Inspiration

Frida in her bedroom, 1952

Skirt with embroidered chinese silk strip

This month has been one of change and inspiration. I have finally taken action: started this blog, opened an etsy store, I am finally using my twitter account, and started working on projects. On top of all that I feel good about life and the direction I'm headed. So what greater reward than getting surprise presents? First I got the little package from my mom, and now I just got home from a nice day with the girls and found a package lying on my desk! Turns out my dad mailed me an amazing book, called "Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress ". It's all about the clothes Frida Kahlo wore and has these amazing photos & self portraits of her wearing the garments next to detailed pictures of the garments themselves. This book is great, not only because I am a huge Kahlo fan, but also because all the embroidery and colors are truly inspiring.

Mottled rayon rebozo with rapacejo from Guanajuato

Busy Bee

Finally I got things sorted out and I'm doing what I need to do: work on my next project! So while I am cutting, drawing and embroidering my new secret (haha!) project, my mind keeps drifting off to other projects I want to work on, making it hard to concentrate. So, my dear crafting friends, does that happen to you too? And what are your "solutions"? Do you do it like me, scribbling notes and sketching in between tiny breaks, or do you work on several projects at a time? - which I am very tempted to do :)

Procrastinating

Every night my thoughts are the same: TOMORROW I'll start cutting out my patterns, TOMORROW I'll work on a new piece. But then tomorrow turns into today, and normal life just keeps getting in the way. Either groceries, fixing the clothing line, washing clothes, hitting the gym... and then this heat is just suffocating! Our tiny little house sits in the full sun for almost the entire day, heating itself up and not cooling down at night. Sleeping before 2am is simply impossible, and after that very hard. So today we dragged our sweatty bodies into the car and got oursleves a windowfan that is supposed to get the air in the bedroom to circulate, so we can hopefully get some more rest. Sitting in front of the AC, gulping down one cold water bottle after another I keep daydreaming about ice cream, while setting up a flickr account and randomly surfing the web. So I came across this picture - it was taken on a barn somewhere in the US. I hope it makes you smile, just as it made me :)

Escaping the Heat

This last week has been crazy here in Pasadena, CA. It's been unbearably hot from 10am till 8pm, and even though we open all windows and doors to let the house cool down, the air just doesn't move! To escape this hell, we decided to make a day trip to the beach - working on my projects is thus postponed till tomorrow! Instead, we arm ourselves with books, music, plenty of water, beach towels, a frisbee and lots of layers of sunscreen: and off we go!

Pictures by she hit pause studios.

Workspace

Well, seems like I'm trying to make up for the past week: this is my second post today!

I'm just way to excited: I cleaned and organized the garage, so I can use it as my jewelry workshop.I still need to figure out how to get electricity (so far I've only discovered a rusty, suspicious- looking light fixture) and a place where I can screw on my bench pin (the actual shelf I'll be working on is too thick)!

BUT... I'm happy, and so far I can hammer along when the sun is shining and work on some chain ideas I've had this past week.

my tin collection where I save all my beads, jumprings, stones, etc

detail of my hammer and brushes

my two new machines: a very vintage looking tumbler and a sturdy drill

I'm back

... and with more energy than ever!

As you might have noticed, I haven't posted anything in the past week. This has a simple explanation: we had a friend over visiting! So I took a week off and had a blast showing Yasmina around. The definite highlight of last week was our one-day-extreme-roundtrip to Death Valley. I want to thank my boyfriend Mikki, who had the courage to drive us two crazy girls around for 10 hours to cover the 600 miles that stretch from LA to Death Valley and back, in a single day!!!

Over there we had some crazy fun photo sessions and these are some of the results:

1. burnt house somewhere around Victorville

2. the handsomest most talented boy on earth (drool, drool)

3. the fancy dress I made for myself (just need an occasion to wear it now - I don't recommend it for the desert!!!)

4. Yasmina and our tiny photo shoot camp

5. Yas and I going bananas in the heat

6. Our car in the middle of nowhere, literally

7. amazing black, green and brown stones in the desert. I took two home as a background for my jewelry photos

8. Yasmina flying

9. 282 feet below sea level, at around 117F!!!

10. myself, before I had a minor heatstroke and started seeing tiny black dots everywhere :)

The best thing about getting out of your routine is that you start finding inspiration everywhere:

My visit to the Renegade Craft fair last saturday definitely got things going, but over the past week everything seemed to inspire me and I have this good "itchy" feeling in my fingertips that I get when I can't wait to work on stuff! I'll keep you posted :)

My Mom is the Best!

So I was having one of my cranky days, when everything I do (or start doing) doesn't turn out the way I want it to, or ends up being more complicated than I thought.

Poor Mikki is the one who suffers the consequences! I'm sorry, mi vida!!!

Well, back to the point: I'm sitting here at my MacBook Pro (it's my brand new baby!), wasting my time being annoyed at everything and everyone (mainly myself!). When I hear the postman making more noise than usual. And to my surprise it's a big fat envelope from my mom in Spain!

She's sending me some meds and wrapped them up in the sweetest pale pink scarf and other goodies! Oh, I got so excited and my crankyness was just wiped away! Thank you, mamutchis!