Archives for February 2011
Strawberry Koi Dress Project
Happy Tuesday Everyone!
Many of you might know the lovely blog, Strawberry Koi run by Aya Smith but if you don’t, do yourself a favor and give it a look-see. I am a huge fan of her blog. I love her vintage inspired outfit posts and how-tos, such as this bow tutorial. She also runs an etsy vintage shop.
The reason I mention her now is because over the past couple of months, she and I have been collaborating on a creation of “Strawberry Koi Dress”. I contacted her a while back about the idea of her designing a piece that I would then bring to life. She agreed and we have been working on this ever since. I am happy to announce that the project has just been completed and I will be unveiling the dress soon. She will be modeling and posting the project on her blog soon. I can’t wait to see hear wearing the dress!
I am so excited for the final release of this piece. It’s outside my normal design range because Aya has a different creative eye than me but that is exactly what made this so much fun.
For today, here are some pictures from the early creation process:)
Belated Valentine’s day post
It has become our tradition to do gift exchange with $20 spending limit on occasions like Valentine’s day and Christmas. I think this tradition had started one Christmas, when we decided that it was just too much money to do something special for our wedding anniversary (12th), buy each other Christmas gift (25th) and buy our family and co-worker Christmas gift all in the same month of December.
Although it started from a practical reason, we ended up really enjoying doing this. The spending limit forces us both to be creative:)
For this Valentine’s day, I bought Andy push-up bars (not pictured) and made him a handmade T-shirt. I used his favorite Rocky T-shirt as a base. I didn’t even make patterns for the T-shirt, but just placed the T-shirt on the fabric and cut. Men’s T-shirt is so much easier to make than some woman’s clothes! Having no darts or zippers is wonderful. I finished his T-shirt in about half an hour. I added a patch pocket on the left with black and white stripe fabric, and added “Vivat Veritas” fabric tag in the back.
What do you think? Should I start men’s line? :p
Andy knew how much I love Knap jewelry, and surprised me with her handmade earrings and matching necklace. The color is beautiful, it’s a mix of purple and blue, and depending on the light, the color changes.. I’ve already worn them 3 days in a row! He also made me a handmade peanut butter cups. If you follow me on twitter, you might know how much I am obsessed with Reese’s peanut butter cups.. The reason for my obsession is not only because they are delicious but also we cannot buy Reese’s peanut butter cups in Japan. I searched everywhere for this. Different import food stores etc. I guess Japanese people are not so into the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, because I don’t really find those combination in any chocolate stores. So I was thrilled when he made me handmade ones…He made them so big they were almost like a cake! lol.