just a few things

1. alphabet mug, fishseddy
2. garden party pillow (garland), anthropologie
3. somerset pitcher, american summer, ralph lauren
4. monogrammed dinner plate set, mae mougin
5. tablette ´qijuk´, bleu nature

twiggums

sarah fox designs jewelry & home accessories for her business, cursive design. she recently updated her shop with a product called twiggums. twiggums are sold in a pack of five for $12. two large flowers and three smaller flowers. they are hand cut and punched out of recycled paper vellum. her idea was to create something that she could keep in her vases throughout her home.

phm studio spaces: amanda blake

Amanda Blake
thisisalliknow.etsy.com
amandablakeart.blogspot.com
portland, oregon

Where in your home/apartment/city is your studio located?

My studio is a beautiful window filled room in my home in North Portland.



What equipment/tools do you use?

Most of my work is oil paint on wood, but currently I love number two pencils, my gocco, sumi ink, metallic gouache, china markers and stonehenge paper.




Do you have an inspiration board, and can you tell us what is inspiring you now?

I have little rows of copper nails around my studio where I can hang whatever it is I'm loving at the moment - this one has vintage photos from estate sales and ebay, a Greek stamp, a polaroid of my husband, a smashed penny from the Alamo, a little tile from Caroline of Paloma's nest (www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5358026), a matchbook from Damien Hirst's old restaurant Pharmacy and a photo by my sister robotzombiemonkey (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5406273).
There's a photo of another little row of inspiration on my blog http://amandablakeart.blogspot.com/2008/03/one-little-corner-of-calm.html
I also have a bookshelf behind my easel that i'm always rearranging, full of vintage encyclopedias, my little used cameras and other odds and ends.



How do you create best (e.g. do you listen to music while you create and if so what?)

I share my studio with my three year old Henry and my six month old Frances so I listen to Henry talk about bugs and dinosaurs but sometimes we listen to whatever music we can agree on - lately that's Modest Mouse, Johnny Cash, and Wilco, and of course my little Frances is always busy making plenty of noise too.




List (3) of your favorite artists (with links)

Matthew Dennison
Brian Kershisnik
Heinrich Toh


If yours isn't, what would be your perfect studio?

I'd like it to be about twice the size and I've spent a year looking for the perfect light fixture with no luck but other than that it's ideal.

Thanks Amanda!

last day of the "mothers day & kids market"

a HUGE thank you to everyone who visited and participated in the mother's day and kids market this past month. it was another fun month, with so many cute baby models about. makes one want one! i hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did putting it on. and thanks to all the participants who shared their studio spaces with us. they were all so inspiring! we're off to sweep up the floors over the weekend and will be back on monday with a fresh new market, called "Paper Pops", A Papergoods and Affordable Art Market! We'll have two guides coming along with it, a Papergoods one and an Affordable Art one. See you Monday!

sale at dead bird finds

dead bird finds is turning one and to celebrate the store is having a sale where everthing is 10-60% off! it starts tonight at midnight (thurs night) and will run until monday at midnight! thanks cat!

phm studio spaces: fringe

Artist Name: Dennice Mankarious
Shop Name and Url: fringe: www.fringe.etsy.com
Website: www.fringe.etsy.com
Blog: I'm working on that.
City: San Diego


Where in your home/apartment is your studio located?

My studio is located in the southeast corner of my home. There are two
windows that bring in the beautiful morning sun.



What equipment/tools do you use?

I use knitting needles and crochet hooks of all sizes, yarn, fabric, sewing
supplies, sewing machine, ribbon, vintage odds and ends, lace(vintage and
new), buttons, leather, my computer and printer, a digital camera, Betty and
Jane (my beloved dressform and head display mannequin), lots and lots of
paper and pencil for sketches and designs and notes. I'm sure I'm
forgetting things, but that's the general list.


Do you have an inspiration board, and can you tell us what is
inspiring you now? (please include picture)

I have something like an inspiration board. It's more like a design and
idea board. I have notes to myself for new designs, materials I need for
them, drawings of upcoming creations, snippets of yarn and such, color
stories. It's really a jumbled mess that only I can make sense of.

Music inspires me more than anything else. I do get inspired each time I
visit my favorite little yarn shop too. I have included a pic of the
delicious yarn I bought at my last visit there. Let's just say I'm a
familiar face in that special little yarn shop.



