work in progress…

Here is a peek at something I made at the beginning of the year that I like to call, my “BRAIN” - I have been happy using these (see all the pretty colors!) for the last 2 years, and will continue to use that for our family plans… however, I needed something that held everything I needed to run the shop & be friends with the internet etc… so I made my own little planner!



The front cover looks silly being that small, but I’ll fix it soon! On the inside, my nifty little “brain” has everything from blogs I love to stuff I need to make to custom project info! The hard part has been (and continues to be) transferring all the info from my huge stack of journals, used mostly randomly before “my brain” was put together! It’s a satisfying thing to sit and do with a cup of hot tea though. ^_^ Here’s the stack I have left to transfer, there’s a lot of info in this stack!!!

These are my favorite journals, ChocoCat, and forgive me, but the name of this next artist is escaping me…she’s absolutly amazing though!! (see if I’d had my “brain” back when I bought it, it would be in the ‘internet shopping’ section!) if anyone knows who the artist of this one is, please do let me know! Most of her girls feature a keyhole cut out in thier hands, which I think is so haunting and lovely…. and last but not least, my beautiful journal from If’n Books featuring the lovely artwork of Jen Corace on the cover!

I realize that ‘one of these things just doesn’t belong here’ but I had to include Choco! ^_^ I apologize for the bad pics, it’s been so rainy out I haven’t gotten any good ones! I have decided to make a separate binder for the custom projects though, so I picked up a 1/2″ binder at Target last night to move those over and give each client their own tab, I think it will be really nice to have them all in their own sections! I have 5 custom jobs going right now, you have seen one (the save the date cards in previous post) and I will post more about the other 4 when I get closer to the final designs! In a completly un-related subject, I bought a really cute little tea cup at a thrift shop the other day! It’s a sort of melon color with ‘tea’ on the side in white! I love it! Perfect for the rainy wether we have been having! I like the size too, normally, I like the giant cups to drink from, (completely un-lady like) but, I dunno, I really like this sweet little cup, it’s perfect…… just as it is…

Here’s a peek of some Custom Save the Date Postcards I’m working on! (there are 2 other versions on my flickr page, click the pic to see them!) these are just the first drafts, so dont be too hard on them! ^_^ I love the idea of a winter wedding, ours was in October, but snow is so glittery and magical! I bet the pictures will be amazing! The caricature was done at DimpleArt, it’s pretty popular with brides right now! If your looking for custom stationery, please email me! Working on custom projects is something I thoroughly enjoy! I am working hard trying to get a collection of Event Stationery to offer in the shop, but it’s going to be a while yet! It’s sooo hard for me choose what to include and what not to! I am working on it though! I also desperately need to update my Custom Projects Page! I’ve done a lot of work since putting that page up! It will have to wait for now, I’m off to bed, I have a full weekend planned, I hope to squeeze in a treasure hunt looking for pretty fallen leaves,

I found these a couple of weekends ago, I love them!
xoxo, M

Custom work & wholesale orders have been pouring in thi week and I’ve spent tons of time typing responses to them and printing away! I decided to do a late night last night and as always on these late I nights, I went to my itunes podcast section and decided that this time I’d have a CraftyPod marathon while working quietly through the night! As I listened I gave in to temptation and thought I’d take a *short break from work and check out the CraftyPod website, while scrolling through the wonderful posts, I saw THIS POST! This was a great moment for me and the following email I sent to Diane tells why:

“Hi! I was listening to CraftyPod tonight (this morning actually, yikes!) and was inspired to check out your blog and happened across your post titled “Craft day with Mom” about the reverse-applique art. I can not tell you how excited I was to see your lovely post about this, I’d love to share why with you! Though I am mostly a paper artist, I do try now and again to sew and appreciate the skill very much! I was checking out a local yard sale a few months ago and came upon these 2 gorgeous things that I could not quite describe, they were unlike anything I’d ever seen. I asked the lady hosting the yard sale about them and what I heard her say over traffic, shuffling feet and mumbling, was that they were made by women in the “Sand Blast Islands”. She said that she had bought them on a vacation years and years ago! I immediatly bought them for only $1.00 each (can you believe that!) Then went home and googled “Sand Blast Islands” (I still did not know what to call them!) Obviously, nothing came up on Google and I figured the lady had just made the whole thing up and while I was still head over heals in love with them, I was very disappointed… until NOW! You have made my week by sharing your life and experiences, I now know that she was not making up elaborate stories, and that these beautiful things are called reverse-applique art and they are from the ‘San Blas’ Islands, not ‘Sand Blast Islands’ ^_^ The web can be such an incredible resource! Thank you so much for what you do, I love listening and am going to now start following your blog more closely! ^_^ I will send some pictures tomorrow of the applique (it’s 2am right now, and I dont want to wake up my little chalupa’s!) Thanks so much Diane!

She responded and was so sweet! I just can not express how happy I am to know a little more about the history of these 2 peices of artwork that I have displayed in my home! Here are the photo’s of them (the bottom 2 pics are the back side of the orange piece) it’s hard to imagine the intricy of the stiching, but I think you’ll enjoy them and if you need something really great and ispiring to listen to, check out Sister Diane at CraftyPod Happy Wednesday!
xoxo, Mariah

Pirate-Cake #2! It’s been confusing to people, that they are called Pirate-Cakes, people keep asking if they are edible…(which would be cool, but they’re not!) they are sculptures of a line of characters I drew named pirate cakes after the stick figures my sister ( aka *Mary-Cakes!) draws! ^_^
Anyhow, this one was made using wire under his arms, legs & antlers and it came out much better than the dowels used for this one. I also used wooden beads for his eyes as opposed to plastic eyes. I wanted a more irregular shape to them and these worked well! I can’t seem to get the clay as smooth as I’d like it… I would really love to find a better way to make the basic shape… some sort of mold that I could use to keep them exact and not limit the addition of things like antler’s and such… not sure what medium would work best for that, but I am going to look into it.