Home Ec {The Quilt}

Say what?!? Another Home Ec project? Heck yeah! I finally checked another one off the list. And this one was the Mother of all Projects - The Quilt!

A little backstory : You may or may not know that our house as been undergoing a huge renovation since last December. This huge project has forced me to look at our house with a critical eye and start cracking on some of the decor. 

We got new windows installed, which meant out with the old dark wood frames and in with fresh, new white windows! It's like every room has started over with a clean slate, a new canvas, ready to be decorated. For our bedroom we decided it was probably time to get a new, adult bed - meaning no more sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Once we had the new bed frame in place, along with the new windows, the old duvet was looking really sad. Since the bed was lifted off the floor, I was finally able to notice how saggy and uneven the comforter had been. I realized this was the sign I needed to finally start making our new quilt.

Yes, I decided to tackle a Queen-sized quilt for my first quilting project. And to add to the already daunting task, I decided to do it when our house was under construction. A.K.A., Dust City! Not to mention we have very small rooms in our 85+ year-old house - it would be next to impossible to lay out such a large quilt. 

So I decided to take an entire weekend off, travel to my parents' house, where they have a much larger space - perfect for piecing a queen-sized quilt - AND they could keep Stella busy while mommy sewed.

1) The fabric, all ready to be cut. 2) Cut squares.

I was really excited about the color scheme - sky blue, white, black, light pink, caramel and charcoal grey. I got started right away Friday night, cutting up all the pieces. This was definitely a true test of my measuring/squaring skillz.

1) Cut triangles - so pretty! 2) A close-up of all the pinned triangles.

It was lots of repetition, but sometimes it's kinda nice doing monotonous work - it's almost meditative.

It was all going pretty smoothly until it came time to lay it all out. Wow, a queen sized quilt is huge, when you take in the over hang! Even in my parents' very large Great Room, it barely fit. And the pets and Stella LOVED laying on it. Ugh!

1) Chloe preferred laying ON the pieces - I wasn't such a fan. 2) The quilt top all sewed up!

By the end of the weekend, I had finished machine-sewing the quilt top, and pinned it to the batting and the backing. I carefully folded it up and brought it home to be basted.

Photo taken by my mom from the loft (©2013 Paper Seedlings)

I had planned on hand-quilting it, which meant I had to hand baste it. THAT was a huge pain. The basting took me about 6 hours alone. The hand-quilting was fun, but super tedious. Stephen got a kick out of watching me with a huge heap of quilt sitting on my lap as I worked on small sections at a time. At least I was warm!

The hand-quilting ended up taking about 3 weeks, doing one row per night.

After binding it with the charcoal grey, it was finally finished! And I love it. Our room is so dreamy now.

Don't mind the unfinished painted wall in the above photo - that's the next project - painting the room a light grey.

Thanks for following along the process! Now hopefully I'll be able to finish Stella's quilt that I started last year with the Block of the Month club - and a Twin sized quilt doesn't seem nearly as bad, right?

Desktop Calendar {May 2013}

Hello and Happy May!

Just poppin' in to present the May Desktop Calendar - sorry it's a bit late, but this gal has been bus-y!

This month I asked Stella for an idea. She thought a swinging unicorn would be nice - with rainbows, of course! 

To download the May calendar, you can click on the above image and save it to your computer, or you can also find it here. Please note that this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'll be back next week with some new projects.

Cheers!

School Newsletter {Process}

Hello!

Today I'm going to share a fun community project I got the opportunity to illustrate. 

A few months ago, my friend and fellow designer, Jinger, approached me with the challenge of beautifying the shared newsletter of two of Madison's public schools. Her daughter, who is Stella's age, currently attends one of the schools, and, being a visual person, she noticed the newsletter was looking a little bland. Since Stella will be going to Kindergarten at one of the said schools next year, she thought perhaps I would be interested in freshening up the newsletter.

Of course I would! I'm always up for a little beautification project! Jinger had a couple fun ideas incorporating the two schools' mascots - a falcon and a raccoon. I came up with some sketches based on her thoughts:

We decided to try combining some of the elements, focusing on the framed mascots holding a banner: 

Thinking the composition was a little busy, we simplified it a bit:

Nice! Now it was time to add some color. There weren't any official school colors as far as we could tell, so my first attempt was a little more subdued. I wanted it to appeal to both boys and girls.

But it just didn't feel right. I tried again, this time letting go of any restraints and focusing on fun:

Yes! SO much better. Jinger liked this one as well, so this was the header that was presented to the school. 

It was a hit! And after chatting with some parents about the new look, it seems like it may inspire some new initiatives to help integrate more art into school correspondence. This is a cause I will definitely support! 

Until next time,

Sketchbook Project 2012 {Part 2}

Hello!

I'm back today with the follow-up post to Friday's Sketchbook Project 2012 {Part 1}. Thank you all for your kind comments on Part 1! The project was such a labor of love, it is great to see such a positive response. :-)

We left off after introducing the characters and the setting. Next up, the elephants!

The elephants depleted their peanut supply, and got a whiff of peanut butter from a factory over yonder.

They made their way over to the factory and broke in through the window.

Once the elephants made their way inside, the workers ran for their lives!

The PBJ workers ran to the PBCM factory and stole a large vat of peanut butter.

The PBCM workers chased down the PBJ workers and tried to reason with them.

They had an idea. If they worked together, they may be able to fix the issue.
They quickly returned to the PBJ factory.

There they found the elephants very full of peanut butter and tuckered out. "Come with us!", they called.

The workers brought the elephants to the field of green.

"Look! Plenty of peanut plants!"

Yum!

