DIY: My Accidental Blog-Cation

So, guess who took a totes unintentional, completely accidental, thoroughly unforeseen (why yes I have a thesaurus and know how to use it. Was it that obvious, er, conspicuous? Or maybe it was straightforward, self-evident and/or unmistakeable? [side wink to Mr. Thesaurus]) blog-cation?! That's right, this person. Seen below. Lookin' crazy. 

Hiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee! I really didn't mean to ditch all y'all, it just happened. And I don't know if it's gonna keep happening or not. You see, I've been at this bloggin' biz for quite some time with the mostly strict routine of blogging thrice weekly (that's right, I just said "thrice". I'm bringing thrice back, y'all). But since summer started, I've shifted my focus to other thingies. Like cleaning the shizz outta my biz aka decluttering. You know it's fur serious when I've even stepped away from stitching to do this thing right. Because, as things currently stand, my dining room table looks a lil like this: 

I know, riiiiiight? When I popped this picture up on Instagram, my mom called and all she said was "Cassandra.Lane." That's when you know it's bad. Mama's using full first name and middle? Someone is thoroughly disgusted. 

So, I'm a super stuffy person. Meaning, I got tons o' stuffs. I've been collecting vintage since high school and, as you might have guessed, have the worst time parting with it. Especially the clothes. I blame my childhood (that's right, mom!). Can we have a soul-gazing, hand-holding Dr. Phil moment together? Please? You see, I went to Catholic school for a pinch in junior high (no, I'm not Catholic. Yes, I need therapy. I was always so ticked I never got to sample that body of Christ wafer! I always imagined it tasted just like a ranch Dorito) and I wore THE SAME WHITE PETER PAN COLLAR BLOUSE AND PLAID SKIRT for two years. We're talkin' even the weekends. Why? Because my parents totes got a free ticket to not have to buy me any new duds. Did I mention I went thru my growth spurt and that skirt (which at one time had crisp pleats and was threadbare and pleatless on it's deathbed) had me lookin' all Brittany Spears "Baby One More Time."

Okay, maybe I didn't look like that. More like if The Brit had braces, glasses and was about 20 lbs skinnier/gawkier, particularly in the tots, that'd be me. All that to say, I think my clothing-hoarder ways stems from my severe deprivation during my formative years. (muahahaha, mama, you know I'm kidding! Ish! Therapy bill is over due, btw!).

But I just can't bear to part with these lovelies without knowing they'll go to a good vintage-loving home (not to mention, I do love me some side cash). So I've been loading my etsy shop daily and shipping out to the far corners of the earth (Thailand! Australia! Ohio!). For my non-vintage-y goods, I've discovered all of these amazing buy/sell/trade pages on Facebook. It's awesome! You simply snap a photo of your item, list your price and an interested person picks it up and leaves cha-ching under your doormat. Of course, there's always Craig's List, Varage sale, you name it. It's been a motivating means of decluttering, this cash-making biz-natch. And it's made it so I've cleared space to make a studio...

 Eeee! A real live studio space that isn't my dining room table. Not that you can do anything on that dining room table anyway. Ahem. With the cash-ola I made from selling some stuffs, I was able to pick up that lovely 1940s drafting table from Craig's List (which I've renamed Crank-list as I'm currently a total addict). I even scooped up a vintage Luxo lamp and an aluminum bar stool to go with 'em. I can't wait to get to painting! 

 Cuz that lil masterpiece is sadly overdue. I started it ages ago before I lost it under a mountain of clutterness. 

And now that much of the mess is gone, I can enjoyably function in my sewing room. Previously, I always had to sh** shovel before doing anything. Do you do that? I'm constantly sh** shoveling and I'm determined to stop. I stack, move, restack, move again...it's a vicious cycle, y'all! But with these two rooms shipping up nicely, I'm hoping to throw out that shovel! Hold hands and pray with me, will ya?

Part of my (many) probs is that I use up a lot of surface area of my stuff. So I up and decided to hang everything that I could. Buttons, embroidery floss, thread and bobbins. I even have a place to hang the hubs! 

So! All that to say, I do hope my Accidental Blog-Cation is over. I've missed y'all! And sewing, painting and general mess-making. But I'm still on my decluttering mission. If you don't hear from me, y'all, just know that I'm here cleaning. Or buried alive under some rubble of vintage goodness. Regardless, I'll be back! Xo!

