Blush: A Color Story

Venice

If fire engine red screams Valentine’s Day, blush whispers it sweetly.

It’s a romantic yet subtle shade, as lovely on walls as it is on flowers. Although it’s a more traditional choice for this holiday than last year’s black and white, they look fabulous together. Blush is also great with deep blues or teal-y greens.

Like the illustrations, destinations, and DIYs in this post, blush doesn’t even have to be about Valentine’s Day at all.

 

Vase by Polina Shutova

Flower arrangement

Venice Italy buildings

Are We There Yet? abstract painting by Christina Baker

1. Ceramic vase by Polina Shutova 2. Flower arranging how-to via Food52 3. Venice, Italy buildings 4. Are We There Yet? painting by Christina Baker

 

Pink on pink room by Esther Lee

Handwritten envelope by a grand budapest hotel fan

blush corduroy skirt

hand drawn type by maddy nye for designlovefest

5. Pink room via Esther Lee 6. DIY Grand Budapest Hotel envelope by Thimble  7. Bellevue Corduroy Skirt via One Loved Babe 8. “Room in your heart” hand-drawn type by Maddy Nye / for designlovefest

 

Eraser heart stamp

Living and Working in 350 Square Feet

Sardinia map

Jacome Plaza in downtown Tucson

9. DIY eraser heart stamp via Cotton + Flax / black + white love 10. Living + Working in 350 Square Feet via Design*Sponge 11. Honeymoon in Sardinia commission (map detail) by Mura 12. Jacome Plaza in downtown Tucson

 

Stenciled Valentine Gift Bags from Martha Stewart

HOME IN IBIZA

Santorini by Mari Andrew

13. Stenciled Valentine Gift Bags via Martha Stewart / Valentines Day DIYs 14. A rural house with urban style in Ibiza, Spain / h/t sfgirlbybay 15. Santorini illustration by Mari Andrew


Photos link to their sources.

Love the Art Where You Live! #LocalArtLoves

Tempe light rail station art - hands

Local Art Loves

From now through the end of February, share your local art loves!

  1. Take a photo of art you’ve purchased from a local artist, made, or see around your neighborhood.
  2. Share it on social media (and follow along!), using the #localartloves hashtag.
  3. You’ll also be able to see what people shared from different places when I round it up here on Travelcraft Journal.

 

Phx First Friday art by Manny and Janet Burruel

For inspiration, check out what artists and art lovers submitted last year.

Your 2018 Local Art Loves


P.S. Post title is a bit of a nod to Kristin Tovar’s fabulous site, Why I Love Where I Live. Based in Tucson, WILWIL encourages everyone to find things to love wherever they are and get involved in their communities. 


Microblog Mondays logo

Sampler

I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but sometimes I’m in the middle of working on a bunch of things and can’t seem to get anything totally finished before I need to move on to something else.

Orange Dot Quilts

That’s where I’m at right now.

So I thought I’d share a preview of things I have in progress and things you can read, listen to, and share in the meantime.

 

AZIFF at The Screening Room Tucson

Film Festival Reviews

I’m working on more in-depth reviews of the films we saw at Arizona International Film Festival (AZIFF) last year.

For AZIFF 2019,  I’m planning to cover more days of the festival and would love to know what you’re most interested in hearing about!

Comment:

What film festival stories do you want to read?

  • Reviews of more films? Any particular type/genre (documentary, comedy, animation, etc.)?
  • The AZIFF experience and tips for getting the most out of it?
  • Filmmaker Q+As or interviews?
  • Would you prefer any of the above in video or audio (podcast) format instead of written articles?

 

Quilt Craft and Sewing Festival

Quilt Show

This year I went to two days of the Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival in Phoenix. The first one was with my mom (who introduced me to the Festival) and the second with my sister-in-law Dinah and friend Kelli (who was my co-presenter at Craft Camp and co-taster at Macayo’s Scottsdale).

I’ve been editing photos and am impressed all over again with the creativity and inventiveness of the exhibitors we met there!

