carve

We've been back in Oregon for over a week now, and that week was such a gift. My mom came back with us, giving me a whole lot of time to clean, find buried paperwork, move rooms around (Shoghi, Max, and I are all back to sharing one room), and work on new items for my next farmer's market appearance on 8/15.

Back in the spring, I discovered a new creative hobby - hand carving stamps for printing. I did three of them, beets, a pomegranate, and a pear.

one of my three original carvings - pear

After that initial burst of inspiration, my tools sat idle, despite the fact that I toted them around, even taking them with me to Massachusetts.

While Mom was here, though, I had some time alone (in a cafe while a flat tire was being repaired), and found my hands immediately knew just what to do. I made three new designs, just like that, and I am so pleased with them!

I got right to work printing, then redesigned my card backs and created new textile prints.

i found a zigzag stitch font to use on my card backs - love it!
i'm going to use this branding now "hand crafted" for everything i make - this is the umbrella brand under which 70s home and bamboo village press will fall.

i printed the apple and strawberry on fabric, then turned them into iron-ons for these infant/toddler shirts. i'll be carrying the patches, too, so folks can make their own.


strawberry!

i just finished this zucchini - i haven't printed it except this test print.

A boundless thanks to my mom (and my dad, who spent the week missing her). Now that I have some new images to work with, my booth is going to be all the better! The next 10 days are going to be filled with time at the sewing machine, working on produce bags, since I am all out!

no idle hands here

Just thought I'd pop in to say I probably won't be writing until Sunday. First, my camera's batteries are dead. Second, every spare moment is going into preparing for this Sunday's opening day at Montavilla Farmer's Market, where I will be one of the two artisans sharing a booth. I'm really excited and nervous. I've invested a LOT of time and goodly amounts of the money I have left into getting ready. I'll be there three times this summer, and I hope my items are well-received.


I've got some cloth produce bags made and something new, as well, these lovely garden prayer flags I made for our own garden last week. I've got 4 done, and I hope to have 10. I have SO MUCH to do before Sunday morning... and only 6 more babysitter hours in which to get it all done. Of course I'll have other farmer's market-themed cards and journals, and my printed things from Bamboo Village Press, but my focus has been on making these cloth items.

nourish

Wish me luck!

not so fast

i finally gave in and let m have a second nap at 3:30 after his 20-minute nap from 11:30-11:50.

Well, I don't know about this one nap thing. The boys are clearly not ready for it. I'd show you the pictures and video I took during our extremely LONG and WHINY day yesterday, but the tears and snot would probably gross you out, and the whining in the video might just split your eardrums. I'd probably lose my entire readership in one post.

too tired to even eat lunch at 11am, we resorted to bottles with some rice cereal added to fill up hungry, sleepy tummies.

So, yeah. Today we're back to two naps. The little guys were so exhausted from the change, which was expressed by Max in his verbal/emotional way (i.e. lots of crying and whining) and by Shoghi in his physical/kinetic way (i.e. lots of biting). I guess for now I'm just going to have to find a peaceful place in my heart about not having any time by myself during the day. I think it must be in there, but it's very, very small. I need time alone - I needed it before having children, and even more so now that I'm using every neural connection to try to succeed at finding my way in this phase of my life. In short order, I'm going to have to get brave and accept some of the childcare help that's been offered... if you and I are friends on facebook, you no doubt know what I mean, since most of my chatter about this subject gets directed there.

What that means is that Bamboo Village is taking over the downstairs. All kinds of things find their way into the boys' hands. Prototypes of new designs for the spring are lying in various states of production, and all flat surfaces seem to be gathering more and more layers of items to be packed, made into final products, photographed or put away. It's kind of crazy, but with the boys at my feet all day, what else can I do?

a ruler's not dangerous, right?
that was yesterday... just look at those tired eyes!

max today with his smart new haircut - behind him you can see one of my double happiness fish towels

Today I had to take the boys to get yet another haircut. All the food in the long hair is pretty gross. Turns out, today is exactly a month since their first haircuts. Max's hair is so thin, it probably won't need a trim for a while, but I had them cut Shoghi's hair extra short, since it grows so very fast.

To be honest, even though S looks adorable with his new do, I'm not so crazy about this truly boyish style. It just seems so tough somehow... too hard? Too mature? I don't know... for some reason, it brought forward a lot of thoughts and fears about having a rough and tumble boy... I am having such a hard time teaching Shoghi to be gentle - Max currently has three nasty bruises from Shoghi biting him. It'll grow on me, I know... there was just a little shock seeing him look so different today!

dream schemes

photo and prayer flags by Catherine Just

A group of lady friends has been gathering at our home on Thursday nights. We come together, this small group of tight-knit friends, to set aside a time during the week for hope, for positive change - for our dreams. Over the summer, I had thought about having something like a devotional gathering every week, a time set aside to gather for prayer in whatever way spoke to each participant, and that wish for a positive time of reflection seems to have emerged as our dreamy Thursday nights.

This week, we took inspiration from one of my fellow Mondo Beyondo participants who made a beautiful prayer flag gardland out of her wishes and dreams. You can actually meet Catherine, this wonderful mama and artist, by visiting the blog she keeps about her sweet son Max and their family, or check out her brand spanking new Etsy shop, in which she sells her beautiful prints.

We sat together, seven friends, talking about our wishes, clarifying affirmation statements, envisioning how each of us would design our own prayer flags. I had foolishly thought we'd do this project in an evening, but soon after we started (I have a tendency to seriously underestimate the time it will take to do almost everything), it became clear that this get-togther would only be a jumping off point for us to create such an intimate and meaningful physical manifestation of our deepest desires.

In case you're thinking about creating prayer flags, I thought I'd share not only the photo above, taken by Catherine of her own prayer flags, but two links that have come my way since last Thursday.

The first is an article that gives a how-to for making Tibetan prayer flags with kids.

The second is a lovely blog post about an art installation of a canopy bed, where the canopy is actually made from the white ribbony streamers, each with its own wish. It's so delicate an beautiful - the friend who sent me the link said she's thinking about doing her prayers this way, and hanging them in a tree. How gorgeous - I just love the image of her words - her dreams - being carried in the wind like that.

How do you give voice to your dreams?

learning curves

As you know, I'm trying to step it up in the work-from-home department. Thanks for your suggestions (mostly involving coffee and working at night) last week on my wahm craziness post. I've resolved that November is the Be All and End All month - the month where I will kick ass daily, get all sorts of new products and designs into Bamboo Village Press, prepare for January's Marketing Your Micro-Business workshop, participate in NaBloPoMo on this blog, update the Bamboo Village Blog regularly, complete my grad school application, and enjoy every single (fleeting) hour remaining with my wonderful friend and babysitter, who will be beginning her life as a mama in December. All the while I will be sending calming affirmations to myself, trying not to give in to the mounting breathlessness and a tendency to tense up my shoulders, neck, and back. "Everything is Easy," I will say to myself. "I have plenty of time to get everything done well and be a great mama to the boys."

Yesterday I decided to be daring and do some silk screening without the help of a second adult in the house. I began while the  boys were napping, and was still printing when Max woke up, so into the highchair he went. It didn't last long, but I probably got another 20 prints done.

The downside of multi-tasking came when I was prepping the screen. This was to be a 2-color design - a small print on some gorgeous, nubby handmade paper. I burned the screen only to discover a fatal error - I did not use a carbon-based pen for much of the design. Alas, this meant ruining a 15 dollar screen (my last one) and wasting a large amount of time. Oh well, you live and you learn, right? Better luck tomorrow, Mama!

happy feet

Almost all the babies' things are packed, but yesterday I had a delightful visit with my closest friend, who gifted me some itsy-bitsy, teeny tiny, hand knit booties for the babies. Since I've been ordered to rest between 12 and 3pm daily, and today I'm feeling rather sleepless, I thought I'd show off some of the cute footwear the babies have already been given... in reverse order.


Here are the smallest baby booties ever seen by human eyes. They're about as long as my thumb, and will no doubt be the first footwear the twins will have on their feet.


Aren't they unbelievably sweet? They were made by "knittah", my super wonderful friend, knitting maven, and keeper of the blog "Travels with Swatchy." This isn't the first handmade item in my baby collection from her - she's worked her magic on yarn for me every time I've gotten pregnant, and though those little souls didn't make it earthside, the beautiful items will soon be put to good and loving use.


My mom's also been collecting little bits for babies for some time, now, and after I got my positive pregnancy test, she sent over these little chili pepper socks, which at the time looked so tiny, but in this line-up appear to be enormous! Being such avid Boston sports fans, I'm surprised it wasn't more along the line of Red Sox, but chili peppers remind me of my brother who lives in NM, and of course my beloved time in Sichuan, China. You can't start the kids too young on the spice, apparently! So cute!!

Finally, here are the first present these babies received - and from what I recall, it was before I even knew if the cycle was going to work. My sister ordered these completely irresistible dino booties from Etsy artist Baby Cakes Collection. I've been meaning to blog about them for a while now - they're really unique and fun!

It's hard to pack these guys away - they've been sitting on what ended up being my little altar for the babies since the beginning, along with the other talismans that have held hope and meaning during those rough first months.

It's fun to celebrate all these happy little treasures... although being pregnant has already been more demanding than I anticipated, I feel like I'm firmly in the second trimester, and the time has come to be happy. What better way to start than with some happy feet?