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In the Art Room: See you in New Orleans!

Hey, y'all! Please pardon my absence on this here blog...I've been crazy busy spring breakin' and preparing for the art teacherin' conference in New Orleans! Which one of y'all are going? I do hope to see y'all there. There will be plenty of chances for us to get together and chat as I foolishly decided to present a buncha times. In case you are interested, I thought I'd throw my prezi dates and times out there for y'all: 

Thursday, March 26th: 

2:00 - 2:50 PM

Write? Right! Publishing to Advocate Your Art Program

Pam Stephens, Nancy Walkup, Cassie Stephens, Nicole Briscoe

Join four published authors to explore publishing your art-teaching ideas and then turn those ideas into advocacy for your program. Includes practical suggestions, tips, and writing guidelines. Interactive Discussion

Hilton Hotel/Chart B/Riverside Building

4:00 – 4:25

10 Exciting Ways to Teach Art Vocabulary They Won’t Forget

Cassie Stephens

Learn new methods of enriching student vocabulary in fun and innovative ways. Songs, word games, call and response methods, and sign language are just a few of the exciting methods introduced. Best Practice Lecture

Convention Center/Meeting Room R05/Second Level

Friday, March 27th:

11:00 - 11:50 AM

Elementary Carousel of Learning: Teacher Art Blogs

Nancy Walkup

Four accomplished elementary art educators from across the country will share their successful art blogs for their art rooms. Phyllis Brown of There's a Dragon in my Art Room, Laura Lohmann of Painted Paper, Sheryl Depp of Primary Art with Mrs. Depp and Cassie Stephens of that blog with her name because she wasn't creative enough to come up with anything else.  

Convention Center/Meeting Room 216/Second Level

1:00 to Wheneverness

Meet Art Ed Bloggers in the AOE Booth!

Meet up and chat with some of your fave art ed bloggers in the AOE booth in the vendor's hall! I know I absolutely loved meeting my blogging heroes and well as chatting with the 5 folks that read this here blog! Drop by and let's chat, y'all!

Saturday, March 28th 

7:00 - 8:50 PM

Design Your Own Curriculum-Aligned Clothing Line

Cassie Stephens

Instead of simply talking to your students about famous artists or their works of art, why not become the three-dimensional element that brings the experience to life? In this workshop, you will learn the art of needle felting and apply that skill to the creation of an apron. This apron will be designed with your own curriculum in mind and will be ready to wear in your art room. Armed with this new method of altering clothing, as well as other techniques introduced, you will be able to design your own curriculum-aligned clothing line. Hands-On Workshop Studio (2 hours) Ticket Required. (Sorry, y'all. This one is SOLD OUT.)

Hilton Hotel/Rosedown/3rd Floor

And there you have it, kids! If you aren't able to attend this year's NAEA conference, don't you fret. I'll be sure to post both what I shared and all that I learned right here. If you want minute by minute action, you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Looking forward to chatting with y'all both in for realz life and via the interwebs. 

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DIY: A Waterlilies Dress (and Jacket Refurb!) after Monet

 

Y'all know those people who go on vacations and come back and wanna show you their One Million Photos of One Million Boring Thangs? Well, this here post is kinda like that in that I've got One Million Photos for y'all. Hopefully they won't be as much of a snoozefest as yo mama's trip to Vegas to play the slots complete with pictures of the buffet bars and awkward drunken middle-aged lady dancing in rando fountains. Ahem. 

But when you spend what feels like One Million Years on a dress, you kinda wanna share the daylights outta it, you know? Therefore, I present to you A Water Lilies Dress after Monet in a gazillion pics or less.

By now, if you've hung around this here blog for a wee while (and for that, I thank you kindly), you know I kinda have a thing for creating dresses after famous artists and their works. My most recent one was this Mondrian number but then there's also been a Starry Night, a Warhol frock, a couple of Kandinsky's, a Great Wave,  a The Scream number, this Keith Haring jacket and skirt, and a Lichtenstein dealio. There are still a ton of artist-inspired dress ideas rolling around in my itty bitty head. 

However, when I saw that watery print fabric, seen on the skirt portion of the dress, I immediately thought of Monet's water lilies. Now, I picked up two yards of that fabric and the violet and chartreuse well over a year ago. It wasn't until the last couple of weeks, when I've had One Million Snow Days (have you noticed that One Million is a theme in this here post?) that I had time to dive in and start stitchin'. One of the reasons I hesitated for so long was cuz I knew I'd not only have to stitch up the dress but then do some needle felting after the fact. That's a whole lotta work and I'm a whole lotta lazy. But with endless hours of free time on my hands, I decided to jump right in. 

