last night while my mom babysat the kids, j and I spent the evening setting up my booth, I know I say this every season, but I am pretty smitten with the new booth display, I will have photos next week and maybe folks on instagram that are visiting can #bookhou

I am going to resume posts next week - I will have lots of new things to show you and for those of you who can't come to the craft show, the new work will be posted online next week.

if you can come and visit just click the link on my sidebar and will have all the info you need.--->

I wish you a great weekend and hope that it will be filled with lots of family time and relaxation.

sadly the giveaway was not claimed - so the new winner for the giveaway is Caitlin T. please email me

thanks for all your support!!! xxa

hello friends

thanks so much for entering the giveaway and all your kind and encouraging words

as you can imagine the weekend was hectic - and I will be doing just one more blog post till after the show. I will be at the show most of the week and the brick and mortar will be closed friday, saturday and sunday. I am going to do my absolute best to stay on schedule with orders.

the giveaway winner is Mara Dawn - congratulations!- please send me an email with your shipping address - you have till the end of the day to claim the giveaway or another person will be chosen.

in the photos - for the first time ever we set up the entire booth in the shop to trouble shoot - in the past we would have a vision of how it should be and there would be adjustments, but it was always too late since we were already at the show.  it took a little more time, but so worth the effort. I have piles of unfinished work everywhere and this jar of indigo is just begging to be played with. 

enjoy the start to your week! xxa

hello folks,

this weekend is major crunch time, you know like the night before a big exam - your up cramming all the info in your head.  it's going to be hectic.  I thought I would begin my weekend countdown to the big craft show by visiting an RMT and I chose the al and malka artist centre near our place, after my visit I knew that I was letting my body get used and not do enough rehabilitation - so I think it's the beginning of being on the right track on being physically healthy and I'm happy about that.  we also had a visit from our architects and structural engineer and it looks like the build of the extension will begin in mid to late may.  I can't begin to tell you how excited I am, it's going to be hard living and working through the renovation, but j and I are veterans.

I hope that you can come next week to the spring craft show - I will have lots of new work for sale and for those of you who can't come I will have them online shortly.  I also wanted to thank all of you who purchased the smock aprons the past few days, they've been selling really well and I think there's only one oatmeal style left.

so to end the week I wanted to do a  G I V E A W A Y - you will get to choose one pouch design and one of the new small round storage. to enter just click the triangle icon below this post and leave a comment -  I hope you have a great weekend & I will announce the winner on monday.

p.s. I also included a peek of the new crosses pattern printed and there will be new bags to show you next week with this pattern.  see you monday!

xxa

there are products we have in the brick and mortar shop that I don't have online - I think I should make more of these pillows and post it in the web store. I made it in the past on a lighter linen colour, but the oatmeal colour gives it such a nice quality with the dark grey ink.

the ooak is fast approaching - here's a link to discounted tickets

we have another batch of smock aprons ready - we have the popular blue style back in stock as well as a new oatmeal colour. 

one of the fun parts of my job is printing a new image - the process is first drawing out the image, my favourite pens to draw with is a felt tip pen, I like how felt pens don't give you a clean line and bleeds a little, when you visit me at a craft show and if I'm not helping a customer I will either be drawing or embroidering, I like those quiet moments at the booth, my days are pretty hectic so it's nice to have time to just sit still and work.  the next step is to take the drawing and scan it and clean it up on photoshop - and once I feel like it's good to go I print it and get it ready to be shot on the screen and after that I print it, you never know what your going to get when you screen-print the image, I usually have an idea in my head and it's always an exciting moment to lift up the screen to see the results.  I think that excitement is part of my drive to keep making.

in the next few days I will show you more of the crosses print.

hello friends

I hope you had a great weekend!

I have been waiting for sunnier days to take photos of my brother davis and his partner adam's store called crown flora studio.  my brother has been making for as long as I can remember and there were times he left it for awhile to do other things but he always found his way back and this past year he and adam joined forces and decided to go head on and see where crown flora would take them.  they both were looking for a storefront for a long time and there were a few places they almost set-up shop in, but after christmas they spotted a for lease sign at 1537 queen street west.  this area in parkdale is a great mixture of vintage shops and other small businesses and only a few blocks from their home that it was hard to pass up.  since opening in january they have not stopped making.  if you're in parkdale please stop by and say "hi" or visit them once a month at the junction flea and you can also find a selection of items in their etsy shop. in the near future they will be offering letterpress and terrarium making workshops.

it's great to see their business flourish and to see all their hard work paying off, I wish them continued success.

p.s. happy birthday beryl, sending you lots of love

have a great start to your week! xxa

your thinking - arounna is that your hair printed on that cube? yeah it is.  