Read:

A couple crafty posts from Kelli…

 

Brownie sundae by j and l concessions

Festival Food

While we were at the Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival, I wanted to investigate the food vendors at the Fairgrounds a bit more.

I found out that the concessions actually come from several independent businesses, who really do care about the food they make. Over the 2 days we were there, my quilt show squad and I got to sample a huge Indian taco, several flavors of kettle corn, a whole buncha barbecue, and this ridiculous brownie sundae.

 

Local Art Loves collage

Local Art Loves

I haven’t done an official kick-off post yet, but I definitely want to celebrate local art you love again this Valentine’s Day!

Share:

  • You can start anytime by snapping a photo of art in your neighborhood and sharing it using #localartloves.

Read/look at:

[UPDATE: 2019’s Local Art Loves kickoff post is up now!]

 

phillip wearing Wampas lair t-shirt in venice

Phillip in the Wampa’s Lair

Okay, not really something I’m doing, but Phillip was recently interviewed on the Wampa’s Lair Podcast! It’s a Star Wars podcast that we’ve been fans of for a long time. (Phillip wears their t-shirt everywhere. And one of the hosts, Jason Hunt, shared some great tips for our Phoenix Comicon newbies post.) Anyway, they have a series called “Tales of the Lairians,” where they ask their listeners (a.k.a. the “Lairians”) to share Star Wars stories from their own lives, and Phillip is featured on the latest one!

Listen:


And that’s it for now! So at least I finished one thing. Hopefully, this starts a trend.



Just FYI: we received complimentary quilt festival tickets, food, and a 2018 AZIFF media pass from the respective organizations/vendors. More info will be in upcoming posts, but let me know if you have questions!

House of Glass

house of glass in elwood indiana

House of Glass Paperweights

For the past eighty years, the St. Clair-Rice family has been crafting art glass using techniques passed down through generations.

Craftsmen working at House of Glass

I remember seeing this St. Clair Glass on the kitchen counters and shelves and window sills of my dad’s side of the family since I was a kid. It comes from the same place they do: Madison County, Indiana.

Madison county, indiana

Of course, the people and the glass have made their way across the country, moving for better jobs or better weather or bigger cities. Our family’s business used to be farming, but, even the relatives that stayed in the region left the farms years ago.

road in madison county, indiana

Every so often when I was growing up, my family would make kind of a pilgrimage from our home in Arizona to visit our Indiana family. Sometimes we’d visit the St. Clair glass factory (The House of Glass) in Elwood.

St. Clair Glass in madison county, indiana

The showroom had shelves and tables stuffed full of lamps and vases, and so many paperweights — palm-sized sculptures shaped like birds, bells, baskets, apples, and angels with a landscape of colorful glass inside their clear exteriors. Each one was made by hand in the on-site workshop.

My parents would buy gifts to bring back for the friend who collected apple things or the one who was dog-sitting while we were away.

elwood indiana

 

You could see new pieces in progress, molten glass glowing from the heat of the furnace as the artist turned it and added color and shaped it into something you could recognize. It was like magic.

And it still was when we visited Madison County a few years ago. The store shelves were more sparse, but through the back door in the sweltering workshop, artist-owner Joe Rice was still firing the glass by hand.

Even then, he was concerned that he hadn’t been able to find an apprentice. Like my great-grandparents’ farm, there wasn’t anyone willing and able to take on the work long term.

As he used a long metal pole to heat up the liquid that would become a teapot-shaped ring holder, Joe Rice (who sometimes signs his work “Joe St. Clair,” using his mother’s maiden name) explained how it wasn’t just that he didn’t have a successor, there were few glass makers out there who could match both their production numbers and commitment to flawless glasswork.

And now there are even fewer.

 

mounds park in anderson, indiana

Joe Rice announced last year he’d be closing up shop at the end of 2018, limiting his work to only select projects.

I still hope that one day soon someone will have the passion to learn his trade and fire up the furnace again.

House of glass

15 Holiday Ornaments You Can Make Today!

Gold leaf ornament

A Christmas ornament can trim a tree or grace a garland, be a gift topper or the gift itself.

