Dia de los muertos

Last weekend my family had our annual Dia de los Muertos fiesta. "Day of the Dead" is one of our favorite traditions because its a very meaningful and happy way to honor and celebrate the lives of passed loved ones. My family also has a lot of artistic energy and this tradition really is about celebrating life as well as creativity. We don't come from a Mexican heritage, but we have kind of adopted the tradition and we celebrate it every year with friends and family in our own way.

We celebrated this year at my aunt and uncles new house. Everything was really colorful and warm and the alter that they arranged was incredibly beautiful. We all added photos and mementos to the alter as well some sugar skulls we decorated that night.

our beautiful alter

everyones makin sugar skulls!

I made these to bring back home with me

the great halloween lantern parade!

Each year around Halloween, Patterson Park is host to a colorful procession of homemade lanterns. Tons of dressed up Baltimorians show up for the event to witness the parade, or to proudly carry their own lantern. This event is truly a homage to creativity, and imagination during such a corporate holiday. I had never even heard of this event until this year when a friend mentioned it to me. My roomie and I decided to go, and although we missed the beginning of the parade, the festivities afterward were well worth the trip.

beware the jabberwock!

everyone dancing and havin a good ol fashion time

I really want to be in the parade next year. Apparently there is no sign ups or obligations, you just show up and your in!

Here is some info about Patterson Park, where the parade took place and where there are many more fun bmore events.

cuz rives bfk is the best!

Rives bfk is good for me!
(one of my most recent prints on my favorite eco-friendly paper:)

So I'm a print media major and I do a lot of screen printing. I've been screen printing for a few years now and I've found that I really like using a nice sturdy, smooth paper. Rives BFK is my favorite, but I got to wondering, is it eco-friendly? I had never really thought about it before and since I use so much of it, I decided to do a little research. If my search yielded bad results I felt I would have to find a new favorite :( . . .

Luckily for me and the environment Rives BFK as well as the slightly cheaper alternative Arches, are fairly eco-friendly! yeah!

Rives BFK and Arches paper companies proudly bear these three symbols

This symbol means that the paper mill does not use chlorine bleaching when producing their papers.
This symbol means the mill is ISO 14001 certified. I had to look it up to what that means, but basically it means that they comply to high qulaity environmental standards . This certification is supported by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
This symbol means that no trees are used to create the paper, the pulp is made from 100% cotton.

Here are my research sources if you wanna check em out.
Legion Papers
Master Control

i want this!

Crafty Chica has a new awesome book coming out!




So Crafty Chica is kind of a hero of mine. I have one of her books, "Art de la Soul" and it's amazing!! All her crafts are so creative and colorful:) She has a few good recycling crafts (my favorite shows how to make an old book into a purse) and she really shows you how to utilize the materials around you and include some fun found objects. Also, her antecdotes are completely hilarious!

I love mexican culture and my family has recently begun celebrating Dia de los Muertos. We love the idea of getting together with family and celebrating our loved ones lives, not only to honor them since they have passed, but also remembering the happy times and making new happy memories because of our celebration. Her crafts reflect this celebration of life as well as her colorful and sparkly mexican flare. I love it!

Anyways, she has a new book coming out called "Crafty Chica's Artful Guide to Sewing". I cannot wait to buy it!!! I love sewing (even though im not so good with technical aspects such as threading a machine . . .) and I love working with colorful threads and fabrics. I think I'm more of an embellishment sewer and I love stitching by hand. I think the book will be really inspiring and already has got me thinking bout some altered book projects I'd been working on a while ago where I did a lot of decorative stitching and such. Anyways, Feb 17th is it's release date. Thats not too far away right?!?

all settled in

So I'm finally all settled in at good ol UMBC. It's wierd to be back here on campus after being away at another school. It really is like coming home:) And now that I'm back and fully equipted with my craft supplies maybe I can start creating again (u know . . . when i dont have homework . . . ;)

this is my room. can u spot ollie?

haha trick question, he was under the pillow. here he comes!

so i also started working at this bakery in ellicott city. heres some of my bakery booty
mmmmmm

I'm also really happy to be home with my roomies. I missed them lots!
yep this is a normal activity

So hopefully, between classes, homework and my new weekend job, I'll be able to squeeze out some crafts. Of course I will be doing a lot of art in my studio classes, I'm looking forward to incorporating that into some of my upcoming projects.

recycled or recycleable?

As I was shopping around for cardstock at JoAnne's and inspecting the labels, I found myself asking does the little recycle symbol mean the cardstock is made from recycled materials or does it merely mean it's recyclable? And if it is recycled doesn't it have to tell you what percentage of it is recylced? The labels offered me no information and I took this ambiguity as a bad sign. I always feel wary of labels if they seem a bit open ended.

I wasn't sure if I was the only one missing out on this info, or if other eco concious crafters were confused as well. So I decided to do a little research. I found a website that completely cleared everything up.



This symbol means the object has been made from recycled materials. If it has no percentage inside then the object is made from 100% recycled materials. If there is a percentage, then that is the percentage of recycled materials that was used to make the product.



This symbol means the object is recycleable.





I was happy to learn that the cardstock I purchased was indeed 100% recycled as well as recycleable. Thank you internet and thank you JoAnne's for carrying recycled products!

peas&carrots at bel air festival for the arts

I go to Bel Air Festival for the Arts every year. My mom used to be really involved with the planning and she always had a booth to sell her jewelry and then later her beautiful art quilts. She usually let me sell some of my crafts in her booth, or sometimes my sister and I would sell jewelry in the youth section. This year was the first year I had a full booth all to myself and it was pretty exciting!

Here's my booth! I really enjoy organizing displays and personalizing a space:)

some beautious fused plastic bag flower clips

I made some cards from a cute hedgie stamp I carved

bottle cap necklaces galore!

I realy like using antique and every day item displays. My dad found me these old washboards and an old lunch box in our barn. The coffe cans were a last minute find in our basement haha

my grandma Joann modeling her new bottle cap earrings:)

At my booth I sold my new bottle cap jewelry, some recycled art nick nacks, handmade cards, and my new fused plastic flowers. People seemed very interested in my display and most would smile and remark how funny and clever it was to make bottle caps into jewelry. Most people really got a kick out of it and many husbands remarked that this was a craft that they would gladly support and participate in lol.

Overall I really had a great time hanging out in my booth and talking to people. Unfortunately I didn't really get a chance to look around at the other booths, but I did get a chance to peak into the youth section for a bit since my little cousin had a table there. She was selling her homemade dog treats and toys. She called her products Double Doggie Treats and she donated 10% of her sales to the humane society. I think its amazing that she not only found a way to have fun making crafts for the animals she loves so much, but she also found a way to help make a difference. And man was she a hit!! She sold out before 1 o clock, a record I believe.

Long live Bel Air festival!