I found this in piper's room and yeah her and lliam both played with it, it was part of an edition I did in 2005 - the image was essential my hair photocopied - I had really long hair back then.

I also printed this image on silk scarves.  I remember spending so much time making sure my corners were perfect.  I love looking back at older work, it gives me a feeling of history and where I came from.

today is going to the new legoland and the afternoon at the AGO and maybe a nice warm bowl of ramen afterwards.  what a great way to start our weekend.

I hope your weekend is fantastic! and I was hoping to have a giveaway this week, but it will have to wait till next week and it will be great - so please come back :-)

xxa

it's been awhile since I've made these small bucket storage containers - I made some for the upcoming craft show happening in a few weeks and I will have 5 different designs in total for sale (I will show you more next week), after the show I might make some available online.  even though they are small, they are pretty useful - great for notions, yarn, and my favourite to hold plants.  I recently started using this beautiful 9 oz tightly woven canvas as lining and it's such a dream to work with, the fabric is pre-washed and milled in the U.S.

these containers are simple but I forget how challenging sewing in the round can be, I have to go a bit slower than my usual machine revving :-)

when piper just started to walk we walked by a kids shop and got her this little baby, which still remains one of her favourite dolls and it's sweet to see her sit there and talk to it and be loving with it.  she saw me with my camera and yelled out - take a picture of my baby!

 I think j did such a great job drawing these sweet owls available in a tea towel and pouch

they're on sale online and at the upcoming craft show in a few weeks.

yesterday the clocks went forward, I find myself in a bit of a panic when the clocks change, like yesterday I got up late and felt like I was playing catch up for losing an hour.

the kids went to their grandparents for the weekend and maybe a few extra days, this week is the start of march break and since we both work from home - we didn't have to plan the whole week for them, we thought a trip to the museum and to the new lego centre would be fun.  we don't usually plan a vacation since the craft show is a few weeks away and the break falls during quite a busy time.

we rearranged the window to display the glassware that j will use for the lamps (and I played around with filters on my camera) and tomorrow I will have the owl tea towels and pouches for sale.

enjoy the start of your week! 

xxa

most of my morning will be at harbourfront centre doing resident reviews, I will bring a bit of hand sewing to keep my hands busy.  I made a small run of this denim like blue linen (not similar to the apron blue, this one is more like a handkerchief linen) loop scarf for the upcoming craft show - there's a small run so for now I won't have them available online.  sweet piper helping with the photo shoot.

the next few weeks is crunch time for craft show making - yikes!

visit us next week, I will have a giveaway here on the blog and I will also have new work to show you.

have a great weekend friends!! xxa

the past few days piper has been sick and I thought she looked so sweet all bundled up, I think the expression on her face was saying "why are you taking my photo?" she's better now , but j and I are a bit under the weather.  I'm trying to go to bed early to rest up - I have the craft show coming up in a few weeks so I need to be well.

I love the light in our place as the sun goes down -  photographing what to make for dinner.  we found a place in kensington that makes the best kimchi.

another peek at my collab with geninne

can't wait :-)

lately.....

around the shop

nick chase blown glass waiting for j to make into lamps

jenny clark dropped off more pottery and  crown flora dropped off more terrariums

I also love all the light we get during the day

and j's mobile in oak veneer

hi there,

I hope you had a lovely weekend

we were so swamped with things in the studio and at home that the weekend flew buy literally, I was very lucky to have our triangle zip tote be included in design sponge's post  - we have had a flood of orders that I got a head start on this weekend so that we don't fall behind.  and we got such a great response to the new tote which we will be shipping out tomorrow.  what I am starting to learn is that before I launch a new product to make lots of it, so that we can ship it out right away, I know that not everyone can build an inventory first, because sometimes what you might think will sell well doesn't, trust me I know - with the new tote I really liked it and I thought to myself if I really like it, there's got to be other people that would love it too. just so you know all four of us had a hand in making the bag (most bags)

yesterday was a busy day for us, our place was being used for a video shoot for crown flora by hedda film.  it was also piper's film debut, I wasn't around for most of the shoot but I hear she was a real trooper and did everything she was told, it didn't hurt that she got a little treat after each take :-)

above our some photos of vignettes of crown flora's work, I can't wait to see the finished product.

have a great start to your week :-)

xxa

I finally photographed the grey triangle tote - I wanted to keep this one simple and a bit on a taller proportion.  I think it was about time I printed the triangle image in a different colour, I think it works so well with the different shades of brown.

wow I can't believe it's already march - hope the snow has had it's final hurrah - I am looking forward to wearing open toe shoes.

have a great weekend friends! p.s. next week is a giveaway for ooak show tickets with a little something ;-)

xxa