after on etsy

Sometimes I wish I had a girlfriend, so I had an excuse to buy all these pretty, frilly, gorgeous things that I secretly want for myself, but even better, would want for someone close. Here’s a little list of current obsessions: