New Wine Bags

Wow, I haven't posted in a while.  I have been super busy.  I sold 3 paintings in the Hawi gallery in the last couple of weeks so have been busy painting to "replenish" my wall space.  This is the busy time on the island (snow birds and whale watchers) so I wanted to have new work hung while people are shopping. And...BIG news.  I was contacted by a lovely lady named Janet who is opening a new boutique in Seal Beach called Hapa Collective. She saw my silkscreened pillows on ETSY and wondered if I'd like to have them in her new shop. Would I????  So cool.  I told her it sounded like fun and sent her the link to my blog so she could see what I'm all about.  She wrote back all excited and wanted a bunch of other things I've done.  We settled on the wine gift bags, the pillows and the etched nautical glassware Kipp and I are doing.  Kipp and I formed a little company and as partners we're having a ball creating all the goodies Janet will take for her shop.  Kipp is doing the glassware, I'm silkscreening and sewing the pillows and bags.  I brought my silkscreen stuff over here in my suitcase and have been printing like mad.  Here are the new designs...if you want to make one...here's the tutorial ...they're easy, just sort of time consuming.

Here's my makeshift silkscreen studio...hahaha, the kitchen counter

And I just had to share...Chris and I went up Mauna Loa 

the other day to play in the snow...amazing looking down 

on the sunny coastline while standing in snow

Welcome to the Hawaii House

I've been back in Hawaii a few days now...I always feel so good here.  The pace of life is slower, the weather warmer, the sun brighter...you get the idea, I like it here!  I thought I'd share a little tour of the house...it's a work in progress...I'm going slowly and adding things when I find something I like (or make) no hurry.  We're comfortable...life's good.  Here's the front door...since you don't see the ocean right away, we thought it would be fun to have a painting of it as the first thing you see...this painting is by Todd Kenyon (Laguna Beach)

We call it the wave painting

To the left is a loooong hallway that leads to the living room, then on to the den, then finally at the end, Kipp and Andrew's room (almost 200' long with 60' of bookshelves)

Before we get to the bookshelves we're in the living/dining/kitchen great room

Dark floors are epay wood darkened with an ebony stain. The dining table was made by a fellow in Pony, Montana (I found on the internet) made from old barn wood.  Furniture is all Pottery Barn slipcovered (I wanted it all to be comfy and slouchy and beachy) Rugs are Dash and Albert

Kitchen is white, satin nickel fixtures, the metal tile backsplash behind the stove looks very cool but is starting to rust...yikes!  My contractor warned me...oops.

Here's the coffee table in the living room.  Two big pots, filled with sand and shells, covered with a thick piece of glass.  Quick and easy.  

Down the hallway towards the den

We're slowly collecting books.  We read a lot, but have an awful lot of shelves to fill.

The den, paintings by yours truly.  We have rope lighting in every room, looks kinda goofy in the daytime, but pretty neat at night.

Ryan's room...I've shown it before in the monkey fist knot post

the view from his bed

His bathroom

Kipp and Andrew's bedroom

Remember my fleet? (left side on the bench)

Kipp and Andrew's bathroom

One set of bunkbeds in the grandkids room. I don't have any grandkids yet...but I'm ready

The master bedroom (the lamp base is filled with black sand and shells from a nearby beach)

The map is of St Barths (one of our favorite vacation spots and the architectural inspiration for the Hawaii House

The view from the living room 

Thanks for visiting

Pine Needle Vase

 I'm back in Hawaii and after the hub bub of the holidays,  I finally have more time for projects.  I had so much fun making my pine needle basket I decided to try another one...but thought a trickier shape would be more challenging.  This vase sort of grew all by itself.  Of course, it can't hold water....but dried flowers would work.

It's definitely winter here...snowed on Mauna Kea 2 nights ago.  We were up in Waimea grocery shopping yesterday and I snapped this picture.  Looks almost Alpine...LOTS of snow for Hawaii.

Beachy Pillows

I'm heading to Hawaii on Thursday for a month (yeah!!!).  Whenever I start to get ready...my thoughts turn to all things beachy.  Kipp and I are madly making our etched glassware with beach themes...I decided to make a few pillows to go along with them.  Out came the contact paper and silkscreen.  The Silhouette (with Sure Cuts A Lot) has made the "stencil" cutting super easy.  I silkscreened 2 different shell styles and a seahorse.

Here's the silkscreened fabric ready for me to sew it into a pillow.

I've also been working on projects to take to Hawaii.  Since

I don't have a silkscreen in Hawaii, I decided to "pre-print" some fabric

so I can make more wine bottle gift bags.

10 pieces 12"x6" ...yeah projects!

I Won!!!

I'm pretty excited, my post I Made a Fleet was picked FIRST in the "favorite post of 2010 challenge" by  CSI Project.  How FUN is that?!?!?!?  I'm pretty flattered.  I love making my projects and posting them...but I'm not very committed to posting them on other sites...(lazy much?) but I did this one on a whim and I'm pretty happy I did.  Checkout the site...they have some really neat stuff...tons of ideas and fun challenges.  Thank you to them...

Nautical Etched Glassware

Okay, this project was so fun, so simple and worked so well I had to share.  I've been meaning to try glass etching for some time...and with my Cricut I was able to make some great vinyl "stencils"to use with etching cream.  A couple of posts ago I was complaining my Cricut was pretty limited (compared to the Silhouette) when Mel from Junkin Junkies commented and convinced me to download Sure Cuts Alot to enhance it's performance. WOW!  It' so cool, allows me to cut ANY design or font I want...the design possibilities are literally endless.  Kipp and I downloaded some free clipart files, changed them to svg files (using Inkscape) uploaded them to Sure Cuts A Lot and had the Cricut cut away!  I watched a couple of YouTube tutorials on how to do it all...seemed complicated at first but once I did one, the rest were easy.  NO MORE CARTRIDGE buying...how cool is that?????  We cut the designs out in vinyl, transferred the cut vinyl piece to a glass, painted on a thick layer of etching cream, waited 5 minutes, washed it off...and WOW!

creating the "nautical" images on the computer

adhering the cut vinyl to the glass

dabbing on the etching cream

waiting for 5 minutes

the etched design