Flower Frenzy

Some of you have already heard the news: I opened a new shop on Etsy. In case you don't know, Etsy is a cool website where you can buy handmade and vintage items and art supplies directly from all sorts of artists around the world.

As Steve will attest to, I have become a bit obsessed with making fabric flowers lately. Ace is thrilled with all the craft supplies he can get his paws into. He especially likes stealing the buttons off my work table and batting them around the floor. The flower above is one I just finished this morning, shown on my new favorite sweater that I got at Macy's in Monterey (not even on sale.)

Here's the white and yellow version with some of the faux stamens. I just love using the stamens and the cool vintage plastic buttons I bought from an Etsy shop. I can't wait until I start making enough $$ so that I can stock up on some of the vintage German stamens that I have seen online at Blumchen's. I don't know exactly why, but I find these millinery supplies completely fascinating.

I'm trying to make some spring-y looking flowers lately, since it's starting to be Spring here and it will soon spread to other more Northerly parts of the country. The green button on this pink and white flower is one I've had in my button box for years. I bought it at the oddest little shop in the Kensington Market district of Toronto. It was a tiny falling apart shack run by a real character. The shop was packed with old buttons, some of them covered in years of dust. I wish I could go back there, but it's probably gone.

I'm making a lot of these flowers out of eco-fi, which is a felt that is made completely from recycled plastic bottles. So my products here are "green" as well...cool. I'm atoning for my sins of drinking water from plastic bottles for all those years before I got my metal water container. What did we do before water bottles?

My friend Jean snapped up this pink and chocolate confection right away. I swear, that gal is the best friend anyone could ever have.

I also made a blue version, which is still up for grabs at my shop. I am having a blast collecting all the fabrics and ribbons and buttons. (Unfortunately, I am also collecting a whole lot of receipts for ribbon, fabric, etc.) When I try to sleep at night, my mind keeps coming up with new designs and color combinations I want to try out.

I also went to the Fillmore Goodwill store this week and bought up a bunch of wool sweaters to experiment on with fast felting or fulling. In the old days this was known as "ruining a good sweater" by washing it in hot water in the washing machine and coming out with something shrunken and fuzzy. Now it is hip and groovy to do. It's recycling, or as the fashion hipsters call it, "upcycling." I have to hide the wool sweaters because Ace loves to rip into them with his teeth. I think he likes the wooly scent. Stay tuned for new flowers made from these upcycled sweaters, okay?