Here are 15 DIY ornaments, most of which you probably already have the materials for and/or are simple enough to make that even kids can join in!

 

Paper tube ornaments by Stitch Play in AZ

1. Cardboard Tube Ornaments

These super colorful ornaments are made from painted paper towel tubes strung with ribbon and beads! / via Vesna Taneva-Miller

 

gold leaf ornament

2. DIY Gold Leaf Ornaments

Transform clear glass ornaments by swirling colorful paint inside and gluing gold leaf outside. / via The Sweetest Occasion

 

clay owl ornament

3. Quick Clay Owls

These cute ornaments start from a circle of clay that you fold to create the shape of an owl. If you don’t happen to have modeling clay around, Paging Fun Mums has a recipe for making your own with cornstarch, baking soda, and water. / via Paging Fun Mums + 4 Crazy Kings

 

felt tree ornaments

4. Simple Felt Tree Ornament Tutorial

Basically, you just use Handmade Charlotte’s PDF template to cut out felt circles of increasing sizes, stitch up the sides, and stack them up. I can’t decide which I like more: the trees with different colored layers or the ones that are just a single color! / via Handmade Charlotte

 

ornament with braided fabric scraps

5. Upcycled Fabric Ornaments

Braid scraps of fabric to give old ornaments a new look! / via Simply Notable

 

Mason Jar Ring ornament

6. Jar Ring Map

An old map and the ring part of a mason jar lid make a keepsake for remembering a trip or celebrating your hometown. / via Happy Mothering

 

Leather DIY ornaments

7. Modern Leather Ornament

Delia (of Delia Creates) took leftover pieces from a leatherwork project to create this lovely minimal ornament. She mentions that you can substitute grosgrain ribbon for the two smaller (contrasting) strips. / via Delia Creates

 

kusudama ornaments by robayre

8. Kusudama Paper Ornament

While Japanese kusudama balls were traditionally made from real flowers, you can make a paper version by folding origami petals and gluing them together.  Robin (a.k.a. Robayre at Inspiration Junkie) makes a new one every year before Christmas. She has made them from old catalog pages, origami paper, and paper she’s decorated with herself with gelatin prints. / via Inspiration Junkie + Full tutorial at PlanetJune.

 

https://livefreecreative.co/custom-pet-christmas-ornament/

9. Pet Photo Ornament

Make a mini-plush pet ornament with a favorite photo and some iron-on transfer paper. You can use a complementary cotton fabric for the back — check your stash for those random extra pieces! / via Live Free Creative Co

 

woven ornament

10. Woven Cookie Stars

Super easy project using thread wrapped around cardboard! To mix it up, use variegated string or multiple colors. / via Aesthetic Outburst + Full tutorial at The Crafty Crow.

 

Handmade watercolor ornament

11. Watercolor Ornament

You get this watercolor look by dipping the ornament in nail polish and warm water. / via Unexpected Elegance

 

wood burned ornaments

12. Wood Burned Christmas Ornaments

Use a wood burning kit to decorate thin wood slices cut from a tree branch. / via Simply Notable

 

Cinnamon himmeli

13. Cinnamon Stick Himmeli

Gwen McKenzie (for Jojotastic) created this project based on the geometric shape of traditional Finnish himmeli ornaments, except using 12 cinnamon sticks instead of straw. I bet it makes your house smell like the holidays! / via Jojotastic

 

 

hoop ornaments

14. Hoop Ornaments

This is actually a series of 8 different ornaments designed for various people on your gift list — including grandmas, Goths, teachers, and teammates! They make use of small (3-4″) embroidery hoops and require little to no sewing. / via Crafts Unleashed

 

Resolution ornament

15. Resolution Time Capsule

I shared this one in the Violet color stories post, but such a fun idea is worth repeating! You fill a glass bulb with confetti and rolled up pieces of paper with your New Year’s resolutions on them and then, a year later, you can see how things turned out! / via The Crafted Life


Each image links to its source.