How do you create best (e.g. do you listen to music while you create
and if so what?)

Well, I sort of mentioned that music inspires me, but it doesn't necessarily
have to be playing for me to be productive in the creative process.
Sometimes I need complete silence to concentrate on detailed creations. I
love sitting in my backyard with nature all around me while I'm creating.
That's my favorite place to create.


List (3) of your favorite artists (with links)

Oh my, I have so many favorite artists, way more than three. There are so
many different forms of art too. I will go with some of the early master
painters. This really is an impossible question for me!

Edgar Degas
Pablo Picasso
Claude Monet

I know everyone is familiar with these artists, but they each are so
extraordinary. I never tire of their work.


If yours isn't, what would be your perfect studio?

I do adore my studio. My husband put the beautiful wood floor in himself,
he made my desk and my bookshelves, and he framed the windows and put
beautiful molding at the ceiling and base. It has so much love in it that I
wouldn't trade it for any other studio, but I do wish it were 3 times
bigger. With lots more storage space and windows all around. A girl can
dream, can't she?

phm studio spaces: one red robin

Artist Name: Jhoanna Monte Aranez
Shop Name and Url: One Red Robin (oneredrobin.com)
Website: www.oneredrobin.com
Blog: oneredrobin.com
City: Melbourne, Australia



Where in your home/apartment/city is your studio located?
I use the small spare living room upstairs in our home. It has lots of natural light and is close to my daughter's rooms, which is important as I usually craft at night when they are asleep and its comforting to know that I am close by if they need me.



What equipment/tools do you use?
My Janome sewing machine is what I use most - next would be my laptop :-)

Do you have an inspiration board, and can you tell us what is
inspiring you now? (please include picture)
Quirky, cute, and nostalgic is how I would sum up what is inspiring me at the moment.



How do you create best (e.g. do you listen to music while you create
and if so what?)
I always have music playing - I find it almost impossible to work while its quiet. I like to listen to a range of different artists and at the moment its Brooke Fraser, Sixpence None the Richer, Yael Naim, Leeland and Third Day.

List (3) of your favorite artists (with links)
Shinzi Katoh
Mary Blair
Rex Ray

If yours isn't, what would be your perfect studio?
I love Alicia Paulson's studio (http://www.flickr.com/photos/47702473@N00/sets/72057594143408502) - I love all the colour, its vintage vibe, the all the gorgeous things hanging on the walls and from the ceiling, and the fact that there is enough room to have a crafty get-together with good friends. It's a good thing I don't have a studio like that because I don't think I would ever leave the room!

phm studio spaces: the portland beanie company

Artist Name: Nili Barrett
Shop Name and Url: The Portland Beanie Company www.pdxbeanies.com
Website: www.pdxbeanies.com
City: Portland, Oregon

Where in your home/apartment/city is your studio located?
The living room!

What equipment/tools do you use?
Crochet hooks/yarn needles
and the handy dandy pvc pipe yarn holder that my wonderful husband made for me. :o)



Do you have an inspiration board, and can you tell us what is inspiring you now? (please include picture)
I don't have an inspiration board. I just try to keep my eyes open for inspiration where ever I go. I'm constantly seeing color combinations when I'm out and about. I often find myself zoning out trying to transpose what I'm seeing into a hat. I have a little notepad in my purse that I can pull out to write these ideas down on. If I fail to do this I will often not be able to recall the "flash of inspiration" later on.



How do you create best (e.g. do you listen to music while you create and if so what?)
Usually when I'm trying to fall asleep my mind is busy putting together colors, techniques, etc. Then I try to make what I came up with the next morning. It usually doesn't turn out quite as well as I had envisioned in the moments before I drifted off to sleep but it still works out somehow. :o)

List (3) of your favorite artists (with links)
Sara Jane
BEKAHknits
Kathy Doerge, My mom!

If yours isn't, what would be your perfect studio?
Right now my studio is just my recliner and end table in my living room! So just to have a whole room devoted to my work would be a dream come true!

phm studio spaces: lizard press

Artist Name: M.K. Augustine
Shop Name and Url: Lizard Press www.lizardpress.com/letterpress
Website: www.lizardpress.etsy.com
Blog: www.lizardpress.blogspot.com
City: San Francisco

Where in your home/apartment/city is your studio located?

