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i like this: handmade journals by derrick velasquez

this past weekend i went to art for cash poor at the crane arts building in philly and i fell in love with these hand bound journals by artist derrick velasquez. most of his books are bound with found fabrics and eco-friendly materials including recycled paper, but the ones that i loved were the silkscreened ones. the top photo is my favorite, and i was soooo close to buying it but i needed to save my money and i already have enough journals and notebooks that haven't even been touched. enjoy!

my new best friend has arrived!

 

yeah, maybe i am a technology geek or whatever. but c'mon, every girl should get excited when her wacom bamboo tablet arrives (especially when she is an avid photoshop/illustrator user)! my baby tablet arrived yesterday and i can't stop using it. i call it my baby tablet because its actually a lot smaller then i imagined and from what i saw on wacom's website. size doesn't matter though, its how you use it 

latest obsession: lush

so for the past few weeks ive been obsessed with the handmade, all natural skin care store lush. i love everything that i bought there so far, i tell everyone i know about it and i have read their catalogue/newsletter a billion times now. ive never been that kind of girl who actually cares for her skin, i mean i dont even like putting lotion on, but when i first walked into lush it made me excited about taking care of myself. every product smells amazing, and i get great results plus you can get a free sample of almost anything in the store. lush's stuff is eco-friendly, most of their products are in solid form, cutting out the need of packaging and plastic (although they do sell liquid shampoo and shower gel in plastic bottles). the first thing i bought myself from there was their solid shampoo "squeaky green" and the solid conditioner "jungle," which both smell so intoxicating i cant stop smelling my hair - a bunch of products later, these two things are still two of my favorite lush products. (below are squeaky green and jungle, top to bottom). jungle smells so good that my dad wants to just put it in his bathroom to make the room smell good. if your not a fan of earthy smells then this is not for you.

all of their products are amazing, but tonight i tried their popular bath bombs, fizzy bath melts that release essential oils and other spectacular things. i tried "big blue" which has sea salt and seaweed and turns the bath blue, like a tropical ocean in my bath. my skin smells incredible, like lavender and lime. i highly recommend lush to everyone and anyone.

interesting specimens of dover books

i was given a good collection of animal prints from dover books tonight and i laughed out loud at these two prints... it could because i'm easily amused, or that i'm just really tired. hope you enjoy as much as i do!

erupting volcano

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

food for thought

i spent my saturday surrounded by sheep

so i spent the day in west friendship, md on so far the hottest day of the year. luckily i wore shorts this time, which was a miracle itself. once again, there was lots of sheep that were bleeting like crazy, i'm sure they were dying under all that wool. last year i bought my weight in wool and still have most of it left over, so this time i decided to only get a few things. i purchased two books, A Perfect Red and Women's Work, The First 20,000 Years. i started reading The Perfect Red and its really interesting so far, it discusses the importance and meanings of red and red dye throughout history. i guess i have a big interest in dyeing right now because my research project for woven tech is natural dyeing and spinning. i also bought a bunch of antique copper stamps that include images of a plate of steak, a nurse helping a girl with polio walk, a guy sick in bed, an old time chevy (don't know the make of it), and a woman with a stain on her dress with the words "let us clean it for you!" i also bought two antique prints of the "long arm'd monkey" and a print of about 30 or 50 animals on it from the 1800s entitled "mammalia." so far i think i enjoyed this year's sheep festival more, not only because i had a companion this time, but because i laid in the shade under a tree for an hour listening to music and feel asleep. looking forward to next year's sheep and wool festival, who knows maybe next time i'll buy a spinning wheel and nap for two hours instead.

weave away

 hand spun and naturally dyed with cochineal, safflower + weld, and indigo

 final double weave in progress

views of the weaving studio with sarah, kara, and rachel working hard at their looms

watercolor poppies

this is a screenprint design i am working on in print design. i've been somewhat interested in opium and so i designed a print with disguised motives of opium harvesting, opium pipes, and heroin surrounded by poppies and poppy pods. i tend to create conversational prints, even though this time i tried not to - i couldn't help myself :)

wish you were here: cape town

just plain amazing

iceland embroidery

these are recent works that i completed for the juried fellowship exhibition at my school. i proposed to travel to iceland this summer to study the landscape for my work. each image is inspired by specific locations in iceland known for their stunning landscape that i had planned to travel to. i dyed the warped threads, hand wove the fabric and embroidered on the surface. the phrase "pad kallar" means "it calls" in icelandic. i know the images are terrible, so bare with me...the color washed out a lot, i swear they are actually more brilliant than this!

daniaelle simonsen

textile artist daniaelle simonsen's works of stitched magazine clippings and chiffon. amazing. here is her blog and here is her website to see all her work.

dorian greyhound

just found this amazing doggie portrait on designsponge. hilarious.

hawlings have arrived!

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the franklin institute's hawk nest of the newly hatched chicks and parents are sooo cute!