Thinking about spring…

I love Antonio Marras, and he has never let me down.  I was thinking about spring which led me to look at his 2012 show again. It starts out very clean and lady like without a whole lot of that Marras collage.  At first I was a little worried that he wasn’t going to break loose.  My favorite thing about his clothes is how he not only  pieces fabrics together brilliantly but he manages to patchwork time periods, places and identities. Always adding a little intarsia or embroidery where there shouldn’t be any at all.  In this collection my favorite pieces came at the end. These piece work jacket and skirt sets as well as the pieced shifts with pockets are amazing.  And these little patch work embroidered bikini tops are killing me. They are perfect, reminding me so much of the 90′s. I want to make hundreds of them just for the fun of it…

A patchwork blanket, in case it ever gets cold.

Just found this great tutorial from Yellow Suitcase Studio on making a patchwork blanket from felted sweaters. I love this idea, looks like it would make a great gift too. This tutorial is really well done with lots of great photos.

Adventures in Wall Paper

When we moved into our new house last July I couldn’t wait to get started decorating.  Then I panicked and just sat staring at walls trying to figure out how to it.  Oh, and I realized that my budget was tiny to say the least. So, I’ve been doing one little thing at a time slowly collecting the bits and pieces and planning for the big stuff that will come much later.

Then I got this crazy idea to do a wallpaper collage in my entry way. I  thought it was an amazing idea that could either turn out great or totally awful.  I took it to my super creative  kindred spirits, Margot Madison and April Combs to find out if they thought it was crazy too.  They didn’t hesitate, their answer was a resounding “you must do this” and they even offered to help!  So I spent the next few months collecting wall paper samples from friends and ebay.

The wall I chose to cover is just inside my main entrance at the bottom of the stairs.  Note the horrible off white color that our entire house is still painted in…ugh.

I never could have done this without help; I tried putting up a few pieces before everyone got here but the pressure to get it right was overwhelming. Margot stepped in and just went for it!  We started by putting up a few of our favorites first.  As soon as the first dozen or so pieces were up I knew it was going to be even better than I had imagined.

Ignore the hideous hanging light fixture, it’s not long for this world.

I panicked a little when it came time to paste it all in place.  I took tons of photographs then took down the pieces one small section at a time.  I used a roll-on wallpaper adhesive and a small roller to apply it to the back of each piece. The paper bubbled up a lot and I was resigned to live with the lumps but Margot was right and the next morning they had smoothed out almost entirely. It took me 2 gruelling days to paste all of the pieces and I think I got most of them back in the right spots.

My vintage mirror and step stool fit perfectly, and my husband refinished this old ironing board for me to use as a key table. This is now  my favorite wall in the whole house. I especially love the way portions of it can be seen from the other rooms in the house and as you come down the stairs. And the whole thing cost less than $50.

I found a new blog to love…

I just stumbled across this blog, Pretty Little World from a link on another blog, kinda love when that happens. The whole thing is wonderful but this post was particularly good: DIY gold antlers.

That sound you heard was me running out the door to find antlers, lots of them. Here’s the link to whole DIY post.

This is the post that brought me to Pretty Little World in the first place featuring this incredible leather cuff from ARCANAminor.  There seems to be some amazing vintage going on in Michigan.

What’s in a name?

I named my blog Hey Boo because it is my favorite line from that book we’ve all read.  I read it nearly every summer and it still gets me every time. I love it. This little line near the very end of the book sums up what Jean Louise Finch has been through in this brief part of her life, when she looks over in the dark corner and sees a compleat stranger but recognizes him as the friend she’s always known and she just says ‘hey, Boo’.  To me this is the best line in the whole amazing book, it represents this huge moment when her life has changed, she has changed.  I have always loved these moments in life when one stage ends and is gone forever and another one is about to begin and you just look and it and say, ‘hey’.

But I have noticed lately that this phrase is being said a lot.  It’s used as a greeting, an endearment and even a nickname. I know I’m not the only person to have noticed this line, not even close, but I get the feeling that some of the people using it aren’t even sure where these two words said together comes from. And using it over and over makes it lose some of its charm, doesn’t it? That bothers me.  A lot. So I’m changing the name of this blog, I don’t know what to yet, I’ll have to find something that means something to me. This could take a while…

 

The Mysterious Detachable Collar

I make and sell a lot of these detachable collars.

