More New Ribbons & Trims!

Decadent French Daydream: HERE

Set of 3 velvet ribbon and flowers: HERE

Sweet Pink Linen Rag Ribbon & Vintage Milinery Flower: HERE



Wide French Blue Rag Ribbon & Brown Velvet Ribbon: HERE

Decadent French Primitive Ribbons & Trim: HERE

Vintage Sheet Music Rag Ribbon: HERE

Decadent Trims & Treats

Lots of new things are coming out of my studio. I am having so much fun hand-dyeing scrumptious velvet and vintage linen, stamping them, making ruffles out of them, creating romantic bags and...well, so much more! You can find them HERE. Working on lots more, as well.

Here's some photos.... 

My Great-Grandmother & Velvet Strawberries

My great-grandmother lived in a tiny house in a beautiful, old neighborhood in Salisbury, Maryland that was filled with beautiful things she has made with her own hands. She worked for The Singer Sewing Machine Co. as a young woman and my mother has many stories of making Barbie doll dresses with her when she was a child. My mother was named Catherine, after her.

Now I have my own Emily Catherine, named after them both, and I can still imagine what the inside of my great-grandmother's little Cape Cod looked and smelled like. It was there I learned how to make a cathedral window quilt and how to make perfect French knots. She had a kitchen decorated in strawberries and I'm sure my fascination with vintage strawberry Wilender linens began at her kitchen table.

These little velvet strawberries are of my design, but they are modeled after the thousands and thousands of velvet strawberries made by women for centuries, at least. Velvet strawberries like this showed up in sewing boxes and used as pincushions, on summer hats and attached to pert little straw purses, many decades ago. You can still find vintage velvet strawberries on eBay or in corners of antique stores if you look hard enough.

I can't stop making them! I'm hand-dyeing the velvet, hand-stitching the strawberries, cutting out little felt leaves, filling them with stuffing and a bit of dried French lavender, stitching them together and then lastly, hand-beading them. It is a delight to make them, from start to finish, and though I'm sure I'll tire of it eventually, for now it's my new favorite thing to do in the evening while I watch t.v. and sip hot cocoa.

I imagine them in lingerie drawers, part of sweet little vintage vignettes or given as a gift. You can hot glue them to a purse, use them as pincushions, give them as gifts, or whatever else you come up with! The possibilities are endless!

I have this little group of 3 pink and 3 blue velvet strawberries listed on eBay right now, so if you want to snatch them up, go HERE.

Boudoir Hangers

"Remember, always dressing in understated good taste is the same as playing dead."
~Susan Catherine

That's one of the quotes from something I've just finished that I must show you! I'm going to be making/giving these to the girls in my life for Christmas, I think, most of which don't look at my blog, but if you do, try to forget you saw them! ;)

Actually these are for sale in my shoppe, HERE, and I'll be making new ones for Christmas gifts!

I LOVE having satin padded hangers in my closet. There is something about hanging a pretty dress on one, or heck...even a simple t-shirt on one that makes me feel good. I started printing little sayings/quotes on fabric and then sewing them into the necks of the altered art clothing I sell but the other day I had the idea to sew them onto little "mini-quilts" with a little ribbon loop and hang them from the necks of padded hangers. They turned out so sweet!

There are four for now, with more coming soon. They are only $9.99 each, so grab them while you can!

Luxe...and Saucy

A few "luxe" treats you can find my shoppe, HERE. :) And one slightly more...how shall we say...saucy....item, too. It doesn't HAVE to be saucy. You could always just cook in it... ;)

Studio Pics & A Peek...

Want to take a peek inside my studio?

To be honest, this is just a corner of my studio and I've left loads of clutter/mess out of the photos but this is the pretty part and what the rest of the studio will look like soon!




I share an art table with my husband who does some small-scale modeling, so lately some of our favorite evenings are sitting across from one another, working on art stuff or sometimes one of us reading to the other while the other works. You can see just a bit of James' stuff in this photo...


























Here's a little shelf full of some of my favorite things. If you've followed my other blog at all, you may even remember some of these pretties!















Here's a shot of the burlap curtains I made for the studio window last week. I love them but they need some ruffling on the edges before I show the full view!
















Here's some paper "lanterns" I decorated/embellished using cheap pink lanterns from the party store. This is an idea I got from Heather Kowalski when she did this for one of her tutorials in our Sweet Six Studio. You can see some of her lanterns HERE.

I did no sewing with these! It's just ivory muslin and a hot glue gun, plus pieces of yummy ribbons and vintage trims I have in my studio. James hung it up in the corner for me and I love it.




Here's one of the circular Japanese lanterns I didn't add to at all, except for some simple ribbon/trim and a vintage millinery rose I've been saving for just the right thing. THIS was it! :)
















































Pssst....one more thing....can you keep a secret....

Here's a peek at some things I've been making in my studio (or my dining room table, depending on what time of day!) that is going to arrive in the shoppe tomorrow....if you want to find them, go HERE.

Lots more where that came from, including the "Gossip Gloves" I'm wearing above, several more one-of-a-kind bags and (gasp) even a sexy apron! :)