By the way, I used that lovely vintage Butterick for the dress. The pattern was super simple, especially the bodice as it had raglan sleeves, my personal fave. I also thought the wrapped waistband was clever and fun. 

Once the dress was created, I started sketching the water lilies in chalk and commenced needle felting. If you've no clue what needle felting is all about, might I suggest you take a visit here and here. 

Because there was so much color in the ensemble, I decided not to go with Monet's pink water lilies but the white ones. I was particularly inspired by this lovely painting of his. 

I found that needle felting was a great medium for recreating the same look and feel as Monet's works. Sadly, my style is much too tight. I wish I could better immolate the looseness of Monet's work. Although, wasn't dude like near blind when he was painting these works? Note to self: next time, take out contacts. Except I'm using a tool with three razor sharp serrated needles and I'm near blind. SoooooOOOooo scratch that. 

 Most frequently asked question about Needle Felting: 

How do you wash your clothing?

I don't. Hence the smell.

Okay, so sometimes I do. Since it's wool, which shrinks when agitated (that's how you do wet felting. And why your 100% wool sweater shrunk in the wash), I wash by hand in cold water with Woolite. 

 I dunno if I was successful or not but what I was trying to do was not simply place one million water lilies all over the skirt portion but to create a composition. That's why I started with the one lone flower and lily off to the (viewer) right and gradually angled upward toward your left. Make sense? Can you tell I had a plan in mind? I dunno if it worked or not. I do know that I'm so over needle felting that Ima gonna pretend it's just right.

I love a good wide belt. I thought I'd give you a sneak peak at the side view and the back of this dress. I think that band is one of my fave things about this pattern. I can't decide if I love the neckline curve detail. It's kinda growing on me.

 With the art teacherin' conference coming at the end of this month (OMG, so soon! Yikes! I've got four presentations that I'd love you to attend, y'all. More details on those dates and times coming soon. This blog post has enough going on already), I knew I'd wanna wear this dress. However, I'm kinda cold natured so I thought I'd want a jacket to go with this number. 

 In the "re-do me" portion of my closet (Yes there is such a thing. No, I never ever get rid of anything.), I found this Target jacket that I'd scooped up on super sale a while back. Like, I'm talking 4 years ago a while back. I'd never worn the the thing because it looked like this:

I loved the buttons, the gathered fabric at the collar and opening and those presh sleeves. I have ALWAYS HATED that length. Every time I put it on, I found it so unflattering. But the color matched my dress's bodice perfectly. So I decided to make a bolero outta the thing. (P.S. Welcome to my uber messy sewing room! There's so much fabric, books and crapola in that room that I'm just waiting for the day that the weight of all my stuff sends me crashing thru to the dining room). 

 Using a beautiful platter that a sweet teacher buddy bought for me (thank you, Heather!), I traced the curve of the plate. The other bolero I made had a similar curve to the edge and I really liked that. It was the inspiration for the bottom edge of this bad boy. 

I absolutely LOVE short jackets because they look so vintage. And they still showcase your outfit underneath. So I was pretty stinkin' happy with how this simple lil alteration turned out.

And I totally dig it with my dress! It matches those shadows in the water lilies pretty well, says me. Ima totally gonna rock this out in New Orleans at the art teacherin' conference where I plan to hang with my brand new buddy...Tim Gunn!

 So, sadly, I've been keeping secrets from you. A while back, I had the incredible opportunity to spend a lovely hour on the phone just chatting it up with the one and only Tim Gunn. I interviewed him for SchoolArts Magazine (thank you, Nancy Walkup!) and you can read the article here. There's actually much more to the interview so you can bet I'll be sharing the entire interview right here just for you very soon. I'm super excited to attend Tim's sessions at the conference. Ima be all like...

"Hey, Tim! 'Member me?" And y'all know dude's much to nice to say no. Let's just hope he doesn't secretly file for a restraining order. Again. 

And das all, folks! A Monet's Water Lilies Dress and a Jacket Refurb. 

By the way, if you need some AMAZING Monet art lessons, check out my buddy Laura's blog over at Painted Paper. So much Monet goodness, ya'll!

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