hand-stenciled napkins

In addition to making this year's batch of ornaments I was also busy hand-stenciling sets of napkins for gifts.

merry christmas!

This year's fish ornament looked great on the tree next to the chrysler building from a few years ago...

go fish!

In keeping with my holiday tradition I've been very busy sewing mass quantities of ornaments for family and friends. This year's theme was fish, all with very different personalities.

art deco architecture (sobe style)

south beach typography

South Beach is a designer's dream full of fun retro typography. Here are some great hotel signs from Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue...

pink snails in south beach

These cheerful, bright pink, snails scattered around South Beach are pretty attention getting! They are part of an art installation with the Italian gallery Ca d'Oro. Made of recycled plastic by the Cracking Art Group, they are meant to encourage us all to recycle!

jonathan adler

Beautiful, cheerful, stuff at the Jonathan Adler store. I wouldn't mind moving in...

what its all about...

ciao eataly!

I finally made it to Eataly, and I didn't even need a passport! I'd heard all the hype about Mario Batali and Lydia Banstianich's Italian wonderland, and its all true.

I cut right to the chase and fueled up on pasta pomodoro before checking out everything else....

Industrial-size cans of olive oil....

Barilla as far as the eye can see...

These beer bottles looked so familiar and then I remembered it was the beer I had in Roma...

And Then there was the coffee...

I ordered a bicerin at the lavazza bar....

If you like strong coffee and chocolate (like me) make sure to have it!

stenciling with lotta jansdotter

This weekend I took a stenciling class with artist/designer Lotta Jansdotter. I've always loved her Scandinavian patterns and she has a new crafting book out called Handmade Living.

The first step in class was to pick out what to stencil on. I chose these polka-dot napkins:

All we needed were stencils, tape, and fabric paint

Lotta showed how to stencil step-by-step

Don't use too much paint!

so easy!

Here's my design:

ta da: