S.N.O.R.T Rescue Online Auction!!

Be sure to get your wallets ready this weekend for a good cause! S.N.O.R.T. Rescue, a New England short nose breed rescue organization is having a Craft Show Online Facebook Auction to help raise some money for some of their foster dogs who have immediate medical issues. All money raised from the auction goes to help their fosters!!  The auction will run from Saturday February 22nd starting at 6pm - Tuesday February 25th at 8pm.

Lavender Paper Hearts has donated bow ties to this fantastic organization in the past, and we're happy to be able to donate a Yellow Plaid Pet Bow Tie and a NEW Pet Collar Flower style to the auction.

                       

                       

Ofelia's foster mom is currently the fundraising coordinator for S.N.O.R.T and working super hard to take care of not only the auction, but also Ofelia who's recovering from brain surgery this week.  Lavender Paper Hearts sent off a special collar flower to her as a get well gift. We got this ADORABLE Valentine in return. Look at that sweet squishy face!

                      

                                        

These flowers are now available for purchase in the shop. 

Be sure to check out the auction this weekend, and help raise money for some adorable and lovable rescue dogs!!

The (Mis)Adventures of Phoebe & Paige

The latest custom mobile I finished up is called: The (Mis)Adventures of Phoebe & Paige. This client wanted a mobile that captured the fun and silly personalities of her dogs Phoebe and Paige for her son's nursery and she presented me with some great ideas and information to start off with. Both of these lovely lady dogs seem to have very strong and yet lighthearted personalities. One of the greatests parts of working with this client was to read how playfully and lovingly she described her dogs personalities. It might sound silly, but it's these kinds of details that let me get a sense of perspective on the dogs themselves, but I also learn about the personalities of the client, their owner. 

First we have Paige, a dainty little Min Pin. My client described Paige as "shy and girly. She sits with her front paws crossed like a lady." Paige also sounds like she can get excitable as she spins around in circles a lot, but she also gets a bit nervous and skittish at times. So, I sort of envisioned her as an excitable yet proper Southern Belle who maybe gets the vapors from time to time. 

Here is a baby photo of Phoebe the Boston Terrier. Phoebe was described as, "is basically exactly like Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toons." She adores her owners and anyone who comes to visit. She also loves to take time to smell the roses (except she's too enthusiastic and she ends up sticking her face in the flowers and then sneezing her face off.) 

Just look at these ladies. How cute are they?!!

Here is Lady Paige as the uber-Southern Belle, complete with pearl necklace and lace gloves. 

Here, Paige is showing off her sort of spastic and constant movement in rollerskates. Paige is also partially blind so her sort of clumsy sort of excitable manner is only heightened because of this so I added a blind fold to play up the loving inside joke for her owners.

  

This piece features both ladies in a hot air balloon - but with all balloons. It's a play on a piece of art called Mr. Penguin Balloons Print by Showler & Showler that my client said served as an inspiration for decorating his room.  

Here Phoebe is taking time to smell the roses (and also sneeze because she does it 100%).  I made really small flowers and added some white cotton fabric to her other paw to give her a hanky. 

These flower details are in the early stages of drying. My long tweezers and sharp scissors definitely came in handy for these.  

Phoebe is apparently quite the adventurer. She apparently is so adventurous in fact that she's permanently injured her leg from being so carefree and jumping off of things more often than she should. 

As always, I like to add a few subtle extras to add layers and depth to the mobile.

The finished product is one I'm really proud of, and one I hope their baby boy loves looking at! This client was also a dream to work with. She had some great ideas to get me started in the right direction and she gave me so much fun backstory that I felt like I really got to know not only her, but her personality, and that helps me translate what she's looking for in the perfect mobile for her baby boy. 

xoxoxo

If you have an idea for a custom mobile, I'd love to hear it!! You can contact me through my Etsy shop Lavender Paper Hearts. 

Christmas Gifts & Celebrating 2014

Oh, hi, remember me? Sorry it's been so long, but the holidays called for a much needed break. My shop is back and at 'em in 2014 and I've got 3 mobiles in my order queue that I can't wait to share here. I'll be featuring one next week that I just finished up today, and I am so excited to show off! 

Huzzah - it's only almost a month after Christmas, but better late than never, I say. I wanted to share some handmade Christmas gifts I made for my friend's little ones. I didn't get a chance to give them to them until the first week of the year so I had to wait to share them here.  Pinterest is such a great place to search for tutorials for baby things. There are SO many things on Pinterest, and sometimes it requires some weeding, but I've found some great things from other bloggers to make for friends and family. 

These goodies were for a newborn: 

The red turban-retro headband was loosely based on the tutorial I found at The Patriotic Peacock. 

The ADORABLE little shoes were made from a tutorial I found at The Fleeting Thing. 

These goodies were for the newborn's 6 month old cousin: 

The turban-headbands are from the same site as above, and for the shoes, I modified the pattern by half an inch all around and changed up the toe a bit to make them different (they're for cousins). 

Since I never actually got around to posting the handmade gifts I made LAST Christmas, here are some of the links to tutorials of items I made. Most are cold weather items: 

Earwarmers by Deliacreatures: I made a few of these for friends with more simple patters, but made the one with GIMONGO bows for myself. I pretty much love love love it and it keeps me ever so warm! 

Bow scarves by Ruffles and Stuff: I'm keeping this one in my pocket for future little ladies. I also made some for grown up ladies, because they're so darn cute! 

Lace Infinity Scarves by Wildflowers and Whimsy: I also made several of these lovely scarves, but unlike the tutorial, I used jersey fabric with lace. 

In other exciting news, I heard back from the mama who bought my last Jersey Quilt, and she reported that her son was so excited about his new keepsake that he brought it practically everywhere to show it off!! How's that for a compliment! :)  

I also got to escape a snowstorm and soak up some much needed California sunshine, and endless baby snuggles. It was so lovely to get to see my friends and to hang with my family.  My sister, who is my number one Lavender Paper Hearts supporter, also got me a sweet pro-camera and photo lighting kit for Christmas.  So hopefully you'll see that my shop photos will up their game going forward!! My sweet husband bought me my shop domain name, so be on the lookout for an official Lavender Paper Hearts website coming soon!! 

*No filter here, just pure San Clemente magic.

- K

Custom Jersey Quilt II

Social media is a fun thing. I usually am really diligent about sharing the things I make on my shop's affiliated social media sites, but sometimes I just forget. I'd forgotten to 'Pin' my first custom made jersey quilt over on Pinterest when I'd first made it, and despite doing as much, some quilt loving folks on the internet 'pined' my quilt anyway!! This led to a Pinterest user in Texas stumbling across my quilt and then contacting me via Etsy shop last month about making another jersey quilt for her young son.  How fun is that?! 

Well, I finished up this fun jersey quilt on Sunday and shipped it off Monday (2 days ahead of schedule - woot!), just in time for to arrive before Christmas. The little football player's mom contacted me about making him a special Christmas gift with her son's football jersey.  This football player is only 10, so his jersey was little and cute compared to the last jersey I worked with which was for a professional football player. Since this football player is a growing boy, I decided to go with a more simple design in the hopes that he'll continue to cherish it, even when his feet stick out the end!  The final design ended up being 52 by 58 inches. The ultimate size of a jersey quilt is always a bit fickle, especially when working with one primary panel, because you ultimately have to work out the main panel first. The size can vary grately depending on the size of the jersey and how much workable material you have to work with.  

The quilt is cotton stripes on top, with soft plush LSU themed fleece on the back. The quilt is finished off with 1 inch purple bias tape. I thought bias tape would be a better, more grown up finish for the quilt rather than satin, and I really liked how it turned out. 

                   

Here's the jersey panel. Once it's done, I started to draw out the design for the rest of the quilt. 

I've also decided that basting spray and I aren't friends - at least not when it comes to fleece backings. So I went old school and used quilting pins! You can see the LSU fleece on the left in the photo below. (Ignore my kitchen floor, we rent.)

Finished jersey quilt close ups! 

I hope it's a treasured gift for years to come!!

I'd also like to give another shout out to my quilting sister BFFs for their help in talking through the design!! Thanks Jen & Ali!! :)  And another huge shout out to the SO SO HELPFUL ladies at my local Joann's Fabric store in Brockton, MA!! I came in with some last minute urgent questions and they helped me problem solve like champs. I left the store feeling confident and ready to finish up the quilt! 

Custom Mobile: Little Bugs

I think one of my favorite things that I make in my shop Lavender Paper Hearts is baby mobiles. I love working with customers to come up with a design that ends up being exactly what they're looking for. Plus, my customers have AMAZING ideas that are often times things I never would have thought of.  Plus, working together to help make something that will help their baby's drift off to sleep is an extremely rewarding feeling.

Recently I had the pleasure of making a custom mobile for some dear friends of mine. When we started talking about what they were looking for for their baby's room, Jen and Jeff sent me some photos of concert posters they were having framed to use in Baby Bowie's room. The concert posters, as you can see below, were really cute retro-inspired brightly colored cartoons with bugs of all sorts. The bugs served as the jumping off point for the mobile. Jen and Jeff gave me a lot of flexibility to go in any buggy inspired direction I wanted. I tried my best to mimic at least a few of the bugs in the posters below as well as added a few bugs I thought would be a cute addition to the overall aesthetic of the final design.

I was also asked to incorporate the lightning bolt from David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album as a nod to Baby Bowie's in-utero nickname and now actual middle name! 

Here's what I came up with: 

I'm not gonna lie, I love how the wings turned out here. They added a nice extra layer of complexity to the mobile, and they were flying bugs, so, duh, they were necessary too!!

In addition to the rainbow featured above with the bee in the photo above, here are two other little extras I added to the mobile. I like to add what I call extras as a way to add further depth to the mobile. They give baby even more thing to dream about.  Below are the David Bowie lightning bolt and cloud.

I could not be more elated for Jen and Jeff. They will experience the true definition of overwhelming joy as they welcome little rainbow Lena Bowie in to the world, and I can't think of two people who deserve as much in this moment. I cannot wait to snuggle this little one in January when I head to California for baby-palooza.

XOXOXOXO

If you have an idea for a custom mobile, I'd love to hear it.  You can contact me through my shop Lavender Paper Hearts over on Etsy.  I have another custom mobile in my shop work queue that I can't wait to share with you once it's done in January. This one is puppy adventure inspired and is going to be so much fun!!