Peanut Butter - back cover.

Well, that's it! Even though the story isn't perfect, this project was a great challenge. It is one of my dreams to one day illustrate a book, and this was a good opportunity to think of the book as a whole, break down the ideas, conceptualize the spreads and create interesting compositions that keep the reader engaged. 

Speaking of keeping the reader engaged, here is a photo of Stella reading my sketchbook:

My heart melted.

Thanks for reading along!

Sketchbook Project 2012 {Part 1}

Last summer, I decided to sign up for The Sketchbook Project. It is an international project where participants are sent a blank sketchbook to fill based on a chosen theme. The completed sketchbook is then sent back to be cataloged in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Art Library. The collection is also part of a traveling exhibition which allows people from all over to view the sketchbooks. How cool is that?

When I signed up, there were many themes to choose. I ended up going with Chronicle, because I thought it would be fun to turn the sketchbook into a sort of story book.

Storyboarding the idea.

I also really wanted my Sketchbook to be a collaborative effort between myself, Stephen and Stella. During a long road trip back from Pennsylvania, we brainstormed the theme. 

Stella wanted to incorporate dogs, cats, bunnies, fishies and mustaches (!!!). All of the animals loved peanut butter and made different types of sandwiches with it - peanut butter/jelly and peanut butter/chocolate/marshmallow sandwiches.

Starting with the grey gouache.

Stephen suggested having two factories that focused on producing the two types of sandwiches. We also thought that the story needed a little conflict. What if there was a herd of elephants that depleted their peanut supply on their land and needed to seek out another source? Hmm...

Adding yellow.

Adding green.

The story definitely has some holes, but I had a lot of fun with composing the spreads, choosing the color scheme and creating the characters. Plus, my whole family got to participate in the making of my Sketchbook! You can't get any better than that.

There are 32 pages to the Sketchbook, but I'll only post the first half today. I don't want to totally inundate you with photos. And please don't read TOO much into my captions - I am not a writer! There is a reason my book had no words...

Front Cover : Peanut Butter by emily balsley

Smokestacks.

There was a field of green, two sandwich factories and an elephant habitat.

The field of green. The plants in the foreground are actually peanut plants.

Detail of the Peanut Butter-Chocolate-Marshmallow Sandwich factory.

Here we are, inside the PBCM factory, watching the workers at the assembly line.

Detail of the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich factory.

Viewing the mustachioed workers at the PBJ assembly line.

That's it for now! I'll be back with a post on Monday that will depict the ensuing drama. Ooh!

Have a great weekend,

Desktop Calendar {April 2013}

Wow, I'm going to have to start dusting the cobwebs off of my blog! So sorry for the lack of posts. I have plenty of projects I want to share, we have just been busy, busy! 

I was able to squeeze in time to draw up the new desktop calendar:

It has been such a long winter here in the Midwest, I wanted to do something Spring-y. The snow has finally started melting away, and I have spotted the green shoots of crocuses and daffodils popping up around our neighborhood. There's still hope for a green Spring!

To download the April calendar, you can click on the above image and save it to your computer, or you can also find it here. Please note that this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Enjoy!

Art House Project {In Five Minutes}

Hey there!

Just popping in to share a quick drawing I did today as a participant in Art House Co-op's "In Five Minutes" project.

Today's challenge was to create a 5-minute drawing of everything on your person. That includes the clothes you're wearing...what's in your pockets...the contents of your purse, etc.

Since it's a cold, rainy day today, I had some major layers happening in my outfit. It seemed kinda absurd when I started drawing everything separately. No wonder I make so much dirty laundry!

This was the first In Five Minutes project I participated in, and will most definitely not be my last!

If you're interested in checking out the Art House Co-op projects, you can find them here. It's another fun way to challenge yourself - be it drawing, or taking photos - get those creative juices flowing!

Desktop Calendar {March 2013}

Oh wow. It has been a busy few weeks and I just couldn't squeeze out enough time to create the new desktop calendar. So sorry!

Better late than never, right? For March I tried something different - a little more fantastical. I'm not sure what those creatures are, but they sure look like they're having fun bouncing from one rainbow to the next!

Like all the other calendars, you can click on the above image and save it to your computer, or you can also find it here. Please note that this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Enjoy your March desktop calendar! 

Wintery Wedding Invites

Hello!

Today I'm excited to share one of my favorite projects from the past year. Our close friends Brian and Courtney got married in January and I had the pleasure of designing their wedding invitation suite.

They decided to profess their love for each other in a snowy field on a cold Wisconsin afternoon. With this beautiful setting in mind, we played around with a wintery theme for their invites.

I sent them a few concept sketches to get things started. 1) Every year they go on a ski trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. They envisioned a scene of the two of them sitting on a bench facing the mountains with their trusty dogs at their sides. 2) Their party was to be held at the High Noon Saloon - we explored the idea of a subtle western-style theme. 3) They also liked the idea of an image of their dogs pulling them in their wooden dog sled.

They were ecstatic about the sketches, and chose to combine the concepts and use bits and pieces from the three. The winter theme was the focus of the invitations, but I was able to pull in the wood board sign to represent the rugged nature of the saloon.

Brian and Courtney encouraged me to 'do my thing', so I ran with it! I loved having the freedom to express their love in my style, and I even decided to paint the whole thing in gouache. 

Since this was the first time I had to reproduce my paintings, I decided to get them professionally printed - and I am SO happy with that decision. The printer did an amazing job, and you can even see my brush strokes - exactly what I wanted.

I had such a blast with this project! I learned so much throughout the process and I am so happy I got to be a part of our friends' special day.