Here is one all wrapped up and ready to ship to a lucky buyer in California.

At my shows I hear a lot of people admiring them but asking  ”How do I wear this?”

Here is my advise:

• Don’t over think it, just throw it on, treat it like any necklace or scarf.
•   These look great over a collarless shirt, with a cardigan, over a dress, or with a tank top.
• Consider adding  a couple of necklaces to dangle out from underneath.
• Don’t get bogged down thinking that it needs to match what your wearing.

The Man Repeller is an avid wearer of the detachable collar, here a just a few of her many takes on the situation:

And Tavi over at Rookie is huge fan of collecting and wearing collars of all shapes and sizes, they recently did an article on making your own.

Is this a detachable collar at Marni? I can’t tell, but then that’s kinda the point right?

Image from style.com

So, have no fear of the mysterious detachable collar, it’s perfectly harmless, you can do no wrong. Go for it.

DIY Miu Miu sneakers

I love this tutorial on how to DIY your own Miu Miu wanna be sneakers that I found on Honestly WTF. Hmmm, just might have to try this.

images from HonestlyWTF

It’s been a long summer…

While I’ve been dealing with moving house I haven’t had a whole lot of time to post but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy…

While visiting my in-laws in New Mexico I was able to tour this Bart Prince house.  He’s my favorite architect (that I’m not married to that is) so this was a real treat.  This was his first house out of college and it has its quirks, like no privacy and high radon, but it was beautiful and I loved it.

Yes, there are trees growing in the living space inside the house.

These rounded windows are on both sides of the house and provide amazing views of Albuquerque and the mountains.

I also picked up the Alexander McQueen book that features his recent met exhibit. It’s still hard to believe that he is gone.

This book is absolutely beautiful, these are the moth printed end pages. I want a fabric version so bad…

You could spend days engrossed in these full page/full color photographs.

I attended the birthday party of a good friend and amazing artist who gave all of her guests these little cups that she made. I can’t look at them without thinking of her and being inspired by her energy and creative spirit. Thanks Pam!

I have recently become a bit obsessed with all things 70′s and have had my eye out for the perfect 70′s clogs.  I had almost given up when I found these at the Goodwill for a whopping $2. They’re surprisingly comfortable too.

I spent a crazy amount of time trying to pick out a new perfume.  I finally decided on  Alien and I’m really glad I did.  It smells like grape at the very first moment then settles into this great scent that kinda reminds me of the Lulu I wore in high school but better.

I have actually been sewing too.  Working on lots of alterations and contract work of course but also some pretty exciting projects that I can’t actually tell you about until they come out…

Hopefully things are going to calm now that fall is around the corner and I can get back to some sort of routine. I hope your summer was wonderful, are you looking forward to fall as much as I am?

A New Toy to Steal My Time Away

I finnally got around to checking out Pinterest.  I’ve had my password for a while now but I just haven’t had the time to try it out, and really the idea of learning to use another online tool just seemed overwhelming (my head is still reeling from Google analytics).  Well, 1o minutes into it I was hooked.  It is really easy and intuitive to use.  I tryed most of the features like pining, sharing, liking, re-pining, making and editing boards, and I was successful with all of it.

While I checked my blogs like I usually do on Fridays I ‘pinned’ things that I liked enough to want to save for later.  I have files and files on my computer full of images from the internet that I think I want to save for later inspiration but never look at again!  Either I can’t remember where I saved it away or I just forget I ever saw it in the first place.

This lets you save, label and organize images from most anywhere on the net and the best part (in my opinion) is that you don’t need to take the time to credit the source because it does that for you with a direct link to where you captured the image.

So far the only website that I had a hard time pinning from was style.com.  I couldn’t get the individual images from the runway to show up as pins.  This was really a bummer as this was the one place I really want to save images from.

If you have some time to kill I highly recommend looking into this! Let me know if you do and I will check out your boards!

what did you do today?

I found some new fabrics to turn into neckerchiefs and collars.

After the neckerchiefs are cut out they need to be tea stained by soaking in coffee.

Three new collars are cut out and ready to be sewn.  I like to make several at once.

The main sewing is done, collar is attached to stand and the opening at the bottom edge needs to be closed.

Time to pick out a vintage button and sew the button hole.

Lots of pretty finished collars.