Happy Halloween!

Boo!

 

J.Crew {Color Palette 1}

Have you seen the newest J.Crew catalog yet? The color combos in the first half of the catalog are a-maz-ing. Every turn of the page was more and more inspirational. I kept telling myself, 'I have to remember this palette!' as I flipped through.

I was going to do a little color breakdown of every page, but I thought it would be more fun to add a little illustration element to it. You know, why keep it simple, right? Here's my first sample, from page 03:

Please forgive the crappy quality. My scanner doesn't do a very good job, so I've been taking iPhone pics in lieu of scanning.

And my palette breakdown:

It's just a down-and-dirty illustration of the composition, with some color blocking to represent the palette. And now that I'm looking at the scan of the catalog, the pants on the right really are more teal than blue and the pants on the left are more rust than red. I'm just sayin'.

And a side note: As I'm writing this post, the tweets are flying about Project Runway. What's going on? Ugh! I hate having to watch it the next day. This is torture!

Later!

 

Tattoo {Let Go}

Way back on a lovely Saturday afternoon in July, my friend Rebecca stopped by with an urgent request. Her 35th birthday was the next day and she had accidentally found that her surprise gift from her husband was going to be a trip to the tattoo parlor. Her husband didn't know she had found out, but she was happy she did. She didn't want to arrive at the parlor unprepared.

That's where I came in. She had a vision of what she wanted: the words 'let go' hidden in a script-y, vine-y design. She liked my illustration style, so she was hoping I could help her out on short notice.

Well, I'll be honest. This freaked me out. I'm all about tattoos (I have 3 myself), but the idea of my art on someone else's body PERMANENTLY is a lot of pressure. I've had several tattoo design requests in the past, but I've always somehow avoided executing them. (Sorry, friends if you're reading this...) But Rebecca seemed so desperate - she needed it that afternoon! I couldn't let her down. So I accepted, and went about sketching the concept. This is what we decided on:

I was happy about it, but it was still on paper - it's an entirely different matter, etched into someone's skin. But when I saw her the next evening at her birthday party, she was proudly showing off her new tat:

It looked so good! It looked like I drew right onto her arm with a Sharpie. Phew! What a relief. Now perhaps I should review all of those other tattoo concepts I owe people...

:-)

It's Thrifty Thursday!

Hello!

Did you know that today is Thrifty Thursday? Starting today, and for the next several Thursdays, members of the Etsy Plush Team will be adding new "thrifty" plush to the Etsy shop. This means the plush are made from thrifted, recycled, upcycled or scrap materials. How fun is that? And they're good for the environment, if you're in to that sort of thing.

To kick things off, I contributed a couple items to the shop:

Meet Gobb and Kipi. They're wee ones, just 7 in. and 6 in. tall, respectively. Made from thrifted materials and stuffed with fabric scraps, they're perfect for squeezing.

You can find them in the Plush Team Shop, along with a lot of other plushy goodness.

Yay!

 

Project {Frisbee Golf Bags}

Hello!

I am back with another random project I completed over the summer. A couple of Stephen's co-workers are avid frisbee golfers and expressed they'd love a sort of satchel to carry their discs (and anything else they'd like to carry with them). I figured I could probably help them out.

My challenge was coming up with a bag that was functional, yet manly enough that didn't look they were carrying purses. I also wanted it to be fairly low-profile, so they could wear it while throwing. This was my solution:

Even though I love patterned fabric, I felt it would be more masculine if the shell was solid, and incorporated the pattern into the lining. For some extra Bluestar pizazz, I hand-painted the shell to suit the guys' tastes. Typically I wouldn't hand-paint the fabric because it is SO time consuming, but since my screen printing studio STILL isn't set up yet, this was the only way I could get the desired effect. I added a pocket to the inside front for keys, drinks or any other incidentals. And the magnetic snap isn't visible from the outside...again, avoiding any embellishments that could make this bag look too girly.

All-in-all, I was pretty happy with how these turned out. And I figured I could always use the pattern to make myself a purse! But of course I'd add some extra pockets...A button or two...ya know - those little details that make a purse super cute!  :-)

Cheers!

 

October 2011 Desktop Calendar

I know, I know - It's October 6 already and I am just now sharing the October desktop calendar with you. If you follow me on Twitter, I've already apologized, and I will once apologize to y'all - I am SO sorry about the delay! I have been a busy lady. 

I'll shut up now. Here we go:

Halloween is probably one of my favorite holidays because I love to dress up. And now that I have a kiddo to dress, it's even more fun! Halloween brings so many fun ghoulies - I had to showcase one for this month - Frankenstein!

It's pretty simple, but I am loving the color palette. The green just pops right out at ya. Hopefully he's not too scary - he still wants to grace your desktop, of course!

You can also find Frankie here.

Please note that this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.  

And, in case you missed my post yesterday - be sure to head on over to Paper Sparrow's blog where she is having a 2-day Tim Burton-inspired mega blog party. I have really been enjoying all of the posts, and there are even some printable freebies from me! And did I mention a super-fun giveaway? There might be a Bluestar prize there, too...


So download your October desktop calendar and then head straightaway over to Paper Sparrow!


Woo!

Tim Burton Blog Party

I hope you're not too busy today because there is a Par-Tay going on over at Paper Sparrow's blog! What kind of party, you may ask? Well a Tim Burton Blog Party, of course! Andrea has scheduled 2 full days of Tim Burton goodness, complete with 24 posts and 8 special guests (including yours truly!). Wow!

You can find my guest post here. I don't want to give too much away, but here's a little sneak peek:

So grab your black & white striped outfit, a bowl of popcorn and head over to Paper Sparrow for some Tim Burton-inspired fun!