I share presses at the
San Francisco Center for the Book

What equipment/tools do you use?
Cranky old Vandercook V-4 proof presses at the Center--they do have a mechanical C&P, but I like the ability to interact with each piece as it comes off the press.

Lots of wood type! I was lucky to have started my interest just before it started going through the roof on ebay, I've got about a dozen complete alphabets in various sizes and quick a few random incomplete sets.

Polymer plates for digital designs, photographs and modern typography. I like the combination of the roughened texture of the wood type with the clarity of type and illustrations made from plates.



Do you have an inspiration board, and can you tell us what is inspiring you now?

Most of my inspirations come from, "let's try this!" usually it is something that will be challenging on the press, but does not "seem so" because it would be easy to do on a desktop printer, and in the process I learn to push the craft and myself.

How do you create best (e.g. do you listen to music while you create and if so what?)
Silence. Best ideas randomly when driving/walking/over coffee, when I am able to ignore the usual pressures and can ponder new ways of combining visual elements.

Also I am lucky to be able to teach letterpress and we do a lot of experimenting. With 8 to 24 people experimenting, that is a lot of inspiration happening!

Since I print outside my studio, I plan my projects about 90% before the press, with the need to bring all of the paper, type, plates, ink to the Center. But 10% is decided on the press, seeing how the "visions" interact.

I can plan for basic placement of wood and metal type on the computer, but the actual texture of each letterform does not come out until it is locked into the press bed, inked and proof run. The color and amount of ink on the press, the the paper texture and color, the cranky-ness entailed in cranking the press (roller height, tympan backing), and the transparent interaction of the succeeding ink layers are all factors that can greatly shift my final choices.

While printing I'll turn on Pandora.com which is great because you can chose an artist and the site will pool other artists in that mode to create a mix, current mixes I sift through are Indigo Girls and Erasure (yep, child of the 80's).



List (3) of your favorite artists:
An exhibit of Jack Stauffacher's wood type prints at SFMOMA really got me interested in the texture and tones of wood prints on the letterpress
http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=178
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/medalist-jackstauffacher

I love Stefan Sagmeister's organic typography, design and philosophy
"I always try to go in a direction where the final piece will incorporate the process visibly."
http://www.sagmeister.com
http://www.hillmancurtis.com/hc_web/film_video/source/sag.php

Paula Scher's fantastic typography and hand lettering skills
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?id=522&index=522&domain="
http://www.hillmancurtis.com/hc_web/film_video/source/scher.php"

And not a country music lover myself (folk is pretty darn close though...), the posters done a Hatch Show Print are absolutely fantastic in there wood type play and structure!
http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/site/experience-hatch.aspx
http://www.ryman.com/HatchGallery.html

(sorry that is four!)


If yours isn't, what would be your perfect studio?
Ahhh, the perfect studio would be the Hamilton Wood Type Printing Museum... all that authentic ancient wood type. I've been told they still have the cool old guys that hand carve the letters by hand!
http://www.woodtype.org/

They do have workshops occasionally, my dream is to get out to Two Rivers Wisconsin and attend one!

Thanks M.K.

fontstruct

i'm so excited about this new site, i couldn't get into blogger fast enough to write about it! and i know i may get very lost constructing fonts for the next little while. fontstruct is a new site where you can build, share and download fonts! build? yep, build!

cute d.i.y. at d*sponge

if you haven't already, check out this d.i.y. project over at d*sponge today. cute canister makeover by kate pruitt, an artist based in oakland, california. (they're made from an old anthropologie tablecloth and their knobs).

cozy mugs

i'm longing for these cozy rustic mugs hand produced by sweden's agneta livijn. the collection consists of cups with saucers, milk bottles, plates and kitchen aids made from white stoneware. click here for more info.

greno patio daddy-o

i'm totally into these greno cushions from ikea. they're somewhat reminiscent of the flinstones or perhaps mid-century influences? especially that black one with the random red spots.

jenna rose

i found these great new textiles by canadian jenna greenberg today in the june issue of canadian house and home (which is a really good issue by the way). her prints of birds perched on fences, buildings and bicycles look so fresh and would be perfect for a light summer look. her company, jenna rose is based in guelph, ontario where she produces hand-made fashion accessories and housewares. she also has a new online shop!